For decades, film collectors have accumulated movies from all genres to be able to watch their favorite movies over and over again, gain knowledge, and share the movies they love with family and friends, among other reasons. Movie buff and avid collector Corey Atherton has been collecting movies for almost 30 years. His collection has grown close to 100 films, many of which are in his favorite genre: horror. His initial interest in collecting movies stemmed from his passion for more obscure films but soon expanded to impulse buying inexpensive films as well as purchasing the movies he liked. Preferring movies to television, he would watch at least one movie a day at the peak of his collecting when he was about 18 years old. Now, he only watches about two a week because of the limited amount of time he has. His all-time favorite movie is Spaceballs, which he states is “the greatest movie of all time.” Since he raved so much about it, we decided to review it ourselves.

And wow, did he pick a great one. Spaceballs is such a fun movie to watch, filled with big laughs and tons of smaller ones. It’s a science-fiction comedy that satirized George Lucas’s generation-defining Star Wars. With characters like Dark Helmet (played wonderfully by Rick Moranis), Pizza the Hut (who is utterly gross to look at), and Lone Starr, the film’s hero leading the way, it’s a wild ride from start to finish. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, here’s a short synopsis of the film from IMDb.com: “A star-pilot for hire (Lone Starr) and his trusty sidekick (Barf) must come to the rescue of a princess (Princess Vespa) and save Planet Druidia from the clutches of the evil Spaceballs (led by Dark Helmet).” Since the film is a satire of Star Wars, and just does an excellent job, I recommend it to any Star Wars fans looking for a good laugh. Even if you haven’t seen Star Wars, you’ll still have fun watching it since it also pokes fun at films like Star Trek, Alien, The Wizard of Oz, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the Planet of the Apes. 

Mel Brooks co-wrote, produced, directed, and even starred in Spaceballs. Mel Brooks is, in my opinion, the king of satire and parody. Britannica.com describes him as an “American film and television director, producer, writer, and actor whose motion pictures elevated outrageousness and vulgarity to high comic art.” Brooks is so well respected and did such a great job with Spaceballs that George Lucas, the creator and mastermind of Star Wars, loved the film. George Lucas actually got a chance to read Mel Brooks’ screenplay before production began. He enjoyed it so much that he had his special effects company, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), do all of the space effects and post-production of the film. After the movie’s premiere, Lucas even wrote Brooks a letter saying he thought he would bust something from laughing so hard. He also wrote that had Brooks decided not to parody the film, it would have succeeded tremendously on its own as an action-adventure film. Mel Brooks also revealed that before the pre-production process even began, he obtained George Lucas’s full approval to parody all things Star Wars-related. Lucas agreed on one condition– that absolutely no merchandise of any kind was produced from the movie. This explains why Yogurt and the Dinks (aka Yoda and the Jawas) specialize in all things merchandising! Merchandising! Merchandising!

I think it’s safe to say that Mr. Atherton really knows his stuff. After all, he’s been collecting films for nearly 30 years and knows more about them than I could ever hope to. I have a lot of respect for movie collectors and collectors in general. It takes a tremendous amount of dedication to commit to something like that and constantly build on it. That’s why I can’t argue when he says that Spaceballs is “the greatest movie of all time.”