Review of Galaxy Quest (1999) by Allan C — 18 Aug 2017

George Takei called this film, "a chillingly realistic documentary." Okay, it's not quite that, but it is a very funny parody/love letter to Star Trek and the Trekkies who love it. Tim Allen (the Captain Kirk figure), Alan Rickman (the Spock figure), Tommy Webber (the Geordi figure), Tony Shalhoub (the Scotty figure), Sigourney Weaver (Kirk's love interest), and Sam Rockwell (a Red Shirt figure), play actors who were once the intrepid crew on a corny sci-fi TV series, Galaxy Quest, which is a not so thinly veiled analog for Star Trek.

Many years after the show's cancellation, the actors make their living attending fan conventions and appearing at electronic store grand openings. The first act of the film where they contend with obsessive fans, petty hatred and jealousies towards each other, and basically hate their current stations in life, is hilarious.

Once the the main story kicks in the film gets even funnier, which is when real aliens attending the convention think that Galaxy Quest was a real-life historical document and want to recruit the crew to help them defeat their real-life space alien enemies.

The helpful aliens have even created an fully functional replica of the Galaxy Quest spaceship for the crew! Allen is terrific as the very full of himself Captain and Rickman is hilarious as the classically trained British theater actor who despises his fans and resents only being know for his pointy-eared alien role (actually he wears a different alien prosthetic head piece, but whatever).

I also have to say that there wasn't nearly enough Tony Shalhoub, but the cutaways to where he's in the engineering section of the ship barely pretending he knows what he's doing is priceless.

There's also some very funny moments when the captain has to call an obsessive fan back on earth, Justin Long, for advice on how to handle a situation involving ridiculous minutia about the ship. The movies does lose some momentum for a bit in the middle when the Galaxy Quest team are sent down to an alien planet, but it's still a good time.

J.J. Abrams called this his favorite "Star Trek" film and he's not far wrong. Now that geek culture is much more celebrated in the mainstream, I can imagine what kind of a major hit this movie would have been if it had come out now instead of almost 20 years ago.

Overall, this film is a terrific comedy that is irresistible, but it's something special for Star Trek fans.