Hardware Wars

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 (of the venerable Red Eye Knights), Fluke receives his father's lightsaber (a flashlight). After tricking the Imperial Steam Trooper guards (Steam Cabinets) to let them into the city, they reach a cantina, which is "too weird". Upon entering it is 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).

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 "trust your feelings" 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 "And may The Farce be with you", in mockery of the famous Star Wars line. At the very end of the credits, we are told the movie was "filmed on location in space," followed by the statement "no animals were killed in the making of this film", which at that time was beginning to appear in feature films and is ridiculed.

Hardware Wars was written and directed by San Francisco native Ernie Fosselius and produced by Michael Wiese. It was structured as a mock-movie trailer, and Fosselius even secured narration from veteran voice-over artist Paul Frees, who provided the voice work for the original Star Wars trailers. Fosselius capitalised on his budget limitations by using deliberately ridiculous household objects as props; spaceships were represented with such items as steam irons, toasters and cassette recorders, and the lightsaber of "Fluke Starbucker" was a flashlight. 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. Other notable characters include "Ham Salad," "Augie Ben Doggie," "Princess Anne-Droid," and the drones, "4Q2" (who resembles the Tin Woodman from the Wizard of Oz) and "Arty Deco" (an antique canister vacuum cleaner).

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