Galaxy Quest is a loving homage to Star Trek and its associated fandom. Tim Allen stars as an actor
famous for his portrayal of a ship’s captain in a formerly popular TV sci-fi
series. He and his crew of actors travel from city to city appearing at various
conventions, signings and store openings, events which some of the cast find
demeaning. When Jason Naismith (Allen) is approached for a role playing gig
with some super-fans, he discovers to his surprise that the ‘fans’ are in fact
aliens who are at war with alien warlord and require Naismith’s help, believing
the TV show to be a historical document and the actors to be real life heroes.
I saw a few minutes of Galaxy Quest a couple of months ago and
thought that it looked like an interesting idea. A friend lent me the DVD last
week and I was excited about watching it. Unfortunately I didn’t feel like the
film lived up to its promising premise. There are some nice Star Trek references and the idea isn’t
without intelligence but I failed to laugh once and felt that once the initial
reveal had occurred that there was very little left of interest to me.