Galaxy Quest review by Orlando C. Fernando February 8, 2000 Storyline: 7.5 Originality: 9 Acting: 8 Special Effects: 7.5 Overall: B

Star Trek is twisted into a parody called Galaxy Quest, which makes for good intergalactic laughs.

The movie opens with our heroes of Galaxy Quest in a predicament with latest arch enemy Sarris, not unlike Captain Picard's Enterprise quandaries of Star Trek: The Next Generation. As you can predict, they foil the villain, save the ship, and the crew lives to fight for justice in space in another day. What was unpredictable, was this was only a 70's episode shown on a big screen at a "Galaxy Quest" sci-fi convention, complete with every costumed fanatic you can imagine at these kind of events. Show actor Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) is happy as a clam having been the star of the long running series as Captain Peter Quincy Taggart, taking autographs and chanting catch phrases at the audience, much to his co-stars' disgust and jealousy. However, when Jason overhears show criticism in the bathroom, his ego takes a nose dive and boozes it up at home. The following hangover morning, he receives a few strange fans at his door that had just appeared at the convention. They turn out to be real aliens that have landed on earth to seek Captain Taggart to save their race from Sarris's invaders. These aliens apparently had recovered reels of the "Galaxy Quest" TV episodes and mistaken as serious historical Earth documents. Realizing it could be "a neat gig", Jason accepts the mission as Capt. Taggart and gets his reluctant costars to join him.

I t's not long before the crew gets immediately involved in space chases and the real Sarris.
The crew throughout the movie struggle to "be" the characters they play in the "Galaxy Quest" show, so that they can get through this real Galaxy-Quest like adventure. This adjustment tries to cause much of the action and laughs of the movie. And it succeeds. Look at the scene where they land on a planet to get more ship powering stones. Or even when they try to drive the ship out of the cargo hold in the first place. It is not without some implausible premises, including how is it so coincidental that they face the exact same aliens, ships,and Sarris (who only appeared in the last "Galaxy Quest" episode) as in the TV show.

T im Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and the rest work surprisingly great.
Considering that Tim Allen has not had stellar performances in past movies, it is good to see him work well in a post-"Home Improvement" role. Sigourney Weaver as Lt. Tawny Madison the crew babe and Alan Rickman as the envious Dr. Lazarus play off of Tim's character well. Several of the aliens are hilarious and the sci-fi effects work well with them. The convention geeks and various living-in-fiction teen fans also acted very realistically, completing the humor gag factor.

C ompletely not what I expected of this film, and that's a good thing!
I thought it would be cross between a mediocre Star Trek spoof and the box office failure "Mars Attacks". I did not expect the adventure to happen with the actors struggling to be their character counterparts, and that's a novel premise for a space action comedy. Perhaps worth full admission, but definitely worth matinee prices to see. As Star Trek-veteran William Shatner would say, Galaxy Quest is "just a TV show", but it's also one pretty nifty movie too.

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Copyright 2001 by Orlando C. Fernando. Tim Allen picture is copyright altocelebs.net. This page is for personal use only. It may be openly distributed for nonprofit in whole or part, but authorship must be credited.