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Twenty years on and the stars of cult 70's Sci-Fi TV show Galaxy Quest are still doing the convention circuit, donning their uniforms and alien make-up to sign autographs while they try to remain calm when demented fans ask them about minute plot inconsistencies. Yes, if you're the sort who insists they're a Trekker, prepare to be offended.
Galaxy Quest has an overbearing, overblown captain (Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith / Commander Pete Taggart) loved by the fans but hated by his fellow actors, a frustrated English stage actor playing a wise alien beloved of the odder fans (Alan Rickman), a bimbo communications officer whose only task is to repeat the words of the ship's computer (Sigourney Weaver), and a collection of similarly familiar clones. It also has a somewhat unusual group of fans, a singularly geeky race of advanced aliens who mistake it for a series of "historical documents" and base their civilisation around it.
Faced by a major intergalactic threat, these aliens build a fully functional replica of the Starship Protector and beam the actors from Galaxy Quest aboard to help them with the alien threat. From there on, the plot proceeds as you might expect, with plenty of action, plays on traditional genre clichés and in-jokes.
Galaxy Quest is simply a lot of fun, if in a somewhat superficial way, but it does have a some memorable moments, notably the bit-part actor terrified that he will be killed because his character in the show never had a surname.
If you laugh at Trekkies or are a Trekker who can laugh at yourself, you'll certainly enjoy this.
Originally reviewed in issue 8
by Jason Compton.
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