Subject: Review: Galaxy Quest (1999)

From: Marty Mapes <[email-masked]>
Date: 26 Feb 2000 18:15:16 GMT

Galaxy Quest 
A film review by Marty Mapes 
Copyright 2000 Marty Mapes 

**1/2 (out of 4) You're dragged to a party after a Star Trek convention,
and you get trapped in a corner by a "uniformed" nerd who thinks he's
interesting. He's telling you his idea for a screenplay, called GALAXY
QUEST, where William Shatner- and Leonard Nimoy-types are at a Con, and
they meet some REAL aliens, but they think they're just eccentric fans.

"Ho-hum," you yawn, and politely excuse yourself to go find your date so
you can get out of this nuthouse.

Well, believe it or not, somebody actually produced GALAXY QUEST
(namely, Mark Johnson and Charles Newirth). It's as bad as you would
imagine, and yet it's as good as it could possibly be.

Tim Allen plays Jason Nesmith, an actor on the TV show Galaxy Quest.
He's at a sci-fi convention with his "crew" (Alan Rickman as Sir Alex,
who wears an elaborate alien headpiece for the show and who longs for
some real acting work; Sigourney Weaver as the female officer who has to
wear a revealing outfit; and Tony Shalhoub who looks like he's having
fun as the ship's engineer.)

Nesmith often takes side jobs playing his character at private parties.
One of the "parties" turns out to be thrown by four real space aliens
who have built a ship exactly like the one on the show. They invite the
captain and his crew to their home planet. Once there, the demure,
polite aliens get to the point -- they ask the crew if they wouldn't
mind saving their world from an evil alien race, just like they do every
week on TV.

I say GALAXY QUEST is as bad as you would imagine because there is very
little you can do with this concept. It's one joke, repeated in as many
ways as will fit into 90 minutes. What's worse is that the joke is a
specific parody, and if you've never followed Star Trek, the movie just
won't make sense.

The second-worst thing the filmmakers could have done is to make a joke
of the movie's TV show, which they did. Cardboard sets and cornball
dialogue get a few cheap laughs, but the movie would have been better if
the TV show were more plausible. Part of the humor in GALAXY QUEST
relies on mistaking what's real for what's fake. By making the show
cheap and hokey, they lost some of that comic leverage for the bigger
jokes.

The WORST thing they could have done is to make a joke of the TV show's
actors (the movie's characters). But they didn't, and because the
characters are not parodies, because they have real depth, the movie is
as good as it could possibly be.

Tim Allen in particular breaths life into his role. He drinks and has a
huge ego. But on the other hand, he loves his role, he loves his fans,
and he loves signing autographs and answering questions. In other words,
Allen brings a unique, vivid personality to the role instead of just
settling for a bad William Shatner imitation. If Academy Awards were
based on the ratio of performance quality to source material, Allen's
score might earn him a nomination.  

Clearly, GALAXY QUEST takes some well-deserved shots at Star Trek, like
the elaborate headpieces and the revealing outfit. The movie also has
some funny lines that we've always wanted to hear on Star Trek. The
expendable crewmate manning a computer console calls out "Hey guys,
there's a red thingy movin' toward the green thingy. I think we're the
green thingy." Sigourney Weaver, crawling through the ventilation to get
to the bridge, says "Ducts. Why is it always ducts?" 

But taken as a whole, GALAXY QUEST is just a parody. And parody is only
funny when you know the source material. GALAXY QUEST could never stand
on its own, and in the annals of filmmaking, it won't get its own entry.
If it is mentioned at all it will only be as a footnote to the Star Trek
movies.

If you're a Trekkie who doesn't take it too seriously, you will probably
have a good laugh at GALAXY QUEST. You should take a look. But if you
don't know the difference between Star Trek, Star Wars, and Star Search,
then you might as well see something else. 
-- 
___________
Marty Mapes
[email-masked]

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