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Movies Media It's funny.  Laugh. Sci-Fi

Mel Brooks Says 'Spaceballs' Sequel In The Works 427

BlueDino writes "Several news sites are reporting that Mel Brooks will release a sequel to Spaceballs. As far as a release date, Brooks says, 'Best case scenario: a week before the new Star Wars opens. Worst Case Scenario: a year after the new star wars opens.'"
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Mel Brooks Says 'Spaceballs' Sequel In The Works

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  • by xTK-421x ( 531992 ) * on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:04AM (#10383482) Homepage
    This shouldn't be news to anyone, they already told us it was coming.

    LONE STARR: Thanks. Well, we'd better get going. I wonder, we will we ever see each other again.

    YOGURT: Who knows. God willing we'll all meet again in Spaceballs II: The Search for More Money.
  • Damn (Score:2, Funny)

    by Bai jie ( 653604 )
    There goes the neighborhood.
  • Cause by God!! My schwartz is bigger than yours..
  • sooo, ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:05AM (#10383494)
    we will have a pair of Spaceballs now?...
  • Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:05AM (#10383497)
    Lonestar shoots first!
  • goody (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kippy ( 416183 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:05AM (#10383508)
    Maybe this will be as good as Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Oh wait, that sucked.

    Mel's great but he jumped the shark after Young Frankenstein, Blazing Sadles and the Producers.
    • Re:goody (Score:2, Informative)

      by plover ( 150551 ) *
      I think Robin Hood: Men In Tights was the shark-jump. All three of the earlier movies you mentioned were brilliant.

      imdb doesn't show the upcoming Spaceballs II in Mr. Brooks' production bio, [imdb.com] but it does show an announcement that "The Producers (2005)" is currently in production, and he's bringing in the cast from the Broadway production to do it. That was by far the funniest play I have ever seen in my life -- I hope he can pull it off again.

    • Re:goody (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wireless Joe ( 604314 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:36AM (#10383916) Homepage
      Mel's great but he jumped the shark after Young Frankenstein, Blazing Sadles and the Producers.

      That's quite a long jump, 1974 (Fankenstein) to 2001 (Producers).

      Isn't it more fair to say that he's had his hits and misses over his 65+ year career?
    • Re:goody (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:44AM (#10384012)
      I'm not sure if you realize this, but Mel Brooks recently turned his old Producers movie into the most financially successful (and one of the funniest) Broadway shows ever. I paid an ungodly sum for two Orchestra seats, not once but twice, during the recent "revival" of the Nathan Lane/Matthew Broadrick casting, once to bring my mother and once a lady friend.


      Anyway, the point is that while much of his work in the 90s was pure crap, his career can now officially be considered back off life support.

    • Re:goody (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @01:23PM (#10385303) Homepage
      ' Maybe this will be as good as Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Oh wait, that sucked."

      Newsflash buddy, there's a LOT of people out there who loved Men in Tights.

      Yet another ignorant person who assumes that their opinion is fact...

  • by simetra ( 155655 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:05AM (#10383509) Homepage Journal
    Really, that's begging to be made.


  • Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by slavemowgli ( 585321 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:06AM (#10383512) Homepage
    Wow, that certainly is one movie I'll be looking forward to. Let's just hope it'll be able to live up to the quality and humour of first Spaceballs movie instead of ending up as yet another crappy and unfunny sequel; given Mel Brooks' mixed movie history (which included some really funny stuff, but also some rather crappy failed attempts) I'm not sure just what to expect, but I do hope for the best.
    • Re:Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:34AM (#10383892)
      Brooks' stuff is uneven, but some of it is great.

      Remember that a great deal of his directoral work is influenced heavily by 30s and 40s movie direction techniques, with long, drawn out pauses, long establishing shots, and great care to extract maximum emotional impact from the viewer. It relies more on in-jokes, subtle ethnic humor, and wild-takes.

      Compare to today's comedies, which are influenced by the dramatically shorter attention span created by TV, Video games, and the intrnet. They rely more on extremely visual humor rather than situational humor and cut establishment to the bare minimum. Satires in particular rely on deadpan 'straight man' jokes, at a pace that seems rapid-fire in comparison to earlier works.

      I'm not saying one format is better. They're just different formats. Don't group Brooks with the Farelli Brothers or Mike Meyers any more than you'd group Peter Jackson with Alfred Hitchcock.

      I submit that 'Men in Tights' would have been an *incredible* film if only it had been edited differently.
      • Krusty retires (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @02:22PM (#10385977)
        I dont think the shift in comedy has anything to do with "attention spans," which is at best a ham-fisted word used as a generic complaint about modern times.

        I think the best commentary on modern humor I've seen was the Simpsons episode in which Krusty retires. Krusty's old-school brand of Brooks-like comedy simply grew old and hackneyed. The comedians in this episode were of the typical genx-stock irreverant kind, but also the kind who would look down upon the old Brooks/Don Rickles ethnic-type jokes.

        This commentary is even more interesting as its a Simpsons episode, a show which pretty much defines post-modern humor. Things simply grow old and change. I don't see how the attention span complaint applies here. Its not like Don Rickles was ever known for his long drawn out monologues or anything and a lot of Brooks' gags and movies are pretty far from sophistication. If anything Brroks is a versatile performer/writer/director who can do anything from vaudville-esque comedy to today's postmodern stuff. Although his attempts at the latter do seem to suffer and his best work tends to lean on the "silly, simple gags" side.
  • Haha finally! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheKubrix ( 585297 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:06AM (#10383517) Homepage
    I remember as a kid when that movie came out there was all these rumors (hey were little kids!) that they were coming out with Spaceballs 3: The search for Spaceballs 2. Anyone else hear that?
  • by plover ( 150551 ) * on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:06AM (#10383521) Homepage Journal
    Please let there be lots of killing of the ewok things... please o please... and a JarJar. He's gotta kill a lot of JarJars!!

    Could be the Greatest Movie Ever!

  • by BRock97 ( 17460 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:06AM (#10383525) Homepage
    My God, they've gone to plaid!
  • by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:07AM (#10383531) Homepage
    And Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
  • Jon Candy is dead... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JeeNam ( 758886 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:07AM (#10383537)
    ...so who will play Barf?
  • Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by WPIDalamar ( 122110 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:09AM (#10383564) Homepage
    I thought episodes 1 & 2 were already parodys of the star wars universe.
  • by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:10AM (#10383567)
    I'm still waiting to SEE!!!...Jews in space!
  • by ticklemeozmo ( 595926 ) <justin...j...novack@@@acm...org> on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:11AM (#10383576) Homepage Journal
    Is they watch a scene from the original Spaceballs (from Mr. Rental, of course) and during the scene where Vespa picks up the gun, she shoots firsT. ;)
  • COMB THE DESERT!

    With the release of the SE and the three new prequels, movies like Battlefield Earth, it won't be hard to find GREAT material for this movie.
  • by raider_red ( 156642 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:13AM (#10383604) Journal
    He could make a prequel that really sucks, but in a funny way.
  • by unlinear ( 235476 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:14AM (#10383609)
    If Brooks really wants to do a good satire, he'll open SpaceBalls II with a flashback to the Yogurt scene 'SpaceBalls II' and then re-dub the dialogue to have a different title for SpaceBalls. Preferably by one of those bad-asian-flick re-dub voice actors, clearly re-dubbed and badly synched.

    It'd be the perfect jab at Lucas's revisional approach to Star Wars...
  • Great Idea (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MandoSKippy ( 708601 )
    The Star wars prequels have created so much stuff to parady it's unbelievable. I think they shoudl scrap the idea of a sequel and do a prequel. Adding young barf, lonestars father. (Could be darth helmet) So much story possibilty here. I have been telling co-workers for a while that we have needed a sequel/prequel to spaceballs. I'm wearing plaid to the theater!!!
    • by maw ( 25860 )
      Adding young barf, lonestars father. (Could be darth helmet)

      No no no no no no. It should be his father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.

  • Shit... (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheWickedKingJeremy ( 578077 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:16AM (#10383632) Homepage
    ... there goes the planet.
  • or prequels, as the case may be, rarely live up to their predecessors even remotely. Spaceballs is to space hilarity as Star Wars is to space adventure. And both were sat on for ~20 years before their creator decided to continue. In Mel Brooks case, we've seen what he's released since the peak of Spaceballs, and let's just say that only makes things look worse -- "Dracula Dead and Loving It", anyone?

    Oh well. The nice thing about Mel Brooks is that even if it turns out to be a good movie I won't miss mu
  • Maybe he's joking? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Monofilament ( 512421 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:16AM (#10383634) Homepage Journal
    Well i know i've read interviews with Brooks where he has said, pretty plainly, that he doesn't believe in sequals. This mounted with the fact that he jokingly refers to sequals in his movie. I'd really think that this may be some sort of offhand comment he was making just to stir things up. He does to comedy afterall!!!

    Though on the other hand, if he made a sequal to anything it'd might as well be Spaceballs, with all the deal with the Star Wars Pre-quals.

    Who knows.. he could be serious
  • ...if the Druids will still be around...

    Princess Vespa : I am Princess Vespa, daughter of Roland, King of the Druids.
    Lone Starr : Oh great. That's all we needed. A Druish princess.
    Barf : Funny, she doesn't look Druish.

    /misses John Candy

  • Surely a prequel would be more appropriate?
  • Bring Closure (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Comatose51 ( 687974 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:17AM (#10383644) Homepage
    If this movie is as good as the original, then all those horrible Star Wars prequels would not have been made in vain. They will at least be source material for another new classic. It will bring some measure of closure to my violated childhood memories. I hope Mel Brooks will throw a bone out to Star Wars fans and have a Jar-Jar + Ewoks massacre scene so we can at least pretend it really happened. J/K.
  • Richard Branson and his cool rocket ship?

    Dark Helmet getting his ass kicked on the Planet Of The Apes?

    President Scroob gets thrown out of office and replaced by a big headed guy from Massachusetts?

  • by Anubis333 ( 103791 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:18AM (#10383666) Homepage
    Amazon [amazon.com] has a new remastered Spaceballs DVD soon to be released. Aparently it has a lot of new scenes, here's a blurb from Mel Brooks:

    "When we created the original SpaceBalls, we really didn't have enough money or the ability to fulfill my full artistic vision, but thanks to the dawn of computer graphics, the remastered SpaceBalls I DVD will finally allow the public to see my full, unhindered, artistic vision."

    New features include:
    - A CG sidekick Jin Dar Jinx, who beguiles audiences with his slapstick 'off-the-hook' hijinx!
    - A 2 hour space battle.
    - Set extensions created with 3D computer graphics modeled after miniature sets, which were used as matte backdrops in the original film!
    - Computer Generated spacecraft copies of original model spacecraft, now allowing for motion blur!
    - New, more realistic, contemporary, engine sounds for galatic space ships.
  • 'Best case scenario: a week before the new Star Wars opens. Worst Case Scenario: a year after the new star wars opens.'

    in other words, 'as soon as we can get the big star [imdb.com] to sign the contract'
  • I thought the first Spaceballs pretty much sucked (tho there were a few good gags mixed among the obvious and/or ancient and/or unfunny ones). And I liked the first (well, fourth, I guess) Star Wars, and SW was relatively unpretentious. So, my first reaction to this is a groan.

    However...
    A big chunk of the problem was that Spaceballs came out nearly a decade after the (good) flick it was lampooning. But this one'll follow three big, sucking, black holes of craptacular filmmaking - and at worst, be only

  • by grunt107 ( 739510 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:20AM (#10383697)
    Joan Rivers - who now only needs gold paint to resemble the original.
  • CGI Madness (Score:5, Funny)

    by Slendro ( 105066 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:22AM (#10383712)
    I hope that Brooks pokes a little fun at Lucas
    by showing a scene from the first Spaceballs with
    tons of excessive CGI characters inserted...
  • by DLWormwood ( 154934 ) <wormwood@meCOMMA.com minus punct> on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:24AM (#10383739) Homepage
    Best case scenario: a week before the new Star Wars opens

    Even assuming that Brooks can do the film low budget to get it green-lighted quickly, is it even possible to produced a mass-marketable motion picture in just 8 months? Even indie flukes like Blair Witch took time to gain momentum during production, and there's still the editing, distribution and merchandising infrastructure that must be deployed. That is where the real money from the movie is made, you know.

    I just don't see this happening, especially since the material being parodied doesn't lend itself to a low budget. You just have to have enough SFX to make it look like a sci-fi flick, after all...

    That said, I would like to see the follow-up to the "instant cassette" gag; that one got dated real quick, didn't it?

  • by YankeeInExile ( 577704 ) * on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:25AM (#10383757) Homepage Journal

    Recently, I came across Spaceballs on TV here, with subtitles, and the subtitling sometimes takes liberty with the script - for example to translate idiomatically.

    When it came to the scene where they went to get the video of the movie to see what happened later, the subtitles diverged FAR from the original dialog in a much funnier way. Instead of "home video" the source of the film was....
    Pirates.
    Pirates?
    Yes, Pirates. Piracy has become so rampant, that you can now get a copy of the movie before it is even finished!

    Which is especially funny here, because often you can get pirated VCDs or VHS copies of movies before they're even released locally. The quality is horrendous, and the subtitling is

    WRTN LK PPL TALK IN CHAT ROOMS
    .

    Just for a price-check: A VHS copy of a film is about a dollar eighty, and a VCD is two dollars fifty. DVDs are sometimes burned, and they sell for four or five bucks. Bit-copies of commercial DVDs sell for as much as ten bucks.

  • Good news... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hencethus ( 750090 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:26AM (#10383774)
    ...but I'm still waiting for Men in Tights on DVD!
  • by ReadbackMonkey ( 92198 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:36AM (#10383908)
    Is if it makes more money than the Star Wars movie released around the same time.. funny because of the title, and well, because the new movies suck and I hope someone gets punished for the sucking.
  • by theendlessnow ( 516149 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:37AM (#10383932)
    It's just a re-release with some updated cgi that helps ease the relationship between it and Blazing Saddles. The emperor is added and will be played by Harvey Korman as Hedley Lamarr.

    There are some other changes that will happen when B.S. is re-released as well involving the saloon scene which will have some cgi work as well to make it more catina-like.

  • by MoeMoe ( 659154 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:50AM (#10384129)
    Dark Helmet: "How many assholes do we have on this ship anyhow?"

    Crew: "YO!"

    Dark Helmet: "I knew it! I'm surrounded by assholes... Keep firing assholes!"



    That part always made me laugh... I think they're gonna stick with what made the first movie funny and play off of how badly the new Star Wars movies turned out (IMHO ofcourse). That would explain why we haven't seen a sequel yet, Mel was just waiting to play off of George Lucas again... Well played, Mel.
  • by hollismb ( 817357 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:50AM (#10384133) Homepage
    Of course, it has to be a prequel, about how Rick Moranis becomes Darth Helmet, possibly revealing more backstory about his father's sister's uncle's brother's cousin's roomate.
  • by Odd John ( 806803 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @11:56AM (#10384213)
    Mel Brooks was brilliant when he was teamed up with Gene Wilder. That's why Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein were wonderful.

    Mel Brooks without Gene Wilder is mediocre at best.
  • by CrazyTalk ( 662055 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @12:07PM (#10384367)
    It sucks as much as his last several movies. Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for the man and like so many others loved his early stuff - but nothing lately (Witness "Men in Tights") has been nearly as good.
  • by Rooked_One ( 591287 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @12:20PM (#10384544) Journal
    i'll be happy... Also, It would be a shame if pizza the hut didn't get .... excrimented by himself - because after all, he did eat himself to death.
  • Hells Ya (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @01:28PM (#10385363)
    Fuck that soap opera in space Star Wars.

    But who will play Barf now that Candy is dearly departed? :'(

    may the yogurt be with you
  • by MilenCent ( 219397 ) <johnwh@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Wednesday September 29, 2004 @04:24PM (#10387432) Homepage
    My opinion is that Spaceballs is the dividing line in Brooks' output. Most of the stuff before it ranges from great to awesomely brilliant (with the highlights being Young Frankenstein and the movie version of The Producers), most of the stuff after is rather lame.

    - The good ones -

    The Producers: We still watch this one. We even own the soundtrack from the Broadway show and have obsessively read through the book of the show. One of the funniest movies ever made, I'd put it up there with Duck Soup.

    Young Frankenstein: Almost as great, but in a very different way. It goes back and forth between working as a Frankenstein movie and being a brilliant parody of them.

    Blazing Saddles: This is the one that hit it big, and the production values are very high. I actually think the humor is a little too random in places, the bugs bunny "telegram" scene sticks out in my mind, and the movie almost melts down at the end, but all in all I still like it.

    Silent Movie: I like this one a lot, but it's not seen much these days. Worth seeing for Marty Feldman, Young Frankenstein's Igor, in his only other Brooks-directed role.

    Other earlier movies include High Anxiety (Hitchcock parody), To Be Or Not To Be (which I've never even seen in a video store) and The Twelve Chairs (which I know nothing about).

    - So-so movies -

    Spaceballs:
    Some people I know who used to really like this one, including myself, have changed opinions recently. It certainly has some great moments, but sometimes it seems taken with its own cleverness. The "Mega Maid" bit doesn't really work for me, John Candy seems a little too taken with his own lines ("Funny, she doesn't look Druish"), and while Rick Moranis is perfectly cast as Dark Helmut, the leading man and lady (whose names I can't even remember) are really bland. This is the beginning of that phase in Brook's career where he started attracting big-name stars, and his films tend to suffer for it. I'd pay *money* (well, ticket-money, not movie production-money) to see another Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder collaboration, but Mel's tone on the Young Frankenstein DVD commentary makes it sound like that's unlikely.

    - Robin Hood: Men in Tights -
    I really disliked this one, though the staff-fighting scene on the bridge is very clever there isn't a lot I enjoyed.

    - Dracula: Dead and Loving It -
    Haven't seen it, and there is probably no force on earth that could make me.

    Somewhere in there is Life Stinks, which I want to see but can't seem to find.

    What have I missed?

"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_

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