MovieChat Forums > Spaceballs (1987) Discussion > The million space bucks make(s) no sense...

The million space bucks make(s) no sense (Lone Starr stole 500 000!)

posted 2 years ago by avortac4 (3720)
9 replies | jump to latest

I can't get over how many things do not make sense in this movie.

The million space bucks, for example, HOLY COW.. let me count the ways it makes no sense.

1) Why ask for a million space bucks, when you OWE someone a million space bucks? THAT is not how any business works, EVER. You always charge a higher price than your expenses. What is wrong with Barf and Lone Starr??

2) Why are they SO happy about the thought of 'sh1tload of money', when ALL THAT MONEY has to go to Pizza the Hutt anyway? They don't EVEN get to keep a dime/cent/whatever the coins are called in this financial system.

3) The million is offered to whom, exactly? That's right, Lone Starr _AND_ Barf! It's not _JUST_ for Lone Starr, now, is it? This means Lone Starr just STOLE 500 000 from Barf by rejecting the money (just took some for gas and whatnot - that you have to use GAS even in space, is shockingly ridiculous anyway). Why didn't he just reject his OWN half, why would he steal Barf's WELL-DESERVED half?

How does he even have the authority to DO that, wouldn't Barf decide that for himself? Would someone like Barf REALLY reject 500 000 of money JUST because his pal has a broken heart?

4) What kind of sense does it make to reject the money ANYWAY?

How does 'my heart is broken' or 'I love Daphne's character' translate into 'my life is better without 500 000 space bucks'? HOW? WHAT? WHO? WHERE? WHEN? AAGH?!

As Ryan Higa once said, money doesn't make you happy, but he'd rather cry in a Lamborghini than a cardboard box.

WHY would Lone Starr think his AND Barf's (who helped tremendously but he doesn't want to give him ANYTHING for his trouble besides a crummy cookie!) lives will be BETTER without any money, than it would be if they had a shared MILLION spacebucks? WHAT KIND OF SENSE DOES THIS MAKE?

Is it supposed to be some kind of 'noble' thing? I mean, the King of a WHOLE FRIGGIN' PLANET would not even notice a missing million, would he? I don't know how valuable a space buck is, but based on the diner scene and that they think a million is a lot, I think it's safe to say this king is not starving to death if one million is gone.

BTW, where does he get his money, where do Kings get their vast treasures that regular people don't dare dream of? Think about it - it's always by exploiting human beings of the planet, making them work hard and indoctrinating them that work liberates them, work is good, you have to work to be valuable... and yet most of that money just goes straight into the King's treasure chest.

It's not really a kingdom, if it doesn't work like this, now is it?

In any case, there are so many ways the million doesn't make any sense, but what pisses me off the most is that just like Chewbacca was robbed of his well-deserved medal, Barf was robbed of his well-deserved 500 000 spacebucks.

Look, buddy, do whatever you want with your OWN money, and simp for a stupid, crazy female dog if you want to, but don't friggin' steal your friend's salary! They made a CONTRACT, the King god damn owes Barf 500 000 space bucks!

Why is Barf so non-chalant about it anyway, why doesn't he at least debate about it?

Why didn't they get more food money at least? Why didn't they ask if the king could give them some supplies so they wouldn't go HUNGRY the second they are outside of Druidia's orbit?!

I still can't even figure out the logic behind 'he didn't take the money so he must love me', and 'I won't take the money so .. err.. something good will happen, although the king wouldn't miss the money and the princess is going to be married to Valium anyway'?

What was the thinking here, WHAT is the noble result Lone Starr was aiming for? A poor worker doesn't take his well-deserved payment, and this causes a super rich ruler of a planet and his bratty, spoiled daughter to... what, exactly? HOW does this decision improve anyone's life?

I just don't get it... also, where the hell does Lone Starr get that prince suit? I mean, he can't even afford FOOD (basic things), and he's supposedly in a hurry to stop the wedding, but he suddenly has money to buy that expensive-looking prince suit that looks tailor-made to fit his exact body (luxury item, expensive and time-consuming)?

Also, why would he have to be a prince, and wouldn't SOMEONE require a bit more proof than Yoghurt's Schwarz-ghost telling he read it from his amulet that no one else can read?

I mean, what if he just claimed he's a prince, would the end result be any different? What if he paid Yoghurt to do that? No one even saw him exclaim that he's a prince, so wouldn't his FIRST trip before the costume, be some kind of 'space official' or 'space bureaucracy' to get some kind of notarized CERTIFICATE that everyone in Druidia's jurisdiction can not only read, but Druidia's lawyers can also confirm is completely official and real, and so on?

This whole 'prince' business pisses me off so much, because I know the REAL reasons why these are in these movies..

[–] avortac4 (3720) 2 years ago

There's SO much to unpack, when we think about 'movie princesses', I don't even want to get into 'princes, queens and kings', and ultimately, it is the same thing.

There's of course the bloody history of wars, people wanting to crown themselves, then the unholy alliances between churches and governments crowning people, then the whole nepotism angle and all that.

The REAL reason why this kind of crap is STILL perpetuated in movies and such, and why women even call themselves 'queens' and parents call their daughters 'princesses' (but rarely their sons 'princes', go figure, eh?), is of course hypergamy.

What? A word that doesn't LOOK like it explains anything... but it does. Hypergamy simply means women's genetic, biological, gender-URGE to select a 'high-status man'. Now, this is hard to explain, because it's not intuitive, but when you understand it, everything women do makes so much more sense.

It's like this - all women want the king or prince, no woman lusts for the peasant. Since modern world is way more complex than that, there are nowadays many variations of that. A man doesn't have to be a LITERAL prince or king to attract a woman, or to make a woman's 'sexual side tingle'.

It's so tempting to talk about looks, but I assure you, princes and kings are made handsome only because it's just more intuitive, simple and almost self-explanatory to do it that way. A woman would lust for a prince/king even if he was the ugliest monster in the world. A woman will not get turned on by a shy peasant guy that lives in their mom's basement, no matter HOW handsome he is.

Because men get turned on by a woman's looks, a man NEVER has to second guess or question whether he REALLY 'loves someone' (it's usually emotional lust at best, usually combined with sexual lust as well). A man knows basically immediately whether a woman is attractive or not to him. It might be that his feelings deepen or thin (?) along the way, if he's exposed to the woman more..

[–] avortac4 (3720) 2 years ago

.. and he might also fall for the woman's personality, after he first finds the woman beautiful.

No one cares if a man is 'beautiful', men don't use make-up or wear high heels or paint their nails (generally speaking), because men are seen as 'utility', so this leads to a situation where only the kings/princes get women, and the hard-working peasants remain alone.

Modern kings/princes are of course things like outlaw bikers, CEOs, useless celebrities, wealthy men, charismatic alpha males, criminals (even convicted rapists in prison receive love letters from women, good men that happen to be Linux nerds never receive even one), PUAs, and so on. As someone asked, which would you go with, the player or the nerd, every single young woman immediately answered 'the player'. There are very revealing youtube videos like this out there.

Now, Disney is one enormous corporation that realized to exploit women's psychology, and started creating these princesses. Everyone is always a prince or a princess, so women never have to think about the ordinary, good men at all. The peasants don't get mentioned, they're just the background. The REAL story always happens with the rich and powerful.

So women want to be these powerful, worshipped princesses that have servants, live an easy life, and can look up to an even more powerful man/men - they want to live in the world of princes and kings, the most wanted men that have the MOST OPTIONS, but somehow happen to choose YOU, the ugly or plain, ordinary hag that can't offer anything special to any man. Yes, YOU deserve to be princess, which means NOTHING below a prince is good enough for you.

It's really annoying that even a good comedy perpetuates this sick message, where men have to be princes to be good enough for a 6.5 - maybe most men would rate Daphne a 7, whatever. But she's certainly not beautiful enough to deserve the TOP MAN, which Lone Starr is. There would be planetful of young hotties, but he selects.. her.

[–] avortac4 (3720) 2 years ago

To continue, Disney and makers of these stories don't really EVER think about or reveal the governmental, oppressive structures behind the whole idea of a 'kingdom'. In a world, where everyone has the same, human value, so everyone is equal, there can't be obvious HYPERGAMY, so women would be in trouble trying to select a mate.

Women's psyche is hardwired to NEED a high-status man to look up to. Prince is the easiest, simplest, most direct route to provoking this part of the female audience. Men just go along, because it's 'tradition', they don't care if Daphne is a princess or not. What good would it do in a desert anyway? Why would it matter to a man? As Seinfeld once mentioned in a stand-up routine, men don't CARE AT ALL what a woman does, or how 'educated' she is. Men's sexuality is hardwired to be turned on by physical beauty, that's it. The job can add some sweetness to it, like a cherry on top of ice cream, but just the cherry does nothing, if you have a cat turd instead of icecream.

Men want a jobless, low-status woman way more than an ugly, rich air hostess. If an attractive, young woman is an air hostess, it can be exciting, but just the job alone means nothing.

So the _REAL_ reason why there are princesses in these movies, is that 'George wanted a space version of 'wizards and princesses''. Basically, George wanted a space princess, and THAT is the real reason.

There's no thought put into how anyone can even BE a princess when their kingdom ceases to exist. Leia ceased to be a princess the second Alderaan was destroyed. How could it be otherwise?

I would also say she ceases to be a princess the second she leaves that particular planet. How could she be princess in space, or in a spaceship? Wouldn't the ship have its OWN hierarchy, unless it's owned by the 'kingdom'?`I mean, if she keeps changing locations, from planet to planet, ship to ship, surely the 'princessdom' doesn't automatically follow, unless the people specifically recognize that.

[–] Ranb (8805) 2 years ago

The comedy is ruined if you dissect it.

[–] avortac4 (3720) 2 years ago

Even if people recognize her 'princessdom' in some distant desert planet (I kinda hate theme planets, considering how many different themes exist on Tellus alone.. surely some other planet should have even MORE 'themes', from alien forests to all kinds of lands and suburbias, but it's always desert, ice, generic forest, and that's about it), it doesn't automatically follow that she has ANY power or jurisdiction there.

Try going to some other country, trying to impose your own, self-created rules about how people should treat you, and tell me how well it goes (depending on the country, this actually does work today too well sometimes)..

I mean, 'princess' means your father is a king, right? Can you BECOME a princess just by marrying into 'royalty'? So this means your father could be a shoemaker or a homeless alcoholic.

What other things are there to signify that someone is a 'princess' and is thus FOR SOME REASON 'more valuable than other people'? Does she have any duties or responsibilities, like keeping the Kingdom running? Does she need to organize mail routes or maintenance of roads? Does she have some kind of council decisions to ponder? Is she constantly struggling with how to make people more happy, how to remove poverty, how to improve the infrastructure and lessen cruelty to animals?

Do people think 'being a princess' simply consists of prancing in skin coats around the palace, ordering servants around, eating luxury food, meeting foreign princes and having 'relations' with them, for the good of the kingdom, of course.. ?

It just bugs me that these people just slap 'prince' or 'princess' as integral part of some story and do not think ANY further than that, and _THEN_ women fall for it every single time, and put themselves into that position in their mind while watching, and... it's just such a stupid, vicious, oppression and manipulation-based exploitation. If only masses would DEMAND something better.

[–] Saenzwa9 (477) 2 years ago

I always thought thought it was dumb that he didn't ask for 2 million. You are right once he pays back The Hutt he is still broke. It turns out none of that mattered since Hutt croaked, and I guess Lonestar made the decision to turn down the money while he was alone with the King. As for Barf he wasn't the Captain of the flying Winnebago. King Roland was reaching out for Lonestar's services not Barf's. That still was a dick move on Lonestar's part but in the end Lonestar married into a wealthy royal family and I'm sure Barf was more than taken care of

[–] mtxmind (3296) 2 years ago

Geeeez🤬

Dude.......seriously, do you EVER watch ANY movie/TV show, and NOT over-think it to death???

[–] Mulletor (531) 2 years ago

Apparently nothing makes sense to this guy.

[–] mtxmind (3296) 2 years ago

Apparently seems that way.

Maybe it's some kind of form of self-therapy, perhaps?