Never give up, never surrender!  A comic spoof of Star Trek and Trekkie worship does not sound promising, but this bright and funny space adventure is enlivened by an able cast — Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell and Daryl Mitchell. Especially good are the goofy aliens that need help in a galactic war – interpreted by Enrico Colantoni and smartly performed by Colantoni, Missi Pyle and Rainn Wilson. The movie is kind to fan convention culture, too.

Galaxy Quest 4K
4K Ultra HD + Digital
Paramount Home Entertainment
1999 / Color / 2:39 widescreen (mostly) / 102 min. / Street Date December 3, 2024 / Available from Amazon / 30.99
Starring: Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Enrico Colantoni, Daryl Mitchell, Justin Long, Missi Pyle, and Rainn Wilson.
Cinematography: Jerzy Zielinski
Production Designer: Linda DeScenna
Art Director: Jim Nedza
Costume Design: Albert Wolsky
Film Editor: Don Zimmerman
Makeup Effects: Stan Winston
Original Music: David Newman
Screenplay by David Howard, Robert Gordon
Executive Producer Elizabeth Cantillon
Produced by Mark Johnson, Charles Newirth
Directed by Dean Parisot

You know how moviegoing once was: if the promotions for a new movie didn’t appeal, you’d skip it … and then twenty years later find out that the thing you passed up was a lot of fun. After a so-so Christmas opening in 1999,  Galaxy Quest became a cult favorite on home video. Its defenders claiming it wasn’t supported by its studio. Since then it’s been proposed as a TV series, at least twice.

The premise of Galaxy Quest reads like a recipe for disaster. Hollywood has a pretty poor record with fantasies about teen interests and fandom in general. David Howard and Robert Gordon’s high concept zeros in on the specific mega-fandom around the original  Star Trek TV show, and the result is frequently funny and endearing. The writers are steeped in the original TV show and space opera fandom in general — we have correspondents that remain big fans of Battlestar Galactica. We were impressed 40 years ago to find shelves of ‘concordance’ books detailing the world of Star Trek, and publications with elaborate drawings of its every Fedeeration space ship and piece of hardware.  ^*

It’s just like Star Trek, but it’s something else, get it?

The show begins in a way that makes us think that Trekkies Questies will be the butt of easy jokes, but it soon shows a merciful attitude toward Trekkies (Questies?). The cast of an old 1980s show called ‘Galaxy Quest’ is in an odd situation — their acting careers stalled out long ago, but the show’s fan afterlife is so strong that they are in constant demand for personal appearances at Sci-fi conventions, mall openings, or any gig that will pick them up in a limo.

Captain James T. Kirk ‘Commander Taggart’ was played by Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen), who is hated by the rest of the ‘crew’ because he hogs the spotlight and has illusions that he’s a great actor. The science officer Mr. Spock ‘Doctor Lazarus’ is played by classical actor Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman), who is bitter about the typecasting that bars him from serious roles. Dane must be cajoled into attending the conventions. Communications officer Lt. Uhura ‘Lt. Tawny Madison’ is Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver), still embarrassed that all she did in the show was decorate the bridge and repeat messages. Engineer Scotty ‘Tech Sergeant Chen’ was played by the laid-back, anything-goes Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub), who stays so calm in tense situations that we wonder if he’s stoned.

The final crewmember ‘Laredo’ was played by child star Tommy Webber, who is now fully grown (Daryl Mitchell). And loitering around the periphery is ex-actor Guy Fleegman (Sam Rockwell), a ‘red shirt’ bit player who was only in one brief episode before getting killed. His character didn’t even have a name.

Never give up, Never surrender! … By Grabthar’s Hammer!

The opening is a booking at a fan convention. Jason Nesmith soaks up the adulation, while Alexander Dane fumes, swearing that he’ll never again recite his famous buzz phrase from the show. They’re all confused by the mobs of adoring fans, who expect them to ‘be’ their characters and to be conversant with the endless minutiae about the show. Even the gung-ho Jason doesn’t know how to respond to the enthusiasm of the fan Brandon (Justin Long), who knows everything about every detail of the space fantasy.

The big story hook sounds simply terrible: the actors find themselves enlisted/shanghaied by an alien race called the Thermians, who think that ‘Galaxy Quest’ is real. They have rebuilt their civilization in harmony with the show’s simple do-good philosophy, and they’ve come to beg Commander Taggart and his crew to save them from an evil space warlord, Sarris (Robin Sachs). It’s essentially the same situation as in the classic  This Island Earth (a property in need of a brilliant remake). Thinking it’s another personal appearance job, the group finds itself transported across the universe.

The next story point makes no sense at all … but Galaxy Quest gets away with it. The Thermians have a built a working copy of the TV show’s spaceship The Protector… with all of its fantastic futuristic technology … but don’t know how to make it work. Neither does our cast, of course. The ‘pretend’ space heroes’ conflict with Sarris becomes a comical adventure in which the actors must ‘learn on the job.’

I’m not a real intergalactic spaceship captain, but I play one on TV.

Once we get past the in-jokes about William Shatner and the limitations of the original Trek show, Galaxy Quest works like a charm. The ILM special effects are appropriately flashy and colorful. Stan Winston’s monster factory produces a gang of alien enemies required only to make murderous threats, shoot ray guns and otherwise pose a generic menace.

The personality chemistry between the actors works well — we grudgingly concede that Tim Allen very nicely pegs the pompous, self-obsessed Jason Nesmith. Sigourney Weaver expresses Tawny Madison’s compromise with ‘Galaxy Quest’s’ essential sexism. It’s an amusing twist, considering Ms. Weaver own Sci-fi persona as the  toughest woman in space movie history. The late Alan Rickman is probably the film’s most respected actor; most fans know that he welcomed the opportunity to portray an actor fed up with typecasting, even in a Sci-fi comedy.

Just when we think the movie will bog down in Star Trek in-jokes and put-downs of convention fans, Galaxy Quest finds its groove with the introduction of the aliens called Thermians. Now it is axiomatic that chatty alien races in TV shows (and plenty of features) just plain don’t work. They are given weird monotone voices or perform like ghosts in a Dickens movie. The film’s director Dean Parisot admits that the that they are not responsible. The redemption of the movie’s entire concept came from an audition with actor Enrico Colasanti, who asked if he could demo his own idea for the Thermian leader Mathesar. As soon as they heard Colanti’s eccentric interpretation of a benign alien masquerading in human form, Parisot realized that they had just what they needed.

Saved by Mathesar, the Thermian with a heart of gold.

Several other actors fell into the weird, ultra-sincere speech pattern set by Enrico Colasanti, and (we think) save the movie. The Thermians give us something to care about. They’re a bundle of good qualities, and utterly un-ironic. This storybook purity gives the show emotional weight — confronted with such deserving virtue, our flaky spacemen have no choice but to step up to the plate and fight the good fight, as if their 6 years on the show were a dress rehearsal. Alan Rickman’s Alexander Dane gets the strongest moment, when he sees value in the total worship of the Thermian Quelleck (Patrick Breen). Dane realizes he can’t mock such a gift, even it’s misplaced.

Colasanti and company do indeed save the movie. All the gags about crawling in ductwork, foolish Alien guards, silly computers and self-destruct countdowns stop being negatives. The fans become heroes as well. Jason Nesmith doesn’t know how to work things on the The Protector, but the teenaged fan Brandon does. The show regards intense fandom as harmless (which is debatable), but the positive life message is that it’s important to become avidly enthusiastic about something.

The movie’s gallery of homages and borrowings ranges from obvious to arcane. The better part of a minute is used to reveal the Thermians’ reconstructed space cruiser Protector, in its outer space dry dock and ready for action — a straight quote from the 1979  Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The giant ‘rock man’ that Jason must flee is a million dollar improvement on the beloved ‘Z’ picture  Missile to the Moon. That show’s ‘Rock Men’ are Gumby-like costumes of foam rubber. It also recalls the rock men that William Shatner tried, but failed, to put into  Star Trek V.

On one of his trips ‘beyond infinity,’ Jason rockets through space protected by a gelatinous coating. He looks like an action toy of himself, ready for packaging. That visual looks almost identical to some kooky pixillated action in the demented ‘underground comic’ musical  Forbidden Zone, when Pa Hercules is boosted into orbit by an an explosion at his workplace, a smog factory at Pico and Sepulveda.  ←

We’re not saying that Galaxy Quest is some kind of classic-to-be, but it certainly generates good entertainment. Every Actor In A Rut earns the right to be proud of him/her self. Sam Rockwell is hilarious as the former Red Shirt extra convinced he’s going to be the first to be killed. Tony Shalhoub made a good choice to quietly underplay the underwritten Fred Kwan. The gambit pays off: Fred isn’t pushed aside, and in fact gets to be the Earthman who makes it with an alien babe — even if, in her natural state, she’s a Lovecraftian squid. The group crashes a fan convention like the diesel train from  a ’70s comedy, and takes a big public stage bow like the cast of  an ’80s comedy.  The corny finish feels great, well earned.

Paramount Home Entertainment’s 4K Ultra HD + Digital Steelbook of Galaxy Quest may be a happy surprise for those who have only seen it on cable TV, where it was often reformatted to fit a different screen shape. The brightly-lit show is a fun watch in 4K, which shows more detail on ILM’s outer space artwork and the CGI effecs. We consider it a compliment to note that the good visual effects are a secondary aspect of our enjoyment. The newly remastered 4K encoding is presented in Dolby Vision and HDR-10, with Dolby Atmos audio.

We did have to go back to confirm something we should have caught the first time through. The whole movie undergoes a format / aspect ratio change. It starts out cropped to 1:85. When the Thermians show Jason a vast view of outer space for the first time, the sides of the image stretch out to a full 2:39 horizontal ‘scope width. In theaters, this would require some extra work from the projectionist. In the old days, a projectionist would move the screen masking or curtains when the image widened — I remember a first-run showing of  Superman, The Movie doing this at the beginning. But American exhibition in 1999 couldn’t handle this kind of format game. Movie multiplexes don’t even have dedicated projectionists for each screen, so the change was either dropped or completely messed up (think the sides of the image projected on black masking wings).

We have to remember that Stanley Kubrick wrote special, very polite, notes to projectionists about his movies, asking for them to be shown at a particular volume or brightness. There must have been some dedicated projectionists that tried to comply. This 4K release of Galaxy Quest replicates the AR change … the first 20 minutes of the movie play with black around all four sides of the image.

It’s also important to make sure that buyers don’t order the wrong item. This particular Steelbook edition has a 4K disc and a digital code, but no Blu-ray. Don’t get burned.

The extras include older featurettes that we appreciated, not being familiar with the movie. A new ‘filmmaker focus’ item allows the director Dean Parisot to comment on his show for its 25th anniversary disc release.

Remember the old DVD of  Mars Attacks, that included an entire dialogue track dubbed in the Martian language?  Galaxy Quest does the exact same thing, with a full feature dub in Thermian. We regret to report that subtitles are provided in three languages, but not Thermian.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Galaxy Quest 4K
4K Ultra HD + Digital rates:
Movie: Very Good – Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent English, Spanish, French
Supplements:
New ‘Filmmaker Focus’ with director Dean Parisot
Historical Documents: The Story of Galaxy Quest
Never Give Up, Never Surrender: The Intrepid Crew of the NSEA Protector
By Grabthar’s Hammer, What Amazing Effects
Alien School: Creating the Thermian Race
Actors in Spac
Sigourney Weaver Raps
Deleted Scenes
Theatrical Trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English, Spanish, French (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: November 27, 2024
(7235ques)

^*  In 1997 I traded several phone calls with Robert H. Justman, a producer on the original Star Trek as well as the Outer Limits. I wanted him to tell me all about his time as an assistant director and production person on legendary films noir, for directors like Robert Aldrich, Joseph H. Lewis, Fritz Lang, Joseph Losey, E.A. Dupont, and John Berry.  Nope — Justman wasn’t interested in hashing over all that old stuff that nobody cared about. Deep in retirement, he was too busy making money writing text for Star Trek collector cards.

Visit CineSavant’s Main Column Page
Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: cinesavant@gmail.com

Text © Copyright 2024 Glenn Erickson