Here's a great fun sci-fi comedy satire from director Dean Parisot. Galaxy Quest (1999) is a clever parody of Star Trek, portraying a group of typecast actors milking their fading fame from a 1980s TV show.
With an all-star cast featuring sci-fi legend Sigourney Weaver, and other luminaries such as Alan Rickman, this one is a well-deserved cult classic.
It's a lot of fun! Breezy entertainment that doesn't take itself very seriously, landing some great high-concept ideas along the way.
By Grabthar's Hammer You Shall ENJOY the Excellent Galaxy Quest
This film launched the same year as Matt Groening's brilliant Futurama series. 1999 was a good year for sci-fi comedy!
The idea was nothing new, with the likes of the BBC's Red Dwarf having set many industry standards in the '80s and '90s.
But the nature of Trekkies and other geeks, with their worship of TV shows and sci-fi films, does make for an ideal opportunity for spoofing.
Galaxy Quest manages this in a manner that isn't condescending. Some of the fandom reactions can be toxic and annoying, but your average nerd/geek loves shows like this for the escapist entertainment and sense of community.
Anyway, the plot! The cast of a 1980s sci-fi series, Galaxy Quest, are together in the late 1990s to attend a fan convention.
Everyone has mixed feelings about this. Attention seeking star of the show Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) laps it all up. He played the lead in the series as Commander Peter Quincy Taggart (a direct take on Captain Kirk from Star Trek).
Whereas others are a tad more resentful.
One of these is British thespian Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman) who plays Dr. Lazarus—a Spock type character.
He's frustrated his Shakespearean stage career is ignored in favour of his exploits on Galaxy Quest (there are real life examples of this. British actor Alec Guinness famously detested his part in Star Wars as Obi Wan Kenobi).
The funniest thing in the film is Dane's barely contained anger whenever he has to repeat his catchphrase, "By Grabthar's Hammer, you shall be avenged!"
And just to rub salt into the wounds, here he is signing autographs as nerds offload the catchphrase on to him.
Yes, so Alan Rickman is hilarious in this film. That languid voice of his was perfect for a role like this.
Also in the cast is Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver) who's the sex appeal character of the TV show Galaxy Quest, with Weaver wearing a blonde wig. The character DeMarco has accepted her lot, but is annoyed by the inherent sexism of her role.
Also around is Guy Fleegman (Sam Rockwell), who had a brief cameo in the show and milks it for all he's worth.
Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell) is also around as the ship's pilot, who was a precocious child talent in the Galaxy Quest series.
After the conference, Nesmith gets drunk and wakes up in a heap on his floor back home. A peculiar looking bunch of pale individuals, describing themselves as Thermians, approach him looking for help.
Nesmith thinks they're overly devoted fans, but they zap him onto their spaceship to do battle against the space warlord Sarris (voiced by Robin Sachs).
Having observed the TV show Galaxy Quest, the Thermians are convinced Commander Peter Quincy Taggart and his crew are space heroes capable of saving their species from Sarris.
Although hyper-intelligent and skilled with technology, they have an emotional range of 10 year olds and are very naïve.
Nesmith can't quite believe it, as you'd expect, and eventually he's reunited with this TV show cast and they're all blasted up to the spaceship. This results in some considerable emotional distress.
With that out of the way, the actors have little time to acclimatise to their new surroundings.
They're suddenly forced to try and be space heroes, with former child pilot Tommy Webber expected to fly a spaceship all of a sudden (one of the highlights of the film, this bit).
The crew then have to go up against psychotic space warlord Sarris, who's running riot across the galaxy.
In time, and as you'd expect, the Thermians come to realise the people they've come to believe would save the day are, in fact, actors.
As that's a job that doesn't exist in their society, they took a little longer than everyone else to figure it out. However, and happily for the plot, the crew do live up to their TV show counterparts and help to save the day!
Personal character growth occurs.
Nesmith finds a sense of humility, DeMarco expresses her autonomy, and Sam Rockwell's Guy Fleegman manages to grow a spine. Although he does have some of the best lines, with Galaxy Quest poking fun at the way sci-fi films play fast and loose with harsh reality checks.
We rushed through the final part of the plot there as the closing segment of Galaxy Quest is a little more formulaic.
But there's plenty enough great fun parody stuff for most of the running time to absolutely deserve its cult classic status.
The cast (as, the real cast for this film, as opposed to the TV show cast) is all on top form. Rickman and Rockwell, in particular, are very amusing with their behaviour. And the film's " By Grabthar's hammer!" line has gone down in legend.
Galaxy Quest has buckets of charm and excels by not taking itself very seriously. Just as importantly, it's clever and very funny oftentimes!
A perfect blend of comedy and affectionate sci-fi parody, which for the large part delivers a very entertaining film. And a masterclass in landing a near perfect spoof.
The Production of Galaxy Quest
The film was directed by Dean Parisot, with the screenplay by David Howard and Robert Gordon.
Despite the all-star cast, Galaxy Quest wasn't a huge hit. Its budget of $45 million resulted in a $90.7 million.
On the plus side, it was critically acclaimed and proved a hit with Star Trek fans, actors from the show, and geeks/nerds in general. But it's since gained a wider appeal as a great comedy film with non-science fiction audiences.
Casting was straightforward, with Tim Allen quickly landing the lead.
Sigourney Weaver was already a big sci-fi hit as it was (thanks to that little film from 1979 called Alien) and wanted in on the project from the off.
Alan Rickman was very keen on landing the role for Alexander Dane. His career to that point was somewhat similar to Dane's fictional one.
Rickman was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and was famous for his stage career. That suddenly, and unexpectedly, became a major film career after he starred as antagonist Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988).
Filming more or less all took place in a studio in LA, with some of the alien planet scenes filmed in Goblin Valley State Park, Utah.
To highlight how the film industry works in funny ways, distributor DreamWorks told producer Mark Johnson it was confused by the film. As it ended up different from the script.
Much was then cut from the film to make it more family-friendly.
This is likely due to the launch of Paramount's film The Rugrats Movie, which had just launched in 1999 and was a big hit. To compete with that, Galaxy Quest was tailored to a more cautious cut.
These days that'd be blamed on cancel culture and THE WOKE MOB, but it's a classic example of the constant studio interference that goes on in the industry.
But... it did no real harm here. For Galaxy Quest is a fine time of it, irrespective of more gory scenes being removed for posterity.
No comments:
Post a Comment