Galaxy Quest is a one-joke movie that makes such good use of its one joke that it demands a kind of grudging admiration. The joke is, what would happen if an alien race mistook episodes of Star Trek for actual historical documents and then tried to form a civilization based on them? And, not only that, what if they came to earth seeking the help of the Star Trek actors, thinking they were actual space explorers?

This is the premise of Galaxy Quest, and writers David Howard and Robert Gordon do everything possible to make the most of it (the setup is something akin to Three Amigos in space). And, miraculously, they manage to both mock and celebrate the cultural phenomenon of Star Trek and all it stands for. The movie is somehow both an homage to the kind of idealistic, utopian ideas around which each episode of Star Trek was built and a cutting satire of how TV shows like Star Trek are so reliant on worn-out clichés and ridiculous ideas.

Of course, in the movie, there is no direct mention of Star Trek. Instead, it is thinly disguised as Galaxy Quest, a fictitious early-1980s television show that, despite having been cancelled years ago, still has a rabid, conference-organizing cadre of fans who call themselves “Questians.” The stars of the show are now middle-aged has-beens with no career prospects outside of making appearances at conventions and signing autographs. The only one who seems to still enjoy the spotlight is Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen), the lead actor who portrayed the Captain Kirk-ish Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, whose hackneyed sound bite each episode was “Never give up, never surrender.”

The other actors—who include Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman), a self-serious British thespian who played the Spock-like Dr. Lazarus, and Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver), the buxom actress who played the wonderfully named Lt. Tawny Madison—are fed up and bored with the rabid fandom in which they have been imprisoned. Alexander bemoans the fact that he once played Richard III on-stage (which gives the impression that he is meant to represent both Leonard Nimoy and New Generation star Patrick Stewart), while Gwen gripes that she still isn’t sure what her role on the show was (she repeated everything the computer said—her main purpose, of course, was to wear low-cut spacesuits).

At a Galaxy Quest convention, a group of desperate aliens called Thermians, who are disguised to look like fans, show up and convince the stars to help them defeat their enemies, a group of nasty, Klingon-like monsters who have almost eradicated the Thermian species. At first, Jason thinks he is just going to another convention, and there is a funny set-piece where he bumbles through a spaceship, head pounding from a hangover, and proceeds to order a direct attack on the enemy, all the while thinking he is merely playacting for some super-committed fans.

Director Dean Parisot (Home Fries) knows he is working with a one-joke setup, and he is smart enough to keep the proceedings both funny and exciting. The various adventures, which involve a space-race through a floating minefield and a battle with a Goliath-like monster made of rocks, are right out of the Star Trek oeuvre. But, there are also new twists, such as a demented sequence featuring a group of child-like aliens that resemble Teletubbies (remember those horrors?), but turn out to be sharp-fanged monsters that devour their own kind.

Tim Allen puts in an enjoyable performance as Jason, a man who has played leader for so long that he naturally assumes the role. Amazingly enough, Allen manages to make the egocentric actor into a three-dimensional human, and in the scene where he overhears someone mocking him for being a has-been, the pain he feels is surprisingly affecting. Sigourney Weaver is also quite good in a rare comic performance, and Alan Rickman hits all the right notes as an embittered capital-A “Actor” who is all-too aware of the fact that he has squandered his career. But, the most laughs come from Sam Rockwell (who had most recently played the demented Billy the Kid in The Green Mile) as a one-time Galaxy Quest extra who gets beamed up along with the main actors and is in constant fear of death because his character was quickly killed in the one episode in which he starred.

However, what makes Galaxy Quest a notch above what it should have been is how the movie posits its silly one-joke setup as a kind of redemption for its characters. As ridiculous as it sounds, the movie manages to make its over-the-hill protagonists into sources of both ridicule and sympathy. The early scenes invite us to laugh at them, but as the movie progresses, it shows that they are interesting, flesh-and-blood people who deserve more than life has given them, and by the end we are cheering rather than jeering.

Copyright © 2024 James Kendrick

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