Oh man, we've hit the top fifteen. What a strong fifteenth entrant, too!
Galaxy Quest is one of those movies you look at on the store shelf at Blockbuster (if you're old) or scroll through on Netflix (if you're young, or a hip old person) and think "Hmm, wow. This looks cheesy and dumb, I'd better scroll past it". But what you don't realize at that point is just how wrong you are. Galaxy Quest is a parody of Star Trek, the original series with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Not the series itself, no, but of the people who made the series.
Tim Allen plays Jason Nesmith, the William Shatner-esque actor who also has William Shatner's monumental ego that many of the Star Trek actors have stated he had. The late, great Alan Rickman plays Alexander Dane, the Leonard Nimoy-esque proud actor who feels dumb that he's stuck being remembered for a sci-fi role. Sigourney Weaver plays Gwen DeMarco, the Nichelle Nichols character who was once an on-screen love interest of Tim Allen's character. The other actors are Tony Schaloub, Sam Rockwell, and Daryl Mitchell. Enrico Collantoni plays the alien Mathasar, who comes to Earth to recruit the cast of this television series from the 80s to negotiate a surrender with the villanous arthropod alien known as Sarris. Even going so far as to build an scale, functioning real-life replica of their starship, the NESA Protector.
The whole movie is a giant farce quest, but not in the way of several farce movies do. This one actually has clever jokes and humor and puts the characters in a fun situation. I mean, it really makes you think. What would happen if aliens visited Earth and demanded that the cast of Star Trek or The Next Generation help them negotiate the surrender of an angry alien race. Patrick Stewart would probably accept death before leaving Earth to do any more interstellar work. William Shatner would spring his wrinkly butt into action, but none of his costars would enjoy going with him. This sort of conception regarding his relations to his costars is well played here. The other costars are completely oblivious to Jason's stories that aliens found him and tried to recruit him in their game. I would love to hear about George Takei, Walter Koenig, and William Shatner dusting off their phasers and getting back into the swing of things. Except, I doubt any of them would remember how to do anything. I highly recommend if you haven't seen it yet. Quite a fun movie.
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