Spaceballs: The Search for Star Wars Day Views!
Before making his space opera satire, Spaceballs (which is based almost entirely on George Lucas’ Star Wars), Mel Brooks asked George Lucas for his blessing. Brooks said that Lucas was fine with the movie as long as he didn’t create any merchandising for it, as Spaceballs toys would look too similar to Star Wars toys (which Lucas still held all the rights to at the time). Whether Lucas gave the okay before or after Brooks had the now-famous Spaceballs merchandise sequence in the works is unclear, but I think it’s fair to assume that Lucas may very well be responsible for one of the best jokes in Spaceballs. That is to say, the extensive Spaceballs display containing Spaceballs the T-shirt, Spaceballs the breakfast cereal, and of course, Spaceballs the flamethrower (the kids love that one), which mocks the vast Star Wars merchandising that was probably at least in some way influenced by Lucas’ condition on not having action figures for the space comedy.
Brooks’ mockery of Star Wars as a money-making empire has only become more relevant with time. As Disney holds its annual Star Wars Day fandom celebration on May the 4th (get it?) while also unveiling The Rise of Skywalker on Disney+, wrapping up their animated Clone Wars TV series, and working on a new LEGO Star Wars video game set to release later in 2020, Star Wars merchandising is surely in full swing even thirty years after Spaceballs pointed its witty finger in the saga’s direction.
When Mel Brooks and friends teamed up four years after the release of the last movie in the original trilogy (Return of the Jedi) for a Star Wars parody, critics at the time said it might’ve been too little too late. However, they didn’t know that Lucas’ franchise would remain in the mainstream cultural zeitgeist through the 2010s and on. Thus, Spaceballs remains a timeless cult satire that, in many ways, has aged like a fine wine.
While the film has quite a simplistic plot, no one has ever sat down to watch a Mel Brooks flick for a complex narrative. Spaceballs delivers on what Brooks does best; witty comedy and downright silliness. Radars are jammed with an actual jar of jam, the villains comb the desert for the heroes with actual combs, and the fourth wall is downright obliterated on several occasions. During one of the most ingenious and meta-jokes of the film, the evil Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) and Colonel Sanders watch their own copy of Spaceballs to find out where the heroes are going next. Other great fourth-wall-breaking moments include Barf (John Candy) commenting on the dissolve edit that bridges two scenes together, Dark Helmet accidentally striking the boom mic operator behind the camera with his Schwartz laser sword, or when the bad guys mistakenly capture the heroes’ stunt doubles in place of their characters. While the humor may not exactly fit with popular comedy tastes of today, it still holds up on its own terms.
Spaceballs (much like Star Wars) doesn’t do a lot in terms of inclusivity. It’s basic ‘save the princess’ plotline isn’t trying too hard to rewrite any damsel in distress clichés and there are a few jokes that come across as somewhat misogynistic. Again, this movie is more about the comedy rather than being a serious work of filmmaking, but it is nice to see things like comedian Joan Rivers as the voice of the female robot, Dot Matrix.
With its onslaught of puns and hokey one-liners, Spaceballs not only took on Star Wars as a popular movie franchise, but it also took on George Lucas and his money-making machine of licensed Star Wars items. It may be extremely silly and downright dumb at some points, but it certainly has enough brilliant satire to effectively poke fun at the beloved space opera, as well as other popular sci-fi films. The comedy will live on as a classic as long as Star Wars keeps printing money, and now that Disney is in control, it will most likely continue for the foreseen future. So, may the Schwartz be with you!
