You know a sci-fi movie designed to be a parody without mocking its subject has stuck precisely the right nerve when it gets voted as one of the best Star Trek films ever made by fans of the iconic franchise, a rare and entirely bespoke honor that Galaxy Quest fully deserves.
There’s a reason why the 1999 favorite has been held in such high esteem for the last quarter of a century, regardless of how it initially under-performed at the box office during its run in theaters. A story packed full of winks, nods, and references that stops short of poking fun directly at its audience, Dean Parisot’s delightful caper wears its geek badge as a symbol of honor and pride.
As a result, Galaxy Quest is held up on a pedestal among the pantheon of intergalactic adventures that very few titles ever manage to reach, least of all comedies. As expected, then, a Reddit thread remarking on how well the film still holds up through a 2023 lens has led to nothing but an outpouring of unanimous agreement.
The best and most enduring features tend to be the ones that are timeless in nature, so aside from some iffy CGI, you could fire up Galaxy Quest at any point between it December 1999 debut and today, and it’ll still play exactly the same. Sequel talks have been rumbling on in the background for what feels like forever, with Simon Pegg’s involvement being leaked ahead of time, but is anyone really that desperate to see it?
Sure, it could honor the legacy of Alan Rickman’s scene-stealing Dr. Lazarus, but Tim Allen is hardly a universally-beloved presence these days, and there’s always the risk it could dilute or negatively impact the legacy of the original, so maybe Galaxy Quest is perfectly fine as a one-and-done gem.
Published: Mar 8, 2023 03:42 am