VividSimon
Simply Perfect
Raymond Sierra
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
majhiggins
This short makes plainly clear that you don't need a huge budget or big stars to make brilliant humor. Star Wars has tons of clichés and plot holes that make it ripe for parody picking. Ernie Fosselius, with a shoestring budget cranked out this gem at the height of Star Wars mania. Compare it with Spaceballs. Mel Brooks' reputation got him cart blanch green lighting, a $22.7 million budget, and a cast of talented and funny stars as well as an army of the best comedy writers, including Brooks himself. Despite all that, he produced a true stinker! Spaceballs is below the sophistication level of a 12 year old boy, the jokes and gags are overly explained and overt. I'm a big fan of parodies and generally love Mel Brooks' films but that waste of my time couldn't get a single laugh from me. Perfect proof that money, talent and advertising do not equal good comedy. This short was made by a cast of amateurs with mostly 'found items' for props, for around $2000 and only takes 15 minutes to watch! It's 'off the cuff', 'don't take yourself too seriously' feel is a lot like Mystery Science Theater 3000. I laughed till I cried watching this and periodically re-watch it just for a pick me up. Find Hardware Wars on YouTube and see what real comedy is like.
preppy-3
I caught this little gem totally by accident back in 1980 or '81. I was at a revival theatre to see two old silly sci-fi movies. The theatre was packed full and (with no warning) they showed a bunch of sci-fi short spoofs (to get us in the mood). Most were somewhat amusing but THIS came on and, within seconds, the audience was in hysterics! The biggest laugh came when they showed "Princess Laia" having huge cinnamon buns instead of hair on her head. She looks at the camera, gives a grim smile and nods. That made it even funnier! You gotta see "Chewabacca" played by what looks like a Muppet! It was extremely silly and stupid...but I couldn't stop laughing. Most of the dialogue was drowned out because of all the laughter. Also if you know "Star Wars" pretty well it's even funnier--they deliberately poke fun at some of the dialogue. This REALLY works with an audience! A definite 10!
zardoz12
The latter part of the 1970's seemed to breed spoofs (many of them cheap) and "Hardware Wars" was the best, despite being 15 minutes long and having a budget of $1.98. Presented as a movie trailer, "Hardware Wars" recounts about 80% of Lucas' film using cardboard sets, the director's garage, and every concievable household appliance as ray guns, spaceships, light sabres, the nameless "Death Star" waffle iron, even the Imperial stormtroopers and sand people! It's obvious that this film influenced the set design of "Mystery Science Theater 3000", down to the visible wires holding up the spaceships. A great short, and one that needs to be seen by every film student.
underpants_alert
Fourteen of the funniest minutes on celluloid. This short parody is at least as much a part of the Star Wars saga as Phantom Menace, and far more entertaining, if you ask me. Hardware Wars was the first in a long line of SW spoofs which form their own subgenre these days. I hate to describe it too much-it's so short that the premise is just about the whole thing. Suffice it to say that many of the most popular and familiar aspects of Star Wars have fun poked at them. Household appliances such as toasters and vacuum cleaners portray spaceships and robots, the Princess Anne-Droid character wears actual bread rolls on her head instead of the famous coils of braided hair, and Fluke Starbucker is even more of a dork than his original, if that's possible. Ernie Fosselius is one crazy son-of-a-buck-he's also the source of Porklips Now, the Apocalypse Now spoof.
