[as Jason is mooning them, looking for his shoes]
Mathesar: Commander, standing here in your presence is the greatest honor we could ever have hoped to achieve in our lifetimes.
Jason Nesmith: Thanks, appreciate it... Anybody seen my other shoe?
Imagine that the cast of the original "Star Trek" series were recruited by a group of aliens who thought what they saw on TV was the real thing to help them battle an evil alien menace.
How do you think William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan and the rest would react?
Well, that is the one-joke premise of "Galaxy Quest," a movie that is funnier than its flimsy concept.
The humor of "Galaxy Quest" is not so much in the situations, but in the recognition.
The story by David Howard, who co-authored the screenplay with Robert Gordon, relies on our familiarity not so much with "Star Trek" but with a culture that blurs the line between reality and fiction as well as the concept of cultdom and fanaticism.
The funniest scenes in "Galaxy Quest" are not those in space, but the ones on Earth in which the "crew" of the NSEA Protector attend an annual convention and are besieged by fans who ask questions about minutiae concerning that old TV series that the bored and humiliated actors don't know or even care about.
The cast is headed by Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith, alias Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, who is abducted by the childlike Thermians from the Klatu Nebula to help them defeat the evil Sarris.
Allen does not do a Shatner impersonation, but he exudes the right amount of ego and hambone to remind you of the flamboyant "Star Trek" actor.
Nesmith then recruits his co-stars to help out. His crew is played by Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Daryl Mitchell and Sam Rockwell.
Shalhoub and Rockwell walk away with the film. Shalhoub is Fred Kwan, alias Tech. Sgt. Chen, a laid-back kind of guy who goes along with the flow. For the most part he remains cool and unflustered by the extraordinary circumstances in which he his thrown.
Rockwell, seen recently as the psychotic killer Billy the Kid in "The Green Mile", plays Guy, who appeared in one episode of the "Galaxy Quest" TV show and was killed off in the first five minutes.
He fears that real life will imitate art during this mission and that he will be the one to die in battle with the Sarris. After all, he reasons, his character didn't even have a last name.
The entire cast seems to have fun with their roles. Rickman as the resident alien continually complains about how he used to be a serious actor. And, shades of "Star Trek," he always carps about Allen's Nesmith/Taggart stealing his best lines and earning all the glory.
"Galaxy Quest" is an enjoyable movie. The special effects are so-so, but this is more of a character-driven science fiction comedy than one relying on lasers and explosions to entertain.
"Star Trek" fans will recognize some of the veiled references and situations, but you needn't be a Trekker (or even a Trekkie) to have fun with "Galaxy Quest."
It may be a bit too violent for the very young moviegoers, but older children and parents may have a good time together watching some make-believe heroes transform themselves into the real McCoys.
By : Bob Bloom
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 3
The cast rivalries of "Star Trek" actors, and the conventions of "Star Trek" as well as "Star Trek" conventions, all get a fairly loving shellacking in an enjoyable comedy that asks if the cast of "Star Trek" had to fight real aliens, how well would they do.
Back in the early 1970s there was a science fiction TV show that would be immortal to its fans, "Galaxy Quest." Even today the die-hard fans want more. Let's get this part out of the way so we can proceed. Tim Allen plays Jason Nesmith who on the show played Comdr. Peter Quincy Taggart. Alan Rickman plays Alexander Dane who played Dr. Lazarus of Tev'Meck. Sigourney Weaver plays Gwen DeMarco who played Lt. Tawny Madison. Tony Shalhoub, who does not look the slightest bit Chinese, plays Fred Kwan who played Tech Sergeant Chen. And Daryl Mitchell plays Tommy Webber who played Lt. Laredo. With each but possibly Laredo, the writers were clearly thinking of a corresponding member of the "Star Trek" cast.
In spite of the fact that Galaxy Quest has been off the air for many years the cast continues to be a hot item at science fiction media conventions. Just about everyone in the cast is tired of being type- cast, but they have to contend with the fame and popularity they got from the TV show. Most tired is Alexander Dane who at one time played Richard III to raving audiences but now is reduced to repeating the tire TV show catch-phrases over and over, ad nauseum. And all are a little tire of how Jason Nesmith, who played their leader, basks in all the glory at the conventions and treats the other cast members like decoration. He behaves like a rude, ego-centric jerk. When four teens in alien costumes ask Nesmith to see their space ship and fight an alien for them he plays along with the gag. Then he finds out that they in truth are aliens, their spaceship is authentic, and their foes are all too real. Soon the whole crew is pulled involuntarily into the adventure. For once they have no script, no director, no lines, and they are in real danger.
As a story about the actors we have come to know so well from "Star Trek," this film is passable but cliched. By depending on each other they build firm relationships of mutual respect. Outward Bound probably has hundreds of stories just as moving. As a space opera adventure this film is fairly lame. That is not the point, of course, but it might have been a better movie with a little more thought about the adventure. In general the audience is a step or two ahead of the characters. The greatest value of the film is the lampooning of the "Star Trek" iconography. And in doing that it is considerably more adept than anything Mel Brooks has done for a good long time.
Nobody requires great dramatic scenes in a film like this. Tim Allen's acting was more than sufficient and his timing adequate. He might have issued one little "To infinity and beyond," if that would not have been mixing metaphors. Sigourney Weaver did not have a lot to do besides wear a tight suit well, which she still can do surprisingly luster, half-speed performance from character actor Tony Shalhoub. He is one of the actors I tend to watch for, but not for the sort of effort he seemed to give this role. He looked like he just felt out of place.
