Galaxy Quest

Galaxy Quest is a 1999 motion picture written by Robert Gordon and David Howard and directed by Dean Parisot, starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Sam Rockwell, and Tony Shalhoub.

The movie is about the washed-up stars of a fictional 1978–1982 TV series called Galaxy Quest (a parody of the original Star Trek series that also includes elements of Star Trek The Next Generation). In Galaxy Quest, the actors were the crew of the NSEA Protector. They now find themselves in a real intergalactic adventure, thanks to some highly intelligent extraterrestrials (from "Thermia") who, having no concept of fiction or even falsehood, believe the show is a set of "historical documents". Not realizing that the show's technology was the product of special effects, the aliens sought to emulate it, managing to actually create the Protector exactly as shown on the show.

The movie won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in the year 2000, beating the four other nominees: Being John Malkovich, The Iron Giant, The Matrix, and The Sixth Sense.

Portions of the movie were filmed in Goblin Valley State Park, Utah, USA.

The DVD release of the film included an alternate audio track in which dialogue from the film is overdubbed in the alien's "Thermian" language.

Plot summary

Between 1978 and 1982, the adventures of the crew of the NSEA Protector thrilled audiences of Galaxy Quest, a Star Trek-like cult science-fiction television show. Unfortunately for the actors playing that crew, it's eighteen years later, and they're now washed-up has-beens, reduced to convention appearances and store grand-openings to pay the bills. Variously resentful, embittered, and resigned about their fates, the only one who gains any sort of pleasure out of the adoration aimed at them by their doting fans is Jason Nesmith, the egomaniacal star and 'Commander' of the crew, who laps up their enthusiasm — yet even he is unhappy, deep down, aware that he is resented by his other stars and largely considered a laughing stock by the wider population.

At one convention, Jason is approached about what he thinks is a personal solo appearance in an amateur episode by a group of even-more-unusual-than-usual fans. Everything goes as expected, although Jason is impressed by the high production values, for an amateur effort. Jason plays along, until, having cursorily ordered the destruction of the 'evil alien overlord' Sarris, he leaves — and finds himself shooting through the galaxy in a gelatineous transportation suit. Only then does he realise that he really was in outer space. It transpires that the 'fans' are Thermians, a peaceful and naïve alien race who, having received twenty-year old transmissions of Galaxy Quest (among other shows such as Gilligan's Island) from Earth, have interpreted the show as 'historical documents' and have structured their entire society around the 'teachings' of the show, going so far as to build an exact replica of the Protector.

Jason, naturally, loves the idea of being the hero to a real alien race, and ropes his reluctant fellow actors into joining him as his 'crew'. Unfortunately, just as the Protector is real, so are the dangers it must face — and Sarris is not just a special effect, but a terrifyingly real nemesis, an evil and ruthless warlord engaged in a genocidal war of annihilation with the Thermians. The actors, in order to help their alien friends, must therefore adopt their roles on the show for real...

Galaxy Quest and Star Trek

The movie parodied everything from the technology of Star Trek to the Star Trek fan conventions. The parody is mostly friendly (some Star Trek fans refer to it good-humoredly as "the best Star Trek movie ever made") and was widely appreciated by science fiction fans.

As an acknowledged homage to Star Trek, there are a variety of correspondences between the world of Galaxy Quest and the world of Star Trek. The television program within the film, Galaxy Quest, is set around the starship NSEA Protector, an instrument of the National Space Exploration Administration: thinly veiled replicas of the USS Enterprise and Starfleet, respectively.

This homage even extended to the original marketing of the movie, including a promotional website intentionally designed to look like a poorly constructed fan website, with "screen captures" and poor HTML coding. This was in imitation of the countless similar websites devoted to Star Trek.

Despite the overarching similarities to Star Trek, the film has more original dramatic and comedic merit than many spoof comedies. For instance, Mel Brooks' Spaceballs, while a broad-hitting spoof of mostly Star Wars, with a few jabs at Star Trek, may deliver less to a viewer not already familiar with Star Wars. Conversely, most of the plot, themes, and subplots of Galaxy Quest can be followed and appreciated by those who know little to nothing about Star Trek, although Trekkies will usually either have a richer appreciation or a deeper dissatisfaction with the film, as a neutral response may be difficult to find in such circles.

Ironically, GQ has made its own small but devoted fandom.

Cast

Commander/Captain Peter Quincy Taggart (both titles are used), played by Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen), is an almost perfect analogue of James T. Kirk/William Shatner; Taggart has a reputation for losing his shirt at the flimsiest excuse, rolling on the ground during combat, and making pithy speeches at the drop of a hat, while Nesmith is an egomaniac who regards himself as the core of Galaxy Quest, and tells fans to 'get a life', possibly parodying William Shatner's famous appearance on Saturday Night Live, in which he tells fans to do the same thing.

Dr. Lazarus of Tev'Meck, played by Sir Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman), is a member of an alien species renowned for their vast and prudent intellects; he is deeply intelligent and has psionic abilities. Additionally, he has a non-standard weapon and a portentous catchphrase ("by Grabthar's hammer, you shall be avenged!"). In these regards, he parodies Spock and possibly Worf. Sir Alexander Dane is a tired ex-RSC actor who resents his typecasting; in this regard he combines elements of Leonard Nimoy and a rather skewed portrayal of Patrick Stewart (or possibly a reference to Alec Guinness). Lazarus' speeches often reflect a pseudo-religious bent, in the manner of Benjamin Sisko, Kira Nerys and Chakotay.

Lieutenant Tawny Madison, played by Gwen DiMarco (Sigourney Weaver), is the Computer Officer of the Protector and performs communications duties. Essentially her job boils down to listening to and then directly repeating orders to and information from the ship's computer (in a cut scene from the film we discover that she is also usually the only person who can talk to the computer). She also wears a highly form-fitting uniform (she complains that her TV Guide interview consisted of several paragraphs on how her boobs fit into her uniform). Gwen herself, at least in the semi-canonical promotional material for the film, sees herself as a trailblazer, and defends the importance of her admittedly "stupid job" — her pronouncements are similar to some of Nichelle Nichols.

Tech Sergeant Chen, played by Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) is the Chief Engineer ('Tech Sergeant') and Transporter ('Digital Conveyor') Operator. His name, Chen, is a common Chinese name, even though he has an apparent Middle-Eastern ancestry. This may parody the often muddled national identities of Star Trek. For instance, Noonien Soong has a puzzlingly Chinese/Korean name, but is demonstrably neither. Alternatively, it may be a reference to the old Hollywood practice of using Eastern Europeans to play East Asian characters. His dialogue and role in the film also parody Montgomery Scott. This is made amusing due to the fact that the actor Fred Kwan treats every situation with incredible mellowness, in contrast to Scotty's often frantic warnings of impending doom. Some viewers maintain that Fred Kwan acts stoned throughout the film, and at one point during the film is even asked by character Guy Fleegman, "are you stoned?" Many fans (and by some accounts, Shalhoub himself) dispute that a drug reference is intended by his laid-back, unfazed reactions to incredible situations.

Lieutenant Laredo, played by Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell as an adult, Corbin Bleu as the 9 year old), is the very young 'boy wonder' helmsman. Similar to Wesley Crusher, Webber is also a general parody of numerous child actors who were unable to sustain their popularity as adults.

Crewman Number 6/Security Chief 'Roc' Ingersol, played by Guy Fleegman (Sam Rockwell), begins the story as a 'Questerian' (Trekkie) and small-time actor who still lives with his mother. His claim to fame is his appearance in one episode of the series — as a redshirt who died in the first act. For this reason, he believes that he, as a glorified extra, will be the first crewmate to die, and he spends most of the movie fretting about his upcoming demise. Ironically, his uniform is no different from any of the other characters', and the only person to actually wear a red shirt is Gwen DiMarco. In one dramatic scene, Fleegman is the only major character not injured.

General Roth'h'ar Sarris (Robin Sachs), the evil villain, bears the name of highbrow film critic Andrew Sarris. He seems to enjoy nothing better than torture and destruction.

References

The NSEA Protector is a knock-off of Star Trek's USS Enterprise, but in opposite structural form. Whereas the Enterprise has a curved (saucer) command section and two cylindrical engines, the Protector has a cylindrical command section and two curved engines.The shape of the ship is based on the combadges used primarily in The Next Generation. The Protector also has at least one shuttlecraft that looks similar to those of the Enterprise.

The Protector leaves spacedock, grinding and denting its hull as it goes, a mock tribute to the lengthy sequence in The Motion Picture where Admiral Kirk first sees the refitted Enterprise. This "tour shot" and slow departure from Spacedock was repeated numerous times in Star Trek, including The Undiscovered Country, the episode "All Good Things..." in The Next Generation, and the episode "Broken Bow" in Enterprise.

Galaxy Quest even parodies the Star Trek fan descriptive term war between "trekkie" and "trekker". Galaxy Quest fans are referred to by the (derogatory) term "Questies" and the more accepted term "Questarians".

The Protector can separate into two parts, in the manner of the Enterprise-D of The Next Generation.

Traveling through the bowels of the Protector is assisted by a network of service ducts, similarly to the Jefferies tubes. These service ducts are filled with nonsensical things like giant fans, flaming vents and useless giant pistons called "chompers," all of which (as Gwen points out) really do not belong in a service duct ("Whoever wrote this episode should die!"). Unlike the actors, fans of the show seem to know the duct system quite well. The film shows a bunch of teenage fans of the show who guide Taggart and Gwen through the ducts using self-made 3-D computer models.

The same group also finds a "design flaw" in the ship's blueprints and asks Taggart for an authoritative answer. He responds with "It's just a television show," a reference to William Shatner's famous "Saturday Night Live" quote to Star Trek fans, "Get a Life!"

The VOX communicators used by the Protector crew flip open, as did the original Star Trek communicators. On Star Trek, they flipped up, in Galaxy Quest they flipped down.

Portable scanners are also used on an away mission that look very much like the tricorders used in the Star Trek original television series.

The Protector's matter-energy technology, the 'Digital Conveyor', is a standard science fiction teleporter, and so is necessarily similar to the Star Trek transporter. As the transporter's activating verb was "Energize," so the digitizer is engaged with the command "Digitize". The digitizer's malfunction also echoes a frequent Star Trek plot device. And, in a case of "life imitates art," the untested nature of the "matter transporter" was a plot thread that ran through several early episodes of the prequel Enterprise.

The Thermians take the Galaxy Quest TV show as the basis for their entire society, as in the The Original Series episode, "A Piece of the Action", where aliens copy gangland Chicago after a book describing it is accidentally left behind.

The Galaxy Quest relaunch TV series ("Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues") takes place "eighteen years after the original adventure"; The Next Generation was launched eighteen years after the The Original Series was cancelled.

The Galaxy Quest score is dramatic and brassy, parodying Star Trek scores, notably the theme tune to The Next Generation. Ironically, the Galaxy Quest theme is used in the Internet video series Hidden Frontier.

Facing an enormous rock monster (a concept itself from an early script from The Final Frontier), Nesmith is advised to "fashion some sort of rudimentary lathe". This echoes a variety of incidents in Star Trek (particularly the original series episode "Arena") in which a crew member constructs an elaborate piece of equipment from few materials.

At the Galaxy Quest convention, there is a shy girl who imagines a romance between Madison and Taggart, referencing the common phenomenon of shipping. Also at the conventions are numerous aliens and costumes that are inspired by Star Trek. For example, three mock-Klingons are visible in the bathroom when Taggart enters near the beginning of the film. Near the end of the film, a "Galaxy Quest" fan can clearly be seen giving the famous Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" salute.

Jason loses his shirt during battle with the rock monster (which Alexander comments on). In Star Trek, Capt. Kirk frequently lost his shirt during battle with aliens and/or rogue crewmen.

The basic plot of Galaxy Quest is very much like the 1986 comedy ¡Three Amigos!. Both movies involve actors who go somewhere thinking they are being called upon to do their act, only to learn they have unwittingly been recruited (by people who didn't realize that 'it was only a movie')to help defend them from an outside menace.

The Beryllium sphere, used to power the Protector, was a real-life component of the original Fat Man atomic bomb detonated over Nagasaki in World War II. The 1994 Universal film adaptation of The Shadow also used the Beryllium sphere as a plot device in the development of a bomb for the War Department.

Reaction From Star Trek actors

I had originally not wanted to see Galaxy Quest because I heard that it was making fun of Star Trek and then Jonathan Frakes rang me up and said ‘You must not miss this movie! See it on a Saturday night in a full theatre.’ And I did and of course I found it was brilliant. Brilliant. No one laughed louder or longer in the cinema than I did, but the idea that the ship was saved and all of our heroes in that movie were saved simply by the fact that there were fans who did understand the scientific principles on which the ship worked was absolutely wonderful. And it was both funny and also touching in that it paid tribute to the dedication of these fans. — Patrick Stewart
I've had flashbacks of Galaxy Quest at the many conventions I've gone to since the movie came out. I thought it was an absolute laugh-a-minute. — Tim Russ
I thought it was very funny, and I thought the audience that they portrayed was totally real, but the actors that they were pretending to be were totally unrecognizable. Certainly I don't know what Tim Allen was doing. He seemed to be the head of a group of actors and for the life of me I was trying to understand who he was imitating. The only one I recognized was the girl playing Nichelle Nichols. — William Shatner setting himself up.
Yes, I have seen Galaxy Quest and no, it's not really like that. — Casey Biggs ^*
I loved Galaxy Quest. I thought it was brilliant satire, not only of Trek, but of fandom in general. The only thing I wish they had done was cast me in it, and have me play a freaky fanboy who keeps screaming at the actor who played "the kid" about how awful it was that there was a kid on the spaceship. Alas. — Wil Wheaton.
I think it's a chillingly realistic documentary The details in it, I recognized every one of them. It is a powerful piece of documentary filmmaking. And I do believe that when we get kidnapped by aliens, it's going to be the genuine, true Star Trek fans who will save the day. ... I was rolling in the aisles. And ^*" target="_blank" >Sigourney ^* - George Takei

Trivia

The film employed an unusual technique involving the use of multiple aspect ratios. Although the entire film was shot in anamorphic widescreen, in theaters the first 20 minutes were framed and presented in the standard 1.85:1 aspect ratio, with the remainder of the film in the 2.39:1 "scope" ratio. The change occurs when the dome opens over Jason Nesmith and he realizes that he really is in space. For the DVD, the film was presented in the 2.39:1 ratio throughout.

In order to get a "PG" rating the film was edited down from its darker original version. Also, Gwen's line "Screw that!" is obviously a redub — she can be clearly seen saying "Fuck that!"

The "NTE" in the Protector's designation number (NTE-3120) stands for "Not The Enterprise!"

The "Klaatu Nebula", is named after Michael Rennie's character "Klaatu" from the 1951 sci-fi classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

The Galaxy Quest technical Manual Prop Brandon was holding is actually a "Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical manual" with a Galaxy Quest Cover.

There was going to be a line of Galaxy Quest toys but they were never completed. The original sculpts for the toys were sold on eBay.

Susan Egan, the voice of Meg in Disney's "Hercules" is credited as playing the character "Teek". However, Susan Egan never actually appears in the film, nor was she ever in front of a camera or said any lines! Apparently she was set to play the character, but it was dropped somewhere during script changes, yet the name still appeared on cast lists and therefore in the final credits.

The special effects crew went all out for realism on the Protector bridge set. Usually, as in the case of Star Trek, when there is an explosion, the camera would tilt to one side and the actors would fall to the other, creating the visual effect of the set rolling and the actors reacting (an effect often called the Irwin Allen rock-and-roll by sci/fi film buffs). However, the Protector bridge set was built on hydraulic rams, so when an explosion supposedly occurred, the set would actually (and very suddenly) rock to one side, vibrate wildly and throw the actors out of their seats. The effect was so real that it actually frightened (and injured) several of the main cast.

The tiny details that the prop department came up with are amazing. For example, there were three different versions of the "Ion Nebulizer" (the main sidearm) prop: The version 'used' by the cast in the Galaxy Quest television series, the toy version for sale at the Galaxy Quest convention and the 'real' version built by the Thermians.

The actor who played Brandon (the knowledgeable fan who saved the day) is Justin Long, who was about 21 at the time. On the DVD cast menu, he's erroneously identified as "Brandon" Long, but his name is correct on his bio page. He can now be seen portraying the Mac in the Get a Mac advertising campaign.

External links

Galaxy Quest | Galaxy Quest | ギャラクシー・クエスト | Galaxy Quest

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