The 13-minute film, which was released almost 18 months after Star Wars, mainly consisted of inside jokes and visual puns that heavily depended upon audience familiarity with the original.

Two robots named 4-Q-2 (“fuck-you-too”, and who resembles the Tin Man from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz) and Artie-Deco (a canister vacuum cleaner), escape from the evil Empire.

After a light-speed chase, Fluke, Ham, Augie, and the rest are sucked into the enemy base (a waffle iron) by a tractor beam.

After they rescue the Princess, Augie Ben Doggie chooses to stay behind to battle Darph Nader, and the rest of the group dismiss him as a "martyr".

Their spaceship is assaulted by bits of tin-foil trash, which makes Chewchilla jittery until he spies Princess Anne-Droid's hair whorls, which are cinnamon rolls worn on the sides of her head.

Hardware Wars was written and directed by San Francisco native Ernie Fosselius and produced by Michael Wiese.

Fosselius capitalised on his budget limitations by using deliberately-ridiculous household objects as props; spaceships were represented by such items as steam irons, toasters and cassette recorders, and the lightsaber of Fluke Starbucker (Scott Mathews) was a flashlight.

The characters, played by actors who were as low-budget as the props, were also parodied in name and appearance; Chewbacca the Wookiee was replaced by Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster (an obvious Cookie Monster puppet dyed brown), and Darth Vader's counterpart Darph Nader (whose name parodied consumer protection advocate Ralph Nader) wore a welding helmet that distorted his voice so much that no one could understand anything he said.

Other 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).

As noted in Shock Cinema Magazine, Hardware Wars "laid the groundwork for every DIY movie send up that now pops up on YouTube… Premiering when George Lucas's cash cow was still filling the theaters, it quickly became a pre-VCR, word-of-mouth phenomenon.

Star Wars spoofs became popular, and countless more parodies were created, notably including the Family Guy extended episode "Blue Harvest", George Lucas In Love, and Spaceballs.

[7] In 2017, Rian Johnson paid tribute to it by referencing it in the Star Wars film The Last Jedi in a scene in which a robotic steam iron is briefly framed to resemble a landing spaceship.

"[9] In Time Out New York, critic Andrew Johnston wrote: "Thanks to Digital Domain, Hardware Wars now includes a fleet of Corkscrew Fighters as well as effects that parody Lucas's additions to the Tatooine sequence in the first film.

On April 23, 2024, MVD Rewind Collection re-released the short on DVD, and for the first time on Blu-ray two weeks later on May 7 containing a 2024 remastered 2K transfer from a 16mm reversal release print created by Vinegar Syndrome.