Of Movies and Mockery (or a Potent Mixture of Both)

  A little over two years ago, I was introduced to the world of movie parodies. I saw both Young Frankenstein and Airplane! Then a few months later, I watched Top Secret!, another completely random comedy. All the movies had some subject or genre which they mocked or made fun of: for Young Frankenstein it was horror films, and for Top Secret! It was a mixture of World War II films and spy films. A few weeks ago, I got to see yet two more films of the parody/comedy genre. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and Spaceballs were both hilarious parodies of the sci-fi and police drama genres.

  Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! follows a veteran, white-haired member of the Police Squad, a subgroup of the police department, as he struggles to unravel a plot to murder Queen Elizabeth when she visits the U.S. In his investigation, Lieutenant Frank Drebin unwittingly falls in love with Jane Spencer, who is assistant to Vincent Ludwig, the very man planning to kill Elizabeth. Eventually, after burning down Ludwig’s house looking for clues, tackling the queen of England at her reception, subsequently being removed from Police Squad, and poorly impersonating an opera singer, Lt. Drebin finally solves the case and wins his true love.

  The real appeal in Naked Gun is the hilarious slapstick and mockery of other crime drama films. Making use of the cliché voiceover technique, the movie shows a montage of Lt. Drebin walking about the city as the voiceover narrates his process in the case, only to be interrupted when it shows a shot of him walking, miles away from the city, and the voiceover wonders aloud:
Lt. Drebin: Did Ludwig lie to me? I didn't have any proof, but somehow, I didn't entirely trust him either. Why was the 'I Luv You' not listed in Ludwig's records? And if it was, did he know about it? And if he didn't, who did? And where the hell was I? 
  The film also makes fun of a lot of stereotypes, mocking Al-Qaeda-ish terrorists and teenage drivers and their instructors: 
Driving instructor: It's okay. Normally you would not be going sixty-five down the wrong way of a one-way street.
[a large semi truck appears speeding out of a tunnel towards the car.]
Driving instructor: [continues to talk in a calm, casual tone] Apply the brake… Now put it in reverse…

Terrorist 1: Listen to me! Killing a few hostages is not sufficient! The Americans must be made to suffer. We must humiliate them.
Terrorist 2: You do not go far enough, General Amin. We must strip their entrails out and drag them to Damascus, until they include us in the peace process.
Terrorist 4: What? And spoil three years of good PR? The Americans believe I’m a nice guy. In some of their polls, I’m more popular than their president!
Terrorist 5: Gentlemen! Gentlemen! This is getting us nowhere. If we do nothing else this week, we must conceive at least one terrorist act that will show all the world that the United States, the great Satan, is but a paper tiger - a weak nation, a weak people, a people ripe for destruction. Cowards, no longer willing to fight. 
  Slapstick humor is also constantly incorporated throughout the film. Pretty much whenever he drives around or parks his car, Lt. Drebin leaves a trail of destruction behind him. In other cases, Drebin repeatedly beats up his hospitalized friend and coworker Norberg in the very act of trying to save him. Near the end of the movie, the villainous Ludwig falls from the bleachers of a baseball stadium into the parking lot below, where he is run over by several cars, a steamroller, and the USC marching band. 

  As one would expect, there really isn’t much of a point or message to the movie, just a series of hilarious jokes with a loose plot to tie them all together. So if you want to see some deep, thought-provoking movie with a consequential message and altruistic morals, don’t watch this. Or the next film I’m about to review either. And on that note, I shall segue into my next review.

                                 

  Spaceballs is in almost every aspect the same as Naked Gun. While it has a different – but just as transparent – plot and mocks a different genre, it, like Naked Gun, has no moral meaning or significance of any kind. The heroes of the story are Lone Starr and Barf, who are hired by Roland, the king of Druidia, to save his daughter Vespa, a “Druish” princess, and her metallic friend Dot Matrix from the titular Spaceballs, who seek to steal all of Druidia’s air. The Spaceballs are led by President Skroob, his second in command, Dark Helmet, and his second in command, Colonel Sanders. After saving princess Vespa and Dot, the foursome sets down on an unnamed desert planet, where they find the Shwartz-wielding Yogurt and his minion “dinks”, who can only say “dink”, to hide from the Spaceballs. Lone Starr learns to use the force Shwartz from the merchandising Yogurt. In the meanwhile, the antagonistic Spaceballs “transform” their main starship, the Spaceball1, into “Mega-Maid” and proceed to suck the air from Druidia’s atmosphere. They are however, foiled once again by Lone Starr, who activates the self-destruct mechanism after defeating Dark Helmet, his "father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate".

  Spaceballs is shameless in its poorly disguised mockery of Star Wars and other science fiction films. In one scene in a café, Barf and Lone Starr watch as a patron begins to cough, then choke, and then his stomach bursts open and the well-known alien from Alien crawls out and starts to sing “Hello my Baby” and dance down the length of the bar. Barf the half-man, half-dog, is an obvious impersonation of Chewbacca. Lone Starr is a combination of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Dark Helmet and President Skroob (rearranged it spells Brooks) are mockeries of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. Princess Vespa is a knock-off of Princess Leia, and in one scene she even wears a pair of headphones that look just like Princess Leia’s hair buns. Other Star Wars jokes include “Pizza the Hutt” a funny mix of “Jabba the Hutt” and “Pizza Hut”, Colonel Sandurz, a Spaceball commander bearing the same name as the KFC founder, and Snotty, an easily recognizable ode to Star Trek. The “Shwartz” also is a mockery of Star Wars, taking the place of the fabled “force”. In Spaceballs, the wielders of the Shwartz wear a ring which emits a short beam of light from its tip when held near one’s crotch, leading to several visual gags:
Dark Helmet: I see your Shwartz is as big as mine… But let’s see how you handle it!

  The movie also has other instances of visual humor. Almost every spaceship in the movie has a funny bumper sticker of some kind: Spaceball1’s sticker reads, “We Brake for Nobody!” while Eagle5, Lone Starr’s Winnebago spaceship’s sticker says, “I ♥ Uranus”. Princess Vespa’s Mercedes spaceship has a license plate that reads, “Spoil’d Rott’n I”. 

  Probably the funniest (if not most appropriate) moment in the movie was when the Spaceballs were chasing after the recently escaped Princess Vespa and Lone Starr, and Dark Helmet notices all his gunners are cross-eyed:

Dark Helmet: Careful you idiot! I said across her nose, not up it!
Cross-eyed Laser Gunner: Sorry sir! I'm doing my best!
Dark Helmet: Who made that man a gunner?
Major ***hole: I did sir. He's my cousin.
Dark Helmet: Who is he?
Colonel Sandurz: He's an ***hole sir.
Dark Helmet: I know that! What's his name?
Colonel Sandurz: That is his name sir. ***hole, Major ***hole!
Dark Helmet: And his cousin?
Colonel Sandurz: He's an ***hole too sir. Gunner's mate First Class Philip ***hole!
Dark Helmet: How many ***holes do we have on this ship, anyway?
[Entire bridge crew stands up and raises a hand]
Entire Bridge Crew: Yo!
Dark Helmet: I knew it. I'm surrounded by ***holes!
[Dark Helmet pulls his face shield down]
Dark Helmet: Keep firing, ***holes!

  Another funny part was when Dark Helmet and Colonel Sandurz receive orders from President Skroob to “comb the desert for Lone Starr and Vespa”. The two proceed to have their subordinates literally rake the desert planet with giant combs.
Colonel Sandurz: Are we being too literal?
Dark Helmet: No you fool, we're following orders. We were told to comb the desert so we're combing it.

Also, despite its mediocre special effects, the movie made fun of a lot of older films’ effects.
[screen dissolves into a shot of the blazing sun overhead, with Lone Starr and Barf still slightly visible]
Barf: Nice dissolve.

Barf: [Spaceball 1 roars by them, in a plaid colouration of speed] Aah!
Barf: What the hell was that?
Lone Starr: Spaceball 1.
Barf: They've gone to plaid!

  I would say more, but there really isn’t much else to say, especially since the movies speak for themselves. They provide laughter to the point of tears, but not much else.

Grade (for Naked Gun): B-
Grade (for Spaceballs): B

                                                    When will then be now?