{"id":77918,"date":"2024-03-04T11:11:59","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T17:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=77918"},"modified":"2024-03-04T11:12:01","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T17:12:01","slug":"off-the-shelf-reviews-galaxy-quest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=77918","title":{"rendered":"Off The Shelf Reviews: ‘Galaxy Quest’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By CONNOR KEATING<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I consider myself to be a \u201cStar Trek\u201d fan, the truth is, I didn\u2019t get into the franchise until more recently. A while back, all of the classic Star Trek shows, from the original all the way to \u201cStar Trek Enterprise,\u201d were on \u201cNetflix\u201d so my dad decided to rewatch the series. At first, I didn\u2019t care, but one night the whole family sat down and watched an episode, laughing and joking, and after that, I ended up getting hooked. At some point during all of that, I remember saying something to my dad like, \u201cWhat if they had an episode where the characters somehow ended up in our world, where \u2018Star Trek\u2019 is a TV show.\u201d My dad replied, \u201cThat\u2019s just \u2018Galaxy Quest.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGalaxy Quest\u201d follows the cast of a 1980s sci-fi TV show called\u2026 \u201cGalaxy Quest.\u201d The show has been off the air for many years now and all of the cast members are desperate for work and spend most of their time signing autographs at conventions, wondering where it all went wrong. One day though, they run into real aliens who take them aboard a real version of the ship from the TV show and discover that the aliens had intercepted the TV transmissions and based their entire society off of the show. Now, the aliens need the crew to help deal with the evil Sarris. Of course though, none of them are real space adventurers; they just play one on TV\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The crew of \u201cGalaxy Quest\u201d on the surface of a desert planet.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the film is heavily based on \u201cStar Trek,\u201d the plot is fairly original, basically throwing a group of actors into one of the situations they played on television but in real life. The situation itself, though is pretty standard, but I think it works for the film. It\u2019s a comedy, and much of the humor is based on the tropes of old sci-fi television shows. Creatures that seem cute but turn out to be very dangerous, stupidly designed rooms made solely to raise tension and put characters in danger, the main character is forced to do battle with some ugly space monster, it\u2019s all here. The film also pokes a little fun at the fans, but it\u2019s not too mean-spirited, especially since it’s the hardcore fans that help save the day in the end. The film also pokes a little fun at the actors in these types of shows, particularly \u201cStar Trek\u201d of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our main character is Jason Nesmith, who played the captain on the show. He\u2019s stuck in his glory days, and because of that is very prideful and comes off as a pretty big jerk early on. However, over the course of the film, he actually steps up as the role of the hero and comes out being humbled. His character is clearly meant to be the Captain Kirk of his own show. It even plays into the old trope of his shirt being torn off while in combat. Next, there\u2019s Alexander Dane, once a serious actor, but was cast as an alien for the show similar to Spock and is now held down by the role. He\u2019s even got a silly catchphrase that he absolutely despises, but during the climax comes around to it and uses it in an admittedly powerful scene. Then there\u2019s Gwen DeMarco, who played the generic female character on the show, where her only job was repeating everything the ship\u2019s computer says. She ends up helping out in some of the big action scenes towards the end and also acts as a love interest for Jason Nesmith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s Tommy Webber, who played the kid prodigy character on the show very similar to Westly Crusher in \u201cStar Trek: The Next Generation.\u201d He flew the ship in the original show and now has to step up to the very big role of piloting a real starship. There\u2019s Fred Kwan, who played the ship\u2019s engineer, and he\u2019s definitely the most underwritten character; however, he does manage to be very funny as he\u2019s played as if he\u2019s high the whole time. So, while there\u2019s all this crazy stuff going on, he\u2019s hardly phased by it. Then, for the final actor there\u2019s Guy, who was in one episode where he played a crewman that randomly dies. This is obviously playing off the red shirt trope, and the film does quite a bit with it, making him one of the standout characters. He\u2019s constantly freaking out and scared that he\u2019s going to die because he doesn\u2019t view himself as a \u201cmain character.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are the aliens. The aliens that the characters are helping out are the Thermians, their leader being Mathesar. They all have the same weird way of behaving and talking, making these silly screams that are pretty funny. While they look like humans, their true forms look more like octopus and the design is great, balancing the creepy, unnerving, and alien-ness while also being cute and friendly looking. Overall, the Thermians are one of the highlights of the film. Then there\u2019s Sarris and his crew, who want nothing more than the extinction of the Thermians. Sarris successfully manages to be a very intimidating and ruthless villain, and doesn\u2019t have many funny moments, which I think works, helping to make him feel like an actual threat. His design is also very cool, looking like some sort of combination between a lizard and a grasshopper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
The Thermians salute the original crew.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Sarris tortures Mathesar to get information from Jason Nesmith.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the movie is a comedy, and a very funny one at that, it\u2019s not all laughs. The film also manages to deliver both exciting action pact spectacle and more emotional and serious scenes. Doing this runs the risk of tonal whiplash, but it\u2019s all seamlessly woven together. The humor can sometimes help to make the big action scenes more fun, and when the film needs to be serious, it\u2019s serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to the effects, the film uses a beautiful combination of practical effects and CGI. The CGI can look a bit dated nowadays, but for 1999, the year it came out, it looks great. Stan Winston did the practical effects, and as usual, looks stunning. The octopus Thermians look incredible, and Sarris\u2019s actor manages to put on a great performance despite being buried under an elaborate alien suit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGalaxy Quest\u201d ends up being a surprisingly great film with a fun cast of characters, great comedy, great action set pieces, great emotional beats, a fun and well-paced story, and some solid special effects. It all comes together to create a fantastic love letter to not only \u201cStar Trek\u2019, but old-school sci-fi shows and their fans, as well. I give this film nine \u201cinside out pig monsters\u201d out of ten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connor Keating is a junior at Fort Hays State University, studying digital media and journalism. Connor is an old-school movie fan, particularly Japanese monster movies, and is an avid DVD collector.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By CONNOR KEATING Tiger Media Network While I consider myself to be a \u201cStar Trek\u201d fan, the truth is, I didn\u2019t get into the franchise… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":77921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,3505,3399,55],"tags":[15389,15627,12484,15529],"class_list":["post-77918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-local-movies","category-music-reviews","category-opinion","tag-connor-keating","tag-galaxy-quest","tag-movie-reviews","tag-off-the-shelf-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gqposter.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77923,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77918\/revisions\/77923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}