Hardware Wars



" No! No! You can't destroy innocent people! Basketball's a peaceful planet!"

Hardware Wars is a thirteen-minute Short Film made in 1978 by Ernie Fosselius that parodies Star Wars. Taking the form of an extended trailer, it presents its own warped take on many of the signature characters and moments of the first Star Wars film (at that time the only Star Wars film), with a wide variety of Inside Jokes and Visual Puns dependent on the audience having seen the original.

As befits an alleged trailer, it doesn't present a coherent story so much as a series of highlights from a plot mimicking that of Star Wars, starting with the escape of "space drones" Artie Deco (an antique GE canister vacuum) and 4-Q-2 (a Tin Woodsman clone in Cool Shades) from imperial forces and the discovery of Princess Anne-Droid's message. It then proceeds through the Princess's rescue and the death of Augie "Ben" Doggie at the hands of Darph Nader and beyond. At each turn it deftly but affectionately mocks the original, in part simply by making silly jokes at its expense, but also by recasting it as a zero-budget Grade-Z film.

Initially funded and distributed by Pyramid Films (a company best known for educational films at the time), Hardware Wars quickly became a frequent feature at science fiction conventions throughout North America and beyond for the next few decades. It soon came to the attention of George Lucas and the other filmmakers responsible for the Star Wars films, who would go on to embed their own little tributes to the film in later installments.

In the decades since it was made, Hardware Wars has won over fifteen first-place film festival awards, including the award for Most Popular Short Film at the Chicago Film Festival. In 2003, the film was honored by Lucasfilm when it was given the Pioneer Award at that year's Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards. In August 2010, Time magazine listed it as one of the Top 10 Star Wars fan films. George Lucas said in a 1999 interview on the UK's The Big Breakfast television show that Hardware Wars was his favorite Star Wars parody.

It's believed to be the most profitable short film of all time, grossing US$1,000,000; considering its paltry US$8,000 budget, its profit ratio was much better than Star Wars.

When Lucas released the "Special Edition" versions of the original Star Wars trilogy starting in 1997, an independent group of special effects specialists released Hardware Wars: The (Unauthorized) Special Edition. Without Fosseluis's permission they created an "updated" version of Hardware Wars with new digital effects that supplemented and sometimes completely replaced entire sequences. In the process they appear to have deliberately emphasized the contrast between their crisp, high-resolution digital effects and the original grainy 16mm film as a satirical commentary on Lucas's own revisionist efforts.

The original version can be found on YouTube in two parts: Part 1, Part 2.

The Special Edition can be found on YouTube (in one part) here.

Both can be viewed on the Source page as well.


 * May the Farce Be with You: The final line of the film, and the first place it appeared in pop culture at large.


 * Affectionate Parody: Made because Fosselius and co-producer Michael Wiese were dedicated Star Wars fans and hoped that it would somehow get them a chance to meet George Lucas.
 * Aside Glance: Augie "Ben" Doggie shares one with the camera at the sight of Fluke first using his father's flashlight lightsaber.
 * Blinded by the Light: Darph Nader does this to Augie "Ben" Doggie during their battle; it doesn't seem to do very much.
 * Conspicuous CG: Every one of the Gratuitous Special Effects added for the "Special Edition", intentionally.
 * Cool Car: Fluke's electric dunebuggy.
 * Cool Shades: 4-Q-2 wears a pair at all times. They are just as opaque and aluminized as the rest of him.
 * Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The destruction of the peaceful planet Basketball.
 * Expospeak Gag: The long, involved plan of attack on the Death Star which, when Fluke expresses incomprehension, is summarized as "You pull the plug."
 * Fan Film
 * Flynning: The very minimal exchange of blows we see in the sword battle between Darph Nader and Augie "Ben" Doggie.
 * Follow the Leader: Hardware Wars was the first parody of Star Wars ever made, and all subsequent SW parodies -- indeed, all subsequent amateur/independent film parodies descend directly from it.
 * Funny Background Event: A woman in a bathing suit picking up her towel and walking off can be seen in the background of the sequence allegedly set on a desert planet.
 * Not so much an event but a detail: When Fluke is working on Artie Deco and triggers the message from the Princess, 4-Q-2's torso is sitting on the floor right next to him.  No arms, legs or head... just the torso.  Which is a little disturbing when you think about it.
 * A mid-1970s-vintage stock airplane safety announcement about bringing one's seats to a full and upright position, extinguishing cigarettes and so on plays as Ham and Chewchilla begin launch preparations.
 * The sound effects for the "exciting, action-packed dogfight scene" is a bunch of small yappy dogs barking and whining -- also an Incredibly Lame Pun.
 * Gosh Dang It to Heck: Easily half of Fluke Starbucker's dialog is "Jeepers", "Gee willikers", "Gosh" and the like.
 * Gratuitous Special Effects: The whole point of the unauthorized "Special Edition".
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: Littered with random lame puns, such as the "Imperial Steamtroopers", all portrayed by a vintage steam cabinets, and the "action-packed dogfight scene" whose sound effects are little yapping dogs.
 * Inner Monologue: Augie "Ben" Doggie's "I must try to find that tractor beam."
 * Logo Joke: The classic "20th Century Fox" logo is parodied with an animated "20th Century Foss" logo.
 * A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away: Parodies the Trope Namer with a title card reading "Meanwhile... In another part of the galaxy, later that same day..."
 * Meanwhile Back At The: The title card parodying the famous "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" intertitle.
 * Medium Awareness: When Fluke panics about the ship being drawn into the waffle iron Death Star, Ham advises him, "Take it easy, kid.  It's only a movie."
 * MOS: It's clear that the film was shot on silent stock and had its dialogue dubbed in later, resulting in a deliberate Hong Kong Dub.
 * Mythology Gag:
 * Princess Anne-Droid is wearing real cinnamon buns on her head, in tribute to what at that point was already an overworked joke about Princess Leia's hairdo.
 * The country band in the cantina scene is actually singing "I'm proud to be old Obi-wan Kenobi" for the one line we actually hear them perform.
 * No Animals Were Harmed: Averted in the disclaimer added in the Special Edition. See Credits Gag on the trivia subpage.
 * No Ending: As befits an alleged trailer, we don't get a resolution to the story, just brief shots of the climactic battle.
 * Obi-Wan Moment/Heroic Sacrifice: Parodied, of course, when Augie "Ben" Doggie assures the others -- in the midst of his battle with Darph Nader -- that he'll be fine and they should go on without him. They do, derisively calling him a martyr as they go.
 * Off-the-Shelf FX: Deliberately, as part of the concept.  This is Off-the-Shelf FX: The Movie Trailer.  Everything in the film is a repurposed household appliance or implement, from steam irons used as spaceships to power drills as blasters and steam cabinets as stormtroopers.
 * Parody Name/Punny Name: All of the main characters: Fluke Starbucker, Augie "Ben" Doggie, Ham Salad, Princess Anne-Droid, Darph Nader, 4-Q-2 and Artie Deco.
 * Public Domain Soundtrack: Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries".
 * Real Trailer, Fake Movie
 * So Bad It's Good: A deliberate effort, with intentional "mistakes" and "oversights" leading to its cheaper-than-cheap look.
 * Special Effect Failure: Deliberate.  They didn't have the budget (or the concept) for "real" special effects.  They made no attempt to hide any wires and strings used to support "flying" craft, and created the beams for blaster weapons by scratching them into the negatives with the point of a pin.
 * Similarly, the team behind the "Special Edition" made no effort to smoothly blend their digital effects with the older footage, apparently preferring to leave the often stark contrast between the two as a comment on Lucas's own revisions to the original trilogy.
 * Stock Footage: Amusingly, the same shot of an iron the Millennium Falcon speeding past the camera and corkscrewing upside-down at the top of the screen is used at least three times.
 * Stock Sound Effects: A wide variety of inappropriately used stock sounds add to the humor in most scenes.
 * Stop Trick: Two in rapid succession are used to manifest the blades of Darph Nader and Augie "Ben" Doggie's lightsabers, which are made of anything but light.
 * Tractor Beam: And it involves an actual tractor.
 * The Unintelligible: Darph Nader. Although he does manage to get out an almost-clear "Augie 'Ben' Doggie" twice.
 * Visual Pun: The tractor beam.
 * Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Doubling as a Shout-Out to Steve Martin, Ham's sarcastic "well, excuse me!" when she declares he's going to get them killed.

- "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss three bucks good-bye."