Hardware Wars - Production

Production

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, dyed brown, 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, "4-Q-2" (who resembles the Tin Woodman from the Wizard of Oz) and "Arty Deco" (an antique canister vacuum cleaner). Upon completion, Scott Mathews vowed to never act in another film again, saying; "I'm goin' out on top, baby!"