#AtoZ Challenge: G Is For Galaxy Quest And Gadgets!

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Today’s A to Z Challenge is... G is for Galaxy Quest! 

Galaxy Quest has been described as one of the best Star Trek movies ever made. 

Of course, it’s not actually a Star Trek movie. What it is, is an affectionate, humorous tribute to the original TV series. I went to see it in a Gold Class cinema with a friend, and we met some of my other friends from Trek fandom. We were laughing till we cried. 

The story: a bunch of actors from a TV series that has long been cancelled, are making their living from attending conventions  when they are approached for help by a group of sweet-natured aliens who believe they are the real thing, and have created a spaceship identical to the one in the TV series, only this one works. They are being pursued by a villainous dark lord type and his army. Somehow, the actors find themselves required to act out the roles they played in the TV series. 

It’s very, very funny, but also touching. Tim Allen, who plays the Captain Kirk character, did the William Shatner mannerisms beautifully, to the point where I burst out laughing while watching an old Trek episode in which Shatner did the same movements and gestures. 

Alan Rickman was playing the Spock role. His character was a British actor who was still complaining about all the curtain calls he had had doing Shakespeare and why was he still having to do this. In one scene, where they were watching Jason(Tim Allen) being chased by a monster on the planet below(a send-up of the Trek episode “Arena” for sure), he complained, “It’s all about you, isn’t it?” And, like Kirk, Jason came back with a torn shirt. Sigourney Weaver was the only female character in the film. In the TV series she had been a sort of Uhura character, and insisted on doing the job on board the alien spaceship, even if it was just answering the computer.

Sam Rockwell played a character who had once been a “redshirt” of the kind who was killed off before the first commercial break. He was terrified it might happen to him for real. 

What was especially nice was the role of the fans, a bunch of teenagers who knew the spaceship layout better than the actors. By accident, Jason had left one of them with a working communicator instead of the homemade imitation, so he was able to communicate when that information was needed desperately. 

So, instead of completely sending up the fans, the film allowed them to save the day.  

A delightful film! 

And G is also for “gadgets”! There are so many of these in science fiction that I will just finish this post with one from fantasy instead, the Palantir from The Lord Of The Rings. Palantiri are a sort of cross between a crystal ball, which they resemble, and a communication device. They were originally used by the good guys of the Dúnedain to communicate with each other, but several were lost and by the time we see some in The Lord Of The Rings, Dark Lord Sauron has one, as does traitor wizard Saruman and a third one is held by Denethor, Steward of Gondor, who is persuaded by Sauron that there is no way he can win, by using the thing as a crystal ball. The one Pippin looks into shows him a terrifying Eye of Sauron and Ranger Aragorn has to use his strength to persuade Sauron the Hobbit was a captive being used by Saruman...

Never trust a crystal ball!