Galaxy Quest: neck deep in character
As we all know, Earth started polluting interstellar space with television signals in 1939. Fast-forward 60-odd years now, into a reality for all intents and purposes ours, except here Star Trek isn't Star Trek, but the all-too similarly cloaked "Galaxy Quest." During those 60-odd years, too, some of those escaped television signals have cultured an audience, in the literal sense. Specifically, an alien audience without any notion of 'fiction,' meaning, to them, the cast of characters who comprise "Galaxy Quest" are real, capable of heroics, etc. And yes, this has been done before, once in Twilight Zone and more recently in Futurama, but now it's feature length and packed with stars: Tim Allen as James Nesmith playing Captain Taggart; Sigourney Weaver as Gwen Demarco playing busty Tawny Madison; Alan Rickman as Alexander Dane reluctantly playing Dr. Lazarus; more.
Too, it starts where all Trekkie-type stuff lives and breathes: at the ubiquitous convention, done up per SNL. A cast of characters still wearing their costumes 20 years after the show was cancelled, all of them fully aware both of how ridiculous this all is and how, without it, they would have nothing. Well, all of them are aware except for Nesmith, the 'captain,' who's so addicted to the ego-rush associated with star treatment that he continually ostracizes his fellow hangers-on. Soon enough he cues in that he's a joke though, meaning his self-confidence dwindles to nothing. Which of course sets Galaxy Quest up as now having somewhere to go, something to do, a narrative arc to follow: regain Nesmith's self-confidence for him, make him believe in himself again.
The bad thing about this is, though, that Nesmith's lived with 'Captain Taggart' so long that the two are inextricable. Or, more than that, the Taggart character is even the dominant one, where Nesmith really exists. Solution? Get Taggart his self-confidence back, which is where the ultra-naïve aliens enter: the best way to boost a starship captain's self-confidence is to give him a real starship, one they've painstakingly modeled after the cardboard one on television. It's the old Narnia fantasy, where, if you're nobody in your 'real' life, just step into the closet, into another world, where everybody knows your name.
Of course, however, restoring Taggart's faith in himself is just the aliens' function. Their motivation, as it has to be, isn't so charitable: they just want Taggart and crew to save them from some scary looking, Men in Black-ish aliens. Which proves to be quite entertaining, watching the "Galaxy Quest" crew come together as a team and wing their way through their old roles. And, no, nothing that happens is really unexpected--including their 'savior,' who gets sorethumbed early on--but all the same, it's funny enough and fast enough that it doesn't really matter. You don't go to Galaxy Quest to be moved, after all, you go for the send-up, the adventure, the space bloopers, for Tim Allen in another good role (The Santa Clause, Toy Story), for Sigourney Weaver back in zero-gravity, with blond hair, fighting aliens again. Really, the most difficult part of Galaxy Quest is trying to endure all the kiddy trailers that are part of the package. If you can make it through that, though, it's all 'second star on the left and on till dawn' stuff from there on out, which is precisely the mix of Never-Never Land and space opera we need, now that Kirk's out of the picture.
©1999 Stephen G. Jones
(c) 1999 Stephen Graham Jones, http://www.cinemuck.com
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