Hacker Cinema
Galaxy Quest
1999 · Film · 102 min
Directed by Dean Parisot
ComedyScience FictionAdventure
For four years, the courageous crew of the NSEA Protector — Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, Lieutenant Tawny Madison, and Doctor Lazarus — set off on a thrilling and often dangerous mission in space... until their series was cancelled! Now, twenty years later, aliens under attack have mistaken the Galaxy Quest television transmissions for "historical documents" and beam up the crew of has-been actors to save the universe. With no script, no director, and no clue, the actors must turn in the performances of their lives.
20 positive17 neutralfrom 37 commenters
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37 comments on Hacker News
It's an interesting analogy you're making because... this is the lived reality of a lot of people that are interested in fictional worldbuilding / stories. And it flips to being real in the film Galaxy Quest.
Galaxy Quest captured this so well.
KYLE Hi, Brandon. BRANDON No time for pleasantries, Kyle. We have a level five emergency. You still got the utility systems walk-through, right? KYLE Yeah. I've got sectors one through twenty-eight. I think Hollister has the upper levels. BRANDON Great. I'll get everybody on-line. Kyle is the real hero of the film. There is probably a scenario where Earth is saved when Kyle realizes that an acoustic panel has been rotated by 90 degrees.
For some reason, this made me think of the countdown timer in Galaxy Quest that counts down but stops before getting to zero because the ship's design is based on a TV show.
Named after Enrico Colantoni's character in Galaxy Quest? That was so funny <3
Only spaceballs was a better scifi parody movie and that is hard to beat.
"Strange Days" is set in the days leading up to new year's eve of the Millennium. O:-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txG9rOW8Jx0 -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Days_(film) -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Beyond_the_Stars -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men
I'm Jewish, so all my Christmas's growing up were kinda the same. Sleep in, have brunch, wander over to my neighbor's house around noon to see what kind of loot they got and help them play with their new toys. Sometimes we'd go out for Chinese food and a movie.
But my favorite was Christmas 1999. My girlfriend was out of town with her family and there was no reason to go home to mine, so I was alone (my roommates were with their families too). I decided to go to the movies in Emeryville.
I was going to see Galaxy Quest, Bicentennial Man, and Man on the Moon. The timing lined up perfectly to see all three. About 50 other people were there to do the same thing. When it was time to go in for the first movie, a staff member came out and told us that it would start about 30 minutes late. This would of course cause us to miss all the other movies.
About 30 people stepped forward at the same time and asked to speak to the manager. :). We explained to him that it would throw our whole schedule off. Since it was Christmas, he was kind enough to adjust the schedule so that we could all see all three movies.
That was a great day.
One can but hope :)
--
I wonder what a Galaxy Quest sequel would look like today…
Given the "dark is cool, killing off fan favourites is cool" vibes of Picard and Discovery, I'd guess something like Tim Allen playing a senile Jason Nesmith, who has not only forgotten the events of the original film, but repeatedly mistakes all the things going on around him as if he was filming the (in-universe) 1980s Galaxy Quest TV series, and frequently asking where Alexander Dane was and why he wasn't on set with the rest of the cast.
(I hope we get less of that vibe and more in the vein of Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks, or indeed The Orville).
Have you ever seen a show where the aliens come down and they go, "We know all about your culture! We've been watching your television shows since the 50s!" and then they act really bizarrely because they have no idea what real life is like?
See Galaxy Quest for the pinnacle of this trope.
- LoTR, at least annually. Never seen the extended edition.
- Anything by Michael Mann, Miami Vice being one of my favorites (simply noted as it's typically not on many folks favored list).
- John Ford Cavalry trilogy.
- I've seen "13 Hours" several times. Not your typical Michael Bay movie.
- Bowfinger. So funny.
- The two best Star Trek Movies: Star Trek 2, and Galaxy Quest.
> repercussions of sending commercials and TOS reruns into deep space.
There’s actually a documentary about this:
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest
Go meta-data[0] (or go fourth), k-package[1] things with own Brent Spiner web search snippets take/interpretation[2]. Also 'Galaxy Quest', MIB series, Starwars, Matrix, etc...
Ok, perhaps 'Rebel Moon'[3] as StarWars show/movie but evolved into something non-starwars would be better 'back to the future' example.
Note: 'Rebel Moon' yet to be released at time of posting.
Don't foreget about 'The Farside' and 'Calvin & Hobbes' for colorful life characterizations without need for ANSI C pointers!!!
Just stay away from the "[ ]P" side of the "NP [ !]= P" problems for boundless challenge(s).
Lewis Carol of 'Alice through the looking glass' fame was the heavy sci-fi field of view, not the math side of the thesis.
Stanle Kubrick did AI without a PC and avoided segfault bricks. So, why did it take a blue screen to impliment the big screen picture version?
[0] : memory alpha : https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Portal:Main
[1] : strange new worlds musical -- don't be be like the klingons : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJMMixFYu1k
[2] : https://treknews.net/star-trek-conventions/
[3] : https://variety.com/2023/film/news/zack-snyder-star-wars-pitch-new-characters-r-rating-1235660427/
> Engineers always wind up designing the vehicle to look like the initial artist's concept.
This was illustrated in the movie "Galaxy Quest". The aliens saw the humans' TV show about space exploration, and designed a ship that exactly matched the fictional ship depicted. But they never saw a bathroom on the show, so they had to make up their own design...
Out of curiosity... why not alt.startrek?
Other than the "not a lot is happening there now", but there's some activity.
The most recent posts on the server I'm on:
The Lower Decks crossover to live action in Strange New Worlds Star Trek Discovery Canceled ‘Galaxy Quest’ TV Series in Early Development at Paramount+ Jack Crusher is how old? Star Trek The Lower Decks S03E09 was everything I wanted. (spam - into the kill file that poster went) TOS Film marathon (crossposted trolling - more kill file material) Captain Burnham mob/cops/big city episodes (Star Trek Discovery) (crossposted trolling - figured out how to do more complicated rules - "cross posted to more than 3 groups and newsgroups match \.politics\." with this reader) (crossposted trolling - even more kill file material) Ode to Spot. (this post is from 2012) When will the new Star Trek merge with the Twilight movies? (this post is from (2011)
No emoji. No reaction gifs. No memes.
Just text content.
edit: and as I write this, a new post just showed up in the past 2 minutes about Strange New Words S02E01.
These are all generally highly reviewed can lead to interesting discussions:
Gattaca - interesting take on genetics/DNA discrimination
Europa - hard science fiction, maybe a bit slow for a 12 year old
The Net - older movie but the concept of digital exile resonates today
City of Ember - post apocalyptic civilization that lives deep underground
First Man - dramatization of Neil Armstrong and the first moon landing (not realy "fiction")
Arrival - first contact situation, tastefully done
Contact - another first contact situation that explores how politics, skepticism, and fanaticism react
The Martian - easily as fun as the book
The Prestige - competing magicians in an industrial age setting
The Hunger Games - extreme class divide in a future setting
Jurassic Park - the original not the sequels
Stargate - wormhole travel to another planet (be careful with the TV shows though, SG1 on streaming has full frontal nudity and "not ok" scenes which were obviously not on the broadcast version and a total shock when we watched it as a family)
District 9 - has some graphic gore and language, so it might be 14+, but is an interesting look at aliens as refugees
Contagion - a look at how a pandemic could play out. Premiered before COVID.
The Maze Runner - interesting setting and look at group dynamics
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids - fun setting
The Village - scary movie with a sci fi twist
Galaxy Quest - comedy
Short Circuit - old movie that deals with AI sentience
Innerspace - another old one, but has some fun concepts
I haven't seen these mentioned yet: Galaxy Quest, The Fifth Element, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Oblivion, Tron: Legacy, Mission to Mars, Pacific Rim, Bicentennial Man, Alita: Battle Angel (some of these may be PG-13)
Treasure Planet and Titan A.E. are also good animated movies, although Treasure Planet is more science-fantasy.
I'd also second Back to the Future, Contact, Interstellar, Gattaca, October Sky
The term "historical documents" gives me strong Galaxy Quest vibes. Someday, maybe we can generate the TV show that it was based on.
If you count Galaxy Quest there are two good Star Trek movies
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/
All "episodes of Galaxy Quest are true historical documentaries".
Classic.
"Never give up, Never surrender !" although taken from a comedy movie Galaxy Quest, I find it very much carrying me on !
I saw a few clips of ST:Discovery and nearly had an apoplexy. When the ship spins (rolls) on its longitudinal axis and disappears (using the "spore drive"...) I pretty much lost my mind for a moment.
Then it reappears with a flash that illuminates the nebula in the background. There are no clouds in space. Nebulas are big, really big. It would be light-years away. But the ship's photo-backwash lights it up like a flash bulb! I know Star Trek isn't hard sci-fi, but that's pathetic.
And the "spore drive"!? Who thought that up? (I know about mycorrhiza and all that, I'm not ignorant) The universe is pervaded by invisible intangible cosmic fungus? That somehow enables FTL teleportation? And keeps people alive in limbo after they die? That might be Lovecraft but it's not Roddenberry.
And they named the "astromycologist" character after the real guy!? (Paul Stamets) Did they ask him? That's just so weird.
To me it feels like it's made to mock Star Trek fans. Watching it (just for about ~4 minutes) made me feel like the network and producers are just mocking me. (And not in a good way. I love Galaxy Quest, because it's obviously made with love and, yes, respect for the show(s) it mocks. When Sigourney Weaver loses it and starts ranting about how it's a dumb episode, nobody would design a space ship with giant crushers and fire spouts... Yeah, it's awesome!)
Discovery is more cartoonish than the actual cartoon. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Animated_Series )
I gotta agree that The Orville carries the torch forward far far better than these new Star Trek shows & movies.
>Yet, without that external context, if someone were to watch Breaking Bad and was told it was a biopic
Reminded of exploration of similar idea in Galaxy Quest https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/
> But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc.
Not to this degree. The last good year for movies was 1999. This is the list of major releases that year:
The Matrix
Fight Club
The Sixth Sense
Toy Story 2
The Green Mile
American Beauty
Being John Malkovic
Office Space
The Iron Giant
Magnolia
Austin Powers
American Pie
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Eyes Wide Shut
Dogma
Galaxy Quest
The Insider
Notting Hill
Man on the Moon
Analyze This
Detroit Rock City
Mystery Men
Bicentennial Man
This is not even the entire list, just the ones I enjoyed and I'm bothering to type.
You can't look at that list and honestly say nothing has changed, because it's just not true. The energy and creativity has clearly moved somewhere else, to TV and streaming services.
This year alone there's two FANTASTIC shows, Chernobyl and Stranger Things S3 that definitely deserve praise.
That's the premise of the movie "Galaxy Quest" [1]. It's a great film.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/
Late to this game...
Galaxy Quest
V, but the original miniseries from the 80's
Close Encounters
Dune, this is controversial I'm sure!
Starship Troopers
The Day After Tomorrow
The Fifth Element
Terminator I
Alien
Aliens
Tron, oh god I nearly forgot this one from the 80's!
Less a parody, more a comedy version of Star Trek. A parody implies they're making fun of Star Trek. So far the episodes have been a combination of humor [1] and a more played-straight sci-fi universe and story modeled after TNG.
[0] See Galaxy Quest, which makes fun of the culture around ST as much as ST itself.
[1] Sometimes too much taking me out of it, first episode was the worst for this, it's improving.
It's advertised as a comedy show and with Seth MacFarlane (of Family Guy) headlining it I also assumed it was some cheap Galaxy Quest-esque jab at Star Trek. There's some of that, in particular taking some jabs at Star Trek tropes (e.g. one situation being neatly resolved by the crew using seatbelts)[1].
But it's not just some cheap comedy. Yes there's campy humor that's basically the equivalent of TOS not taking itself quite seriously, but it's in every other way a proper modern day sequel to TNG, and the humor doesn't get in the way of that.
I'm not going to spoil the 3rd episode of it that just came out, but it's a "moral conundrum" episode of the likes TNG was famous for, except it's IMNSHO executed better than any such TNG episode. Those tended to get resolved with some Deus Ex Machina or something resembling a stereotypically happy American ending, but The Orville took the hard way out. I was very impressed.
1. For those unfamiliar with Star Trek: Approximately half of on-screen fatalities could be prevented by some combination of seatbelt usage, and the computer consoles not being powered by 100,000 volts of electricity with no fuses or circuit breakers[2].
2. The other half being prevented by not bringing no-name red shirts along on the away mission.
They don't have rights to stream any decent movies
That seems hyperbolic. Just browsing around (I decided to cap this at 5 minutes):
The Interview
Forrest Gump
Major League
Pirates of Carribean
Hot Fuzz
Armageddon
Kingpin
A League of Their Own
Inglorious Basterds
Scarface
Django Unchained
Legally Blonde
E.T.
Days of Thunder
The Princess Bride
Crocodile Dundee
Clear and Present Danger
V for Vendetta
Galaxy Quest
Running Man
Big Trouble in Little China
Talladega Nights
Kill Bill (1 and 2)
Star Trek Movies (including The Wrath of Kahn)
Tommy Boy
Team America World Police
Lilo & Stitch
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
Wayne's World
Clerks
Bill & Teds Excellent Adventure
My favourite bit of that movie (Rickman plays Sir Alexander Dane, a proud thespian whose once illustrious career has been destroyed by Galaxy Quest typecasting him into this humiliating role):
Jason Nesmith: You WILL go out there. Sir Alexander Dane: I won't and nothing you say will make me. Jason Nesmith: The Show Must Go On. Sir Alexander Dane: ...Damn you.
By Grabthar's Hammer, by the Suns of Wavern -- you will be missed.
Like many really famous actors, at some point in his career it just became Alan Rickman, in <MOVIE-TITLE-HERE>
But that was okay. His Die Hard appearance was phenomenal. I'll never forget the movie Galaxy Quest.
I cannot miss Alan, for I did not know him. But I liked a bunch of art he created, and I will be sad thinking that he will not be able to create any more of it.
"Galaxy" quest? I know that authors in print publications generally don't write the headlines, and it seems a perfectly worthy article despite the iffiness of the Mars One project. But I still wonder why writers generally make no effort to distinguish between the Solar System, our Galaxy, other galaxies and the whole universe.
Of course, 'Galaxy Quest' is a pretty popular science fiction film, but it's one that parodies mainly a space opera series that takes place long after the Solar System has been explored. For anyone interested enough to read the article, titling it 'Galaxy Quest' is an outright distraction. You can say I'm pointlessly nitpicking, but I genuinely believe that laziness and sticking to convention ('here's a sci-fi reference!') has fuelled the decline of print journalism in favour of more authentic fare.
Which basically sums up the setup for the film Galaxy Quest, which lampoons the Star Trek cast archetypes masterfully.
How many times do you watch a movie over and over? Okay, I confess to at least a dozen watchings of Galaxy Quest.
However, my favorite songs (i.e., the ones that speak to me) have been played several hundred times (and that's only based on iTunes metadata).
Films dazzle our minds. Music sings to your soul.
>Star Trek, bad sci-fi writing, unbelievable monsters, magic science, red-shirts, ridiculous sets with no purpose and humanoid aliens-of-the-week
as they say, can't see a forest for the trees :)
Relax, man, you don't like it, obviously. Tastes are different. Galaxy Quest is a nice funny movie, Starship Troopers is a brilliant masterpiece. Kandinsky's black square is just a square a child can paint (i think i drew a lot of black squares among everything else while dreaming at classes in school).
I don't understand this comment. What's "bad" about the movie? I think it works very well. Of course the characters say cheesy things sometimes, they're brainwashed kids acting macho. I always found the action compelling and the acting is good - it's a very well made movie, as you'd expect.
I think you're missing some sort of point here. None of the points in your comment hit home for me at all. Galaxy Quest is a baffling comparison to make and is not in the same league at all.
Edit: You do realise there's a difference between parody and satire, right? GQ is the former, ST is the latter.
I'd like to like Starship Troopers more but I can't.
Starship Troopers had a couple smart things to say but said it through a shit movie. Turgid dialog, horrible acting, repugnant characters and general cheesiness. I know the writers wanted to say all these people are idiots but society doesn't go astray because everyone is an idiot – you have to show how smart characters are caught in situations that constrain them to be idiots or at least a have few characters that realise the ridiculousness but are overridden or sidelined. You can't just write a bad movie and blame the characters for being stupid.
My standard rule is that to properly satirise or ridicule something, a story must simultaneously be a good example of target being parodied as well as having a strong parody element.
Starship Troopers tries to parody the military machine but it fails because its a terrible military action movie. To be a good parody of the military (and the political and social machine around it), it must also be a good military action film – both levels must work for the film to be good.
I like to give Galaxy Quest as a good example of a film that's both excellent parody and an exemplar of the genre being parodied. It absolutely pillories Star Trek, bad sci-fi writing, unbelievable monsters, magic science, red-shirts, ridiculous sets with no purpose and humanoid aliens-of-the-week but at the same time it has likeable characters, excellent acting, a properly scary villain and has a real sense of "earning" the ultimate victory at the end.
Starship Troopers has none of this and tries to use cheesiness and parody as an excuse for failing to make the movie better. Sorry, I have to evaluate a film based on more than its satirical message.
... never surrender.
----
For those who don't get the reference, it's from Galaxy Quest, a film that, apparently, Jonathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart (to name just two) both love. More on-topic, though, it's not only advice to would-be entrepreneurs, it also shows the value of a good slogan or catch phrase. No one can say "Never give up" in my presence without me thinking of that film, and that completion.
Reminds me of the movie "Galaxy Quest" when Jason (Tim Allen) snaps on his fans (lead by Justin Long as Brandon) who're trying to resolve potential inconsistencies in some episodes Galaxy Quest:
BRANDON: Commander, as I was saying... In "The Quasar Dilemma", you used the auxiliary of Deck B for Gamma override. But online blueprints indicate Deck B is independent of the guidance matrix, so we were wondering where the error lies?
JASON: It's a television show. Okay? That's all. It's just a bunch of fake sets, and wooden props, do you understand?
BRANDON: Yes but, we were wondering-
JASON: There IS no quantum flux and there Is no auxiliary... THERE'S NO GODDAMN SHIP, YOU GOT IT!?
I highly recommend the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it.