‘Spaceballs 2' is coming! Wait, what was so cool about the original ‘Spaceballs'?

Los Angeles Times

16 hours ago

'Spaceballs 2' is incoming, director Mel Brooks confirmed Thursday on social media, 38 years after the original 'Spaceballs' crashed onto the space-opera scene.
Hey, what's a few decades between friends, amirite?
Given that three-quarters of the current moviegoing audience was not even born 38 years ago, a person might wonder why they should care about a 'Spaceballs' sequel. Well! We. Have. Answers.
The sequel will have a director and that director is not Brooks, perhaps because Brooks is 98 years old. Plus the jokester hasn't directed a movie since 1995's 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It.' But Brooks was, indeed, the auteur behind 'The Producers,' 'Blazing Saddles' and 'Young Frankenstein,' so he might make it in Hollywood someday. Tell the folks at CAA: 'Spaceballs 2' could be the boost his resume needs.
The news so far, according to Variety, is this: Brooks will be back as Yogurt — just plain Yogurt — and Josh Gad will star. Perhaps he'll star as Outerspace Olaf, a mercenary snowman who likes warm hugs and thinks a space princess is a person worth melting for. Gad, Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez are writing the script, and Josh Greenbaum ('Barb and Starr Go to Vista Del Mar') will direct.
Please don't argue. It's a known fact that Everybody loves Bill Pullman.
The 'Spaceballs 2' team loves Bill Pullman so much that, according to Variety, in addition to inviting him to reprise his character from the original comedy, they have also cast his son Lewis Pullman in a role to be named later. Let's hope the elder Pullman's Lone Starr has eased into retirement and Pullman the Younger gets to play a younger version of the Luke Skywalker-scented hero.
Exactly! There's still room to improve!
''Spaceballs' might have been much funnier and more inventive on a much smaller budget,' The Times said in its 1987 review of the movie. 'Occasionally the expense pays off, as in the wonderful opening shot of an insanely elaborate starship that sweeps over us against inky infinity, going on and on ... and on and on! But sometimes the elaborate jokes just clang and clunk, as when Lone Starr jams the Spaceballs radar with real jam — and no peanut butter.'
That sounds like an argument for half the budget, double the jokes and a variety of Uncrustables at the craft services table.
The year 2027 is so close, yet sounds so far, far away. It also will mark the 40th anniversary of the release of the original 'Star Wars' movie, which was once known simply as 'Star Wars,' not 'Star Wars: Episode 4 — A New Hope.'
As the glorious celebrations of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Yoda, Obi-Wan and the gang ring out in Hollywood in 2027, 'Spaceballs 2' should land next to them with a resounding fart. A resounding fart joke, at least. Maybe two.
Sure, Rick Moranis will be back for 'Spaceballs 2,' per Deadline, reprising the role of Dark Helmet, the villain whose voice resonates and booms when his helmet is down and turns squeaky and annoying when the mask is raised. And Keke Palmer, who was born in 1993, will reportedly have a part as well, though no clues have been given as to who or what she'll play.
Just don't have Palmer play Jar Jar Binks' father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate, please, because Dark Helmet already spent that punch line on Lone Starr back in 1987. Jar Jar was, of course, the duck-billed breakout star, sorta, of 1999's 'Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.' Don't click that link, just take our word for it.
That said, you know there just has to be a Jar Jar Binks gag or two in 'Spaceballs 2.' Read aloud with me now: Mesa no tink so, you say? Ex-squeeze me, but yousa be wrong. Terrible tings goen happen if Jar Jar remains nothing more than the most annoying and unnecessary CGI character ever to please George Lucas. Give the Gungan some gas to go with that pidgin English and anything could happen.
In our post-#MeToo landscape, rife with 'you can't say that' sensibilities, some 'Spaceballs'-style gags might fall flat. Then again, as The Times said in its 1987 review of the original film, 'This is a multimillion-dollar extravaganza satirizing other multimillion-dollar extravaganzas — which begins to seem a bit like attacking a President by hitting him over the head with another President.'
Given that in the occasionally dystopian 2020s, hitting presidents over the head with other presidents is no big deal, the new film might make perfect sense, even if it doesn't improve one bit. Then again, will Yiddish gags play to the keffiyeh-clad youngs? Or will the jokes simply bomb?
Only 'Spaceballs 2' will tell.