Seven Reasons I Love The Movie Spaceballs

One of my favorite Mel Brooks movies was just on TV. I'm talking about the Star Wars inspired, Spaceballs. It's one of Mel's best. I actually have the DVD, but I haven't watched it in a while. Seeing it again made me think of seven of the reasons I love this movie.

The Cast: What's not to like? We have John Candy as Barf, the companion of the hero, Lone Star. Barf is a mog, which is half man, half dog. John Rivers is Dot Matrix, the android companion to Princess Vespa. Mel Brooks in a dual role as President Skroob (Brooks spelled backwards) and the wise and powerful, Yogurt.

The Radar Scene: Michael Winslow is the man at the radar. He's the guy who does the voices in the Police Academy movies, and he's funny in this scene as he explains that the radar had been jammed, literally. As Dark Helmet says, "there's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry, Lone Star."

Going Over His Helmet: Somebody took the initiative to act before consulting Dark Helmet. By the way, Rick Moranis was brilliant in this scene, the scene where he's caught playing with his Spaceballs action figures and the final scene on my list. In this particular scene, he has a way of dealing with people who go over his helmet. Let's just say that man felt the wraith of his force, I mean schwartz.

Desert Search/Oddly Named Crewmen: When President Skroob orders Dark Helmet to comb the desert in search of Lone Star and the princess, he takes him a little too literally. They didn't find anything either. In a scene on the ship, Dark Helmet seems to be surrounded by many crewman from the same family.

Movie References/Merchandising: Those of you who have scene Aliens and the original Planet Of The Apes movies will appreciate the scenes when you see them. Yogurt knows what movie making is really all about, and he explains it to Lone Star. There's a lot of truth in that scene.

The Duel: Dark Helmet and Lone Star finally meet in a silly light saber inspired duel. I always got a laugh from the line, "And now you see why evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb."

Ludicrous Speed: Lone Star is about to get away, and Dark Helmet couldn't let that happen. Probably the funniest scene in a funny movie for me. Seems that when you go that fast, the colors are a little bit different.

When I see what Mel did with his comedic takes on Hitchcock, westerns, space movies and monster movies, I really would have loved to see him do something on The Matrix or The Lord The Rings. Knowing him, they would have been epically funny.

If They Come, Will They Be Friend Or Foe?

It seems like there are more and more news stories on the subject of planets discovered out in space that could hold life. Are we alone in the universe is one of the questions that drives the space program. However, that question is accompanied by a certain degree of paranoia.

Let's not even talk about the effect discovering life outside of Earth would have on religion. We've seen the evils we can do on this planet. Our own government has done bad things. NAZI Germany, The Soviets, certain terrorist organizations. We're no saints here. So, if we have that evil in us, what about potential off planet visitors?

Some people look above for these benevolent "space brothers" to come save us, and we've heard countless theories about who they could be. In the movie Mars Attacks, as some people gathered to welcome them, they were attacked. No love was shown to them by the Martians.

In Close Encounters, you have the UFO appearing above the secret base and communicating through sounds. A few people were taken aboard the ship for a meeting. It seems like a positive meeting, but even Stephen Spielberg isn't sure he believes it would go that well.

Then, there's the abductions that go against people's will. Movies like Fire In The Sky and Communion show that very well. Author Whitley Strieber wrote Communion and other books. It's interesting to note that he says this really happened to him, and though it's not a pleasant experience, he doesn't completely hate them. Evidently, there were some good aliens among them.

Would you want to be abducted by these little gray aliens against your will? Paralyzed and unable to move. Helpless to their whim. Christians will note that there have been those who claim they ended this experience by evoking the name of Jesus to save them.

Why would they travel across the galaxy simply to abduct people and create a hybrid race, conduct anal experiments and put tracking devices in people? Are they worried that we would just shoot first and ask questions later? We do have that sort of history. On the other hand, if they want to create a hybrid species, there are plenty of people here who would willingly volunteer.

Maybe all of that abduction talk is just talk. A story to sell books. I'm sure Whitley has done well with his books, because he's written more than one. Who knows? But the fact is they may be out there. If they are, will they be friend or foe? The answer would greatly impact the future of life on this planet.

Fear & Loathing In The Truth Movement

People have always had a fascination with conspiracies. Things that don't add up in the official story will cause people to search for the truth. For a long time, UFO's and the JFK assassination topped the list. Gradually, that led to distrust of governments and corporations, and it escalated in September of 2001 with what happened in New York.
Two people who were saying things on their talk shows months prior to September of 2001 were William Cooper and Alex Jones. Cooper even named the man he knew would get blamed for the coming attack. He was killed on November 5th that year, after years of talking about cover ups and conspiracies.

Suddenly, this left Alex Jones. Alex wasn't affiliated with any militia groups and seemed to come out of nowhere, but he built up an empire through the internet that helped take him to well over 100 radio stations. He also made movie appearances and guest spots on radio and TV shows.

His loud commentary of recent events rubs many people the wrong way, freaks out others and is just preaching to the choir for those who believe things are not as we are being told. One criticism of Jones is that his empire is more of a business now than a truth movement.

Over the years, he's been right on some predictions and wrong on others, but he projects as a very passionate man who is sincere in what he believes and reports. However, he is hardly running a small business now. In fact, it is becoming more like the CNN of the so called "truth" movement.

He gets criticized for making money selling supplements, water filters and other things and is said to be making a lot of money. Is that a bad thing? I don't see it as inherently bad to make money reporting the alternative news. It takes money to pay the bills.

However, this is a news operation that has several people on staff to a point where Jones himself doesn't host his video news program most of the time and is taking frequent days off from his radio show as well. This again doesn't mean it's a bad thing, but it highlights how this Infowars program is a business.

You can run a big business that is said to be looking for the truth, but it still takes lots of money to run it. And, herein lies the problem. At times, the truth may not be good for business, and promoting fear may be better for business.

I wouldn't suggest people tune out to Jones or anybody else, but they should be careful about falling into the trap of fear over what may be coming. There are theories of what may happen, but we can only prepare for life in our own area of the world.

A talk show host won't have all the answers, but they can be there, much like a televangelist, to tell you what you want to hear and give you comfort. I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Plus, a show that is here to tell you how bad everything is certainly isn't going to promote the good things happening too much. It's not good for business.