Spaceballs: The Earlham Review

Sara Jenkins
Staff Writer

photo courtesy of IMDB.com

The movie "Spaceballs," is a satire of "Star Wars" that is almost as legendary (and as dated) as the original film. "Spaceballs" was released in 1987, a full decade after the release of "Star Wars" in 1977. This did not keep it from becoming fairly popular, though. It pulled in about $39 million dollars at the box office.

I remember seeing this movie when I was 12, and rolling on the floor I was laughing so hard. I saw it again a few years ago, and I wasn't so impressed. Many of us grew up with this film, and if you haven't seen it in a while (or if the last time you saw it, you thought it was uproariously funny), you might be faced with happy (or sad) nostalgia. There's a project for you psychology majors -- test a person's outlook on life by how easily he or she slips back into a 12-year-old's mindset when watching "Spaceballs."

"Spaceballs" was directed by satire-king Mel Brooks, who brought us such comedic gems as "Young Frankenstein" and "Blazing Saddles." The heroes and villains of the film are humorous clones of "Star Wars" regulars. Bill Pullman plays Lone Starr, a free-lance "space jockey." John Candy plays Barf, a "mog" (half man, half dog). Rick Moranis plays the evil and whiny Dark Helmet. Daphne Zuniga plays Princess Vespa. Brooks himself gives two of the movie's best performances as Skroob, the president of Spaceball, and as Yogurt, the wise old elf who ... well, you know.

The individual characters are great, and the number of quotable-when-drunk lines in this movie are astonishing (e.g.: Dark Helmet says to Lonestar, "So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb." Or Barf: "I'm a mog: half man, half dog. I'm my own best friend!").

"Spaceballs," like any good spoof film, is the cotton candy of the screen: fluffy, nutritionless, and it can make you sick if you have too much of it. By the end of my current viewing, I was fed up with all the inane and blatant spoofing. Let's face it, "Star Wars" isn't very difficult to spoof, and at least 42 films have done so. In "Spaceballs," there are innumerable obvious references to "Star Wars." For "Spaceballs" to be the great spoof film that Brooks intends, it should move beyond the "even-people-who-have-never- seen- `Star Wars'-recognize-this" realm. First of all, that realm is easy, and second of all, hiding golden nuggets of little-knowns within the film would make it far more bearable for repeated viewing.

Although I don't think the film is that great, I'm sure that I will see "Spaceballs" at least once more in my lifetime, and it probably won't be under duress or even threat of death. For a Friday or Saturday night, it's not a bad film. Any other time, I would suggest that you go out and rent something you haven't seen so many times before ... or better yet, wander over to the foreign section of Blockbuster and rent some off-the-wall European films. They practically spoof themselves.

*article from earlham world online.