Read more about Pizza the Hutt at: Wikipedia Official Site: MGM Spaceballs is a 1987 American satirical comic science fiction film co-written, produced and directed by Mel Brooks. Starring Brooks, Bill Pullman, John Candy and Rick Moranis, the film also features Daphne Zuniga, Dick Van Patten, George Wyner and the voice of Joan Rivers. In addition to Brooks in a supporting role, the film also features Brooks regulars Dom DeLuise and Rudy De Luca in cameo appearance. The film's setting and characters parody the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as other sci-fi franchises and popular films including Star Trek, Alien, The Wizard of Oz, 2001, and the Planet of the Apes. It was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on June 24, 1987, and was met with a mixed reception. It has since become a cult classic and one of Brooks's most popular films. Planet Spaceball, led by the incompetent President Skroob, has squandered all of its fresh air. Skroob schemes to force King Roland of the neighboring planet Druidia to give them the code to the shield that protects Druidia, allowing them to steal all their air, by kidnapping his daughter Princess Vespa on the day of her arranged marriage to the narcoleptic Prince Valium. Skroob sends the villainous Dark Helmet to complete this task with Spaceball One, an impossibly huge ship helmed by Colonel Sandurz. Before they can arrive, Vespa abandons her wedding and flees the planet in her Mercedes spaceship with her droid of honor, Dot Matrix. Roland contacts mercenary Lone Starr and his mawg (half-man, half-dog) sidekick Barf, offering a lucrative reward to retrieve Vespa before she is captured. Lone Starr readily accepts, as he is in major debt with the gangster Pizza the Hutt. In their Winnebago spaceship, Eagle 5, Lone Starr and Barf are able to reach Vespa before Spaceball One, rescue both her and Dot, then escape. Spaceball One tries to follow, but Helmet orders the ship to "ludicrous speed," causing it to overshoot the escapees by a large distance. |