Spaceballs 2? I'll pass.

I hear Spaceballs 2 is in the works.

I hear ships sinking. I hear volcanoes erupting. I hear earthquakes hitting. And that’s on a good day.

The first Spaceballs wasn’t funny at all. No, let me take that back. I really despised it. Perhaps I don’t have a sense of humor.

That isn’t it. A lot of things are funny. What’s funny? The Marx Brothers are funny. Woody Allen is funny. George Bush Sr. not getting a second term is funny.

But not Spaceballs.

I’ll tell you why. People believe science-fiction fans are dumb. That’s the premise of the first film. Science-fiction fans can be easily duped.

That’s always the problem. There’s an easy dumbness crowding the genre. It’s getting to be a very common thing here. It goes back to the first insult. It goes back to “sci-fi.” The abbreviation of it should tell wonders. We’re supposed to respect the genre. Not dumb it down. But they like to make it stupid. Look at the Sci-Fi channel.

During the late 1970s, a science-fiction advisor once told George Lucas during the making the Star Wars film that ships can’t explode in space, that sound can’t travel in space. Space is essentially a vacuum. Therefore sounds have nothing to travel through. It’s empty. Lucas said something like this, “Look, I got a lot of money tied into this thing. If people want to hear a boom, I’ll give them a boom.”

We should’ve taken that as a deadly omen.

Now we’re bombarded by many more bad science-fiction films, oh excuse me, it’s sci-fi. Hollywood keeps churning them out. Spaceballs just helped to solidify the dumbness of it all in 1987. The film helped sealed the fate of the genre by hammering in the final nail to the coffin. It’s saying, hey, don’t mind me, it’s okay to think and make fun of the genre because people think it’s dumb already.

The film is filled with jokes that aren’t funny. With the kind of acting that might’ve made William Shatner blush. Perhaps it should’ve been sucked into a vacuum just like Lucas’ advice was.

Though Spaceballs 2 might be given a name Lucas might be proud of: the Search for More Money. Maybe Lucas will have a cameo in it. Just look for a bearded guy with a holdout looking for cash.

I do respect Mel Brooks greatly and his script is apparently in the works for this new Spaceballs film. This is the same man who gave us “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein.” Those are classics to the umpteenth degree. With Spaceballs, my respect hits rock-bottom. Not since the news of Mel's second coming have I got the bad vibes. And I thought Greedo shooting first in the Star Wars rehash was bad enough.

I hope Brooks steers clear of making the next Spaceballs. How are they going to make another one without John Candy? Sure, I don’t have to go in the theaters. I’d rather have my pinkie stapled to a burning wall.

But the bad, dumb movies of sci-fi? They'll keep coming.

Perhaps something good will come through. A funny, and smart, comedy.