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Spaceballs marked the beginning of a second stage to Mel Brooks‘ career. After a busy decade in the 1970s, he had been quiet since 1981’s History of the World, Part I. Unlike his early films, where he satirized broad genres or at least the entire life’s work of a single director, this second wind would find him targeting a single film for parody and, in this case, a full decade after the film in question, Star Wars, was current and considered ripe for the spoofing.
The real weakness of this and later Brooks films is the laziness of the humor. Brooks seems to be weakly emulating the style of Abraham/Zucker films that his early work helped to inspire, such as Airplane!. The humor is a scattershot collection of set-ups and punch lines that often seems obvious and labored. Jabba the Hutt is now called Pizza the Hutt. Har har. Yoda is now Yogurt. Stop it, you’re killing me. It’s painful that the man behind Blazing Saddles is resorting to gags that seem more appropriate to Mad Magazine on an off day.
[/types] nudity=0 violence=2 language=2 subject=2]That being said, it would be wrong to suggest that Brooks was no longer funny. The hit-to-miss ratio of Spaceballs is a lot lower than classic Brooks of the 1970s, but when he hits, you’ll still bust a gut. In the movie My Favorite Year (produced by Brooks and based loosely on his early career in television), King Kaiser says, “You never cut funny.” What you do cut, however, is the dull stretches in between the funny parts and Spaceballs is a movie badly in need of a more ruthless hand at both the scripting and editing stages.
Another thing that Spaceballs lacks, and it’s probably just a concession to times in which it was made, is the subversive spirit that bouyed movies like The Producers and Blazing Saddles. This film, and the ones that followed it, are performing with a net and you miss the sheer exhilaration of Brooks pushing the envelope like he used to.
Spaceballs….was interesting….
Sorry, I couldn’t watch Spaceballs after seeing how stupid John Candy looked in a Wookie suit.
My impression is that this was the weakest film Mel Brooks ever made.
I love Spaceballs. I thought it was the real star wars when I first saw it. I didn’t know until the early 90’s that it wasn’t a part of Stars Wars LOL.
Spaceballs may just be Mel Brooks’ weakest movie, but I still loved it. I can’t help it. And it still makes me giggle even if the humor doesn’t really hold up. Nostalgia I guess.
This is one of Mel Brooks best movies. I normaly can only watch a movie a few times but I can watch this one once every six months.
I really liked this one, and still quote “May the Schwarz be with you” or maybe that is becuase my mother’s family name is Schwarz.
Come on people, how could anyone not enjoy the classic one-liners that this movie spurred. anyone who thinks that this movie was “weak” has absolutely no sense of humor. Stick to your NYPD Blue or West Wing sit-com crap.
“I’m a mog”
“a what?”
“A mog, you know…half man half dog…I’m my own best friend.”
okay so i love this movie –
but if your talking one liners you gotta love
‘virgin alarm – set to go off before you do’
but hey – just cause theres technical things wrong, doesnt mean it cant still freaking-awesome… but that might just be me… 😛
Come on it was the 80s for crying out loud! Yes there was some great college humor movies, but this wasn’t exactly bad for it’s time. I don’t know, you can call me crazy or whatever, but this was much better a spoof as some of the newer spoofs that are out there today.
Another great Mel Brooks classic.. srry that you didn’t enjoy it.