Star Warp'd

Rating:
Summary: Cute, but not hilarious...
Review: This 30-minute claymation film has characters from many different sci-fi universes going against eachother. Some of the jokes are very funny, but many miss their mark. Most of the bad jokes come from Darth Vapor, who farts when he breathes. Other tired moments come from a terrible parody of the baby from "2001: A Space Odyssey." He smokes a cigar and swears at Kwirk and Spuck. The humor is absent in his scenes. But most of the other jokes work, especially the E.T. vs. Predator scene! Also, the spoof of Darth Maul is a hoot!

Rating:
Summary: Star Warp'd Succeeds Where Spaceballs Failed
Review: This 32 minute Claymation movie, which bears all the signs of being a student film project produced on a budget of four packs of bubblegum and a cheese sandwich, does have a redeeming virtue. Unlike the live-action, multimillion dollar budgeted Spaceballs from Mel Brooks, this offering by Pete Schuermann & his band of fellow SF fans is moderately amusing instead of draggingly dull. It's clear that they, unlike Brooks, actually understand the genre, a necessity before it can be sent up.

The plot is simple. A warp in the fabric of spacetime has thrown Darth Vader, James Kirk and Mr. Spock (Star Warp'd uses satirical names, but it's easier to write it this way) into our universe in the present day. Kirk and Spock are informed by 2001's Starchild that the Monolith controlling spacetime is broken and they must fix it before the multiverses fall into a state of complete higgledy-piggledy. (Starchild sounds and acts remarkably like Sean Connery, by the by.) Vader summons the Alien, the Terminator and something I think is supposed to be the Predator to fight for the Bad Guys; while Kirk and Spock summon Robocop and E.T. to fight for the good guys, and they have it out in a way that suggests Celebrity Deathmatch at the World Science Fiction Convention.

The action is mostly an amalgam of the high points in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back; but there are cameos and homages to The X-Files, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, The War of the Worlds, Dr. Strangelove, T.J. Hooker and even the old Roadrunner-Wile E. Coyote cartoons. The most satisfying moment, however, may be in the tag, where the Starchild requires both sides to cooperate in the elimination of the greatest meance the universes have ever known.

All in all, it's moderately amusing and fun to watch to pick up the references. Best viewed with a bunch of friends after consuming a six-pack of beer and with popcorn to throw at the screen.

Rating:
Summary: Star Warp'd Succeeds Where Spaceballs Failed
Review: This 32 minute Claymation movie, which bears all the signs of being a student film project produced on a budget of four packs of bubblegum and a cheese sandwich, does have a redeeming virtue. Unlike the live-action, multimillion dollar budgeted Spaceballs from Mel Brooks, this offering by Pete Schuermann & his band of fellow SF fans is moderately amusing instead of draggingly dull. It's clear that they, unlike Brooks, actually understand the genre, a necessity before it can be sent up.

The plot is simple. A warp in the fabric of spacetime has thrown Darth Vader, James Kirk and Mr. Spock (Star Warp'd uses satirical names, but it's easier to write it this way) into our universe in the present day. Kirk and Spock are informed by 2001's Starchild that the Monolith controlling spacetime is broken and they must fix it before the multiverses fall into a state of complete higgledy-piggledy. (Starchild sounds and acts remarkably like Sean Connery, by the by.) Vader summons the Alien, the Terminator and something I think is supposed to be the Predator to fight for the Bad Guys; while Kirk and Spock summon Robocop and E.T. to fight for the good guys, and they have it out in a way that suggests Celebrity Deathmatch at the World Science Fiction Convention.

The action is mostly an amalgam of the high points in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back; but there are cameos and homages to The X-Files, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, The War of the Worlds, Dr. Strangelove, T.J. Hooker and even the old Roadrunner-Wile E. Coyote cartoons. The most satisfying moment, however, may be in the tag, where the Starchild requires both sides to cooperate in the elimination of the greatest meance the universes have ever known.

All in all, it's moderately amusing and fun to watch to pick up the references. Best viewed with a bunch of friends after consuming a six-pack of beer and with popcorn to throw at the screen.