Galaxy Quest – Deluxe Edition (a J!-ENT Blu-ray Disc Review)

May 6, 2009 by Dennis Amith 

“A magnificent release to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of this popular sci-fi comedy classic!  ‘Galaxy Quest’ is digitally remastered, special features with the cast and crew ten years later and more!  The definitive version of ‘Galaxy Quest’ to own on DVD!”

Images courtesy of © 1999 DreamWorks LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

DVD TITLE: Galaxy Quest – Deluxe Edition

DURATION: 101 Minutes

DVD INFORMATION: Color, Widescreen version enhanced for 16:9 TV’s, Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround/Spanish 5.1 Surround/Thermian 2.0 Surround, Subtitles: English, French and Spanish

COMPANY: DreamWorks Pictures

RATED: PG

RELEASE DATE:  May 12, 2009

Directed by Dean Parisot

Screenplay by David Howard and Robert Gordon

Executive Producer: Elizabeth Cantillon

Produced by Mark Johnson and Charles Newirth

Co-Producer: Suzann Ellis, Sona Gourgouris

Associate Producer: Allegra Clegg and Janet Lewin

Original Music by David Newman

Director of Photography: Jerzy Zielinski

Editing by Don Zimmerman

Casting by Debra Zane

Production Design by Linda DeScenna

Art Direction by James Nedza

Set Decoration by Ric McElvin

Costume Design by Albert Wolsky

Makeup Effects by Stan Winston

Starring:

Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith/Commander/Captain Peter Quincy Taggart

Sigourney Weaver as Gwen DeMarco/Lieutenant Tawny Madison

Alan Rickman as Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazarus of Tev’Meck

Tony Shalhoub as Fred Kwan/Tech Sergeant Chen

Sam Rockwell as Guy Fleegman/Crewman Number 6

Daryl Mitchell as Tommy Webber/Lieutenant Laredo

Enrico Colantoni as Mathesar

Robin Sachs as Sarris

Patrick Breen as Quellek

Missi Pyle as Laliari

Jed Rees as Teb

Justin Long as Brandon

Jeremy Howard as Kyle

Rainn Wilson as Lahnk

Corbin Bleu as young Tommy

NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER SURRENDER!

Twenty years after cancellation, the stars of the Galaxy Quest television series cling to their careers appearing at sci-fi conventions and electronic store openings.  When a distressed interstellar race mistakes the show for “historical documents”, Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) and his crew of has-beens are unwittingly recruited to save them from a genocidal warlord.

Galaxy Quest: Deluxe Edition features brand new bonus features and an all-star ensemble, including Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub and Sam Rockwell in this hilarious adventure that boldly goes where no comedy has gone before.

In 1999, “Galaxy Quest” was a film that surprised many sci fi fans when it was released to theaters.  At first, many people were not sure if it would be a parody to “STAR TREK” but in the end, the film was actually paying homage to the popular television series.

The film is directed by television director David Parisot (who directed shows such as “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, “Monk”, “ER” and many other series) and is based on a story by David Howard and a screenplay co-written with Ric McElvin (“Men in Black II” , “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” and “Addicted to Love”, etc.).

The film has received praise from Star Trek alumni such as George Takei, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart and Will Wheaton and has received nearly all positive reviews from film critics upon its release in theaters back in 1999.

“Galaxy Quest” is the name of a popular sci-fi television show and seventeen years since the show had ended, the stars of the show are now appearing in sci-fi conventions and store openings.

For the GALAXY QUEST 18th annual convention, it’s another exciting year for actor Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) who played the character of Captain Peter Quincy Taggart  of “Galaxy Quest”.  A star who has let ego from his fandom to become inflated.   He is absolutely well-loved by his fans but he is put on the pedestal, whereas the others are not.  In fact, when all of them are at their public appearance on time, Nesmith is late.  During the autograph session, he is given the largest table and the others are not.

For his co-stars which include Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver), who plays the character of Lieutenant Tawny Madison and has always been rumored to be romantically linked with Nesmith; Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman) who plays the alien Dr. Lazarus of Tev’Meck and is formerly a Shakespearean theatre actor and now having to wear his prosthetic alien head at conventions to financially survive; Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) who played the character of Tech Sergeant Chen, is a cool easy come and easy go type of guy and Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell) who was a child actor at the time of the show, playing the character of Lieutenant Laredo and now an adult.

They are not so thrilled about Nesmith’s ego and his popularity.  Many of Nesmith’s co-stars are jealous, bitter, resentful and feel that he has no respect for them because he has taken jobs without them.

During the autograph session, the talent are greeted by Guy Fleegman (Sam Rockwell) who played a character known as Crewman Number 6 that was killed early on episode 81 of “GALAXY QUEST” and as a big fan of the series and having been part of the television show, he asks if he can join them as a star to sign autographs.  Of course, the crew think that this guy must be weird.

It’s not until Nesmith is in the public restroom of the convention arena when he gets a good dose of reality.  He hears people talking badly about him and how his co-stars dislike him.

Nesmith is shocked to hear that his co-stars don’t like him and the fact is in reality, they all have not had any major careers since “Galaxy Quest”.  He becomes sadden and grumpy and when a group of hardcore fans led by Brandon (Justin Long) try to have him answer a technical question, Nesmith treats them badly and tells them that the show is not real.

Before Nesmith leaves home, is greeted by odd fans, led by Mathesar (Enrico Colantoni), Laliari (Missi Pyle) and Lahnk (Rainn Wilson) who are dressed up in sci-fi clothing and tell them they are Thermians that gravely need his help.  Of course, Nesmith barely hears them and just tells them to pick him up with a limo in the morning.

The following day, these odd “fans” end up going to his house.  Nesmith had gotten himself drunk and is now hungover.  He rides with these odd people who tell them that they are Thermians from another planet and they need his help.   Jason thinks that they are just weird and goes along with it.  The Thermians then transport Jason to their space ship and have him confront their nemesis Sarris  (Robin Sachs) on video.

Jason thinks they are just kidding around and has them shoot a lot of their weaponry at them.  When he asks to be taken to the place of his next appearance (at a local electronics store), he is transported by a weird gel like substance that surrounds him and is shot off into a black hole to the Planet Earth and to his destination.  Jason realizes that these Thermians are real aliens.

Jason attends the electronic store opening and tries to get all the cast members of “Galaxy Quest” to check out the alien ship but they all think he’s nuts.  But when the others realize that perhaps Jason is giving them a job for a paid appearance, they decide to join them.

Next thing you know, the crew are taken in by the Thermians and all are teleported to their spaceship.

They realize that this alien race and are shocked and surprised.  But they are more surprised when they learn that the Thermians have watched their television programs and have thought of the “Galaxy Quest” episodes as “historical documents”.  The spaceship was tailored after their movements from the television show.  So, with

To make matters worse, the Thermians enemy General Roth’h'ar Sarris was not hurt during Jason’s order to fire at his ship.  Now Sarris wants the Omega 13 (on the TV show, it was just a plot device and never taken seriously) but now Sarris wants the Omega 13 for his evil plans.

When Jason tries to fake Sarris out by coming up with a lie (which he thought the video feed was cut and that Sarris could not hear him), Sarris retaliates by shooting at their  spacecraft known as the NSEA Protector.   The Galaxy Quest crew take off and end up in a magnetic mining cloud and end up being hit from multiple areas.  With the NSEA Protector in bad shape, the Thermian computer tells them that they need to find a beryllium sphere to replace the previous sphere.  Fortunately for the crew, a planet nearby has a beryllium mine.  And thus the crew heads to the planet.

With all the trouble that has been happening, the crew wants to learn about General Sarris and Mathesar tells them the story and shows them a video of how their commander was tortured by Sarris and killed because Sarris wanted the Omega 13.

After watching the video of the torture and after receiving so much damage on the ship, the crew just wants to go back home and Jason tries to explain that they are only actors and the show wasn’t real.  But Mathesar tells Jason that the only person capable of lying and deceiving is Sarris and that they are the remaining Thermians.  And the crew realizes that this alien has put their livelihood into their hands.

The crew then moves forward to getting the ship repaired but first needing a beryllium sphere and to go on their first major interplanetary mission to acquire one.  And the adventure begins as the crew tries to learn how to use the ship (especially transporting) and most of all, trying to survive knowing that General Sarris will be after them.

VIDEO & AUDIO:

“Galaxy Quest – Deluxe Edition” has been digitally remastered for this DELUXE EDITION/10th Year release.  I haven’t done any comparisons to my original 2000 DVD version of the film but I could tell by watching it, scenes like the mission obtain Beryllium, this would shine on Blu-ray.  But for now, on DVD the colors look vibrant with the Earth tone colors and blue skies make things absolutely beautiful.  Video is presented in widescreen.  So, overall, for a DVD release, the picture quality and the new remastering looked great.

As for the audio, audio is presented ala English 5.1 Surround (as well as Spanish 5.1 Surround) and comes with a Thermian 2.0 Surround track.  I will say that watching this film again, I heard a good number special effects from the various channels.  Audio sounds very good, I was noticing small details such as the damaged spaceship, the Protector trying to use its remaining engines to move the ship and hearing it trying to move in space on your front channel and rear channels speakers.  I don’t recall hearing those small details back in 2000.  I felt the audio seemed cleaner and clearer in this deluxe edition.

With a new digital remaster for the DVD coinciding with the 10th Anniversary of the film’s release, I can only hope that we get a 1080p High Definition transfer with lossless audio.  Knock on wood, I hope there will be a Blu-ray release coming soon!

But for now, compared to the original DVD release, this is the better DVD version to own for now in terms of picture and audio quality.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

“Galaxy Quest – Deluxe Edition“ comes with newer special features to celebrate the film’s 10th Anniversary.  The original DVD released in 2000 had special DVD Easter Eggs (related to the Omega 13) and a “On Location in Space” featurette that are not included on this deluxe edition, so you may not want to throw out your original 2000 DVD.  But this Deluxe Edition comes with newer features recently created in 2009 and are very enjoyable.

• Historical Documents: The Story of Galaxy Quest - (18:14) A new featurette with recent interviews with Dean Parisot (Director), Bob Gordon (Screenwriter) and David Howard (screenwriter).  Also, new interviews with the cast of “Galaxy Quest”.  A fun and informative featurette of how the film came about, how the talent felt about being at a science fiction convention and being a bit weirded out by the experience and also certain segments that play homage to “Star Trek”.
• Never Give Up. Never Surrender: The Intrepid Crew of the NSEA Protector - (23:25) This featurette goes into the casting of “Galaxy Quest”.  The cast is interviewed and give their thoughts of their character and what they remember during the filming.   Interesting tidbits of Sigourney Weaver being in character once she had the blonde wig and attracting a lot of eyes.  How Alan Rickman was very cool and calm. Tim Allen and Daryl Mitchell always having fun on the set and really interesting situations that happened during the filming of “Galaxy Quest”.
• By Grabthar’s Hammer, What Amazing Effects - (7:03) How popular Stan Winston worked on special effects for the alien monsters and Industrial Light and Magic working on the CG effects.  How the camera work for “Galaxy Quest” was trying to recapture that Star Trek original series cinematography feel and much more!
• Alien School – Creating the Thermian Race – (5:23) How Enrico Colantoni (Mathesar) came up with the Thermian speech from vocal training they did at Yale.  How during “alien school”, they would have to learn how to walk and move.
• Actors in Space - (6:11) In this segment, we learn how being in a popular series, an actor can get pigeonholed.  Tim Allen talks about people even today thinking he’s Tim Taylor of “Home Improvement”, Justin Long talking about despite his film work, he’s still looked as “The Mac Guy”, Daryl Mitchell known for his work on “House Party” and more.
• Sigourney Weaver Raps - (1:59) Sigourney Weaver’s agent’s birthday was coming up, so Sigourney asked Daryl Mitchell to help her create a rap for Sam Cohn and together with Sam Rockwell, Missi Pyle, Jed Rees, the five created a music video as a birthday present.
• Additional Scenes: Deleted Scenes (Used on 2000 release) - A total of eight deleted scenes.  Some of these features include commentary by the talent or Director Dean Parisot and David Howard.
• Thermian Audio Track - An audio track featured completely in Thermian.  Personally, even when this was on the original 2000 DVD, has anyone ever watched the film completely in Thermian?
• Theatrical Trailer (Used on 2000 release) - (1:54) Original theatrical trailer.

The slip cover has a front cover that features Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver and Tim Allen in character, standing cool and collected (the image shown above on this review) and when you shift the front of the cover slightly, it shows the three firing their weapons.

“Galaxy Quest – Deluxe Edition” is definitely a wonderful 10th Anniversary release.

I have never grown tired of this film and for any Star Trek fan or science fiction fan, you can’t help but enjoy and laugh and be thoroughly entertained by the various talent and the overall wackiness of the storyline.

The new special features is what makes this film worth buying again on DVD.  To have everyone return for an interview and talk about their love for the film and how well it was received and how it has become a sci-fi classic was just fun to watch.  And the behind-the-scenes tidbits you learn about the shenanigans that went behind-the-scenes to the actual creation of the film, was also informative and entertaining.

If there is one thing that I can hope for, that would be a high definition Blu-ray release of this film.  With its 10th Anniversary, I was a bit surprised that only a new DVD was announced at this time.  But with the film now receiving a new digital remastering, I can only hope for a HD 1080p transfer and lossless audio, to me, that would be the icing on the cake.

But overall, this new deluxe edition was just fantastic and if you are a big fan of “Galaxy Quest”, on DVD, this is the definitive version to own.  Highly recommended!