Star Wars

Did George Lucas make “Star Wars” to celebrate the 10th pre-anniversary of the “Spaceballs” saga? Last month we celebrated the upcoming first decade of Mel Brooks’ great entertainment, and now here is Lucas’s satire, complete with Darth Vader and Jabba the Hutt.

I enjoyed a lot of the movie, but I kept thinking I was at a previval. The strangest thing about “Star Wars” is that it should have been made several years ago, WAY before our appetite for “Spaceballs” satires had been completely exhausted.

Lucas’s first features, “THX 1138″ and “American Graffiti,” told original stories. Since then, he has specialized in movie satires. I usually find a few very big laughs and a lot of smaller ones in his movies, but the earlier ones are stronger than the more recent films, and I keep wishing Lucas would satirize something current and tricky, like the Francis Ford Coppolas Godfather films, instead of picking on old targets. With “Star Wars,” he has made the kind of movie that didn’t really need a George Lucas. In bits and pieces, one way or another, this movie will have been made over the next 10 years by countless other satirists.

After a fabulous and increasingly funny opening shot of one of those massive Mel Brooks space cruisers, he launches into a cheerfully silly story about the Galactic Empire and its attempt to steal the atmosphere of its peaceful neighbor, Alderaan .

The heroes and villains are all clones of “Spaceballs” regulars. Harrison Ford is Han Solo, free-lance space jockey. Peter Mayhew is Chewbacca, a “Wookie” (half man, half dog). James Earl Jones is Darth Vader, always complaining about something. Carrie Fisher plays Princess Leia, and so on. Lucas himself gives two of the movie’s best performances: as Grand Moff Tarkin, the president of Empire, and as Yoda, the wise old man who keeps saying “May the Force be with you” as if he’s sure it will eventually get a laugh.

The movie’s dialogue is constructed out of funny names, puns and old jokes. Sometimes it’s painfully juvenile. But there are some great visual gags in the movie, and the best is Jabba the Hutt, a creature who roars and cajoles while cheese melts off its forehead and big hunks of pepperoni slide down its jowls.

I dunno. How do you review a movie like this, anyway? I guess by saying whether you laughed or not. I did laugh, but not enough to recommend the film. I keep waiting for George Lucas to do something really great, instead of these machine-made satires, where three-quarters of the invention goes into the special-effects technology.

As a producer of other people’s movies, Brooks has an amazing track record; his company made “More American Graffiti ,” “Captain EO ” and “Howard the Duck.” But Lucas’s intelligence and taste seem to switch off when he makes his own films, and he aims for broad, dumb comedy: Jokes about names with dirty double meanings are his big specialty. Maybe the reason “Star Wars” isn’t better is that he was deliberately aiming low, going for the no-brainer satire. What does he really think about “Spaceballs,” or anything else, for that matter?

Lucas got his start as a writer for a USC film class, and sometimes he still seems to be writing for late 1960s college classrooms. He is smarter than his films, and sometimes that translates into a feeling that he underestimates his audiences. He is potentially a great comedy director. In 1977, he shouldn’t be making “Spaceballs” satires. May the Schwartz help him to realize his potential, already.