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#3 - Spaceballs (1987)

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. When you have a franchise that shakes the world to its core, you’re going to have a few people that want to jump on the bandwagon. If a film in space does really well, you’re going to see other studios start making more movies that are set among the stars. Or, you’re going to have a movie come out with characters and a plot that are practically a mirror image. They may not necessarily be stealing, either. There’s a good chance they are making fun of you. The “mock-movie” is nothing new and usually they are horrible, but sometimes there’s a knock-off that just tries for a few laughs but ends up becoming a classic.

The legendary Mel Brooks directs and stars in Spaceballs, leading a cast of fellow 80’s legends through the galaxy on a quest to knock Star Wars off their high horse. Lone Star (Bill Pullman/Han Solo) and his friend Barf (John Candy/Chewbacca) are trying to help Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga/Princess Leia) save her planet from Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis/Darth Vader) by using the Schwartz (aka the Force), which they learn from Yogurt (Brooks/Yoda) after fleeing from the clutches of Pizza the Hut (Jaba). The only thing missing is a Luke Skywalker.

What makes Spaceballs rise above the mock-competition is a combination of both childish humor and original adult sci-fi sensibilities. Characters hold their lightsabers like giant male appendages in several scenes, while in another Dark Helmet tries hunting for the heroes by watching a future copy of Spaceballs (the movie we are watching). This leads to a lengthy discussion of what’s happening “right now” if the movie was already made, taking us from humor to sci-fi and back to humor with ease. The cherry on top of this treat is Dot Matrix, voiced by Joan Rivers. Dot is Spaceballs’ version of C-3PO, but she acts less like a cyborg intended for human relations and is more of a mechanical chastity belt for Vespa. Though most movies that try to mock others are laughing at the source material, Spaceballs is the rare comedy that tried to laugh with the legend it borrowed from and became an intergalactic classic of its own.

#4 - Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

When looking for films to recommend, I like to find movies some of the cast has worked in before. Since Mark Hamill is the last of the main cast that can appear in any future sequels (Han Solo died in Force Awakens and Carrie Fisher died in real life) and since Luke Skywalker wasn’t really in the last movie, he seemed like the obvious choice. I was going to recommend some of his animated voice work (probably a Batman cartoon where he voices the Joker) but then I remembered he was in the stoner comedy Jay and Silent Bob. In the movie, the potheads claim their comic idea was stolen and turned into a movie. The funny thing is, the comic is a lot like Spaceballs in that it is very similar to parts of Star Wars. We follow the pair to Hollywood where they end up on the film’s set, only to learn that the person playing the actor that is starring as the villain is Mark Hamill. Though it was a master stroke of casting, it’s hard to laugh when you realize how far Hamill has fallen since his glory days filming the original Star Wars. Let’s hope Last Jedi makes Hamill the mega-celebrity he was always intended to be.

#5 - Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (2016)

Two years ago, The Force Awakens shocked the world when Han Solo died on the big screen. One year ago, just after the release of Rogue One, Carrie Fisher passed away. The real tragedy here is that the very next day her mother, the iconic Debbie Reynolds, also departed this world. The fake tragedy here is that we will now never get the version of Star Wars: Episode 9 that we were intended to get. That movie now has to tackle the problem of how to continue the story without one of the main characters that (presumably) survives Episode 8. I mean, you can’t kill Solo in Episode 7 and then Leia in Episode 8; that’s just a cheap attempt at consistent heartache. There are other ways to stir up emotions and drama. One of those ways is to watch a documentary about the mother/daughter duo that was filmed before their passing. It shows the behind-the-scenes drama of a famous Hollywood family that struggled through the bad and united just in time before they would leave this life together. It’s the incredibly sad story of two funny, talented women that changed the industry forever. Though they now live in a heaven far, far away, we are only a few days from getting to honor the Princess of Sci-Fi one last time. Hamill really is the Last Jedi standing now. May the Force be with him.

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