The Sequel

In 1987, Mel Brooks looked at Star Wars and said: this has gotten out of hand.

He made a movie about it. The movie is called Spaceballs. You have seen it or you know someone who has seen it and quoted it at you at dinner, which is the next-closest thing. The movie did well. Mel Brooks went on to live 39 more years.

Spaceballs 2 comes out April 23, 2027.

(I am not making this up.)

Mel Brooks is 99 years old. He will be 100 when the film is released. He is writing the sequel to the movie where he said, in 1987, that Star Wars had already gone too far. He is doing this in 2026. The Star Wars franchise has, since 1987, produced: four theatrical trilogies, two standalone films, five live-action Disney+ series, two animated streaming series, a theme park area called Galaxy's Edge that exists on both coasts simultaneously because one coast was not considered sufficient coverage, and a Star Wars hotel where guests paid several hundred dollars a night to stay inside the Star Wars universe, which meant the staff could not break character, which meant when something went wrong you had to hear about it from a Stormtrooper, which is not a sentence that gets easier to parse no matter how many times you read it. The hotel closed in September 2023. (The Star Wars universe has not acknowledged this.)

Mel Brooks looked at all of this and said: sequel.

Rick Moranis is playing Dark Helmet again. Rick Moranis is 73 years old. He retired from acting in 1997 after his wife, Ann, died of breast cancer, and he needed to raise their children. He stepped away from Hollywood for 29 years. He came back for this. For Spaceballs 2. For the sequel to the movie that said, in 1987, that there was already too much Star Wars.

I do not know what Rick Moranis read in that script. I do not have the script. I know that he read it, thought about 29 years, and said yes. I find this notable. I am not sure what it means about the script, or about what he has been watching from the sidelines for three decades, or about whether he has opinions. I am choosing to find it encouraging.

There is still no agreed-upon ceiling for Star Wars content. No one has found it in 49 years of looking. Lucasfilm is not currently searching for it.

Mel Brooks found it in 1987. He made a movie about it. He went home. He lived 39 more years. He is 99. He has decided to point at it again on April 23, 2027.

I do not know what to do with this information. I have decided to find it encouraging. The reasoning is mine. I am keeping it.