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Movie Reviews:GalaxyQuest
Allright truth be told, I'm a not a super trekkie. I'm right on the border. I mean sure, when I first got the sci-fi channel last may, for like 2 months I tuned in every night at 7pm and watched an episode of the original series, and I enjoyed it. But over the years the series has come and gone, and repeated itself. Voyager is mediocre, but sometimes great. DS9 had potential and then turned into a soap opera. TNG was fun, but oh so preachy. And about half of the movies are absolute crap (My favorites are in order, Kahn, Spock, First Contact and Undiscovered Country. The worst are Generations and last fall's total crapfest, Insurrection).
So the truth is out. When Trek is good, its great, and when its bad, its horrible. I think even the most die hard trekkie can accept that. And I also think that even the most die hard trekkie can accept the healthy lampooning that they take in GalaxyQuest.
Tim Allen play the Captain, Alan Rickman plays a surly Spockish role, and Sigourney Weaver plays the largest breasted crewman who's primary job is to repeat whatever the computer she says... and even she knows that its a stupid job.
Essentially, these 3, along with the Scottyish charachter (who has the best lines and scenes in the movie) and the "Extra" who died and was forgotten in some episode way back when are washed up actors from the early 80s television program "GalaxyQuest". These days they get by making personal appearances and GalaxyQuest Conventions where Questarians pay fifteen bucks a pop for autographs.
At one of these cons, a group of wacky looking costumed kids asks captain Tibbit for a 'Personal Appearance' (and yes, they get the requested limo). Of course you've seen the trailers, they turn out to be aliens who intercepted the signals of the bad 80s space adventures, and interpretted them to be "Historical Documents" of a real band of space heros. They then modeled their society after them: complete with building an exact replica of the Protector. Now that they are in conflict, they need help, and they retrieve our heros to save the day.
So thats the plot. Comedy follows. The range the spectrum of "Good trying to look Bad" all the way to just bad, to pretty dang cool. The acting is all great... the aliens are quirky and naive tenticled beings that squeeze laugh after laugh just with crazy facial expressions. The cast themselves are right on the money, parodying the conventions that the original Star Trek series created (the running gags about the "Extra" dying are just great... he's the red shirted guy with no last name: he's destined to die, it happens every episode right?).
And of course there are the Trekki-I mean, the Questarians. Geeks who ask technical questions about contradictions between episodes, or scientific questions derived from badly written episodes of a low budget television program. You know these guys. I know these guys.
The truth is that this movie was lovingly crafted by people who obviously knew their stuff about the star trek world, and the bizarre cult that has sprung up around it here in the real world. They've seen that its crazy, and they've had a lot of fun with it. This isn't the greatest parody in the world (Mel Brooks pretty well has a lock on that between Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Spaceballs) but its more than a parody of a movie or a genre, its a parody of something that has surpassed the small screen and the big screen, and become part of lives in a way that few programs have. Its about the show that causes people to dress up with pointy ears, or write a book so that others can learn the tongue of a fictitious warrior race.
See this movie. Hell, its better than half of the Star Trek movies.
SciFi was running a special mockumentary about the history of the Galaxy Quest television show. It was hilarious. I might just have to see it before the world ends this weekend.
Another good movie that parodies a lot of those cool science fiction movies is Space Balls. It's directed by Mel Brooks and it was quite funny when I first saw it.
"...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead sit in front of your linux computer playing with the all-new-and-improved linux kernel version."
I saw the movie over the weekend, and I thought it was pretty good, too. There is definately some humor in there for the Star Trek fan, and the movie's not as cruel to the fans as the trailers make it seem. It's a good film for any Trekker, just don't go in there expecting Shakespere. And, Sigorney Weaver looks pretty hot as a blonde!
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
I saw the previews for Galaxyquest and was immeadiatley appauled by the movie, just by the preview. It looked incredibly low budget, and in no way did it look any funnier than a Little Ceasers "Pleasure Pleasure" commercial, let alone a full blown movie. Sure, I hate it when companies give away the whole plot / funny lines in the trailer of the movie, but their marketing strategy works, and lots of people go and see the movie, regardless of how much, or how little, they know.
If it were not for this article, I would have not even thought that this movie was worth the $9 some-odd dollars Canadian to go to the theatre and see it. I probably still won't, simply because I can't stand lame comedies - something that the trailor has showed me.
I know there's going to be contradicting points, but please keep them down to a low growl.
With spoof issues,
Matthew
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sortakinda.ca | canadian paraphrasing.
I saw GalaxyQuest last night with my fiance - we were dying laughing! It is a great spoof - to me, the best Star Trek & various S/F series spoof yet. I was never a fan of Space Balls - it forced every line to be a spoofed line from Star Wars. That's no fun to me. This managed to have some life of it's own. Really good movie, and for once, I agree with a /. movie review!
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
Silly songs like Star Trekkin', "Theeeeere's Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, scrape 'em off Jim!", and the various skits such as Star Dreck, "Ach! Well I tried shovin' a weiner inta the warp drive Captain, but it didn'ta do a bit o good!". And Star Trip, "Captain! Captain! All the stars have gone out!... No you fool! You've leaned on the button. Turn the viewscreen back on!" "[crewman] Oh wally! Oh wally! Oh wally! Oh wally! [Captain] Hey! This is a broom closet! What are you two doing in there? [crewman] We're engaged, sir! [Captain] Well, DISengage and get back to your posts at once!"
scifi.ign.com/movies/3408.html
They also gave the show a pretty good review, and I must admit I am looking forward to seeing it. This review gives away a little more plot and character information, so beware!
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
I took my 6 1/2 year old son to see this movie Saturday afternoon. He didn't get the in jokes, but he still loved it. I loved it also. I'm not a trekkie, but I have gone to the conventions, and the movie did a great job spoofing the whole scene. It didn't even do any real put-downs and the violence was at a very low level.
All in all, I've been recommending this to all my friends. Definitely worth seeing.
-- Error: Cannot find file REALITY.SYS - Universe halted, please reboot!
Come on, Rob. Everyone knows that the absolute worst Star Trek movie of all time has got to be ST V:Final Frontier, aka "The Quest for God". Ridiculous plot, laughable characterizations -- and it had the audacity to use the sub-title "Final Frontier", which really should have been reserved for the last ST movie.
ST:The Motion Picture isn't much better, but it's forgivable as the first attempt to bring ST back to the public (also as the by-product of the first failed ST II series).
And while it is possible to laud the merits of the ST films you've enjoyed, you've ignored ST IV:Voyage Home, which was a total joy to watch, despite making no sense.
Now I will step down off my fanatical soapbox, lest someone parody me in Galaxy Quest II...
- Richie
Some people have said that GalaxyQuest is the best Star Trek movie of the series. Ponder the irony if this is true.
I'd love to know what people associated with Trek think of the movie. Does Shatner recognize himself (and his toupee) in Tim Allen?
--
"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
I haven't seen the movie, but I already have a high opinion of... its marketing team. That's right, marketing. Why? Because they created this utterly brilliant fake fanpage for the original series. Now that's funny.
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It's commonly understood that the so called 'fifth' Star Trek movie was a clever hoax; and so successful in fact that the official movie releases skipped 'V' entirely in order to avoid confusion.
To clarify: There _is_ no Start Trek: V 'Final Frontier'. It was just a dream. A bad dream. Probably brought on by too much pizza. Really.
It was always my opinion that Kirk's first "death" in that movie--getting sucked into the Nexus while saving the Enterprise-B--was the perfect death, exactly the way Kirk would want to go out.
Now, dying under a pile of rocks while pulling Baldy's ass out of the fire, that's a different story altogether.
I haven't seen this movie yet, but I think the premise is the same as the 'Three Amigos': movie actors are mistaken for the real thing by a third party that isn't a participant of the 'mainstream' media. Smells like a variation on a theme.
it's not going to stop until you wise up, no it's not going to stop. so just give up.
It started with the Blair Witch Project, now it's reared it's ugly head in Galaxy Quest.
It's the "It's real. *SMIRK* I swear man!" type of advertising.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The quick rating is that if you've got a sense of humor, you'll enjoy it.
Now this must include everybody, because I have yet to meet a person who believes they don't have a sense of humor, even though I'm pretty sure some of them don't.
Uh, not precisely. The "legit" MST3K crew never did Trek-5. It was a fan production. You can find out all about it from this guy.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Is it just me or does the ship look like a Quake symbol?
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit.
jdube is who I am
BOTH are available on-line:
Visit to a Weird Planet here and here.
Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited (the better story I reckon) is available here
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
yep, I noticed that when the ship was disabled, and I think the FX director deliberately made it look like Quake logo for that shot.
PS. Any Mac fans notice that the bad guy aliens' guns are EXACTLY the machine gun from Bungie's Marathon??!!
I just about fell off my chair when I saw that.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.