Spaceballs (1987) Movie Review

Spaceballs is my favourite Mel Brooks movie of the ones that I've seen. It's also the first one I ever saw. It's also a weird movie because it came out in 1987 after Star Wars had stopped being a thing. As a result a lot of critics felt that doing a Star Wars parody, after the films were done and the Star Wars hype was over, was pointless. But here's the secret of this movie. It doesn't just parody Star Wars. It parodies other Sci-Fi franchises like Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, and the Alien franchise. There's probably a few that I didn't notice, but these are the three big ones aside from Star Wars that this movie touches upon.

I first saw Spaceballs on VHS in 1999. A family friend owned it and she actually put it on for me one time when we were at her house because it was summertime and it became too hot for me to be outside for any length of time. I didn't get to finish watching it, but she let me take the tape home with me to finish watching there. I loved it. Anytime it came on TV, I'd watch it. Eventually I got it on DVD. In fact I got it at the same time that I got the DVD release of Batman: The Movie from 1966. They were the first two DVDs that I ever got. And they've stayed in my collection ever since.

One of the reasons I like Spaceballs so much is because there's an actual story in this movie. Of course it's just as ridiculous as any other Mel Brooks movie, but it follows the story of the first Star Wars movie fairly closely. Though obviously there's plenty of changes and amalgamations to make the movie it's own thing that stands apart from Star Wars. Which works for the story they're telling.

I also like that there's so much love for the franchises they're spoofing in this movie. Particularly for Star Wars. I mean Brooks actually went to George Lucas and asked him if he (Brooks) could make Spaceballs and George said yes, though he wasn't allowed to make Spaceballs action figures or any other forms of merchandising, as the toys would be too similar to the Star Wars figures that were appearing in bargain bins at the time Spaceballs was being made. Brooks agreed to that because George could just as easily have said no and Industrial Light & Magic even worked on Spaceballs during the post-Production process. Which is pretty cool.

Unlike the Star Wars Trilogy though, Spaceballs doesn't really have a clear protagonist. Lone Starr is a character who is a combination of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, but we actually spend the most time with Dark Helmet (played by Rick Moranis) and Colonel Sandurz (played by George Wyner) than we do with the good guys. In fact, unlike Star Wars where we don't see Darth Vader until it's almost time for Luke and Obi-Wan to leave Tatooine, the longest we go without seeing Helmet and Sandurz is at the end of the movie after they've been defeated by Lone Starr. So I guess you could say that Spaceballs has more of an ensemble cast than a singular character that we follow from start to finish. Which is fine because Brooks isn't exactly known for making movies that are character pieces. He's a comedian and he excels at making comedy movies.

The Pizza the Hutt storyline with Lone Starr and Barf is the most pointless storyline in the entire movie. I mean it's like the Jabba the Hutt subplot with Han and Chewie in Star Wars in that if there was going to be a sequel to Spaceballs the story could've been something that we followed through the films, but it just kind of fizzled out being that Spaceballs is a singular film. Which is how the Jabba the Hutt subplot in Star Wars would've been if it had been the only film to come out of that franchise.

This movie was also my first encounter with John Candy. I didn't see Planes, Trains & Automobiles until high school and I didn't realize it was him as the cop in Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird. Plus I didn't know that he was in Home Alone as I didn't actually see that movie until last year (that I can remember anyway). It's actually kind of startling because Candy looks so different when he's not wearing the Barf makeup and costume that it's hard to recognize him as that character.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Spaceballs is an awesome movie. I would definitely recommend you watch it if you've never seen it before. Especially if you're a fan of Mel Brooks's other films. It's so different from Blazing Saddles and Robin Hood: Men in Tights but it's also the best out of the three of them. At least to me. I'm giving Spaceballs 9/10 stars because the Pizza the Hutt stuff is gross and pointless and I'm pretty sure that if I'd been eating pizza when I first saw this movie as a kid, I would've been turned off of pizza forever. Lucky for me, I was strictly tube fed at that point, so eating pizza wasn't a thing for me.

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IMDB:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094012/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0