Trailer
Plot summary
Years after their Galaxy Quest series ended, Jason Nesmith and his co-stars Gwen DeMarco, Alexander Dane, Tommy Webber and Fred Kwan work fan conventions. Nesmith, the show's star, enjoys the attention; the others do not. At a convention, visitors called Thermians, whose leader is Mathesar, ask him for help, and he takes it for another paid appearance. They bring him to a working version of the series' starship, the NSEA Protector, which he mistakes for a set. There the Thermian enemy General Sarris demands the Omega 13, and Nesmith answers in character. Back on Earth he realizes the encounter was real, and when the Thermians ask again the cast goes, joined by Guy Fleegman, the convention emcee who once played a minor crewman. The Thermians have no idea what fiction is and take the episodes as records of real events.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Galaxy Quest (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The idea for the film came to writer David Howard at an IMAX presentation, where a trailer for a space documentary was narrated by Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy and got him thinking about actors typecast by old sci-fi roles.
- Ramis wanted Alec Baldwin for the lead role, but Baldwin turned it down; Steve Martin and Kevin Kline were also considered. Ramis did not agree with the casting of Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith and left the project in February 1999, and Dean Parisot took over within three weeks.
- The film originally received an R rating before being recut to achieve a family-friendly rating. Gordon's initial script included mature scenes such as DeMarco attempting to seduce aliens, and the crash of the escape pod into the convention hall decapitating several attendees.
- In the "chompers" scene, Sigourney Weaver's line "Well, fuck that!" was dubbed over with "Well, screw that!" Weaver stated she purposely made her dubbed line stand out as a form of protest from her original line.
- Dr. Lazarus' catchphrase, "By Grabthar's Hammer", was written as a temp line in Gordon's script. Gordon planned to replace "Grabthar" with something less comical, but the line stuck as the production crew started using it around their offices and had it printed on t-shirts.
- Producer Mark Johnson named the film's villain Sarris after real film critic Andrew Sarris, who found out and joked about it rather than taking offense.
- In January 2016, after the unexpected death of Alan Rickman from pancreatic cancer, Tim Allen told The Hollywood Reporter that Galaxy Quest was "really close to being resurrected in a very creative way", adding that "the real kicker is that Alan now has to be left out".
- Sam Rockwell's character Guy Fleegman is named as a tribute to Guy Vardaman, a little-known actor who worked extensively as a stand-in and in bit parts on the actual Star Trek productions.
