Galaxy Quest - Perfect 'Trek'

There's probably two ways of thinking after you've sat down to watch 1999's 'Galaxy Quest.' And that depends on how much you know (and love!) 'Star Trek.' I can imagine if you've never watched the original sixties sci-fi TV series, you may well be left thinking, 'Well... what was all that about?' For 'Galaxy Quest' would be little more than a tame, campy space adventure that seems like it should have been made for kids.  However, if - like me - you grew up on the brightly-coloured adventures of James T Kirk and his crew, you'd feel more like 'Galaxy Quest' is a feature length love letter to all that is great about 'classic' Trek.

I've watched 'Star Trek's more 'modern' incarnations and I know that it's left the fan base divided due to its lack of optimism regarding the future.  This isn't a problem in 'Galaxy Quest.' It celebrates all the principals from Gene Roddenbery's original TV show and even asks a few new questions of its own.

The film depicts an old science fiction TV show from yesteryear known as 'Galaxy Quest' (the most shameless rip-off of 'Star Trek' ever!).  Back in its day it was a hit.  Now the cast (mainly Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman) make their living attending Comic-cons and signing autographs for nerdy fans - and not getting along half as well as their on screen personas.  However, what they were never aware of was that their old TV show had been beamed across the universe and picked up by  a peaceful race of aliens who took the drama literally and based their way of living on a show with cardboard walls and miniature spaceships.  This would have all been well had it not been for this race of delightful little aliens being attacked by an evil warlord.  Now, they decide to enlist the help of their 'real life' heroes to fight their battles for them.

There really isn't a bad performance in the film.  You have Tim Allen as the Kirk rip-off, Alan Rickman as substitute 'Spock' and Sigourney Weaver in a sort of Urhura role which generally spoofs how little the female cast had to do in old science fiction (also nicely ironic when you consider Weaver's other starring role where she has to deal with xenomorphs!).  The banter between the three is as spot on as you would imagine and its mixed with wonderful pathos from the good aliens as they worship us humans for our 'advanced' way of living together (perhaps in 2020 it's even more ironic when you consider how divided we all are - perhaps we could learn a few lessons from 'Star Trek' about overcoming our differences and getting along?).

The special effects are not that special, but then you're not watching this for the effects.  Everything you could want comes from the script and the idea behind it.  There's more character development in the primary cast members than there is in many of today's films and the story never goes out of its way to insult the 'Trek' fan base by portraying them negatively.

Everything here is a celebration of what 'Trek' should be.  It's fun, optimistic, well-acted and, in this case, funny.  I guess it was always destined to be a 'cult classic' due to the general public needing to know about 'Star Trek' cliches and conventions in order to fully appreciate just how great this film is.  In my opinion, it's more 'Star Trek' than today's Trek.  It came, it was great, it never outstayed its welcome.  No sequel necessary.  It's brilliant as it is.

9/10 almost as perfect as The Godfather