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Spaceballs: The Movie

I’ve seen Spaceballs before of course. It was one of those films that people of my age saw quite a lot in the early days of VHS ownership. It was a nice, reasonably safe Star Wars spoof that could happily be left on while the grown ups went off to do something more interesting instead. I’d not really given it much thought since then. My sidekick likes it and would occasionally quote bits from it and our South African comrade would always say "I see your Schwartz is as big as mine" whenever anyone mentioned anything about Star Wars. But apart from that – and the inestimable "Gosh – there is a 2 disc special edition for £x from HMV – should I get it? I do like a 2 disc special edition..." – it had passed into that genre of movies which were great when I was small and which shouldn’t be forced before adult eyes to be dismissed as childish rubbish.

It seems – from mentioning it to people and getting funny looks in return – that some people don’t know what Spaceballs is. Essentially it is a Star Wars spoof (original trilogy – the new ones weren’t even a protein molecule swimming in George Lucas’s metaphorical testicle in those days) with bits of Star Trek, Alien and generic science fiction thrown in for good measure. It also has several fantastic moments where it breaks the fourth wall and takes the mickey out of movie making as well. Plus it is infused throughout with typical Mel Brooks humour.

Brooks – in addition to making the film – also plays two parts. He’s the president of Planet Spaceball and tiny guru Yogurt. I’m not sure I quite got the president character – he seemed to be the one bit that wasn’t an obvious spoof of something else. It was just Mel Brooks in a slightly old fashioned suit. Maybe I’m missing something. He gives his usual performance in both roles and is a good, solid old hand in a fairly young cast. The star of the film is without a doubt Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet – the Darth Vader of the piece. From the moment this little man with his enormous helmet wheezes down the bridge to confer with his second in command, the film is his and his alone. It is such a shame he retired at such a young age. I don’t know of anyone else in American comedy who could’ve pulled off the "I’m surrounded by assholes" bit as well as he does. Whenever he’s on screen, he’s never not funny. He manages to get every drop of comedy out of every scene he’s in.

There are some bits that don’t work – the expensive climax is the Spaceballs space ship turning into a giant house maid with a vacuum cleaner to suck all the air from planet Druidia – but they are few and far between. As with any film of this kind, the actual plot as a dramatic story is secondary to the jokes. Rather than copying the storyline of one of the well known films, Brooks instead comes up with a new story of a galactic air shortage which leads to a good verses evil battle for a world’s right to breathe. It doesn’t really matter that this story is neither good enough nor silly enough. The jokes and the performances sustain the movie. The plot is just something that happens between gags. But – to be fair – it does make sense on a basic level so it isn’t completely worthless.

So it has good performances and a bland story – is it funny? Yes. It’s very funny. The opening joke is a never ending shot of a space ship going past the camera. Back in the days of model work, directors loved the shot of the highly detailed battle cruiser flying slowly past the camera. And so did we the audience. Who amongst us hasn’t built a space ship out of Lego and had it slowly glide past our eyes in close up? If you haven’t, neither have I. Move on. I’ve mentioned Rick Moranis being funny in every scene he’s in but the rest of the cast have their moments too. John Candy is quite funny as Barf – "I’m half man, half dog. I’m my own best friend" while Bill Pullman has some amusing moments as the straight man of the piece, Lone Star. Coming somewhere between Han Solo and Harrison Ford’s other iconic role, Indiana Jones, Lonestar is the chisel jawed hero who somehow manages to pick Luke Skywalker’s part up along the way too. I really like how they’ve made what should be the wisecracking role into the straight man of the film. The women fare less well – Pricess Vespa is all big hair and stroppy, post-damsel-in-distress obnoxiousness while Joan Rivers fails to steal the show as C3PO knock off, Dot Matrix. The unexpected comic treat are the dinks – midgets in monk robes who only say "dink". Apparently, the special edition DVD has a commentary by the dinks. This I have to hear.

Ultimately, Spaceballs is a very funny movie and had us in stitches for the full hour and a half. The bombardment of gags may have seemed like the "Scary Movie" style of modern spoofs but what makes Spaceballs so much better is that the jokes are written by a really good writer and performed by really good actors. Take Rick Moranis out of this film – and a modern version would surely have Dark Helmet being played by Jack Black (the joke being that Darth Vader is fat rather than short) – and it wouldn’t even be a tenth as funny. Spaceballs without Rick Moranis would be like Naked Gun without Leslie Nielson. It isn’t enough to subvert the genre with clever observations – you need talent as well and Spaceballs has talent. That’s why it’s great.