ABC Film Challenge – Favourites – S – Spaceballs (1987) Movie Rob’s Pick

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“Say goodbye to your two best friends, and I don’t mean your pals in the Winnebago.” – Dark Helmet

Number of Times Seen – Too many to count (Theater in 1987, cable, video, DVD, 22 Sep 2001, 12 Sep 2013, 28 Nov 2017 and 17 Mar 2021)

Link to original review – Here and Here

Brief Synopsis – The evil race of beings known as Spaceballs plan to kidnap the princess of a friendly planet and blackmail the King to give them the fresh air from their planet.

My Take on it – Amazing film that works so well no matter how often one sees it.

Mel Brooks has always able to create so many fun films that parody specific genres.

This film takes on sci-fi films and they find ways to keep things hilarious from start to finish.

The dialogue is extremely clever and helps enhance things because of the way it keeps the audience so engaged in everything going on.

The genius of this movie is its ability to take scenarios and cues from various sci-fi films and franchises and blend them together in such a fun story.

The cast is superb with Mel Brooks playing duplicate roles.

He is helped by John Candy, Bill Pullman, Daphne Zuniga, Joan Rivers, Rick Moranis who all keep the tone so funny the whole way through.

The plot is intriguing and comes across as being quite enjoyable as things progress which is slightly unusual in films like this because they tend to care more about the jokes than the plot.

This film is able to keep the story flowing really well while giving us some great jokes along the way that are both funny and yet also stays relevant to the sci-fi aspect of the story by making things feel as if they are part of a familiar sci-fi franchise.

IMHO, this is by far, Brooks best parody (even if some of the others come close to also being spectacular.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia #1 –  Of all of the jokes in this movie, writer, producer, and director Mel Brooks says that the two he is most proud of are the running gag about merchandising (“Spaceballs: the Breakfast Cereal”, “Spaceballs: The T-Shirt”, et cetera) and Colonel Sandurz’s renting “Spaceballs” before it was finished.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia #2 – In a 2013 television interview (shortly before receiving the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award), Mel Brooks stated that he personally obtained George Lucas’ full permission to parody any and all things Star Wars-related but, on one condition, that absolutely no merchandise of any kind be produced from this movie. This is the reason why all Yogurt and the Dinks do is merchandising (it is also why none of the merchandise seen in this movie was ever mass produced or publicly sold in any way). (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (10/10) (no change from original review)