Fellmans Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers 

What’s it about? Spaceballs is a 1987 science fiction parody film written and directed by Mel Brooks. It is mostly a parody of Star Wars, but there’s mention of other science fiction franchises throughout the movie. There’s talk of “beaming” from Star Trek in the one scene, and John Hurt recreates his death scene from the original Alien movie near the end of the film. So, we start with the opening crawl, like in every other Star Wars movie. The camera pans over the Spaceballs’ ship on an incredibly long shot displaying how massive the ship is. We’re taken onto the command deck of the ship where Dark Helmet, the main villain of the story, enters. His henchman, Col. Sandurz, goes through the plot with him while drinking coffee and watching radar. The planet Spaceball is running out of air and their plan is to take all of the air from their peaceful neighbor, Druidia. Meanwhile, on the planet Druidia, Princess Vespa is about to be wed to Prince Valium. The last prince in the galaxy who can’t seem to stay awake. Only, she doesn’t love him and doesn’t want to marry him. So, instead of marrying him, she runs away at the last minute and escapes the planet in her new car that her father bought for her from her Uncle Murray. Murray owns a dealership. Her father got it at a really good price. All leather interior, all the extras. A real steal. Anyway, King Roland, Vespa’s father, calls out to Lone Starr and his faithful Mawg companion friend, Barf to find his daughter for him. Which works out for them, because the vicious gangster, Pizza the Hut, has just demanded $1 million space bucks in late fees or he’s going to put a hit out on them. So Lone Starr and Barf accept the job and retrieve Vespa and her robot assistant Dot Matrix from the tractor beam of the Spaceball ship and escape via light speed on their Winnebago spaceship The Eagle 5. Trying to catch up to them, Dark Helmet and Col. Sandurz use “Ludicrous Speed” on the Spaceball One and overshoot The Eagle 5 by an enormous amount. The Eagle 5 runs out of fuel and is ultimately forced to crash land on a desert moon. The group travels in the hot sun for a short time before passing out in the desert due to heat exhaustion. They are luckily found by a group of Dink-Dinks. Short, desert dwelling aliens in sparkly robes. The Dink-Dinks give them water and lead them to the hidden cave of the legendary sage, Yogurt. Yogurt instructs them on the ways of the Schwartz and the advantages of merchandising before looking at the medallion that Lone Starr wears around his neck. Yogurt refuses to tell Lone Starr what it says at this time, however, and says it will be revealed when the time is right. The Spaceballs then use the newest technology in home video media, the instant cassette. A cassette tape of the movie that comes out before the movie is actually finished, to find the location of Lone Starr and the others. After the Spaceballs find out they’re hiding in Yogurt’s cave, Helmet disguises himself as King Roland and tricks Vespa into coming out so he can kidnap her and Dot. Helmet threatens Roland to give Vespa her old nose back from before she had her nose job unless Roland gives Helmet the code to the air shield. Roland eventually concedes and Helmet imprisons Vespa and goes to steal the air from Druidia. Barf and Lone Starr infiltrate Spaceball One in an attempt to rescue Princess Vespa and Dot. All four escape while the Spaceballs catch their stunt doubles by mistake. In the meantime, Spaceball One reconfigures itself into a giant maid called MegaMaid and proceeds to suck all of the air out of Druidia. Lone Starr then taps into the Schwartz and reverses the switch on MegaMaid to put the air back onto the planet. Lone Starr then finds a self-destruct button in MegaMaid’s head but is interrupted by Dark Helmet and they begin to have a duel of good versus evil. Helmet tricks Lone Starr and steals his ring, but Yogurt chimes in and tells him that he can use the Schwartz without the ring if he tries. Lone Starr uses his newfound power to reverse a blast from Helmet and blow him backwards into the self-destruct button. Then Lone Starr makes his getaway. After an extended evacuation scene involving a circus, a bearded lady, and a bear, President Skroob, Dark Helmet, and Col. Sandurz end up being stuck on Spaceball One with less than 20 seconds left on the self-destruct countdown to go when the speaker says “this is your last chance to press the cancellation button”. They all rush to the front station to find an out of order tag on the cancellation button and the ship explodes. Lone Starr and Barf find out that Pizza the Hutt had locked himself in his limousine and had to eat himself to death, meaning they could keep the $1 million space bucks. The pair take Vespa and Dot back to Druidia, but only take enough money to cover gas, tolls, and lunch. After cracking open a fortune cookie that Yogurt had given Lone Starr earlier, Yogurt tells him that the medallion he keeps around his neck says that he is an official prince and that means he can marry Princess Vespa if he hurries back to Druidia. Luckily, there’s a can of Liquid Schwartz in the glove compartment to hurry the Eagle 5 up on its way. The two return in time to stop the wedding of Vespa and Prince Valium and Lone Starr tells Vespa that he is a prince and asks her if she will marry him instead. To which she says yes. The film ends with a happy “May the Schwartz Be With You…” 

What’s good? Spaceballs is one of Mel Brooks’ better movies, in my opinion. It’s hard to say what’s good, because what isn’t good about it? It’s a hilarious movie. From the script itself to the delivery from the actors, everything is good.  

What’s bad? Aside from just the fact that it was 1987 and they were where they were as far as special effects go, there’s nothing else you could really do about that. But, if you’re just looking for things to nitpick about, that’s all you’re going to do is just bitch instead of enjoying a really great movie.  

The effects? It was 1987. What are you gonna do? People still had cords on their phones, and you had to watch things on an actual tv. You can’t judge the past for being the past. It’s not the past’s fault. 

The acting? There were some great actors back in those days. A lot of people that just disappeared. Rick Moranis gave up acting to lead a more normal and non-celebrity life.  

They start on chapter 11. The opening crawl starts on chapter 11. Much like A New Hope starts on Episode IV, only much, much later in the story… 

Dark Helmet has a tie on his costume. Dark Helmet’s costume was originally supposed to be just a giant helmet that extended all the way down to the floor, but after reading the script, Mel Brooks decided to scale it back and just have the oversized helmet and the parody costume.  

Col. Sandurz goes through the entire plot. Col. Sandurz goes through the entire plot of the movie when they’re standing in front of the Mr. Coffee machine so that Dark Helmet knows what’s going on and the people watching the movie are all caught up.  

Lonestar’s bumpers sticker says “I love Uranus”. Lone Starr is the kind of guy to have a bumper sticker that says “I love Uranus” on his Winnebago. It’s a little juvenile, sure. But I bet Lone Starr’s not loneLY… 

How do you can air? How exactly are they canning air? What’s that carbonation that’s popping? What are they sniffing? Where’s all the air going, anyway? How is there an air shortage? Is that possible? Can you run out of air? I certainly hope not… 

Dark Helmet is surrounded by assholes. All of the assholes on the ship are related somehow. It’s just one asshole after another. Every station on the ship is manned by one asshole or another. And as soon as you get rid of one of the assholes, another one just comes and takes his place. It’s like a never-ending line of assholes. 

Spaceballs the “insert item here”. It was a deal with George Lucas that Mel Brooks could only parody Star Wars if he didn’t make any action figures of the movie because they would look too much like the Star Wars action figures. So, Brooks wrote the Yogurt merchandising scene to parody that fact. It has since become a running gag to make Spaceballs the “whatever” just to put the logo on things. 

The beauty of Mel Brooks satire. The amazing thing about Mel Brooks’ writing is how he mixes in these incredible one-liners with these simplistic, overtly obvious puns in rapid succession so that you don’t even notice them until you’ve already taken it all in. And you more than likely have to watch it more than once to do it.  

Barf keeps hitting him with his tail. Barf’s tail has a mind of its own. It’s essentially its own creature, doing what it wants, aside from Barf, who is unable to control it. 

There’s a three-ring circus? There’s a three-ring circus on the Spaceball One? You would think of all the things they would cut out of the budget; the three-ring circus would be one of the first. That’s like, the least necessary thing you need in space.  

The black guys are using an afro pick. The white guys are combing the desert while the black guys are using an afro pick. Neither of them has found shit… 

The key is an electric I.D. in the shape of a giant key. The key for the security door is an electric I.D. that needs to be scanned by the door to unlock it, yet, the key itself is in the shape of a giant key when it could easily be in the shape of an I.D. card or something like that. 

How did he run out of ammo? How did Barf run out of ammo? It’s a laser gun. That’s like saying your hose is out of water. It’s a hose. It makes water. That’s where water comes from.  

The operator for the metamorphosis of the Megamaid is named Kafka. There’s probably a lot of people that didn’t catch this joke because it goes by really fast, but when Spaceball One is about to change into MegaMaid, Col. Sandurz says “Preparing ship for metamorphosis, sir.” and Helmet goes “Ready, Kafka?” referring to Franz Kafka and his famous novella “The Metamorphosis”.  

Why does there have to be a self-destruct mechanism? Lone Starr goes into MegaMaid’s head saying there has to be a self-destruct mechanism somewhere. But, why? Why does there have to be one? I most certainly wouldn’t put a self-destruct mechanism on my giant robot if I had one. That’s for sure… 

Dark Helmet could’ve just shot him. Dark Helmet could’ve just shot Lone Starr when he was having his telepathic conversation with Yogurt about the Schwartz. Why did he wait for Lone Starr to talk to Yogurt and then float the mirror across the room so he could reflect the beam back at him? 

Even in the future nothing works. Probably one of my favorite lines in the entire movie is when they get to the cancellation button and there’s an “out of order” tag attached to it and Rick Moranis says “Fuck! Even in the future nothing works!” 

John Hurt recreates his death scene from Alien. John Hurt famously dies in Alien by having an alien burst out of his stomach and begin to run around the ship, killing people. He reprises his role in Spaceballs, only the alien is found in a diner that Lone Starr and Barf have stopped in.  

The way MegaMaid lands on the beach. When MegaMaid explodes, her head and arm go flying down to the planet and land on the beach. And then, when the talking apes come riding down the beach and see the Spaceballs climbing out of the nose of MegaMaid’s head, you can see the way it looks just like the end scene of Planet of the Apes when Charlton Heston notices the Statue of Liberty. 

So yeah, go and see Spaceballs. I think it was one of Mel Brooks’ better movies, but when you’re as good as Mel Brooks, they’re all pretty good. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…