Galaxy Quest

What if the Old Trek gang and Shatner had to really save the day? Hilarious.

Features: Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman
Director: Dean Parisot
written: December '99
Talk about your premise that's ripe for exploitation:
Take a bunch of actors who are roman a clef to a Star Trek clone show.
Have them be mistaken to actually be their parts by gullible aliens
And have them literally come to the rescue.
Hey, works for me.

And of course we've got to have the cliche Star Trek/bad SF characters:

  • the pompous captain (Tim Allen)
  • the British-accented doctor (Alan Rickman)
  • the token blonde babe with the cleavage-friendly "uniform" (Sigourney Weaver)
  • the brat at the controls (beats me)
  • the resourceful engineer (that guy from Wings and Stark Raving Mad)
  • a red shirt*

    Story starts with Our Heroes making a buck--appearing at an SF con. After all, who'd want to hire actors from a cheesy SF series? I've attended quite a few cons myself and they captured the geek atmosphere completely.

    Course we have the usual SF cliches getting their bubbles burst:

  • the William Shatner-patented dive-and-roll-to-throw-off-the-enemy move.
  • Crawling thru oh-so handy ductwork
  • Troopers scambling up and down a ship's hallways oblivious to Our Heroes poorly skulking said hallways.
  • The red shirt getting red shirted.
  • Contending with nonsensical starship features.
  • The gotta-shut-down-the-self-destruct-device sequence.
  • The Terminator-like comeback of the villian. (Oh, come on, you knew that one was gonna happen.)

    Nuff said. Let the movie speak for itself.

    Tim Allen, America's favorite reformed drug dealer, does a great job with his Shatner impression. The role perfectly suits his non-Lawrence Oliver acting range. He doesn't imitate Shatner so much as project his persona. You make the call as to what type of "persona".

    Sigourney Weaver is a comedic find. Altho she did comedy in Ghostbusters, there she was the straight man. Here she is the anti-thesis to her Oscar-nominated turn as Ripley, the asexual, ultra-capable spacer from the Alien franchise. She's great. Especially when Allen and she confront an especially nonuser-friendly ship feature. She loses it and it's a scream. Hot scream due to the BB** factor--which renders men's brain cells DOA automatically. Her most excellent bod it right up there too.

    Rickman is the cliche within a cliche--the British actor constantly moaning what has happened to his career thanks to being tarred and feathered with his role. It's a running joke thru the movie which could've gotten very tiresome if the writers took the lazy way out.

    Galaxy Quest has a winning package: a script that clicks, actors having fun with their roles, terrific F/X, and music that nails that SF mark. You want a fun flick that pokes fun at the whole Star Trekstchick, then this is it.

    * You know: the nameless dudes who'd beam down with Kirk and Spock and get offed. Invariably they wore red shirts.

    ** boobs and blonde hair

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