Galaxy Quest (1999)

Galaxy Quest

★ ★ ★ ★ out of 5

Directed by Dean Parisot

Starring Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith

Alan Rickman as Alexander Dane

Sigourney Weaver as Gwen DeMarco

Imdb Link

A group of actors, famous for their science fiction television show, Galaxy Quest, are recruited by aliens who believe them to be their characters and wish them to command their army.

I have never seen an episode of Star Trek, the only thing I have seen out of the whole franchise are J.J. Abrams two films. Galaxy Quest is very much an homage to the Star Trek television show, which is why I felt left out of the joke a lot of the time. I know this movie would have been a lot more enjoyable if I had previously seen anything from that TV series. Now with that said, Galaxy Quest is still hilarious, even to someone who is not “in on it”. I was laughing a lot at the jokes about the fans, and the jokes about the hubris of the actors, as well as pretty much every scene that the stilted, robot-like aliens were in. There’s a lot of humor in here that is accessible to pretty much everyone, which makes it good to anyone while also having the more “in-jokes” for the Trekkies. But through all that, I think the performances are really what make Galaxy Quest special. Tim Allen’s narcissist who rivals Kanye West in terms of love for his self is a really great character, and Allen does a great job with his performance, giving us a really identifiable character arc, so that we don’t plain hate him throughout. Then, by Grabthar’s hammer, there’s Alan Rickman who is awesome as always, playing the stage actor who wishes he hadn’t taken the role in the first place. Other stand outs are Sigourney Weaver, Sam Rockwell and Enrico Colantino. The special effects are also very impressive, especially the costume/CGI work on Sarris (I actually have no clue how they pulled that off). Really, just all in all Galaxy Quest is pretty great, of course I did feel left out of a good deal of the jokes which makes me not love it as much as I know I could have. Maybe if I ever get around to watching Star Trek, I’ll revisit this and see how my opinion changes.