Spaceballs

Spaceballs (1987)

31 corrected entries

(11 votes)

Corrected entry: When the ship is going to self-destruct, the P.A. says it will blow up in 3 minutes, but it takes longer than that.

Correction: This not necessarily a mistake, the countdown also goes from 8 to 6 (during the final ten seconds), when the characters ask "6, what happened to 7"? and the computer replies "just kidding" which then adds several seconds to the countdown.

Correction: No he doesn't. It may just be on my DVD, but he lets out something that almost certainly is not a Wilhelm scream.

Corrected entry: Right after the soldiers in their underwear say, "Hey, those are the guys that stole our uniforms," the shot switches back to Lone Starr and other characters. Look closely at Princess Vespa. Her hair has completely changed, and it looks like she's wearing a very bad wig.

Correction: That's because it isn't her, it's her stunt double. This is a lead-up to the "You've captured their stunt doubles!" joke.

Corrected entry: When Lone Starr and Barf rescue Vespa and Dot early in the film, Barf descends down a ladder to the roof of the Mercedes. The door opens up, he introduces himself, etc. and then he, Vespa, and Dot climb up the ladder with Vespa's luggage. This entire scene is completely impossible because both Vespa (human) and Barf (half dog, half human) would not be able to survive in outer space without an astronaut-type suit. The average temperature in outer space is approximately -455 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, space is a near vaccuum, so there would be no air to breathe. Thus, Barf would've never been able to make it out of the Winnebago to rescue Vespa and Dot alive.

Brittle Fingers

Correction: In this parody of the Star Wars films it is logical to assume that Lone Starr's Winnebago has shields that it can extend around Vespa's ship. Force fields are used extensively in the Star Wars saga to maintain an oxygen atmosphere in areas that are open to space.

BocaDavie

Correction: This is a slapstick comedy movie, and Barf casually entering the vacuum of space without a suit is the filmmakers giving the middle finger to reality for the purpose of a joke.

Phaneron

Correction: He's not doubling over in laughter-all of the troopers are covering their crotch out of fear of what Dark Helmet might do to them. When the door crashes down, many of them grip their crotches tighter since Helmet has been embarrassed again.

wolfchild

Corrected entry: When Dark Helmet is talking about coffee and radar, one of the men working on the ship grabs himself before everyone else.

Correction: That particular crew member had his nuts crushed by dark helmet prior to this, knows how much it hurt and was extra worried about it. It's intentional.

Brandovibe

Corrected entry: In the beginning of the movie, when Princess Vespa runs away from her wedding, she gets into a white vehicle. The next shot of the vehicle it is pink, then the next shot it is white again.

Correction: The vehicle is never pink. It's always the same white vehicle. Maybe the light and shadows makes it look pink to you, but it's white.

Bishop73

It's never pink, but it isn't the light and shadows. It's the blue screen effect.

LorgSkyegon

Corrected entry: When Lone Starr drops the blow drier on the desert, the plug and some of the cord stays in the suitcase. But when it shows it on the ground later, the whole cord and the plug are on the ground right next to it.

Correction: The second shot of the drier comes after a cut, where the characters have picked up the luggage again and walked for ten meters. When they did this, which is not shown on camera, they freed the cord from the suitcase.

Twotall

Corrected entry: When Dark Helmet is threatening to reverse Princess Vespa's nose job, he introduces the plastic surgeon as "Dr. Phillip Schlotkin." However, when he holds up the "before" picture of Princess Vespa, it says the doctor's name is "Dr. Irving Schlotkin."

jesse2

Correction: These are two different Doctors. Irving Schlotkin is the doctor who performed the first surgery. Phillip Schlotkin is reversing the surgery.

Corrected entry: When President Scroob is beamed to the next room, his head is on backwards. When he pulls away the back of his coat and says, "Why didn't somebody tell me my ass was so big?", his hands are angled like they are backwards as well. His palms are pointing towards his back. They should be facing the other way, as well as his thumbs being reversed.

Correction: The crew remarks that his head is on backwards. It doesn't mean his entire torso can't also be backwards.

Phaneron

To be fair, they even admit this was a mistake on the Blu-Ray edition of the film. (There's a special feature that points out various flubs.) It was really only meant to only be his head that was reversed.

TedStixon

Well, I think you could argue that it may have been a mistake as far as the filmmakers' intent was concerned, but it doesn't necessarily translate to mistake with respect to the scene itself. Technically, Skroob's head was on backwards. Nothing any of the characters said contradicted that.

Phaneron

Corrected entry: When Lonestar and Helmet are fighting near the end, Helmet takes Lonestar's ring. In one scene after this he is standing near the self destruct button. The camera operator is visible in the glass of the button. It is clear enough you can see that he is wearing a "Spaceballs" shirt.

manthabeat

Correction: Most likely intentional since we see the crew during the fight.

Corrected entry: Some six minutes before the end, Dark Helmet accidentally hits one of the crew members with his lightsaber. Viewing the accidental blow in slow motion, you can see that the crew member is injured before he's struck by the lightsaber.

Correction: If you had to use slow-mo to see it, it's not a mistake, according to the rules of the site.

Corrected entry: When the cast member is struck by the lightsaber he falls to the ground and is left there. Later when they are fighting he is gone.

Correction: The other crew members could have moved him to see if they could help him and give him medical treatment.

Corrected entry: At the speed at which Vespa's car is being pulled into Spaceball-1 by the tractor beam, they would have already been captured before Lone Starr and Barf could have gotten to them.

jbrbbt

Correction: This is kind of a joke. We even see a similar occurrence later in the movie when the heroes (or their stunt doubles) dive through a slowly closing door which then conveniently closes rapidly after they go through.

Phaneron

Correction: It only flies up a bit, not the whole way, but on the downstroke you can see it going back down.

Corrected entry: After Spaceball1 takes the air from Druidia, King Roland falls on his desk. Later, when the air is back, he is on a different part of the desk.

Correction: When he collapsed from lack of oxygen, Roland did not necessarily pass out completely. If he retained just a little bit of consciousness before blacking out, it is possible he could have moved.

Twotall

Corrected entry: Watch Dot's legs at the wedding, when she says, "I was so excited, I couldn't hold my oil!" If you look underneath her, you will see some lines, the track for her to slide on or a mark where she's supposed to be.

Correction: The floor is made of tiles and the lines and marks are part of that design. It appears that Dot rolls freely on skates, and the only mark I saw near where she was standing when saying her line was a part of the tile design.

Corrected entry: When Barf is bringing the bags for princess Vespa from her car to the Winnebago, the trunk would not have fit through the entrance hole of the Winnebago. (00:29:40)

Correction: Barf wouldn't have been able to carry it the way he was, but it looks like it could have fit through if he put it through first or pulled it through after.

Correction: This is not an Easter Egg. The same thing happens when you press Enter whether the cow is in the crosshairs or not.

Corrected entry: In the beginning story narrative, there are four paragraphs, double space. But when they are fast-forwarding through it later, there is only one paragraph. There is also a Sub-Title underneath the "Chapter Eleven." There is also no double spacing, and the "If you can read this you don't need glasses," shows up before the rest is almost all the way up. (00:02:10)

Correction: It's being fast-forwarded. It only seems like there's less text and that the final line appears much faster.

The tape that is being fast forwarded seems to be an earlier cut of the film. This early cut looks like it's from a time before the opening titles were finished. I'm thinking that the fast forwarding scene was the last scene shot for the movie before it was completed. The movie's production progress on the day that the scene was shot was enough to allow for the scene's creation. Like Dark Helmet said, they were "still in the middle of making it."

More mistakes in Spaceballs

Dark Helmet: Before you die there is something you should know about us, Lone Star.
Lone Starr: What?
Dark Helmet: I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.
Lone Starr: What's that make us?
Dark Helmet: Absolutely nothing! Which is what you are about to become.

More quotes from Spaceballs
More trivia for Spaceballs

Question: When Spaceball 1 achieves ludicrous speed and overshoots the Winnebago, Barf is heard to remark "they've gone to plaid". Is this just a joke about eighties style special effects or is it a reference to a specific film?

Answer: Its a reference to how the stars streak around the ships in "Star Wars". "Ludicrous speed" had to have a ludicrous color. It is also referencing 2001: A Space Odyssey, where this "tartan" effect occurs when Dave is in the pod towards the end of the film.

Grumpy Scot

Those answers are quite correct and possible, but how about this: Warp and weft are the two directions of yarn in weaving (of plaids and other things). It might be a very meta joke since plaid is at much higher level than warp. On the other hand, it's Mel Brooks. On the gripping hand, he was born in Brooklyn in the mid 20's and might have been exposed to the basics and vocabulary of the tailor at a young age.

Btw, it's also a clear reference to the sentence from Star Trek "They've gone to warp."

More questions & answers from Spaceballs

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