Galaxy Quest (1999) Reviewed by Eugene Novikov http://www.ultimate-movie.com/ Member: Online Film Critics Society
Starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Daryl Mitchell, Tony Shalhoub, Enrico Colantoni. Directed by Dean Parisot. Rated PG.
You'd think it would be easy to spoof Star Trek, but try spoofing it without cruelly mocking it. That's a bit more difficult. The farfetched sci-fi series is, after all, enormously popular, what with its gigantic fan base and ongoing installments both on television and in movies. If you're not nice to it, you lose. Galaxy Quest is to Star Trek what Mel Brooks's Spaceballs was to Star Wars, an affectionate, riotously funny parody that freely takes jabs at various elements of its subject but never seems mean-spirited or malintentioned.
"The show's been cancelled, but the journey is far from over." That is the current tagline of "Galaxy Quest," a Star Trek - type show that's no longer produced but lives on forever in reruns. It also lives on in conventions, gatherings of the show's obsessive fans who never fail to dress in "Galaxy Quest" costumes and ask absurdly logical questions about its delirious technobabble.
Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) played "Commander Peter Quincy Taggart" on the show and is the only one of the cast who still gets excited about the gigs they have to do. The attitudes of the rest -- Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell, Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver), Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) and Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman) -- range from indifference to utter contempt. Dane, who played a Spock-like alien, is especially disgusted, considering himself above his demeaning job and stubbornly refusing to recite his character's cheesy trademark line "By Grabthar's Hammer, you shall be avenged" (or something like that) for his die-hard fans.
One day, Nesmith is greeted by an especially fanatical group of "Galaxy Quest" followers. They are actually aliens from a planet known as Thermia. They have mistaken the "Galaxy Quest" episodes for historical documentation of actual heroic space travel. The next day, the Thermians whisk Nesmith away to a spaceship to help them defeat the evil Sarris (named, in one of the film's only mean-spirited gags, after Village Voice film critic Andrew Sarris). Nesmith thinks it is only an elaborate gig, and sort of blows it off, but when he is transported -- or I should say shot -- back to Earth in a rather celestial manner, he believes.
Next thing the cast knows, they are being dragged by Nesmith to this spaceship. Of course, they all think he is out of his mind and once he does convince them that there really is a spaceship, what they want to do is get out of there as fast as the transporters will take them. But after some persuading, they stay on to fight the icky Sarris and find a way to provide a peaceful existance for the flailing Thermians.
I was quite surprised how well this comedy, which came off as utterly brainless from its marketing campaign, worked. Taking shots at both the obvious and not-so-obvious elements of Star Trek and its fandom, Galaxy Quest never goes for cheap laughs, opting instead for broad but smart parody. Nothing is safe -- not the cliches, not the fans, not the absurd taglines -- but on the other hand, everything is safe, since Galaxy Quest treats its subject with utter respect and sometimes even subtle admiration.
The highlight of the movie is Tony Shalhoub's Fred a.k.a. Tech Sergeant Chen who, when in character, is the complete opposite of Scotty from the original Star Trek. While Scotty, who was the technician for the Enterprise would constantly yell "I NEED MORE POWER DOWN HERE CAPTAIN!", Chen's cry for help is more to the tune of "The core, like, won't take it or something." It's a hoot, but it doesn't stop there: Weaver, whose character has the menial task of repeating everything the computer says and Rickman, with his relentlessly holier-than-thou attitude aren't far behind.
Galaxy Quest succeeds as a funny parody of Star Trek and while it's not a masterpiece -- it tends to falter in its more serious moments -- it is immensely entertaining fluff and excellent counterprogramming to all the sober Oscar contenders being released this holiday season. By Grabthar's hammer, this is a hell of a movie.
Grade: B
©1999 Eugene Novikov
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