Galaxy Quest

                   Video reviewed by Sue

18 years ago, a Star Trek-like science fiction series, Galaxy
Quest, was cancelled. The main actors now spend their time
attending conventions in character. After so many years of doing
this, often for youngsters who are hardly old enough to remember
the show when it was first shown, the actors have grown totally
disillusioned with what they are doing and spend a lot of their
time sniping at each other.

But at one convention, some new people dressed in alien costume
appear. Yes, they really ARE aliens. What's more they are
convinced that Galaxy Quest is fact not fiction and that Jason
Nesmith (Tim Allen) and his fellow actors really are the captain
and crew of their ship. The aliens, called Thermians, are being
attacked by an evil alien called General Sarris. They want Jason
and co to sort him out and so that they can do this, the Thermians
have built a replica of the show's ship ... and it works.

Jason Nesmith slips back into his role of Captain Taggart easily,
delighted at having a purpose in his life. Other crew members 
aren't quite so convinced, but gradually they are won over too. I
especially enjoyed the pilot's delight when he really flies the
ship for the first time. Initially he says he doesn't know how,
then Jason explains that the Thermians have watched his movements
on the TV show and used these to deduce how the controls work. So
all he has to do is fly the ship like he did on the show. The fact
that he takes quite a bit of paint off the side as he scrapes it
along the bay as it leaves is neither here nor there but the other
characters' grimaces at the scraping sounds made are worth seeing.

Sigourney Weaver plays Gwen DeMarco aka Lieutenant Tawny
Madison, almost unrecognisable in a blonde wig, her main role on
the TV show being to look breathless and repeat everything the
computer says. Alan Rickman is the Spock-like character, the token
alien on the bridge, Dr Lazarus or actor Alexander Dane. The
aliens are excellent, their disjointed movements and speech and
gentle smiles showing how hard they have worked on trying to
appear human. But they sometimes forget and sound more like
dolphins.

At almost 2 hours long, this is a brilliant film and though it
started slowly for me, I soon got hooked.














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