Spaceballs

Spaceballs
Movie poster
Directed by	Mel Brooks
Written by	Mel Brooks Thomas Meehan Ronny Graham
Produced by	Mel Brooks
Starring	Bill Pullman John Candy Daphne Zuniga Rick Moranis Mel Brooks Dick Van Patten George Wyner Joan Rivers
Cinematography	Nick McLean
Edited by	Conrad Buff IV
Music by	John Morris
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn Mayer
Release dates	June 24, 1987
Running time	96 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US $22,700,000 (estimated)

Spaceballs is a 1987 science fiction parody film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks. It was released on June 24, 1987, and earned only modest returns, but it has gone on to become a cult classic on video. Its plot and characters contain numerous parodies of elements from the Star Wars trilogy in particular, as well as other popular science fiction films. The script was written by Mel Brooks in only six months, and was approved by George Lucas, as he was a big fan of Brooks's previous films. Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic was also involved in the special visual effects for the film. As of 2007, an animated sequel TV series is in preparation.

Plot

Planet Spaceball, led by President Skroob (Mel Brooks), has foolishly wasted all of its air and, desperate to find more, aims at extorting the peaceful Planet Druidia into giving them all of its air. They devise a plan to kidnap the Druish Princess Vespa, who is about to marry the narcoleptic Prince Valium. Resenting this marriage, Vespa runs off from the altar and escapes into space, where she is attacked by the Spaceballs (commanded by Dark Helmet, played by Rick Moranis).

Vespa's father, King Roland, hires Captain Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his mog Barf (John Candy) (who are desperate for money to pay back their debts to the Mafioso Pizza the Hutt), to rescue his daughter. They manage to rescue her and escape the Spaceballs, but have to crash-land on a desert planet. There, they meet the sage Yoghurt, who introduces Lone Starr to the mysterious power called the The Schwartz. However, the Spaceballs trick Vespa into leaving her hiding place and capture her again. Lone Starr and Barf rescue the Princess again, but not before the Spaceballs have succeeded in forcing King Roland to reveal the entry code to Druidia's atmosphere (which is simply 1-2-3-4-5). Their spaceship Spaceball One transforms into Mega Maid with a vacuum cleaner, which starts to extract the air from Druidia. Lone Starr uses his Schwartz ring to reverse the procedure, defeats Dark Helmet in a duel using lightsaber-like weapons emanating from their Schwartz rings, and causes Mega Maid to self-destruct.

Lone Starr returns the Princess to Druidia and, since his creditor Pizza the Hutt "ate himself to death", leaves without taking the agreed payment, a million spacebucks, instead taking a much smaller amount of only 248 spacebucks for food, gas and tolls. Shortly afterwards, on finding out that he is a "certified Prince", he returns just in time to interrupt the marriage and marry Vespa himself.

Cast

File:Spaceballs DVD cover.jpg

Spaceballs: The DVD

Actor	Role
Mel Brooks	President Skroob/Yoghurt
John Candy	Barfolemew (Barf)
Rick Moranis	Lord Dark Helmet
Bill Pullman	Captain Lone Starr
Daphne Zuniga	Princess Vespa of Druidia
George Wyner	Colonel Kernel Sandurz
Dick Van Patten	King Roland, Ruler of Druidia
Michael Winslow	Radar Technician
Joan Rivers	Dot Matrix (voice)
Lorene Yarnell	Dot Matrix
JM J. Bullock	Prince Valium
Dom DeLuise	Pizza the Hutt (voice)
John Hurt	Kane (John Hurt's character from Alien)

Box Office

The budget for Spaceballs was $22,700,000 (estimated). The film grossed $38,119,483 during its run in the United States, taking in $6,600,000 on its opening weekend.

Cultural Context

File:Spaceball1.jpg

"What's the matter, Colonel Sandurz? Chicken?": Dark Helmet taunts Colonel Sandurz on the bridge of Spaceball One.

The plot is deliberately evocative of fairy tales, as are the scenes on the planet Druidia. Throughout the film, the Spaceballs regularly break the fourth wall, often to promote their merchandise, and they are aware that they are making a movie, and the events are not real life (at one point, the villains succeed in capturing the main characters' stunt doubles). In fact, in one scene, they pull out the (somehow) complete video version of Spaceballs in order to find the main characters, and temporarily take a look at the scene they're in: "now".

The majority of the scenes and characters are parodies of Star Wars, although the film parodies other movies as well. The most notable are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Jaws (gigantic shark-like space ship and Jaws-like music), Transformers (Spaceball One, during the merchandising scene with Yoghurt, Spaceballs The Coloring Book has Optimus Prime on the cover), Star Trek (Skroob's transporter accident, and possibly inspired by how C-3PO was erroneously re-assembled by Chewbacca in The Empire Strikes Back, with Skroob's reversed head), Battlestar Galactica, Superman: The Movie (only in the musical score), the Police Academy movies (Michael Winslow sound effects; Winslow has a cameo in the film as a Spaceball officer), and the Sir David Lean films The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia. Also, The Wizard of Oz, Planet of the Apes, Rambo, Max Headroom, Back to the Future, Rocky, It Happened One Night, and Alien (with John Hurt reprising his famous death scene from that movie, and even groaning in despair, "Oh no! Not again!"). However, when the chestburster emerges from the victim, it screams, smiles, puts on a straw boater hat with a miniature cane in one hand, and begins dancing and singing like Michigan J. Frog, performing Hello! Ma Baby.

The film also satirizes various aspects of 1980s culture, including video rental, fast food, Mr. Coffee, action figures, and merchandising. During a scene in which Dark Helmet and various other crewmates try to locate a copy of Spaceballs on video (which confuses Dark Helmet, as they are still making the movie at the time), other video cassettes of The Producers, The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, History of the World, Part I, and To Be or Not to Be can be seen before Sandurz finds the video he is looking for. All of the mentioned films were made by Mel Brooks prior to Spaceballs. You can also see Rocky movie series.

At the end of the final battle, in the final minute of the self-destruct countdown, Spaceball One's computer reminds Dark Helmet that there is a self-destruct cancellation button. Rushing to the button, he, President Skroob and Colonel Sandurz find it out of order, to which Dark Helmet curses, "Even in the future, nothing works!"

One of the features of Spaceball One was beverage cans filled with air, branded "Perri-air".

Rick Moranis reportedly modeled Dark Helmet's "mask-down" voice not on that of James Earl Jones, the actor who provided Darth Vader's voice, but on that of Geoffrey Holder, a popular performer of similar voice intonations to Jones.

Theater vs. Video/DVD Release

In the scene where Lone Starr asks Yoghurt if they will see each other again, Yoghurt replies; (shortened to show differences only)

• Theater Release: "Spaceballs 3 : The Search for Two"
• Video/DVD Release: "Spaceballs 2 : The Search for More Money"

Mistakes

• Lone Starr loses his Schwartz ring while fighting Dark Helmet aboard Spaceball One/Mega Maid, which becomes a momentarily important element in Lone Starr's character development (the voice of Yogurt tells him, "the ring is bupkiss...the Schwartz is in you, Lone Starr!"), yet, miraculously, Lone Starr has the ring again when he boards the Eagle 5 to escape before Mega Maid self-destructs.
• When Mega Maid appears, its head is large enough to fit Eagle 5 in its ear, but when Mega Maid explodes and the head is sent all the way to the Planet of the Apes, its head is only big enough to fit one person through its nostril.
• In the scene where the crew visits the great Yoghurt, Yoghurt exits the statue and the small door closes, but once it zooms in, the door is open again.
• When Barf and Lone Starr leave their Winnebago, they leave its door open. Yet when they come back outside, all the doors are closed, and they are locked out.
• Also during the rescue scene: Lone Starr and Barf steal the uniforms of two Spaceball guards, including the helmets. They take their helmets off upon finding Vespa and, in the next scene, are not wearing them. When they are spotted by the guards they robbed, the guards are wearing the helmets (and nothing else, save their boxers).

Parodies

Heroes

• Captain Lone Starr combines traits from Star Wars' two male heroes, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. He hails from the Ford Galaxy in reference to Harrison Ford (who played Han Solo), and also a play on the Ford Galaxie, a full size car made by the Ford Motor Company.
• His companion Barf (Barfolomew), a Mog (half-man, half-dog), is a parody of the Wookiee Chewbacca (Chewie).
• Their ship Eagle 5 is a modified Winnebago RV. Its shabby state resembles the Millennium Falcon. The name Eagle 5 also refers to both the ships of Luke Skywalker (Red 5) and Han Solo (Millenium Falcon) in Star Wars.
• Yoghurt, a parody of the Jedi master Yoda (and the food yogurt), is a sage with deep knowledge of the mysterious power called The Schwartz (The Force). His bombastic entrance resembles that of the wizard in The Wizard of Oz. Like many characters played by Mel Brooks he embodies several Jewish stereotypes.
• He is assisted in his work, particularly merchandising, by the Dinks, which resemble the Jawas from Star Wars while making sounds similar to the Seven Dwarfs and singing a version of the Colonel Bogey March.

Druidians

• Princess Vespa resembles Princess Leia in her noble heritage and her love/hate relationship with Lone Starr/Han Solo. Her name references the motor scooter Vespa. She is a Druish princess (a play on Jewish princess), a characterization of a spoiled young Jewish-American woman. She was spoiled by her father and is used to a life of luxury, which includes a Mercedes Benz spaceship. Her hooked nose was changed by rhinoplasty as a 16th birthday present.
• Dot Matrix, Vespa's droid-of-honor, resembles C-3PO. Her name is a reference to the old dot matrix style printers.
• Prince Valium, the last prince in the galaxy and Vespa's fiance. He takes his name from the comic strip Prince Valiant but combines it with the sedative drug to reflect his narcolepsy.

Spaceballs

• President Skroob, though in the place of Star War's Emperor Palpatine, appears more like a modern president without any supernatural powers. His name is an anagram of "Brooks," but also resembles the verb to screw (to cheat) and Ebenezer Scrooge.
• Dark Helmet, the Space Balls' second-in-command, is an obvious parody on Darth Vader.
  Helmet resembles Darth Vader in his appearance but is much shorter, his helmet is much larger, and he wears a tie. (However, he changes into a khaki uniform and a terribly oversized pith helmet during the desert scene.) Helmet speaks in a deep bass voice and breathes audibly, as the helmet hinders his breathing. This often causes him to lift his visor, revealing his bespectacled face and his intentionally incredulous high-pitched voice.
  Helmet is the commander of the Spaceballs' "Imperious Forces" (a parody of the Imperial Forces in Star Wars, as well as the Imperious Leader from Battlestar Galactica), and commands the flagship Spaceball One (see below). He uses The Schwartz to discipline his subordinates but not by force grip (as Darth Vader) but by zapping their crotches with a green beam.
  He enjoys playing with Spaceballs action figurines, taking special pleasure in acting out a scenario in which he seduces Princess Vespa, but is embarrassed when anyone notices his playing.
  Vader's relationship to his nemesis Luke Skywalker is parodied by Helmet declaring himself Lone Starr's "father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate", which he sums up as making them "absolutely nothing."
• Colonel Sandurz is a parody of the leading Imperial Officers from Star Wars, such as Veers and Piett. His name is a pun on KFC's founder Colonel Sanders. (Indeed, this is noted in a line where Dark Helmet says to him, "What's the matter, Colonel Sandurz? Chicken?")
• Snotty, who is operating the transporter beam in planet Spaceball's capital city, is a direct reference to Star Trek's engineer Scotty. His thick Scottish accent, stereotypical Scottish attire (kilt and hat) and his referring to "Loch Lomond" also point to Scotty's Scottish background.

Spaceball One

The Spaceballs' weapon of conquest, Spaceball One, is a powerful spaceship. The opening scene is an obvious homage to aliens with the ridiculously long, wide angle continuous shot of Spaceball One. Its shape resembles Battlestar Galactica and the Super Star Destroyers, while its name is a pun on Air Force One, the U.S. president's airplane. The Spaceballs' attitude towards others is expressed by the ship's large bumper sticker: "We brake for nobody."

The ship's absurd size is a frequent point of references:

• the ship is so large that it contains a shopping mall, a zoo, and a three-ring circus (complete with a freak show).
• the ship takes about 1 minute and 47 seconds to cross the screen at the beginning of the film. This is emphasized by the music theme which stops and resumes again several times, each time growing louder and louder, as if the orchestra is getting frustrated with its seemingly endless length.
• President Skroob is once forced to jog to the bridge in order to arrive before the end of the film.

Spaceball One is capable of traveling at four different speeds: sub-light speed, light speed, ridiculous speed, and ludicrous speed. When going into ludicrous speed all crew members must use a seat belt for their own safety. Ludicrous speed results in the ship leaving a trail of plaid, parodying the "warp trail" seen in the first few Star Trek films.

Spaceball One's secret weapon is its ability to transform (in a sequence reminiscent of the climax of Transformers: The Movie) into Mega Maid, a colossal cleaning woman holding a gigantic vacuum cleaner used to extract air from other planets and take it back to planet Spaceball.

The ship's destruction resembles the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars: Lone Starr's ship flies through Mega Maid's ear to reach the self-destruct button. Mega Maid's head and the hand holding the vacuum cleaner crash into a nearby planet, with the pieces resembling the Statue of Liberty as seen in the final scene of Planet of the Apes.

Other villains

• Pizza the Hutt, named after the pizza restaurant chain, is a half-man, half-Pizza Mafioso and a parody of Jabba the Hutt.
• His companion Vinnie, taking the place of the various courtiers and associates of Jabba, such as Bib Fortuna, resembles Max Headroom.

The Schwartz

FAO Schwartz is the toy store chain which distributes the Star Wars toys, therefore it is yet another parody on film merchandising, as in the entire first Yogurt scene. The lightsabers emanating from the Schwartz rings held in front of their crotch also form a phallic symbol, a play on the word Schwantz/Schwanz which is Yiddish/German slang for penis. 'Schwartz' is German for 'black'. The Light and Dark sides of the Force are parodied by being called the "up side" and the "down side".

Sequel

Breaking the fourth wall, the possibility of a sequel was already included in the film itself: "God willing, we'll all return for Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money", though this was probably merely poking fun at sequels in general. In September 2004, news about a sequel (possibly hoaxes), parodying the Prequel trilogy, appeared on the internet. In January 2005, it was revealed that Spaceballs would be turned into an animated television show. On September 21, 2006, Mel Brooks announced that he was indeed developing an animated TV series based on Spaceballs, set to debut in autumn 2007. The series would begin with a one-hour pilot, followed by an initial batch of 13 episodes of Spaceballs: The Animated Series.

See also

• Galaxy Quest, a film which lampoons Star Wars and Star Trek fandom.

External links

• Spaceballs at IMDb