By GustavoLeao / 10:49, 3 November 2009 / General Genre/SciFi

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GALAXY QUEST - DELUXE EDITION ON BLU-Ray (1999 / 2009)

Released by Paramount Home Entertainment

Reviewed for TrekWeb.com by Bill Williams

1 disc, MSRP $39.99

ISBN # 097360724349

Date of release: November 17, 2009

Introduction:

In the beginning during the 1970's Ruth Berman wrote a short entitled "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited", which appeared in Bantam's STAR TREK: NEW VOYAGES collection. In the tale a transporter accident mysteriously brought actors William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley aboard the real U.S.S. Enterprise. By faking their way through everything, they avoided a dangerous encounter with the Klingons and managed to find their way home. Later on I read in the early 1990's in Cinefantastique Magazine about what would have happened if Mel Brooks had created an Original Series parody - even mentioning possible choices such as Michael Keaton as Spock, Eddie Murphy as Dr. McCoy, Whitney Houston as Uhura, and the late Christopher Reeve as Captain Kirk. Those would have been inspired casting choices for a good STAR TREK parody at the time. But somewhere along the way, you'd have thought someone would have just gone ahead and created the perfect TREK spoof.

Thankfully for us, someone did.

In 1999 the film GALAXY QUEST came out - and what a wild and woolly ride it was! It became one of the year's most original comedies and the perfect tip of the hat not just to STAR TREK but to the entire TREK fandom and science fiction genre as well. Granted, nothing could be said or referenced at the time to the TREK franchise within the scope of the movie, but the references are all too extremely obvious to the fans, giving the film a touch of humor and hilarity that TREK sometimes so desperately needed. In other words, the franchise needed to laugh at itself.

The movie's plot is relatively simple to follow: After several years on TV, the cast and crew of "Galaxy Quest" make their living 20 years after the series' cancellation attending science fiction conventions and publicity appearances to the delight of the fans. The series' lead actor Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen), who played Commander Peter Quincy Taggert on the series, finds himself a washed-up has-been actor with an ego larger than his character's name. He can't even go to the bathroom without hearing the snickers and negative complaints from fans. Sending up William Shatner in a completely convincing performance, Allen's role holds the movie together.

Alan Rickman, who portrays the classically trained Shakespearean actor Alexander Dane as the super-intelligent alien Dr. Lazarus, can't escape being typecast as anything but his character (can anyone or everyone say, "I am NOT Spock"?). After saying "By Grabthar's hammer..." so many times it gets even on the actor's nerves. The other cast members (played by Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, and Daryl Mitchell) not only live with the stigma of being a cast of has-beens but also deal with Nesmith's overbearing ego that tended to isolate them from the spotlight. Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it, campers?

Things change when Nesmith is visited by a group of fans with a job offer. However, these are not your ordinary geek-fans. These "fans" turn out to be a group of Thermians who are sent to Earth to find Nesmith/Taggert and company to save their home planet from destruction. Their only knowledge of Nesmith/Taggert has been in the forms of "historical documents" (reruns!) of "Galaxy Quest". From there the journey, and the hilarity, begins. The cast's portrayal of actors out of their element is a funny tip of the hat to one of the most popular of all TREK films, THE VOYAGE HOME - only now the "aliens" are in an environment where the aliens are real, the ship is real (not a model or set), and the threats are real, and the only way they can get through everything is by "faking" their way through it all as if they really were the crew of the NSEA Protector. Even the alien menace is quite convincing - I wonder if the inspiration for the Xindi-Reptilians from the third season of ENTERPRISE wasn't borrowed from this movie?

Sigourney Weaver's role of Gwen DeMarco, aka Tawny Madison, the ship's communication officer is a send-up of both Lt. Uhura and Weaver's own character of Ripley from the ALIEN series. Her comic turn is a breath of fresh air not just to the film but to her own career - as she said at the time of the film's release, she did it for her daughter and the fans. As actor Fred Kwan, Tony Shalhoub sends up Scotty in classic form as Tech Sergeant Chen, faking his way through every engineering scenario and disaster in Monk-like fashion. Daryl "Chill" Mitchell as Tommy Webber/Laredo, the Wil Wheaton-ish actor who piloted the ship in the original series, sends up Wesley Crusher in hilarious fashion, showing he can do more than just fly the ship. And Sam Rockwell as Guy Fleegman (a play on TNG veteran background actor/stuntman Guy Vardaman), the nameless red-shirt crewman killed off in one of the series' episodes, emerges as a worthy contender capable of holding his own as security chief Rock Ingersol. (Also, for those of you with sharp eyes, look for HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL star Corbin Bleu as the young Tommy Webber in the TV "historical documents" and ENTERPRISE actor Matt Winston, son of the late FX genius Stan Winston, as one of the Thermian technicians.)

As if that weren't enough, the send-up with TREK fans and conventions is equally hilarious, particularly those who take the series a little too seriously. And there's even a nice tip of the hat to both the TREK film series and THE NEXT GENERATION with the film's final sequence. I could go on and on with all of the comparisons. It's that evident that screenwriters Bob Gordon and David Howard and director Dean Parisot have done their homework in studying what makes STAR TREK, and science fiction, work. It's one of the few films that you don't have to be a STAR TREK or sci-fi fan to enjoy and appreciate. It's that funny. (Even they managed to perfect with the rock monster sequence what William Shatner, Bran Ferren, and company couldn't accomplish for STAR TREK V!)

This film had been previously issued from Dreamworks Home Video nearly a decade before as a single-disc release and earlier this year from CBS/Paramount Home Video as a Deluxe Edition. Upon its release fans were wondering, "Where is the Blu-ray of this film?" Don't worry, your requests have been hears. Tying in to the forthcoming release of J.J. Abrams‘ STAR TREK on DVD and Blu-ray, Paramount Home Video has reissued GALAXY QUEST in a new Blu-ray edition that takes a look back at the making of this comic classic.

The Blu-ray Presentation:

The Blu-ray edition of GALAXY QUEST is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen format preserving the film's original theatrical aspect ratio. The visuals are solid and crisp, looking cleaner than it did in its previous incarnations. Film grain is non-existent, giving you a clearer picture with sharp colors and contrasts. On my PlayStation 3 it looks even crisper than the previous DVD editions. As with the previous DVD releases, the film is divided into 20 chapters, this time with a bookmark option allowing you to, well, bookmark your favorite scenes.

The sound quality on the film is nice, presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 TrueHD, as well as Spanish and Thermian 2.0 tracks. The upgrade to the TrueHD track is really interesting, as it gives you more of an immersive atmosphere than the previous 5.1 track. Subtitles are presented in English, English SDH, Spanish, French, and Portuguese options (no Thermian subtitles here!).

The best part about the Blu-ray release of GALAXY QUEST, as with a lot of other Blu-ray releases, is that you can access everything through the main menu screen, so access is a lot easier this time around.

The Extras:

DreamWorks and Paramount have included a nice balance of extras on the GALAXY QUEST Blu-ray. For starters, ported from the 2000 DVD release are the Thermian 2.0 language track option (this can get really annoying after a while!), the film's original theatrical trailer (newly mastered and presented in HD format for the Blu-ray disc), and deleted scenes (this time with optional introductions and commentaries, which I‘ll discuss later).

The majority of the remaining features are all ported from the Deluxe Edition DVD release. First off is the 18-minute feature "Historical Documents: The Story of GALAXY QUEST", featuring interviews with screenwriters Bob Gordon and David Howard; director Dean Parisot; producer Mark Johnson; and actors Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Daryl Mitchell, Justin Long, Enrico Colantoni, and Missy Pyle - and even STAR TREK writer/director Nicholas Meyer joins in on the fun! Production footage, film clips, and insightful interviews show how they wanted to honor STAR TREK without making it too obvious, sending it over the top, and risking a lawsuit. Howard discusses how his draft of the movie was very much different from the final version, with one of the leading cast members actually winding up as the film's villain. There's also a very interesting moment where GALAXY QUEST almost got a more serious MPAA rating because of one on-set slip-up involving Sigourney Weaver and a certain four-letter word. The filmmakers show the clip slowly and clearly showing Weaver saying what you think she says, causing the line to be re-recorded in post-production to give the film its PG rating.

This is followed by "Never Give Up, Never Surrender: The Intrepid Crew of the NSEA Protector", which runs over 23 minutes. Tim Allen had been the only cast member picked for the film at the time of pre-production, which allowed him to bring his experience from HOME IMPROVEMENT and his love for STAR TREK into the role. Because of his work on GALAXY QUEST, Allen formed a friendship with William Shatner. Allen also comments on how some fan blogs considered him to be crap until they got to GALAXY QUEST. Rickman, who came from a Shakespearean background like his character Alexander Dane, comments on how he had experienced these moments before, while his character despises having to do the same lines over and over in public outings. Rickman took his work more seriously, as opposed to Allen and Mitchell, who would ham it up on set. All of the actors comment on how they would get into their characters and their work on the film. Gordon and Parisot comment on how Sigourney Weaver almost didn't get picked for the film because of her experience in the ALIEN series, but she pushed her agent for the role because of her ALIEN background.

Next up is "By Grabthar's Hammer: What Amazing Effects", which runs seven minutes. In this segment, Parisot comments how they worked with models, costuming, and CGI to continue making it look as comparable, if not better than, what would appear on STAR TREK. The combination of make-up effects from the late Stan Winston, the CGI from Industrial Light and Magic, and the on-set model effects paid off. Vintage footage from 1999 with Winston reveals how the make-up for the alien was a combination of practical movement and typical make-up. Where the bridge of the Protector was concerned, the bridge was built on a gimbel set, making the action more realistic (as was later repeated on STAR TREK: NEMESIS). The most fun came in shooting the "old" TV footage for the Galaxy Quest series, where all of that footage was shot in half a day, across six sets on one soundstage!

We also have a short feature, "Alien School: Creating the Thermian Race", running over five minutes. Parisot, Pyle, Rickman, Shalhoub, Weaver, and Rockwell all give credit to Enrico Colantoni for coming up with the look, dialect, and mannerisms of the Thermian race, which he cites from his vocal training as inspiration. There is also "Actors in Space", a six-minute look at Parisot's familiarity with STAR TREK and making GALAXY QUEST not just a spoof of TREK but a real story about actors hoping to recapture their glory days. Nicholas Meyer, discussing Leonard Nimoy's books I AM NOT SPOCK and I AM SPOCK, references how Alan Rickman plays in the same vein. Everyone comments on their stereotypes from different movie and TV works and how there is no escaping from the stereotypes. In addition we have a goofy feature called "Sigourney Weaver Raps", which for some bizarre reason was included. (I'm still scratching my head over the reasoning behind this feature.)

A collection of eight deleted scenes running nearly 12 minutes in length are included on the Blu-ray, seven of which were ported from the first DVD release. All of the scenes are presented in completed finished quality in widescreen format and 2.0 surround sound, with completed visual and sound effects. (Now why doesn't Paramount take the hint and do likewise for all of the cut scenes on their STAR TREK releases? This is the way to do it!) On "Alex Tours His Personalized Quarters", we have an introduction by Parisot, Rickman, and Allen about the scene, while on "Sweet Serenity at Last" (the most recently added deleted scene), Parisot discusses the concept of the scene involving the rock monster coda. Oddly enough, the latter introduction lasts four times as long as the scene itself!

The sole remaining feature that is new to this disc is a Galactopedia, which is basically an on-screen topic track which appears during the movie, allowing viewers to access more information about the characters, ships, and aliens in the movie. Basically put, it's similar to the Starfleet Access option on the STAR TREK Blu-rays and the Oracle and Battlestar Blips options on the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Blu-ray box set.

Still missing in action and not ported over from the Dreamworks DVD are some of the disc's bonus features, including the "Omega 13" and talent video files, all of which were hidden on the previous disc as Easter egg features. Also missing and sorely needed on this disc is an audio commentary with the filmmakers. Even a cast reunion discussing their work on the movie (or even an in-joke commentary with the actors of the "Galaxy Quest" TV series) would have been a nice extra. Anything but the Thermian track, please!

Final Thoughts:

So let's cut to the chase. Is the new Blu-ray edition of GALAXY QUEST worth the upgrade? Well, for those of you who have been waiting for the Blu-ray release and didn't pick up the previous DVD, it's certainly worth getting. For those of you who have the previous DVD, it may seem a bit much to pick up the new Blu-ray just for the trivia track, though having the film newly mastered in HD format is a welcome sight. Your mileage may vary.

GALAXY QUEST works on all levels, bottom-line. It's quite simply one of the most hilarious and affectionate spoofs of STAR TREK and science fiction that respects the genre and its fans. Whether you pick up the new Blu-ray or already own the previous Deluxe Edition release or the original DreamWorks DVD, you'll definitely enjoy and appreciate this film for what it is, a tongue-in-cheek spoof on TREK, science fiction franchises, acting, and fandom. By Grabthar's hammer, pick up this movie and give it a spin!

Rating: 4/5 stars