Merrick again...

One of my Twitter folk kindly pointed me towards GALAXY QUEST: GLOBAL WARNING, a comic miniseries that continues the adventures of the GQ crew.

Individual issues, as well as a trade paperback of the whole shebang, can be found HERE.

I haven't had a chance to check the Talkbacks below to see if this has been mentioned. If it has been covered already, my apologies...

Merrick here...

A Geek would have to be pretty out of touch with the universe to have missed that J.J. Abrams' STAR TREK movie hit Blu-Ray & DVD here in the States this week (the film was released to home video a bit earlier overseas). It's a fantastic product, pure and simple - but its coming dwarfs the same day issuance of an excellent film many people may've missed altogether, may've never heard of at all, or might simply have forgotten. I'm talking about GALAXY QUEST, which also makes its bow on Blu-Ray this week.

As indicated in Twitter stream (or whatever it's called), I'm crazy about this movie. For a long while, GQ represented the best STAR TREK out there - even though it wasn't a "STAR TREK" film by title. This film often seems to understand STAR TREK better than TREK itself often does. Some might argue that GQ is actually a more well-rounded, fuller embodiment of TREK than Abrams recent production.

Strangely, Abrams' TREK and GALAXY QUEST have a bit in common. Both are something of an homage to Roddenberry's "Original Series", its characters, and its "universe view". Both take established conceits and deploy them in ways we've not seen before in STAR TREK. Both embrace the "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" qualities of James T. Kirk's iconic crew, and both have ray guns that look startlingly similar to one another.

(L - GALAXY QUEST raygun, R - JJverse Phaser)

However, by virtue of its concept (actors forced into a real-life scenario where they must "play" their characters), GALAXY QUEST is able to go one step further than Abrams & Co. could go. Not only is GQ a love letter to TREK as a concept, it fully embraces rich Geek lore peripheral to the franchise: the shows' fandom(s) and the personalities of the actors involved are all pivotal in this tale, which also carries a bittersweet undercurrent about over devotion to a concept (whether this concept is self-definition, commitment to a television show, etc.)

If you're not familiar with the movie's plot:

Tim Allen (a great performance here - if you don't appreciate him already, you will after this) plays Jason Nesmith, a slightly slicker version of William Shatner. Back in the day, Nesmith portrayed Peter Quincy Taggart, captain of the NSEA Protector on a show called GALAXY QUEST. GQ was unceremoniously cancelled, but…like STAR TREK…it found an afterlife via conventions and whatnot. Nesmith regularly appears at these conventions with his fellow cast members, who accuse him of being an egotistical, scene-stealing buffoon. Alan Rickman plays Sir Alexander Dane, "Dr. Lazarus" on the GQ TV series. He's renounced his role, despises his part, and misses his Shakespearean days - but he's still forced to do conventions for a paycheck. Other cast/"crew" include Tony Shalhoub (a sleepy and uncertain "Scotty" counterpart), Sigourney Weaver (as the girl who repeats everything the ship's computer says), Daryl Mitchell (the show's Wil Wheaton counterpart) , and Sam Rockwell as Guy Fleegman ("Crewmember #6" - the dispensable guy - a fact which makes him consistently neurotic and terrified for his life).

Enter the Thermians, a child-like race of great technical ability who are dangerously ill versed in the harsh, Darwinian nature of the universe.
They can build weapons of war and understand their purpose, but they consistently wash out in tactical simulations. They just don't have any fight in 'em. They're trying to become stronger, but they're being systematically hunted and exterminated by interstellar bullies. Their only hope? Come to Earth and recruit the heroic crew of the NSEA Protector, whose "historical document transmisions" they've been intercepting for years.

Allen & company are dropped onto a fully functional, better budgeted replica of the Protector and sent into conflict against the Thermian's enemies.

Can they remember enough about their own TV show to survive in a new setting which follows its rules? Have their roles , in any ay, adequately prepared them for full-on interstellar adventure and combat? And what price will the naive Thermians pay because the command crew they're recruited are not truly the characters they believed them to be?

It's a high price - so high that changes were made to this film in order to lighten its tone before release. I've always wanted to see the pre-softened version. There's definitely a tonal shift even in the release version…I'm really wondering how far the original went.

The new Blu-Ray includes a bit of material from previously released GQ discs (like a Thermian audio track that is nothing but horrific, elephantine explosions of sound), but there's also a badass new feature which may take quite a while to get through: the Galactopedia. Developed by STAR TREK graphics gods/historians Michael & Denise Okuda, it's essentially a heads-up display that can be toggled over the film's playback. It changes in accordance to what's onscreen (i.e. a character is introduced, it's possible to toggle that character's bio. When backstory is referenced, you can toggle more details about it, etc.) Pretty great, mighty exhaustive, but an awesome compliment to a movie that very much deserves such attention.

So, if you haven't seen GALAXY QUEST, consider giving it a look. Or if it's been a while sine you've see it, now may be a great time to do so. The film wasn't received terribly well at the box office - I'd argue that it was probably too Geek-referential for its own good, and that many potential viewers thought it was making fun of TREK & whatnot instead of being the love-letter, and agreeably unique, adventure that it really is. Since its release, GQ's climbed to a 7.2 rating on IMDB and an 89% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes - not bad, all things considered. As recently as a few years ago there were murmurs of a sequel. While a part of me thinks this should be left alone, a bigger part of me would be orgasmic to see this crew back in action once more. The current climate in Hollywood makes this feel unlikely. But as Peter Quincy Taggart once said, "Never give up! And never surrender!"

I'm not seeing theGQ Blu-Ray in stock at Netflix at the moment, but it should be on shelves now. Or, you can find it HERE.

Merrick on Twitter