Plot: What’s it about?
No, don’t adjust your set…It’s not Star Trek! Galaxy Quest was an unexpected success and now makes it’s way onto DVD. Being a Dreamworks disc, you know it will feature a lot of extras and…indeed it does. Galaxy Quest is the story about a group of washed up actors who, at one time, had a successful TV show about outer space (it’s NOT Star Trek). The show has since been cancelled, but has a huge cult following, and the group of actors has been reduced to playing conventions and opening computer stores. There’s the “Commander” Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) who is the unquestionable star of the bunch, and after all these years is still hamming it up for the trekkies, er–Galaxy Quest fans. At his side is the lovely Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver) whose only job on the TV show was to repeat what the computer said. When we see Gwen, it’s obvious that she was only cast for her body, and has a tendancy for wearing satin bras and keeping her suit unzipped halfway (you hear me complaining?). And rounding out the “major stars” is the always great Alan Rickman, who is usally a better villian than hero, but in this movie he makes it work. The cast has been going on this way for over 15 years, and has their own little petty jealousies between them, most noteably between Gwen and Jason, but they manage and just keep thinking of their paychecks and are back on track. While at a convention, Nesmith is approached by strange people wearing the Galaxy Quest (that’s the name of the show) garb and is asked for help…their planet needs him! Nesmith, acting like he’s heard it a million times before (and probably has) ignores them. The story takes a swing when Nesmith is in the restroom and hears some kids making wise cracks about how big a losers that the crew is and that the rest of the cast doesn’t even like Nesmith. Feeling angry, he goes home and gets drunk…only to be awakened by the same “aliens” who were at the show the previous day. It’s then that Nesmith comes crashing through the doors and tries to convince his fellow cast members to come back on the spaceship with him to help him save the world. And…having no other prior engagements, they do. It’s at this time that the movie really takes off, we are introduced to the Thermians. We quickly find out that they have been able to intercept our TV signals and have pattered their whole way of life around the TV show “Galaxy Quest”. They do not see it as a TV show, however, they see it as a form of historical documentation and take the actors for their real roles! The crew is instantly pitted against foes and thrown into an intergalactic war and now they must take all of their supposed skills that they learned on the TV show and defeat the enemy! Galaxy Quest is so real, it’s very believeable. The story is out there, it just took some imagination to make it into an enjoyable movie like this. While the coinsidences that will parallel the Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation fans is unquestionably the aim of the movie, it makes it nonetheless enjoyable. Heck, even the menus look like the opening to a Star Trek episode.
Video: How does it look?
Crystal clear and not a hint of artifacting at all. Colors are bright and I tell you Sigourney Weaver has never looked so good! The image is presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer that’ll knock your socks off! I could go on and on about how good the image looks, but just trust me when I tell you that you’ll not be disappointed.
Audio: How does it sound?
Basically any movie that pertains to space and battles being fought therein, will have good sound. This is certainly no exception. There are several scenes that have space battles, phaser type blasters whizzing every which way and a lot of bass effects (LFE’s) that will make your system come alive. Not a bad mix of sound. Still, I feel that it lacked a “perfection” in some places.
Supplements: What are the extras?
You have got to love Dreamworks, even their basic titles still are packed with lots of extra features and this is certainly no exception. In addition to the main production notes, cast bios, you also get a Thermian isloated track. Thermian is the language of the aliens that need the crew’s help. Now I have to wonder why they included this, it’s a nice touch, but you figure that if they could record 90 minutes of jibberish, they could have thrown in a commentary…There’s a trailer, sneak preview trailers, some deleted scenes and a featurette called “On location in space”. If you look real hard, in the cast bios, there’s some inteviews with Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman that are a nice added touch. There’s also a feature called the Omega 13, accessible from the main menu but it won’t let you play it until you’ve finished the movie (isn’t that clever). Now I usually don’t report on menus, but this has some of the neates animated menus that I’ve seen. Overall, I would have liked a commentary track (in English, not Themarian) but this disc has enough to keep you busy for awhile. It will also be avaiable in a DTS version with the exact same features (YES).
