| rdfs:comment | - Hardware Wars is a thirteen minute short film spoofing Star Wars, with stentorian narration by Paul Frees. The film, in the form of a "coming attraction" trailer, features broad spoofs of Luke Skywalker (Fluke Starbucker), C-3PO (4-Q-2, who looks like the Tin Man), and R2-D2 (Artie Deco) amongst others. The Chewbacca equivalent is "Chewchilla the Wookie Monster," a brown googly-eyed hand puppet and Cookie Monster look-alike. The Wookie Monster mostly growls, pantomimes, rolls his googly eyes, and in one scene, hungrily gnaws on the coiled sticky buns adorning Princess Anne-Droid's hair.
- The film begins with the text "Meanwhile… in another part of the galaxy… later that same day", and then we see a clothing iron fighting with a toaster and toast. After that, two robots named 4Q2 and Arty Deco escaping from the empire. After launching from the ship (a cassette player) in an escape pod (a cassette tape), they land on the desert planet (a watermelon). They are found by young Fluke Starbucker, where he finds a video saved on Arty Deco. It is a loop of Princess Ann Droid saying "Help me Augie Ben Doggie, you're my only hope". Upon meeting Augie Ben Doggie, Fluke receives his father's lightsaber (a flashlight). After tricking the Imperial Steam Trooper guards to let them into the city, they reach a cantina, which is "too weird". Upon entering its revealed to be a country and wes
- Hardware Wars (1977) is a short film spoof of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The thirteen-minute film, which premiered in theatres only seven months after Star Wars, consisted of little more than inside jokes and visual puns that heavily depended upon audience familiarity with the original. To spoof the "Special Edition" re-release of Star Wars in 1997, which included additional scenes and more advanced digital special effects, Hardware Wars was re-released as a twenty-minute "Special Edition," with new digital "special defects."
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| abstract | - The film begins with the text "Meanwhile… in another part of the galaxy… later that same day", and then we see a clothing iron fighting with a toaster and toast. After that, two robots named 4Q2 and Arty Deco escaping from the empire. After launching from the ship (a cassette player) in an escape pod (a cassette tape), they land on the desert planet (a watermelon). They are found by young Fluke Starbucker, where he finds a video saved on Arty Deco. It is a loop of Princess Ann Droid saying "Help me Augie Ben Doggie, you're my only hope". Upon meeting Augie Ben Doggie, Fluke receives his father's lightsaber (a flashlight). After tricking the Imperial Steam Trooper guards to let them into the city, they reach a cantina, which is "too weird". Upon entering its revealed to be a country and western bar where they meet Ham Salad and Chewchilla. Meanwhile, Darph Nader is interrogating the princess. When she refuses to talk (mainly because she can't understand him), he blows up her peaceful home planet, Basketball (the name speaks for itself). After a light speed chase, Fluke, Ham, Augie and the rest are sucked into the enemy base (a waffle iron). After they rescue the princess, Augie Ben Doggie chooses to stay behind (in response, he is called a martyr by the rest of the group). Their spaceship is next assaulted by bits of trash, which makes Chewchilla jittery until he spies Princess Ann-Droid's hair whorls, which are cinnamon rolls stuck on her head. Taking after the Cookie Monster, he eats one. The last scene of the movie involves Fluke flying in a squad of spaceships (bottle openers), presumably to attack the waffle iron. On his way, Fluke is told to use the force by the ghost of Augie (who we assume is dead). Because this short film is a parody of a "coming attractions" teaser, the destruction of the enemy base is not shown, nor is there any victory celebration. The movie ends with the saying "And may The Farce be with you", in a mockery of the famous Star Wars lines. At the very end of the credits, we are told that the movie was "filmed on location in space," and then the statement "no animals were killed in the making of this film", which at that time started to appear in feature films, is ridiculed.
- Hardware Wars is a thirteen minute short film spoofing Star Wars, with stentorian narration by Paul Frees. The film, in the form of a "coming attraction" trailer, features broad spoofs of Luke Skywalker (Fluke Starbucker), C-3PO (4-Q-2, who looks like the Tin Man), and R2-D2 (Artie Deco) amongst others. The Chewbacca equivalent is "Chewchilla the Wookie Monster," a brown googly-eyed hand puppet and Cookie Monster look-alike. The Wookie Monster mostly growls, pantomimes, rolls his googly eyes, and in one scene, hungrily gnaws on the coiled sticky buns adorning Princess Anne-Droid's hair.
- Hardware Wars (1977) is a short film spoof of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The thirteen-minute film, which premiered in theatres only seven months after Star Wars, consisted of little more than inside jokes and visual puns that heavily depended upon audience familiarity with the original. Hardware Wars was written and directed by San Francisco native Ernie Fosselius. It was structured as a mock-movie trailer, and Fosselius even secured a voice-over from Paul Frees, the same voice talent who had narrated the original Star Wars teaser trailer. Deliberately low-budget effects and props were used, most notably ordinary household appliances such as toasters and irons as spaceships (hence the title), and an exploding basketball in place of a planet. The characters, played by actors who were just as low-budget as the props, were also parodied in name and appearance; for example, Chewbacca the Wookiee was replaced by "Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster," an obvious Cookie Monster puppet with a brown dye-job, and Darth Vader's counterpart, "Darph Nader," wore a welding helmet that distorted his voice so much that no one could understand anything he said. Hardware Wars won the award for Most Popular Short Film at the Chicago Film Festival. It is considered to be the most profitable short film of all time, grossing $500,000 as compared to its paltry $8,000 budget (a much better profit ratio than Star Wars itself had). George Lucas said in a 1999 interview that Hardware Wars was his favorite Star Wars parody. To spoof the "Special Edition" re-release of Star Wars in 1997, which included additional scenes and more advanced digital special effects, Hardware Wars was re-released as a twenty-minute "Special Edition," with new digital "special defects." In 2009, Apprehensive Films re-released the film on DVD for its 30th anniversary. Hardware Wars also appeared alongside Plan 9 from Outer Space on the horror hosted television series Cinema Insomnia. The episode included the director Ernie Fosselius and its stars Artie-Deco and Chewchilla as well as interview with horror host Mr. Lobo. Interestingly, the film incorporates inside jokes such as 1138 and the line "I have a bad feeling about this" that reappeared in subsequent Star Wars works after A New Hope, despite not being well-known or noticeable after the first movie.
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