Spaceballs

First, a confession: I love this film. I'm not a huge Mel Brooks fan. I didn't like Blazing Saddles, but I giggled like a schoolgirl at Robin Hood: Men in Tights, but that might have been Cary Elwes. He's fantastic in anything I've ever seen him in: The Princess Bride, Hot Shots!, he's even been in The X-Files!. Why hasn't he won an Oscar yet?

For me, this is the ultimate parody film. Brooks takes everything to exactly the right level of over the top. The spaceship that keeps coming and coming over the camera, the radar operator, jokes about the size of the ship, combing the desert, the Spaceballs merchandise, Dark Helmet playing with his dolls, Princess Vespa with the gun, John Hurt's cameo, ludicrous speed!

The ludicrous speed and the abandon ship scenes are among my favourite.

As usual, I bought this on DVD and then some git brought out the Special Edition, knowing about my refusal to buy the same film twice1.

I was very disappointed that whatever channel I saw this on last night had butchered it so badly. The cuts were harshly done and quite obvious. I can understand why the first part of the line 'F***, even in the future nothing works.', but why was John Hurt's chestburster scene cut? It's hilarious and not even remotely gory by today's standards.

Score: B++ Because it keeps getting better and better with each viewing. There are so many great lines, it's really hard to choose just one, so I'll give you the start of my favourite sequence.

OQ:
Who made this man a gunner?
I did sir, he's my cousin.

Fun Trivia: George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic constructed the lightsabers for the film. An uncredited Julie Pitkanen does the voice of the Self-Destruct Countdown and does an able Majel Barrett impression. She was the film's script supervisor, in fact appears to have been a script supervisor on all of Brooks' films. One of the ships parked at the diner is the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. 1 I am so mad about the 'Ultimate James Bond Collection' because I already own the entire lot. But there's two rays of sunshine there: 1. They may be ultimate, but the packaging sure ain't. Falls apart easily. And 2. It's only a matter of time before the 'Definitive' version comes out that trumps the ultimate.