star trek cast reaction galaxy quest

Did You Know?: Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes really loved Galaxy Quest

By chad porto | dec 28, 2021.

Star Trek actors Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes really loved Galaxy Quest.

Star Trek: The Next Generation saw Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes play the roles of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Commander Wiliam Riker for all seven seasons and did so lovingly. The television show turned into a film franchise and the standard bearer for Star Trek was cemented in the eyes of many. Turns out, however, that despite the sincerity that both men played their roles with, they absolutely loved Galaxy Quest; the film that poked fun at Trek.

Galaxy Quest is beloved by many in the Trek fandom. It’s almost a spot on Star Trek film but told from a different lens; actors forced into a Trek film and asked to save the galaxy. It’s zany, quirky, and wonderful. So it’s no surprise that Stewart and Frakes adored the film. It captured their life after all.

Speaking to Collider, Frakes gushed about Galaxy Quest and revealed that Stewart loved it so much he went back to see it twice on opening weekend.

"Colldier: I have to ask you. I obviously, and I’m sure you love it as well, I love Galaxy Quest.FRAKES: Oh my God.Collider: I just have to know, what was it like for you watching that film for the first time?FRAKES: I was at the CineramaDome in LA, and I saw it on a Saturday morning, or Saturday matinee. As I got out of the movie the first thing I did was call Patrick, who was in Toronto, I think, shooting X-Men. I said, “Dude, I just saw a movie that is about us and captures us like they’ve been reading our mail.” Patrick saw it that night. Then went again on the Sunday. And it was, I mean, some of the stuff in it is so on the nose and so accurate, and perfect, and funny. And Rickman. Rickman with the peeling makeup. Stuff that LeVar’s character does. I mean, it’s a favorite. I don’t know why that sequels never been made. I gather it’s encumbered with a lot of people who need money before they even shot, but this seems rife for a remake."

Star Trek fans want a Galaxy Quest sequel too

We as well don’t understand why a sequel to Galaxy Quest hasn’t been made yet. Yes, with the passing of Alan Rickman there isn’t as much as a push to get it done but there have been rumors of a sequel film or series in the work for some time now .

It’s unknown if we’ll ever get it made, but if it does, I hope that Frakes is involved in some form. He’s been such a steady hand for Star Trek after all these years, and he’s worked on The Orville, a show made in the vein of the classic Star Trek series of the 80s and 90s.

So it’d be nice to see Frakes get involved in all of Trek’s illegitimate children; so to speak.

Galaxy Quest: 3 reasons why the movie deserves a sequel series. dark. Next

Patrick Stewart on 'Galaxy Quest'

Comments made by 'star trek' star patrick stewart about the movie 'galaxy quest' are authentic but not recent., kim lacapria, published may 19, 2016.

About this rating

On 17 May 2016, the Facebook page "Star Trek Rocks My World" (among others )  published an image of Star Trek: The Next Generation star Patrick Stewart along with the following quote from him about the 1999 spoof film Galaxy Quest superimposed upon it:

I had originally not wanted to see [Galaxy Quest] because I heard that it was making fun of Star Trek and then Jonathan Frakes rang me up and said ‘You must not miss this movie! See it on a Saturday night in a full theatre.’ And I did and of course I found it was brilliant. Brilliant. No one laughed louder or longer in the cinema than I did, but the idea that the ship was saved and all of our heroes in that movie were saved simply by the fact that there were fans who did understand the scientific principles on which the ship worked was absolutely wonderful. And it was both funny and also touching in that it paid tribute to the dedication of these fans.

Fandom page members were quite fond of Stewart's sentiment, and the image macro garnered thousands of shares among fans of  Star Trek and sci-fi in general. However, some viewers questioned whether the fanservice aspect of the comment was too amusing to be authentic.

2014 , making the quote at the least not recent. Direct authentication of the quote also proved somewhat challenging, as links cited alongside transcribed versions were no longer operational . -->

However, an archive of the BBC's web site from 30 October 2002 does indeed attribute these words to an interview with Patrick Stewart:

Similar remarks made by Stewart about  Galaxy Quest are captured in an archived London Times article from November 2007:

Best of all, [Stewart] loves the movie Galaxy Quest, a sublime Star Trek spoof. “Jonathan told me to see it. I said I didn’t want to see the piss taken out of me by Alan Rickman and the rest. He told me to see it in Santa Monica on a Saturday night. I did, and it was perfect, fantastic, one of my all-time favourites. They got it exactly right — that’s how it was, and the ending was right at the heart of the spirit of Star Trek.”

So the quotation is a genuine one, albeit one that was also some fourteen years old at the time of its May 2016 circulation.

Appleyard, Brian.   "Patrick Stewart: Keep On Trekkin'."     The Sunday Times .   4 November 2007.

BBC2/BBCOnline .   "Interviews: Patrick Stewart."     (Undated.)

The Questarian .   "Trek Talks: Galaxy Quest."     (Undated.)

TVTropes .   "Fanservice."     (Undated.)

By Kim LaCapria

Kim LaCapria is a former writer for Snopes.

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Galaxy Quest At 20: By Grabthar’s Hammer, What A Movie

Stories matter. If there’s one thing that we can agree on in a column called The New Mythology , it’s that. They do more than just entertain us. They teach us, lift us up, and show us what we can be.  

So here’s a story: actors, convinced that this is just another gig, gradually realize that they are in real danger and are forced to access inner strength they didn’t know they had to stay alive. That movie, of course, is Tropic Thunder.

No, wait. The actors are recruited by a group of simple folk who have watched their exploits and mistaken them for true stories of heroism. That movie, of course, is Three Amigos. No, scratch that too. I’m talking about the one where the simple folk are also super advanced space aliens. And THAT movie, of course, is Galaxy Quest, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year .

Clearly, the premise is a bit worn, but Galaxy Quest uses its setting to become something sublime, a movie that manages to embody the best of the thing it’s spoofing. Galaxy Quest tells the tale of the cast of a cancelled ‘80s cult sci-fi show that’s sort of the “Is Pepsi OK?” version of Star Trek. Led by Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen playing a cross between William Shatner and Buzz Lightyear), the cast finds themselves in pretty much the same situation as the cast of Star Trek in the years following that show’s cancellation. They’re short on work, desperate for cash, and getting by almost entirely on the proceeds of demeaning convention appearances where they charge overzealous fans $15 for an autograph.

All that changes when the cast gets abducted by aliens who have no concept of pretend, take everything literally, and have watched every single episode of Galaxy Quest with the keen eye of an obsessed fan who nonetheless doesn’t know what theater is. The Thermians have modeled their entire culture on what they think are “historical documents.” That includes constructing a real version of the show’s ship, the Protector, that’s identical down to the last rivet. Now their entire nerdy species is on the verge of being wiped out by the maniacal General Roth’h’ar Sarris, and the Thermians need the legendary crew of Galaxy Quest to save the day.

That plot synopsis doesn’t capture what makes the movie so great and enduring. It doesn’t explain why Star Trek fans often include it in their ranked list of the best Trek films, why Star Trek stars like George Takei and Patrick Stewart are avowed fans, or why Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet included it on a list of “perfect films.” It doesn’t explain why I cry every time I watch the movie.

Part of it is the casting. In addition to Allen (in possibly his best role), the movie scores big with Alan Rickman snarkily combining Alec Guinness and Leonard Nimoy as a Shakespearean actor who finds it immensely demeaning that he’s become beloved for his turn as a rubber-forehead-ed alien. Sigourney Weaver plays way against type as a bimbo without an actual job on the ship, and Tony Shalhoub snacks through the movie as a sentient cloud of pot smoke. Future Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell plays a guy (literally named “Guy”) who was killed off as a redshirt on the original show and spends the entire movie trying to avoid a repeat. Even blink-and-you-miss-them characters are played by future luminaries like The Office ’s Rainn Wilson.

Part of it is the setting. The movie begins in a dingy convention center full of awkward fans and handmade costumes, which writers David Howards and Robert Gordon mine for plentiful laughs. Then it moves to space, where the actors find themselves deeply in over their heads, squaring off against a terrifying host of aliens while armed with nothing but an extensive knowledge of tropes. They find themselves re-enacting various episodes of the show to try and get out of trouble while manning a ship designed by the aliens to work just like on TV down to things like a countdown-to-death timer stopping with one second left. Just because. Throughout the action the cast snipes and bickers with one another in a way familiar to anybody who has heard behind-the-scenes stories about working with Shatner.

But a lot of it comes when the movie takes those early laughs and twists them on you later. At the convention, Rickman sneers “Next!” in his signature clipped tone at the fans who try to repeat his famous catchphrase at him while waiting in line for autographs. But later, a Thermian dies in Rickman’s arms after telling him “although we had never before met, I always thought of you as a father to me.” You can see in Rickman’s eyes the realization that all those fans were trying to tell him the same thing all along. At the convention, Allen snaps at a fan peppering him with technical questions that “there’s no goddamn ship.” Later he’s forced to tell the leader of the Thermians (a pre- Veronica Mars Enrico Colantoni) the exact same thing, to very different effect.

These aliens are innocents, and watching Allen break the news to them is like telling a toddler about Santa Claus right before murdering a puppy in front of them. Every character plays their parts straight, and so while the script mines comedy from the discrepancy of watching actors try to save the day, the emotions throughout are all legit.

But the real key is the fact that being a fan turns out to be the right move. The Thermians were able to unite their people under a single banner by emulating Galaxy Quest. The nerds from the convention hall end up saving the day with their technical nitpicking. And the actors all get their mojo back over the course of the story by embracing their characters from the show. Nobody is punished for their fandom; instead it sets them free to be their best, truest selves.

Recently, The Orville has reopened a lot of the same discussions about how to incorporate humor into a Star Trek -style show and whether or not you can consider a non- Trek property to be part of the Trek family. Star Trek: Discovery took the franchise in a bold new direction by updating its look, feel, and mission statement updated for the 21st Century. The Orville went the opposite route. Seth MacFarlane has employed many of the behind-the-scenes figures who worked on the Star Trek shows of the ‘90s, reverse-engineering a show that — aside from some jarring missteps into toilet humor — often feels like a lost Trek that would have appeared sometime between Voyager and Enterprise.

This has led to some heated discussions among the Trek fanbase. Some people claim that   The Orville is the “real” current Trek show, and that Discovery is some non-canon outlier we shouldn’t talk about like Star Trek: The Animated Series or that one episode of Voyager where they break the Warp 10 barrier and turn into catfish . In some ways, Galaxy Quest opened the door to this by creating a Trek- adjacent movie that was so well done, so understanding of the source material, that Trek fans quickly incorporated it into their own canon. Once you’ve established a precedent for adding stuff into the canon, you’ve left wiggle room for kicking other stuff out. Ultimately, how those conversations shake out will probably depend on how the showrunners treat their source material. The team behind The Orville has shown no interest in these head-to-head comparisons with Discovery, instead just hoping we’ll embrace this exciting time when we have so many shows at our fingertips. Discovery has made numerous course corrections in its second season, responding to fan feedback in a way that never would have been possible during the last generation of Star Trek. The Orville has grown darker and more serious in its second season, dealing with topics like genocide with a deftness I wouldn’t have thought possible from the show’s pilot. Meanwhile Discovery has grown more light-hearted in season 2, introducing Anson Mount’s fantastic take on Captain Christopher Pike and jettisoning the grimdark elements of the Klingon War and Mirror Universe.

Leonard Nimoy wrote an autobiography called I Am Not Spock where he tried to distance himself from the character that made him famous. Years later, he realized the error of his ways and wrote a sequel, I Am Spock. In-between, he recognized what Galaxy Quest recognizes: stories matter.

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Galaxy Quest cast warmly recalls the sci-fi classic in new documentary

Review: Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary celebrates how the movie became a fan favorite.

The original Galaxy Quest cast included (from left) Sam Rockwell, Alan Rickman, Tim Allen, Daryl Mitchell (in back), Sigourney Weaver and Tony Shalhoub.

Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie ever made. Granted, it wasn't actually a Star Trek movie, but the 1999 sci-fi comedy is all about the power of fandom, especially geeky movie fandom. 

A new documentary -- Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary -- celebrates how the meta movie became an enduring fan favorite, and influenced everything from the Star Trek movie reboots to quirky Marvel superhero movies like Guardians of the Galaxy . 

Presented by Screen Junkies and Fandom , the documentary plays Tuesday night in limited theaters. It features interviews with the cast and creators of Galaxy Quest, as well as directors, actors and TV show creators who reflect on why the movie is so beloved. 

I loved Galaxy Quest when I first saw it in theaters in December 1999 because I was one of those sci-fi loving geeks who couldn't wait to go to San Diego Comic-Con every year. I lived and breathed all things Star Trek, Star Wars , Alien , Doctor Who -- you name it. If a movie or TV show took place in space, I was all over it. 

The movie itself tells the story of a troupe of actors who star in a fictional sci-fi TV show called Galaxy Quest -- until it's canceled. Scraping out the last fragments of their fame on the convention circuit, they're kidnapped by actual aliens. Believing the show's adventures were real, the friendly Thermians seek help from the noble crew -- pitching the hapless actors into battle with genocidal cosmic warlord General Sarris and his alien army.

In the end, however, the Thermians and the actors need help from Galaxy Quest's loyal fans. The idea that a popular sci-fi TV show could end up being real and then call on fans to help the actors out of a bind hit home for me as a geek. 

Galaxy Quest included stellar performances from actors Sigourney Weaver , Tim Allen , Sam Rockwell , Alan Rickman , Tony Shalhoub , Daryl Mitchell , Enrico Colantoni , Missi Pyle , Patrick Breen , and -- making their movie debuts --  Rainn Wilson and Justin Long . 

Apart from Rickman, who died in 2016 , they all beam into the documentary to talk about their favorite and frustrating moments filming the movie. 

The documentary gets into one of the things I loved about the movie -- the "can-do" spirit of the film's crew who refuse to give up despite numerous challenges. 

Original director Harold Ramis ( Groundhog Day ) quit early on. A fire devastated the set. And the movie studio Dreamworks didn't understand how great the movie was.

Actor Tim Allen reminisces about his role as Jason Nesmith in Galaxy Quest.

The documentary touches on how Dreamworks wanted to keep the movie family-friendly because other kid movies around that time, like  Rugrats , were G-rated and made a lot at the box office. 

The studio pressured the filmmakers to strip all the swear words out of the first pass of Galaxy Quest so it could be seen by more people. Apparently there were plenty of f-bombs that were cut or swapped out for less shocking words. 

Even the casting wasn't originally set in stone. Allen had to fight to play the lead role of Jason Nesmith when the studio wanted bigger name actors like Kevin Kline , Bruce Willis , Bill Murray or Mel Gibson . Rockwell rejected it numerous times. And Weaver had to convince everyone to hire her because the studio didn't want someone already connected to a popular sci-fi franchise -- cough,  Alien . 

But once the cast was selected and new director Dean Parisot got the green light, the movie started to gel. 

The documentary shows how much the cast loved working together even though their acting backgrounds were so diverse -- think method actors vs. physical comedy actors vs. theatrically trained actors. Just like the characters they played in the film, the cast found a way to work together to make something great happen on screen. 

Missi Pyle (second from left), Enrico Colantoni (center) and Patrick Breen (right) play the main Thermian aliens in Galaxy Quest.

Weaver loved the blond wig she wore as the character Gwen DeMarco so much that she often refused to take it off at the end of the day and wore it home instead to see if "blondes have more fun after all." Allen loved cracking his fellow actors up on the set so much that his constant fart jokes annoyed the more reserved British actor Rickman -- though Rickman grew to love Allen in the end. 

I learned that Shalhoub, Breen, Pyle and the other actors who portrayed the quirky alien race of Thermians often ad-libbed their speech patterns and behavior. And I learned that their weird walk was actually modeled after the super-marionettes from the Gerry Anderson's 1962 sci-fi TV series Fireball XL5 .

Also on hand to give perspective on Galaxy Quest's influence on pop culture and fandom are luminaries like Star Trek: The Next Generation actors Wil Wheaton and Brent Spiner , and comedian Paul Scheer .

"Galaxy Quest was way ahead of its time," Wheaton says. "Galaxy Quest is without a doubt the best Star Trek movie because it's about what makes Star Trek special. It's about the fans."

Indeed, Galaxy Quest was a giant hug for sci-fi fans. Long before fans could heavily influence the direction of movie (such as  Sonic the Hedgehog ), Galaxy Quest first hit theaters when sci-fi fans were still mocked by the mainstream. In 1999, there was no social media and there were no YouTube vloggers or powerful fan blogs. Galaxy Quest really was the first movie to highlight the importance of fandom. 

"What I love most about Galaxy Quest is that it didn't make fun of the fans," says  Greg Berlanti , creator of  The Flash TV show.

Galaxy Quest also gives insight into how fans can truly love and believe in the characters portrayed in a movie or TV series. 

"We really want to believe that this stuff is real," says  Damon Lindelof , the man behind  Lost ,  Watchmen  and the recent  Star Trek movies . "We don't want to believe that these are sets and Styrofoam and people pretending."

Here's hoping the original Galaxy Quest cast returns for a reboot.

He's right. These sci-fi properties like Star Trek and Star Wars mean the world to many fans. I didn't just grow up with these stories. My first imaginary friend was named Han Solo. I posed for school yearbook photos with my hair in the Princess Leia double-buns style. I would squint into the star-filled night sky, thinking of the Millennium Falcon or the Tardis . 

More Galaxy Quest

• Amazon developing TV show based on cult sci-fi flick Galaxy Quest
• Amazon's Galaxy Quest reboot has a new writer
• Promise of a Galaxy Quest TV show makes fan go a little crazy

Being a sci-fi fan had a positive influence on me. I spent my adult life trying to follow Yoda's advice of "Do or do not, there is no try." I would practice tolerance for those who are different from me, based on lessons I learned from Star Trek and Doctor Who. 

I even ended up marrying R2-D2 as a PR stunt when I worked at Lucasfilm , illustrating another Galaxy Quest lesson of not taking myself too seriously. 

I can especially relate to the hard-core Galaxy Quest fans: a cosplay couple named Harold and Roxanne Weir , who are featured throughout the documentary. They dress up as Thermians at comic book conventions just because they love Galaxy Quest. 

Harold and Roxanne Weir dress up as Thermians to show their love for Galaxy Quest.

The Weirs make their own costumes and mimic the characters perfectly. Their love for the movie is infectious. 

A fan's love for something truly special is an important reminder for modern fans.

"Being a nerd isn't about the thing you love, it's about the way that you love it," Wheaton said. "A lot of people who grow up as outsiders find a home in science fiction because it tells us that the thing that makes you weird in the world that you live in, it actually makes you incredibly valuable and really special in our world too."

Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary will be shown on Tuesday night in limited theaters via  Fathom Events . 

2019 movies to geek out over

Originally published Nov. 25. 

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Galaxy Quest

• Action/Adventure , Comedy , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

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In Theaters

• Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantoni

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• Dean Parisot

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Movie review.

The Star Trek phenomenon takes an affectionate, long-overdue ribbing at the hands of Galaxy Quest , a fresh action/comedy that thrusts a crew of typecast 1970s television actors into real-life space battle.

Beleaguered aliens, who have naively based their entire society on intercepted transmissions of a cheesy sci-fi series, land at a “Galaxy Quest” convention in search of war heroes. What they get are tired TV icons including a hungover prima donna (Allen), a fading buxom beauty (Weaver) and a bitter, classically trained actor forever trapped beneath latex headgear (Rickman).

The starving players think they’re committing to an autograph session when, in fact, they’re being recruited to fight big, mean, scaly space Huns. By the time reality hits, they’ve already reached infinity and beyond. they encounter laser blasts, mine fields, odd creatures and a nebula full of genre clichés beamed up for sly comic effect.

With PG films rare, parents of younger children may find Galaxy Quest tempting. Use caution. Sci-fi violence includes childlike creatures voraciously turning on a wounded peer. Aliens are shot, blown up, beheaded, tortured, turned inside-out and sucked into space. The dialogue is set on stun with a dozen TV-grade profanities and a flagrant misuse of God’s name. And in the final 15 minutes, everyone is upstaged by Weaver’s cleavage.

Still, noble themes prevail. The good aliens champion courage, teamwork and friendship through adversity. Egocentric actors learn to display humility and self-sacrifice. Galaxy Quest also addresses the often blurred line between fantasy and reality. A few caveats, but mature viewers will find signs of intelligent life.

Bob Smithouser

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Galaxy Quest has another Star Trek reference you might have missed

"We had to have the DreamWorks lawyers involved."

But somehow, there's a subtle reference to Star Trek on the main ship, the NTE-3120, NSEA-Protector, that you might have missed, however many times you've watched the brilliant movie since its release in 1999.

To mark its 20th anniversary last year, Fandom created a documentary celebrating the movie's legacy called Never Surrender that's now available to watch on Sky Documentaries or NOW TV in the UK.

The documentary covers the making of the movie with input from the cast and crew, with the best behind-the-scenes fact coming from ILM's visual effects supervisor Bill George.

George had worked on five Star Trek movies before being hired for Galaxy Quest and he outlined why it was such a unique job to design the Protector.

"It's the only time in my career where doing the design, we had to have the DreamWorks lawyers involved with what we were doing because they were so deathly afraid they were gonna get sued by Paramount," he explained.

Given that Galaxy Quest was such a homage to Star Trek , there was a chance that handled incorrectly, it could have been seen by Paramount – who owned the rights to the entire Star Trek franchise at the time – as being a rip-off of the series.

However, a production assistant at ILM came up with the genius idea behind the designation of the ship as NTE-3120 as a result of the "back-and-forth with the lawyers" over the ship.

"[They said] the number should start off with NTE, which stands for Not The Enterprise. So we could stand up in a court of law and say it is not the Enterprise, it says so right here," George (not a lawyer) noted.

Fortunately, Galaxy Quest never ran into such troubles with Paramount so we'll never know if NTE would have held up as a legal defence.

Never Surrender is a must-watch for fans of the movie as it delves into other behind-the-scenes issues, such as the late-stage change where they had to make Galaxy Quest a family movie after the success of The Rugrats Movie (yes, really).

Even more surprising is that when Harold Ramis was originally attached to direct the movie, Kevin Kline was the main choice for Jason Nesmith, AKA Commander Peter Quincy Taggart.

When Kline declined the role, there was a fairly wild list of suggestions for the lead role, including Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Tim Robbins and Steve Martin.

Fortunately, none of those actors were ever cast due to a variety of reasons and Tim Allen, who really wanted the role, ended up being cast, which indirectly led to Ramis leaving the project as he apparently didn't think he could make it work with Allen.

21 years later, it's hard to think how any other choice could actually improve on the Galaxy Quest we got, so perhaps everything worked out for the best.

Never Surrender is now available to watch on Sky Documentaries and NOW TV .

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Movies Editor, Digital Spy  Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor.  Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies , attending genre festivals around the world.   After moving to Digital Spy , initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.  

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What's the Best 'Star Trek' Movie and Why Is It 'Galaxy Quest'? New Documentary Has Answers

"Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary," perfectly encapsulates the magic of the cult classic film.

"Never Give Up, Never Surrender," — a new " Galaxy Quest " documentary, highlights the magic of the 1999 film. The flick earned its "cult classic" status by putting sci-fi superfans in the role of the hero and perfectly balancing the subtleties of comedy and drama. 

The documentary, "Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary," comes from the entertainment platform Fandom, which, along with the online movie magazine and YouTube channel Screen Junkies (which is owned and operated by Fandom), aired the film's debut screening on Oct. 5 at New York Comic Con . 

"Never Surrender" features intimate interviews with almost the entire cast of the original film (excluding, of course and sadly, Alan Rickman, who died in 2016), including actors Tim Allen , Sigourney Weaver , Justin Long and Sam Rockwell. The film also interviews writers, the film's director and other behind-the-scenes people who made the film possible. "Never Surrender" even features cameos from sci-fi legends like "Star Trek" actor Wil Wheaton and "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof.

Related: What Makes a 'Star Trek' Fan? Costumed Trekkies Share Stories 

This documentary explains why, despite an initially disappointing turnout at the box office, "Quest" has become one of the most beloved sci-fi movies of all time. It was even dubbed "the best 'Star Trek' movie" by Wheaton in the documentary, despite being, well, not a "Star Trek" movie.

"Galaxy Quest" isn't unique because it's a sci-fi parody. Other films, like "Spaceballs," spoofed " Star Wars " and other sci-fi classics, but there has always been something unique about "Quest." As the documentary explores, the film isn't a campy or "cheesy" spoof movie; it isn't strictly a comedy (though I believe anyone would be hard-pressed to watch it without cracking up at least once).

Small spoilers ahead 

It's a movie with real heart. While you might giggle as a panicked, rambling Rockwell says, "My character isn't important enough for a last name, because I'm gonna die 5 minutes in," while descending to an alien planet, you may soon have tears in your eyes as Quellek the Thermian dies in the arms of Alexander Dane, or Dr. Lazarus (Rickman).

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"It's this little movie. It's not a part of a franchise. It was just made by pure heart alone by a lot of people, and because of that heart, I think, it had a massive, lasting impact," Roth Cornet, a producer on the documentary who additionally works as the head of creative development for Screen Junkies and Fandom, told Space.com.

And the documentary similarly has a few tender, teary-eyed moments. For example, with the mention of Rickman, who passed before a proposed "Galaxy Quest" series on Amazon could be realized, it is hard to not feel sentimental as the cast, one by one, describes what it was like to work with him and how badly they all miss him. "If you love Alan Rickman, that's the moment for me, when we talk about Alan passing. I got choked up," Cornet said

The documentary has a few surprising, heartbreaking and hilarious tidbits about Rickman you can look forward to. 

The team behind this documentary has considered it a passion project and has pushed to make it happen, Cornet said. "Something like this highlights [that] when people love something and they come together, it can really, really, really have a huge impact on their whole life, even just a little movie about a TV show. And we're making a documentary about a movie about a TV show," she added about the meta nature of the documentary, which dives into a movie about actors in a "Star Trek"-esque television show. 

Cornet added that the creators aimed for the documentary to be "an hour and 25 minutes of delight." And in my humble opinion, it is just that. 

"Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary" will premiere on Nov. 26 at over 600 theaters across the U.S. as part of a one-day-only Fathom event. A full list of participating theaters and tickets will be available Oct. 17 at www.FathomEvents.com . The documentary will become more broadly available in December, to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the original film.

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Galaxy Quest Remains One of the Greatest Sci-Fi Comedies of All Time

Twenty years later, we look back at the film's sympathy, heart, and necessary depiction of the genre and its fandom.

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When I walked into the theater to see Galaxy Quest for the first time, I remember having low expectations. To be fair, I was 9 years old, and I wanted my sci-fi to be Very Serious Science Fiction. I wanted another Star Wars. I wanted something to create an entire new collection of toys for me to play with. I didn't want some joke, making a mockery of the space stories that I loved. Despite barely understanding most of the Star Trek references, and never having seen something that could be at once funny and legitimate sci-fi action, I loved Galaxy Quest . It paved the way for my love of the sci-fi comedy crossover with everything from slapstick parody like Spaceballs to intellectual satire like Her or classics like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy .

And, 20 years later, the film absolutely holds up as one of the best sci-fi satires ever made—one that challenges our obsession with massive Hollywood franchises, the nature of fandom, and some of the more problematic cliches of the genre. But it does so with a self-aware empathy that makes it an enduring and lasting entry in not only science-fiction, but American film as a whole.

First, the film had an absolutely stacked cast: There's Tim Allen (when he was at the height of his fame, before he became a far-right blowhard) as the conceded Jason Nesmith, a hack TV actor whose only claim to fame is for playing the beloved Commander Peter Quincy Taggart on the titular Star Trek-ish TV sci-fi Galaxy Quest. He's surrounded by his washed up cast mates Sigourney Weaver as Gwen DeMarco (in a genius meta-nod to the Alien franchise), Alan Rickman as Alexander Dane, Tony Shalhoub as Fred Kwan, Sam Rockwell as Guy Fleegman (an anonymous Galaxy Quest walk-on actor), and Daryl Mitchell as Tommy Webber, the now-grown child pilot. These has-been actors are schlepped from appearance to appearance to appease hordes of fans who still idolize their work from the tacky '80s TV show. They're disgruntled, they're petty—they're nothing like their TV counterparts. But, when a group of aliens picks up their transmissions and views the Galaxy Quest TV show as the real historical documents of actual intergalactic heroes, the aliens—called Thermians—call upon the actors to save their doomed race from the evil Sarris.

Galaxy Quest

Much of this works in part from the incredible performances. This is pre-Academy Award Sam Rockwell. This is pre-Tony, -Golden Globe, Emmy-winning Tony Shalhoub. This also has Justin Long as the superfan Brandon, before he became a regular face in early 2000s comedies. Shalhoub turns his character into some unaffected lovable weirdo. Rockwell's reaction to getting teleported for the first time should have gotten him his first Academy Award. And Weaver's no-bullshit stomping on the toxic masculinity of genre cliches is an absolute joy to watch.

What makes this film unique is its sympathetic portrayal of sci-fi fans, actors, and the genre as a whole. In the end, Long's Brandon uses his uber-knowledge of the show to save the Galaxy Quest cast and the universe as a whole. Where other sci-fi satires like Spaceballs would make a mockery and punch down on the original subject matter and its fans— Galaxy Quest has a refreshing respect. Yes, the fans are over-eager, but they're presented here as nothing but respectful, kindhearted nerds. They're not shown as the stereotypical basement-dwelling freaks—but people who just enjoy a TV show. That also extends to the genre as a whole. Where Spaceballs would turn the popular staples of sci-fi into dick jokes (the lightsabers), in Galaxy Quest , they are more like critiques of the genre. Like when Weaver's Gwen points out the inherent sexism of sci-fi tropes, with her character's low cut top and pointless job—"I repeated the computer," she says early in the movie. In fact, this later point makes Galaxy Quest more similar to Scream than anything else—a film that eloquently functions as a meta-critique of genre tropes than anything else.

It's a depiction and a point of view that's kind of refreshing in today's landscape of toxic fandom. Having been made in pre-internet days, wider audiences hadn't been exposed to the disgusting underbelly of hateful, misogynistic and racist fans. Watching this movie today is a reminder of a simpler time when fans were simply excitable dorks who took a TV show seriously. If anything, it's a depiction of what fandom should and could be. Why can't fans be more like Brandon and his friends—respectfully enjoying a franchise. Or, to be bluntly, without being an asshole about it.

This type of sci-fi comedy crossover is so rarely done and even more rarely pulled off more intelligently, intentionally, and ingeniously. Galaxy Quest still serves as an excellent example of meta-comedy in movies and hopefully inspire more to come afterward.

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Things Only Adults Notice In Galaxy Quest

In 1999, director Dean Parisot released  Galaxy Quest , a sci-fi comedy based on a novel premise: What if a scientifically advanced alien culture saw a  Star Trek -like TV show, thought it was real, and recruited its actors to help them complete a dangerous mission? In the film, the out-of-work stars of the fictional cult series  Galaxy Quest find themselves on a working replica of their show's starship and surrounded by sweet, wide-eyed aliens who believe that they are the greatest heroes ever to explore outer space. Led by Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen), who hopes to recapture the glory of playing the maverick Commander Taggart, the tight-knit group of actors muddle through a real life-and-death space adventure while coping with the baggage they've accumulated during their years together.

A modest hit at the box office, the real  Galaxy Quest became a cult classic in its own right, often hailed by Trekkies as one of  the best, if not  the best   Star Trek- inspired   feature film. It's a terrific and clever comedy that's both a satire and a loving tribute to space sci-fi and its fanbase that features fantastic performances from Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman, but the executives at DreamWorks  marketed it as a kids' movie . There's plenty for kids to enjoy about  Galaxy Quest , but it's a movie for all ages that has a lot to offer adults both on a textual and meta-textual level. Plus, like any comedy, there are a few "Hey, wait a minute!" moments for grown viewers.

The sci-fi elements are all played straight

While  Galaxy Quest is a joke-dense, light-hearted comedy, its sci-fi world is treated as seriously as it would be in a legitimate  Star Trek movie. The design and production values are on par with other big-screen space adventures of its day, and similar talent and methods were employed to make it that way. The visual effects and starship models were created by Industrial Light & Magic, the top shelf effects house that was born from the production of Star Wars . The makeup effects for the villainous Sarris and his soldiers were headed up by Stan Winston , the legendary artist behind  The Thing .

According to Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary , making the sci-fi elements the "straight man" of the comedy was a deliberate decision. In order for the film to work, the sci-fi stakes needed to be totally real, with the comedic elements stemming from the human characters or from the way the Thermians adopted nonsensical choices from the Galaxy Quest TV show into their ship. There needed to be a clear delineation between the real dangers of space and the very fake TV world to which the actors are accustomed. Sarris, the rock monster, the starships and technology all have to seem as impressive or as threatening as they would appear to our fish-out-of-water protagonists. It's the context that makes them funny, not the content itself.

The Galaxy Quest casts mirrors real relationships from the set of Star Trek

Galaxy Quest centers around the strained dynamic between star Jason Nesmith and the rest of the cast of the  Galaxy Quest TV series, which is similar to the decades-long conflict between  Star Trek 's William Shatner and his costars. Much of the cast of Star Trek have openly criticized or expressed dislike for Shatner, while Shatner expresses puzzlement as to why. Castmates Leonard Nimoy and George Takei have complained that Shatner would use his power as #1 on the show's call sheet to steal other actors' lines or close-ups or to try and hog press attention. Like Nesmith, Shatner doesn't seem to find anything wrong with his own behavior despite multiple, similar criticisms, but while Jason seems to harbor no ill will towards the crew, Shatner is famously defensive and  publicly casts Takei as irrational .

The rest of the Trek cast aside from Shatner, however, has enjoyed a very close, family-like relationship much like the one seen in Galaxy Quest . In the film, Gwen DeMarco says that the cast "[works] together, or not at all," mirroring Leonard Nimoy's refusal to participate in Star Trek: The Animated Series unless Nichelle Nichols and George Takei were also hired. Nichols and Walter Koenig were Best Lady and Best Man at Takei's wedding, to which Shatner was not invited. Shatner also did not attend Leonard Nimoy's funeral due to a scheduling conflict, but says he doesn't think he'd have been welcome anyway.

Alexander Dane's career crisis reflects Leonard Nimoy's

In Galaxy Quest , Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman) is a serious actor who feels that his career has been destroyed by his years playing Dr. Lazarus, a silly role on a campy television series. Dane's plight is far from uncommon, as actors who do sci-fi television (particularly those who do so under heavy prosthetics ) often find themselves shoehorned into similar roles. But, much as the conflict between the Galaxy Quest reflects the friction between the cast of Star Trek , Alexander's frustrations seem to be inspired by the life of one particular  Trek cast member, Leonard Nimoy.

While Nimoy might not have expressed the comical levels of resentment that Dane does in the film, he did  struggle with being so closely identified with Spock and found that it made it hard to further his career as an actor, leading to his moving behind the camera as a director. This struggle became exaggerated in the public eye when his first autobiography was published under the controversial title I Am Not Spock , which created a misconception (particularly among those who did not read the book) that Nimoy flatly disliked the role and the place it created for him in pop culture. Nimoy sought to correct this perception by naming his 1995 follow-up  I Am Spock .

While Dane's story is more dramatic — Nimoy was never abducted by aliens, as far as we know — he also makes peace with the role by the end of the film.

Fred Kwan is high for the entire movie

One of  Galaxy Quest 's running gags is the nearly constant quiet calm of Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub), who doesn't seem to respond appropriately to any of the peril and weirdness that happens throughout the film. It's easy to read the chill, frequently snacking Fred as being in a marijuana-fueled haze throughout the action. This is actually deliberate, and is a holdover from the original intent that Galaxy Quest be a more adult-oriented comedy.

Tony Shalhoub was originally up for the part of Guy, which ultimately went to Sam Rockwell, but director Dean Parisot invited Shalhoub to play Fred Kwan instead. Shaloub initially declined, as he felt an Asian actor should play an Asian character, but the two determined that Fred himself is actually a non-Asian actor playing an Asian character. This development reminded Shalhoub of an (unconfirmed) rumor that actor David Carradine, while portraying the whitewashed role of Kwai Chang Cain on the 1970s TV series Kung Fu , smoked weed constantly on set. Shalhoub and Parisot invented a backstory for Fred that he had done the same thing and then ended up becoming a burnout, and the part was totally rewritten with that in mind.

Very little of this made it into the final film, with many of Shalhoub's stoner gags being cut and the only acknowledgement of Fred's faking his ethnicity being a passing reference to Kwan not really being his last name.

Brandon and his buddies must be loaded

Early in Galaxy Quest , we learn that Jason Nesmith has been hired to make a personal appearance by young fan Brandon (Justin Long) and his friends. Their exact age is unclear, but they appear to be teenagers. We never see what Brandon and company have in mind for the appearance, but they keep referring to it as "the voyage" and it appears to be some sort of role-playing scenario. Jason says the kids had "built a little set in their basement." Diverted from this job by the Thermians, Jason never shows up to meet them.

Consider for a moment how expensive it must be to book Jason Nesmith for a one-hour appearance. Yes, he's an out of work actor, but he's an out of work actor with a nice house in the Hollywood hills who is apparently in enough demand to warrant a three-day convention dedicated only to his long-canceled TV series. Serious acting work may have dried up, but there's no shortage of people looking to pay money for Jason Nesmith's attention.

In 2021, a ten-minute live Zoom call with  Star Trek actor Jonathan Frakes costs $750. Getting this film's equivalent of William Shatner to play-act his famous role for an hour in their basement could not be cheap, even if you skimp on the limo.

The Thermian cultural revolution must've happened very quickly

After receiving and misinterpreting Earth's television broadcasts, the naive and friendly alien species called the Thermians remodel their entire society and technology after  Galaxy Quest in excruciating detail. Earth's TV signals really do escape our planet and travel into space at the speed of light, so this conceit isn't 100% implausible and certainly works within the suspension of disbelief of a light sci-fi comedy. But when you do the math, it leads to the conclusion that the Thermians'  Galaxy Quest obsession must've been extremely rapid.

Let's be generous and imagine that Thermia is a very close neighbor to Earth. The closest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, actually does have a planet, Proxima b . Proxima is about 4.2 light years from Earth, so it would take a television broadcast 4.2 years to reach there.  Galaxy Quest aired roughly between 1977 and 1982, and would reach Proxima beginning in the early 1980s.

The film is set in 1999 or 2000, so if the Thermians lived on Proxima b they would still have less than two decades to reconstruct their culture and develop or repurpose their technology to mimic the Galaxy Quest "historical documents" before the story begins. In actuality, they'd probably be much farther away, and every light year's distance means one fewer year to work with.

It's obvious when watching the film that the Thermians are scientifically brilliant, but factoring for real-life physical constraints, their genius is actually understated.

The Thermians don't really get a happy ending

Throughout  Galaxy Quest , the audience is treated to the light-hearted antics of the Thermians, the friendly alien species who has found inspiration from the sci-fi television series that they've mistaken for a documentary. When we last see the Thermians in the film, Mathezar (Enrico Colantoni) is commanding the  NSEA Protector with a newfound confidence, and the ship warps off into open space after dropping off the television cast back on Earth. A playful musical score accompanies this brief, single take scene of the Thermians setting off on their next adventure.

But as light and positive as this scene is framed and as cheerful as the Thermians seem, their future is actually looking pretty bleak. As Teb (Jed Rees) reveals to Jason and company earlier in the film, the crew of the  Protector is all that remains of the Thermian civilization, the rest having been exterminated by General Sarris (Robin Sachs). Aside from the  Protector 's starport, which is built into the crust of a shattered planetoid, Mathezar and his crew have no home to which to return. Being forced to simply wander the stars in their advanced starship isn't the worst fate that could befall the Thermians — it is, after all, part of the fantasy of the  Galaxy Quest series — but it will be a struggle, and the crew will have to cope with the apparently recent demise of their homeworld at some point or another.

There would have be a massive cover-up

The film's finale sees the human cast of Galaxy Quest (and the Thermian Laliari) crash-landing the command deck of the real NSEA Protector into the convention hall and making a dramatic entrance to the last day of Galaxy Quest Convention 18. The fans inside the hall seem to accept that this is just an elaborate stunt, but the moment they leave the building, they're going to notice that there's a path of destruction running through the parking lot and a gaping hole in the side of the building. Some of their cars have been destroyed. People are going to put two and two together.

The very last minute of the film reveals that, following this adventure, Galaxy Quest returns to television for new episodes with an expanded cast. But while it would have no place in the story of the film, there would have to have been some earlier consequences of an alien spaceship crash-landing into a California civic center. Did the U.S. government get involved? Was there a cover-up? How did they keep people from talking?

One comical scenario to imagine: What if, in exchange for the silence of the hundreds of Questerians who witnessed a UFO landing and the Hollywood actors who just had a wild alien encounter, a shady government entity offered them the one thing they wanted most — the return of the cheesy TV show they love? (Plus replacing a couple of smashed minivans.)

None of the characters have any other family

Part of what keeps the stakes of Galaxy Quest feeling light is that there are no negative consequences of the actors being essentially abducted by aliens near the start of the film. When the Gwen and the crew tell Jason that they want to go home shortly after realizing that they've been transported off-world, Jason argues that all they have waiting for them at home is "paying their bills and feeding their fish," a claim that receives no counterargument.

This is a sad realization about the characters, but it's  very convenient for the story. None of the cast has partners waiting for them to come home or kids who need to be picked up from soccer practice. No one tries to get in touch with anyone back on Earth, at least not until Jason needs to reach Brandon for some tech support. The  Galaxy Quest cast is a family, evidently the only close family they have, which ratchets up the importance of their relationship and makes their ability to get along the most important personal stakes for these characters.

That, and the danger of getting killed or tortured by a sadistic alien general.

Galaxy Quest is about the value of fantasy

Galaxy Quest is a breezy comedy adventure, but it's also a story about how investing emotionally in something fictional, or even ridiculous, can enrich your life. The Thermians found peace and purpose in genuinely and literally believing in idealized heroes. The Questerians, too, clearly find a lot of enrichment in knowingly participating in the fantasy of Galaxy Quest through fandom. Both groups are the butt of jokes in the film, but those jokes are mostly good natured.

While the Thermians and the Questerians have already learned this before the start of the story, over the course of the film we see the jaded and exhausted actors find within themselves the heroes that their fans — human and alien — believe them to be. Jason always has a big head, but he only truly becomes The Commander once he puts his trust in his friends and comes clean to Mathezar about how he's deceived them. Alexander finds Dr. Lazarus within himself by understanding what he means to Quelleck, who sees him as a surrogate father. Fred, Tommy (Daryl Mitchell), and Guy (Sam Rockwell) each find a new confidence by rising to the standards of their characters, or in Guy's case, beyond them. Apart from Gwen, who is already a far more complete person than Tawny Madison, the cast grows by drawing strength from people who look at them and see the people that they'd like to be, even if they weren't real to begin with.

Simon Pegg Might Be 'Helping Out' With Galaxy Quest 2

There are some hardcore Trekkies in the world who consider Dean Parisot's 1999 comedy to be the best "Star Trek" movie. The main characters in Parisot's film are all struggling actors, still most fondly remembered for their work on a short-lived cult sci-fi series from decades prior. The in-universe show, called "Galaxy Quest," resembles "Star Trek" in several key ways (the layout of the ship, the uniforms, etc.), and the egotistical lead actor Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen), who played the captain of the starship Protector on "Galaxy Quest," was clearly modeled after William Shatner.

The plot of "Galaxy Quest" is amusing: a species of shapeshifting aliens, requiring defense from marauders, recruit the original "Galaxy Quest" actors to serve as their champions. The aliens assumed that rogue TV broadcasts they once saw were very real and have recreated "Galaxy Quest" in real life. The put-upon thespians don't have the heart to explain to the aliens that their show is fictional ... and that they kinda hate it. It's a sci-fi spin on films like "¡Three Amigos!" and "A Bug's Life."

"Galaxy Quest" is a witty and fun film that has, in the years since its release, developed a passionate following. Several "Star Trek" actors have even commented on the accuracy of the film, with Shatner even playfully claiming ignorance when he witnessed Allen's performance.

In April of 2023, /Film reported that a TV spinoff of "Galaxy Quest" was still in the works. It's a project that has been in development for years . In 2014, "Galaxy Quest" stars Sigourney Weaver and Sam Rockwell said they'd reprise their roles , should a sequel be made. In a recent video interview with GQ , Rockwell implied that writer/actor Simon Pegg, who co-wrote "Star Trek Beyond," might be working on — or might have worked on — the new "Galaxy Quest" project.

Galaxy Quest: Phase II

Rockwell was brief, saying:

"If there was a sequel to 'Galaxy Quest,' we would be on it. We talked about it maybe like a limited series, yeah. Simon Pegg talked about helping out with it, actually."

Rockwell may have been referring to an article printed in the Times in 2021 . In that article, writer and producer Georgia Pritchett, one of the people behind "Succession," mentioned that she and Pegg were developing a TV series based on "Galaxy Quest." Rockwell, however, was likely not referring to the same series that was announced by Paramount in 2023. An article by  Deadline noted that comedian Paul Scheer had already pitched one version of the "Galaxy Quest" TV series that had been turned down and that Pritchett and Pegg's version of the show was likewise passed on.

Nothing else is known about the new "Galaxy Quest" TV series other than executive producer Mark Johnson ("Mayfair Witches," "Interview with the Vampire," and many, many other films and shows) will be overseeing the show. No other cast members or crew have announced their involvement. "Galaxy Quest" star Alan Rickman passed away in 2016.

It's distantly possible that some of Scheer's, Pritchett's, or Pegg's ideas might be used in the new series. Pegg is famously a sci-fi nerd, having written several sci-fi movies, and it's possible that, if he's not a writer, he may serve as a geek consultant of some kind. It sounds, however, like the most recent iteration of "Galaxy Quest" will be its own animal. Someone should tell Sam Rockwell about that before he begins spreading more rumors.

Time will tell if a series actually makes it off the ground.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Galaxy Quest

The alumni cast of a space opera television series have to play their roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help. However, they also have to defend both Earth and the alien ... Read all The alumni cast of a space opera television series have to play their roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help. However, they also have to defend both Earth and the alien race from a reptilian warlord. The alumni cast of a space opera television series have to play their roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help. However, they also have to defend both Earth and the alien race from a reptilian warlord.

• Dean Parisot
• David Howard
• Robert Gordon
• Sigourney Weaver
• Alan Rickman
• 756 User reviews
• 102 Critic reviews
• 70 Metascore
• 7 wins & 14 nominations

• Jason Nesmith

• Gwen DeMarco

• Alexander Dane

• Guy Fleegman

• Tommy Webber

• Young Tommy

• (as Samuel Lloyd)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The scene when Tim Allen is in a men's room overhearing how the cast of Galaxy Quest are nobodies and all the co-stars can't stand him mirrors an actual event in William Shatner 's life. He discovered the exact same things about himself when he attended a 1986 convention.
• Goofs When Jason Nesmith is fighting the "Pig Lizard" on the rock planet, right before he jumps over the creature, a crew member's hand can be seen maneuvering the puppet.

Sir Alexander Dane : By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Worvan, you shall be avenged.

• Crazy credits At the end of the closing credits, Enrico Colantoni , as Mathesar, says "Never give up... Never surrender!".
• Alternate versions Regrettably, the 20th anniversary restoration recently screened at Paramount used the DVD version, thus it goes from 1.37 to 2.35, including the 20 minutes or so that are supposed to be shown at 1.85.
• Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Any Given Sunday/Fantasia 2000/Galaxy Quest/The Talented Mr. Ripley/The Hurricane (1999)

User reviews 756

• May 10, 2004
• Why does Alexander wear the alien headpiece all the time, even when he is at home?
• Which "Star Trek" characters are the "Galaxy Quest" characters based on?
• December 25, 1999 (United States)
• United States
• GalaxyQuest
• Goblin Valley State Park, Utah, USA (alien planet)
• Dreamworks Pictures
• Gran Via Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $45,000,000 (estimated)
• $71,583,916
• Dec 26, 1999
• $90,683,916

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 42 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Galaxy quest.

The film Galaxy Quest is a well-received affectionate parody of Star Trek and its fandom. It’s about the cast of a fictional Trek -like show (called Galaxy Quest ) who are mistaken for an actual starship crew by a group of aliens.

Drama and hilarity ensue.

Episodic or serial?

There’s just the one movie, which is wholly standalone.

Idealistic or cynical?

Idealistic. It’s a parody, but an affectionate one which celebrates Trek and its fans.

Worth watching?

Absolutely. It is often hailed as one of the best Star Trek films despite not technically being one.

Anything else that should be watched first?

Nothing specific, since this is not part of actual Trek canon. Your enjoyment will be enhanced by a basic familiarity with The Original Series , since that’s the main point of reference (with clear parallels to Kirk/Shatner, Spock, Uhura, and various technology and tropes as seen in that series). But even more helpful would be just a familiarity with Star Trek ’s cultural impact.

What should be watched after this?

If you’re looking for more lighthearted love letters to Star Trek , there’s always The Orville .

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Paramount+ Reportedly Developing ‘Galaxy Quest’ Series

| April 18, 2023 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 48 comments so far

The 1999 film Galaxy Quest has always been embraced by Star Trek fans for its loving spoof of the franchise and fandom. Over the last few decades, there has been regular talk of a sequel or television tie-in to the sci-fi comedy, and that buzz is heating up again with reports that Paramount+ is working with the original producer on a Galaxy Quest streaming television show.

Galaxy Quest TV

Both The Hollywood Reporter and Variety are reporting that Paramount+ is in the early development stages of a Galaxy Quest show for the streaming service, which also happens to be the exclusive home of Star Trek TV shows. Galaxy Quest producer Mark Johnson is overseeing the project as executive producer and a search for writers is underway. Johnson has had a prolific career; he won an Academy Award producing the 1988 Rain Man and more recently has been an executive producer on a number of critically acclaimed series for AMC, including Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul .

Poster for Galaxy Quest film

There are no details on how the new show would tie into the 1999 movie or if any of the original stars would be involved. The original cast included Tim Allen, Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, and Enrico Colantoni. In 2015 a Galaxy Quest series was in development for Amazon Prime Video; however, that project came to a halt after the death of Rickman in 2016. Since that time, others have been attached to develop the project, including Star Trek’s Simon Pegg in 2021 .

Adding a Galaxy Quest TV show to the library of Paramount+ original series is an interesting move for the streamer that is also producing original Star Trek shows. Like the film itself, if done with respect, it could be embraced by Star Trek fans.

Paramount did not respond to a request for comment about these reports, as it’s still early for this latest attempt to return to the NSEA-Protector , but when it comes to this project, it appears the motto is: Never give up, never surrender.

The original film is available now on Paramount+ and you can see the original trailer below.

Keep up with other  sci-fi news at TrekMovie.com .

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Star Trek’s Simon Pegg Working On ‘Galaxy Quest’ TV Series

I’d watch it.

I’m still sad that Netflix didn’t renew Space Force. There’s room.

I was sorry to see Space Force get cancelled as well. If you haven’t already you should check out Upload On Amazon Prime which also has Greg Daniels as show runner.

UPLOAD is utterly fantastic and I wish they could turn out 20 a year instead of the snail like pace we get them, but SPACE FORCE just didn’t speak to me at all, barely got through season 1.

I really think GQ has all sorts of series possibilities.

Agreed on Upload, I’d love more episodes and whilst I don’t disagree about GQ the news just feels a bit like a new Star Trek theatrical movie announcement as we’ve been hearing about it for so long without anything actually happening! I realise of course that it was Amazon developing the show originally but it’s not like Paramount have a great record on following through on everything they announce. Put me down as cautiously optimistic on that one!

I saw it. It really wasn’t all that good. Watched the first season. Then bailed.

I heard it will be shot exclusively with a tilted camera so that all the viewers will always subconsciously lean slightly to the right when watching it.

I get it. Allen is a Republican. I doubt this show will be with Allen and Weaver. They may kick the show off but then you will get a younger crew.

Ha ha That would be awesome. Will they have Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, how legendary would that be! Normally I’d say no way, but… I think it could be possible now! Oh and Tony Shalhoub, man that guy was funny in Monk

Legacy characters! What everyone is obsessed with these days.

Unlike the original, I expect it to be dystopian, with great special effects and poor writing. I’m not sure anything else is possible anymore.

You may be on to something in that it could potentially spoof those very things.

The only question is if Paramount will allow one of their shows to mock one of their other shows.

I would guess that would depend on who is making it. Doesn’t look to be Secret Hideout so that’s a bit of a plus. Doesn’t mean it still won’t suck, however. But I still content it’s worth a shot.

Why don’t they instead just buy the rights to The Orville from Hulu and fund that for a couple more seasons. That Trek parody is already developed and they could probably buy it for pennies on the dollar.

Because Disney owns the Orville and there is no way they (or any major studio, really) would just sell Paramount one of their properties. They’d rather let it languish and die than sell it to a competitor, even for a hefty sum.

I am more inclined to believe that The Orville will be renewed based on Paramount’s Galaxy Quest announcement.

The Orville appeals to many Star Trek fans (self-included) and it could compete directly against both Star Trek and Galaxy Quest. 

idk, it’s just as likely this convinces them to end it, since it was struggling before even without competition. competition isn’t a good thing when it comes to this sort of thing.

“Why don’t they instead just buy the rights to The Orville”

Mainly because Hulu doesn’t own The Orville. :) Also, because the rights are not for sale. There is no way Disney would sell a Star Trek parody to its main rival, which happens to own Star Trek. It would never happen.

You have a point, but just a quibble: I wouldn’t call Paramount Disney’s “main rival.” Depending on how you count, Netflix and Amazon have more subscribers than Disney, and HBO and YouTube rank between them and Paramount. (Hulu, Lionsgate, Apple, and Peacock are behind Paramount.)

I think The Orville has moved way beyond parody by this point. The last two seasons were pretty serious with some occasional humor.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the whole run, but we’re way beyond the first season by now.

For one thing it never really was truly a pardoy. The first season was perhaps 35-40% parody but then abandoned nearly all of the comedy in ensuing seasons. It became a TNG clone/homage/rip off depending on one’s mood.

Because Galaxy quest is a true parody while the Orville in its past run is an obviously bad rip off pretending to be a parody.

Galaxy Quest was a fun movie, but I’m not sure the premise is sustainable over the length of a series.

I think so too. because they Parodied the TOS area of Star Trek. Will it be some Livce Action “Lower Decks” clone just with TOS?

I dunno.. Let’s see

I think if they embrace it as more of a sci-fi comedy that plays with tropes of the genre, it can works. Like a live action futurama, for example.

I actually think it could be. It just needs the right people in charge and the right people writing it. Yes, that is a bit of a “perfect storm” but stranger things have happened. I feel better about this working than any of the Secret Hideout Treks to be honest.

I agree. I think part of the appeal to the movie was the fact that none of the characters had been on a real space ship or even believed aliens existed. That aspect would be gone for any sequels or TV shows.

You might could pull off one movie sequel because the characters could reluctantly be like “not again. Ok. We’ll save everyone again if you insist.”

But, I can’t see that happening every week and I can’t envision these characters making a believable transition into a full time space exploration crew.

Still haven’t seen this movie.

Make it so!

It’s a must! Its a love letter to Star Trek. Brilliant and hilarious, back then. After watching the movie for the first time, I remember reading an article of Jonathan Frakes telling a hesitant Patrick Stewart to go and watch it. He had zero interest and Frakes strongly pushed for him to go and watch it right away, and have a chat afterwards. Stewart was convinced, and not sure if he or Frakes, not sure who said that (Stewart) have never laughed so hard in his live, in a theater.

I think they have identified themselves very much with the GQ characters, the chaos they behind the scenes. Its a brilliant stand alone sci-fi movie. They also have a large group of fans, always pushing for more movies or tv series. :D

If Paramount is developing this does that mean their could be a Galaxy Quest – Star Trek Crossover. That would be so cool. The new Protector crew (I assume it will be a new younger crew) joins the Star Trek crew to defeat the so and so.

I smell another SNW crossover! ;)

I was just thinking about this. It would be cool to see a Trek-Quest crossover, maybe start in Lower Decks and then do something in live action.

It would have to be a time travel episode of some sort because Star Trek is set 400 years in the future.

That could be interesting though if the fictional Galaxy Quest TV show was part of Star Trek’s history. They would have to come up with a reason why the Vulcan’s are considered the first alien contact for humans though.

Wow two exciting announcements in one day. How come they couldn’t put any of this on First Contact day lol. But yeah love the movie and would watch this.

As you have speculated many times, Paramount has lost the ability to market Star Trek! All these new announcements are cool but their timing is weird!

Yeah sad but true. It’s just crazy how tone deaf they still are on some of this stuff.

why would they announce Galaxy Quest on a fictional star trek holiday lol.

So true. After Nemesis, so many missed opportunities, including the 50th Anniversary when they were launching Discovery.

Here’s a set up – Years after the successful reboot of “Galaxy Quest”, which lead to spin-offs and features, the surviving cast is asked back to reprise their roles for a Streaming series…”GALAXY QUEST : TAGGART” where Jason Nesmith returns as now retired Admiral Peter Quincy Taggart who needs to reunite his crew to save the galaxy once again in a comedic sent up of STAR TREK : PICARD.

What? Too Soon…

if they recreate the original bridge set they wont even need to write a script, fans will all get up and clap and call it the best thing ever

Galaxy Quest without Alan Rickman would be like Star Trek the Original Series without Leonard Nimoy.

I like both Quinto and Peck. Nimoy was the master, but they’re good in their own ways.

Rickman played the character once. Recasting shouldn’t be an issue, assuming the original cast is coming back at all ..

Generally I’m not a huge fan of “remakes”. There are exceptions of course but as a general rule if something was really good I’d rather just leave it alone. One of the exceptions is remaking something that wasn’t good to begin with. Like Battlestar Galactica. The remake was so much better. And this is one of those. I know I am in the minority on this one but I never liked Galaxy Quest. It literally had one laugh in the entire move. Granted, that gag was fantastic and I still laugh at it to this day. But that movie never ever worked for me. So the potential for making something better from the concept sounds like it could be worth a try to me.

It could be good — assuming they don’t turn it into another Discovery-style turd.

Screen Rant

Ds9’s odo actor didn’t like his love story with kira, but it was his idea.

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Rene Auberjonois’ Star Trek: Enterprise Appearance Contained A Massive DS9 Callback

Star trek: ds9 guest star was almost tng's captain picard, after 31 years, star trek confirms a deep space 9 in-joke in the most hilarious way.

• Odo and Kira's love story was initially disapproved by Auberjonois, but it was his performance that sparked the idea.
• Despite objections from the actors, Odo and Kira's romantic partnership made sense due to their deep bond and support for each other.
• The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine love story was finally resolved in season 6, providing a happy ending for one of the longest-running stories.

René Auberjonois disapproved of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine love story between Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) and Constable Odo, which means he forgot that it was his idea! Odo and Kira became DS9 's will-they-won't-they love story after it became apparent that Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) and Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) would never get together. DS9 finally got Odo and Kira together in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 6, episode 20, "His Way" , which provided a happy ending for one of the longest-running DS9 love stories .

Odo and Kira stayed together until the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finale, in which Odo returned to the Great Link to help the Changelings move on from the Dominion War. Odo and Kira's love story weathered the Dominion War and the Morphogenic Virus, so there was a melancholy to their parting. However, touching Kira and Odo's romance was, both René Auberjonois and Nana Visitor didn't agree that their Star Trek: DS9 characters should have got together as a couple. So it's ironic that an acting choice made by Auberjonois back in DS9 season 2 first seeded the idea of a romance for Odo and Kira .

Best known as Constable Odo, René Auberjonois appeared in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise that called back to an Odo-centric episode of DS9.

Odo & Kira's Star Trek: DS9 Love Story Was Rene Auberjonois’ Idea

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 24, "The Collaborator", Kira's lover, Vedek Bareil (Philip Anglim), is accused of betraying the Bajoran Resistance during the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor . Odo helps Kira to investigate the damaging claims, and has an interesting response to her declaration of love for Bareil. When Kira tells Odo she loves Bareil, René Auberjonois plays his response with a degree of discomfort and gives a look that can only be described as one of heartbreak . Gary Holland, who co-wrote "The Collaborator", was surprised by Auberjonois' performance choice, and decided that Odo must be in love with Kira.

Kira: I love him, Odo Odo: Really? Well, I, er... Kira: What? Odo: I was just wondering when you were going to figure that out. You humanoids. When it comes to emotional attachments, you never see the obvious.

As written, Odo's responses reflect his emotional detachment from humanoids and their relationships in the early seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . This was what Gary Holland had originally intended, but René Auberjonois' performance of the lines as a deflection from his true feelings gave him a completely different idea. DS9 fans also began to speculate that Odo was in love with Kira, and it was eventually written into the episode "Fascination", in which Lwaxana Troi (Majel Barrett) helps Odo acknowledge his feelings. Finally, in Gary Holland's "Children of Time", an older Odo from an alternate timeline was finally able to tell Kira that he was in love with her.

Why Rene Auberjonois and Nana Visitor Didn’t Like Odo And Kira’s Romance

In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion , Ira Steven Behr cited Gary Holland's "Children of Time" as the story that gave the writers the impetus to get Odo and Kira together. René Auberjonois and Nana Visitor weren't big fans of getting Odo and Kira together as a couple on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Both actors felt that their characters were better as platonic friends, as Odo and Kira had been since the days when DS9 was Terok Nor . Nana Visitor discussed her initial reaction to the decision to pair up Odo and Kira in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion :

" I'm not much of a fan of Odo and Kira being together, but they found a way to make it all make sense. I've always felt I have to open my mouth and pick my fights. And even though I know there's a certain amount of fights I'm going to lose, I always do it anyway. That was one I lost ."

Despite René Auberjonois and Nana Visitor's objections, their romantic partnership made a lot of sense. Odo and Kira knew each other's darkest secrets, and never judged each other. They were always there to support each other throughout Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Be it as platonic friends or romantic partners, Odo and Kira had an unbreakable bond that should be celebrated as one of the great Star Trek love stories.

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.