My review of one of my all time favorite flicks, Galaxy Quest(1999) starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Daryl Mitchell, and Enrico Colanton. Directed by Dean Parasoit. Trivia The evil warlord Sarris was named for film critic Andrew Sarris, who once trashed producer Mark Johnson's The Natural (1984). Sarris' metal eye-patch mimics that worn by General Chang (Christopher Plummer) in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). The rock monster is a mock tribute to William Shatner, who desperately wanted to put rock monsters in the climax of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), but had to cut them out of his script for budgetary reasons. There are a couple of references to "Star Trek" (1966) episode #1.18, "Arena", particularly the suggestion to "build a weapon" during Jason's encounter with the rock monster. Instead of ripping off the standard Star Trek "Swooosh-thweep" sound for their automatic doors, the NSEA Protector's automatic doors were given the same "Tweeep-Clunk" sound effect as the doors in the original version of the video game Ultimate Doom (1993). The design of the NTE ship is based on a Star Trek comm-badge. At the beginning of the film, Tommy's "You are so full of shit, man!" line was re-dubbed to "You are so full of it, man!" When faced with going through "the chompers", Gwen's "Well, fuck that!" was re-dubbed to say "Well, screw that!". These edits were to avoid a PG-13 rating. The original lines are still obvious when reading their lips. The NSEA Protector's serial number is NTE 3120. NTE is short for Not The Enterprise. The set of the NSEA Protector was built on an articulated platform so that it could move a few feet in any direction, for a touch of realism (instead of actors leaning in unison). When it was first used the set dropped two feet and shifted to the side, causing several cast members to fall out of their chairs and two lights to fall down. Reportedly originally developed by Harold Ramis for Disney, but Ramis dropped out before production began. The promotional campaign for the film included a "mockumentary" for the E! cable channel about the fictional Galaxy Quest TV series. Most of the cast members appeared as their actor characters from the film. Extras from the film's convention scenes also appeared as fans giving candid interviews. Out-takes and behind the scenes footage from the film were used as clips from the TV show. The humor even went so far as Sigourney Weaver's character, Gwen DeMarco, claiming that she had turned down "a small part in a Woody Allen movie" to do the Galaxy Quest series [A reference to one of her first, though very brief, big screen cameos as Alvy's (Allen's) date at the end of Annie Hall (1977)]. Director Dean Parisot and star Tim Allen have revealed in interviews that the original tone of the film was much darker, with more scenes of violence. After test screenings the film was re-cut to emphasize the comedy and obtain a PG rating. The film's script originally contained a mention of Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman's character) having been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. Rickman asked that this be changed because he believed it was inconsistent with the character, and all mentions of the knighting were removed. However, the character is still listed in the credits as "Sir Alexander Dane". In theaters, the film was presented at 1.85:1 for the first 20 minutes. When Tim Allen first realizes he's on a real spaceship and the vista of Thermia is revealed, the screen image widened to 2.35:1 as the parting walls of the spaceship revealed the vista. Sigourney Weaver said that whenever she put on the blonde wig to become Gwen, "I could feel my IQ drop precipitously". The teardrop-shaped formations in the background when the ship is taking off from an alien planet are based on Roger Dean's cover for Yes's album "Yessongs". The scene when Tim Allen is in a mens room overhearing how the cast of Galaxy Quest are nobodies and all the co-stars can't stand him mirrors an actual event in William Shatner's life. He discovered the exact same things about himself when he attended a Star Trek convention. Alan Rickman never takes off his headpiece throughout the entire movie. Even in the scene when he and Gwen (Sigourney Weaver) are both at home talking to each other on the phone, Rickman still has his headpiece on, even though he is not in costume. Laliari is the first main role Missi Pyle landed in a feature film. Her part was expanded after the producers noticed Sigourney Weaver was the only female main character. Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) is seen eating a snack of some sort in almost every scene he appears in. A very subtle joke is that Guy believes his character is now safe since he is the security chief and has a name on the revival series. The named, main character security chief of the revival series this movie spoofs, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987), was killed off in the first season.

• published: 08 Mar 2011
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