HARDWARE WARS (1978) MVD Rewind Collection Blu-ray Screenshots + Review
HARDWARE WARS (1978)
Collector's Edition
Label: MVD Rewind Collection
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 13 Minutes 23 Seconds
Audio: English LPCM 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Director: Ernie Fosselius
Cast: Scott Mathews, Frank Robertson, Paul Frees, Bob Knickerbocker
Ernie Fosselius's made-in-the-garage Star Wars Star Wars fan-parody film Hardware Wars (1978), released just a year after the film it was sending-up and nine years before Spaceballs, was one of the first parodies of the intergalactic blockbuster, a playfully lo-fi but loving send-up of George Lucas's sci-fi serial, starring Fluke Starbucker (Scott Mathews), Ham Salad (Bob Knickerbocker) and Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster (an orange furred Cookie Monster!), Princess Anne-Droid (Cindy Furgatch), and Augie "Ben" Doggie (Jeff Hale) a former member of the Red-Eye Knights, as well as droids Artie Deco and 4-Q-2. This everything-and-the-kitchen-sink production is loving inept but also so chock full of ingenuity and fan-made enthusiasm that it really transcends its limitations and delivers an actually fun 13-min riff on Star Wars, which was narrated by Paul Frees (The Last Unicorn, The War of the Worlds, Santa Claus is Comin; To Town).
It opens with a space battle featuring ships that are obviously a toaster and a hot iron, our droids are a vacuum cleaner and the Tin-Man from the Wizard of Oz, and the big baddie Darph Nader wears a black welding helmet with a cassette deck taped to his chest, whose muffled, reverb drenched voice proves to be a constant source of miscommunication, while his Steam Troopers prove just an ineffectual as the real deal.
It's a real kooky send-ups of Star Wars, at only 13-minutes long there's little chance of it wearing out its welcome, it's just a delight to watch, even with evident strings, warts and all. Prepare yourself for seeing Fluke an dthe gang cruise around in a dune buggy, space battles involving irons, toasters, waffle makers, and eggbeaters; flashlight lightsabers, basketball planets, pretzel-bun hair-dos, and a space-rats - yes indeed, The Farce is strong with this one!
Audio/Video: Hardware Wars (1978) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from MVD Rewind Collection in 1080p HD framed in 1.33:1 fullscreen. It's pretty rough looking in spots with plenty of course fluctuating grain levels, vertical scratches and speckles in spots, but overall it's quite a watchable presentation with good textures and decent colors. We get the following disclaimer before the movie starts up:
"Hardware Wars was scanned in 2K resolution from the only known surviving element, a 16mm reversal release print.
Due to poor handling of the camera original during the editing process, a large amount of dirt and damage is inherent to the production, especially during the film's frequent optical effect and dupe sequences. As this damage has been present since the film was initially released in 1978, it has been retained here, as removing or even reducing it would not accurately represent how audiences first experienced the film."
Audio comes by way of English PCM 2.0 dual-mono or PCM 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles. The mono track showcases a bit of age-related wear and flat sounding presentation, as where the stereo track delivers a more natural, albeit still pretty lo-fi presentation.
Extrasd are plentiful we get three alternate versions of the film, these include the 13-min 'Hardware Wars' 2012 HD Master, the 10-min 'Hardware Wars' Director's Cut, and the 11-min 'Hardware Wars' Foreign Version. Curiously the 2-12 HD Master version looks superior to the main features, there's no information on the disc about it, but I did find it quite curious. There's also the 'Director's Cut; which is quite a strange beast in and of itself, a re-edit with missing sequence title cards throughout, and what looks to be alternate takes of certain scenes. The 'Foreign Version' seems to be a amalgam of made up languages and strange subtitle fonts.