Spaceballs (1987)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1987
Running Time	92:14
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Mel Brooks
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Bill Pullman Daphne Zuniga John Candy Rick Moranis Mel Brooks
Case	?
RPI	$31.95	Music	John Morris

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Dutch Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English German French Italian Spanish Dutch Swedish Finnish Norwegian Danish Portuguese Polish Greek Turkish Hungarian Hebrew	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, Clips of the characters

    The beautiful Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) is about to marry a prince that she has no interest in, and thus escapes in her spaceship with her robotic friend Dot Matrix (voiced by Joan Rivers). The evil Spaceballs, led by President Skroob (Mel Brooks) and Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) attempt to capture the Princess, but Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his half-man half-dog companion Barf (John Candy) come to her rescue. They escape the clutches of the Spaceballs, but need to find their way back to her home planet of Druidia. During their adventure, they meet the old and wise Yogurt (also played by Mel Brooks), and Lone Starr learns the way of the Schwartz and who he really is.

    As I mentioned earlier, there are some quite funny scenes and lines in the movie. The humour is still biting and cynical, but in some cases is downright stupid. Perhaps I have out-grown most of this kind of humour (eg. blasting someone in the groin using the Shwartz just isn't as funny now as it was when I was in primary school). But some of the one-liners are classics, and make you smile or laugh out loud (eg. the surrounded by a*******s sequence is very funny indeed!).

    For fans of the movie, this DVD will be a vast improvement over worn VHS copies. There probably won't be another release for a while, and this is the best the movie has ever looked or sounded, so go buy it if you're an old fan of the movie, or a fan of Mel Brooks' type of humour.

Video

    The movie is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which is the original theatrical ratio. Unfortunately, we are not provided with a 16x9 enhanced transfer, which would have made this DVD look much better on widescreen TVs.

    Sharpness level are surprisingly good throughout the movie, with most scenes looking fairly sharp and defined. However, there were a number of scenes that seemed a little blurry and soft, with actors in the scenes seeming to be out of focus, although this may not be an issue with the transfer itself. Black levels are also not too bad, with the many scenes set against the black of space being solid, although greys do appear on some other occasions. Shadow detail is lacking, but for a movie this age we probably can't expect too much in that detail. Grain was also surprisingly rare, although it did pop up on a small number of occasions during the scenes in the desert, such as at 41:33 where grain is visible against the sky and sand.

    Colour is good throughout the movie. For the most part, the colour scheme is the stock standard for sci-fi films, with the usual whites, greys, and blacks. However, when colour is shown, it is fairly clear and vibrant, such as the opening scenes on Druidia. Skin tones are also natural and never over-saturated.

    For a film this age there are not all that many film artefacts to mention, but those that do appear stick out quite a bit. For example, there were a couple of instances where a fairly large splotch would appear for a frame, such as that seen at 23:38 and 39:12. These appear to be flaws in the actual film negative and resemble coffee stains. Also, the occasional black or white fleck appears intermittently throughout the movie. Edge enhancement is for the most part absent, with the only obvious instance occurring around the Jawa type characters in the desert. Aliasing did pop up distractingly a few times though, against the usual culprits such as car grilles. The most annoying occurrence is at 25:03 against the grilles of Princess Vespa's spaceship. They shimmer very distractingly, as do a number of pans across the star field.

    A very large number of subtitles are provided on the DVD. The English subtitles are fairly accurate.

    This is an RSDL-formatted disc, with an imperceptible layer change (i.e. I could not detect it even though I went back through and played most of the movie over to try and find it).

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    An English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kb/s) soundtrack is provided, along with French, Dutch, and Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded (192Kb/s) tracks. I listened to the English track, and only sampled the others to confirm surround encoding.

    The remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 track provides clear dialogue at all times with no audio synchronisation problems. Good stereo separation is also present, given a nice open front soundstage. A good example occurs at 16:30 with the laser fire around the Princess' spaceship.

    The music score by John Morris is quite good, with a nice orchestral feel with a tinge of humour. The musical cues sometimes parody other sci-fi movies such as Star Wars quite well, with cues being instantly recognisable.

    For the most part, the surrounds are not used all that much during the movie, but do come alive on a few occasions. These are to support the musical score and music tracks (a good example is at 9:28), and to give some nice directionality to the spaceship fly-bys (eg. 19:17).

    The subwoofer is not called into action all that much, but supports the music and explosions well at those times that it is called into play.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Only the Theatrical Trailer is provided as an extra. It is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and is of poor quality. There are many film artefacts and the colour seems a little dull and pale. It would have been nice to have a few more extras, such as a director's commentary, but sadly these are not present.

• Audio commentary by Mel Brooks
• Behind-the-scenes featurette
• Production notes booklet

    The Region 1 release misses out on:

• RSDL formatting

    If you are into listening to director's commentaries, then I would recommend the Region 1 version. For those that do not, I would recommend the Region 4 version based on RSDL formatting and PAL resolution. It would have been nice if the audio commentary was included for Region 4.

    A very funny movie at times, Spaceballs parodies other sci-fi movies well. The humour is at times biting, cynical, and hilarious but is also at times rather stupid. I enjoyed it for the nostalgia factor more than anything. It should be a must for fans wanting to update their old VHS copies.

    The video quality is satisfactory, although the lack of 16x9 enhancement is disappointing.

    The audio quality is satisfactory, and is a decent remix of the original soundtrack.

    The extras are nothing to write home about. The exclusion of the audio commentary is another disappointment.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall