The Star Trek phenomenon has never reached the numbers of spectators capable of gathering Star Wars in movie theaters, but that does not mean that it is one of the best examples when it comes to create a huge community of followers. Its fans number in the millions and throughout the planet we can find dozens of conventions of greater or lesser size every year. This is true today and it was 25 years ago, when Out of Orbit Heroes (Galaxy Quest) was released.
A very dignified and respectful parody
That film, considered today a cult film, narrated the adventures and misadventures of a group of actors from an old science fiction series confused by a race of aliens as the heroes they needed to face a fearsome threat. His story thus sought to pay tribute to the legacy of Star Trek and its importance to hundreds of thousands of fans, and to do so he was going to bet on a hilarious but very respectful parody.
At first it seemed obvious that this was not Star Trek. Here we fled from the solemnity and reflection, which mark a good part of the franchise’s filmography and television history, and we opted for an irreverent story at times, but with a big heart with which Dean Parisot undoubtedly wanted to render his particular tribute to the Paramount Pictures franchise in a feature film starring actor and comedian Tim Allensci-fi icon Sigourney Weaver, the late Alan Rickman and Sam Rockwell.
Without spoiling the film too much, we can tell how in Heroes Out of Orbit (Galaxy Quest) we are presented with the story of a group of actors who are still known among the audience for having starred years ago in a sadly canceled science fiction series but with the sufficient push to make it profitable that years later the presence of the stars at different comic fairs continues to be demanded. In one of them the character Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) will be recruited by a group of aliens who took their program as a kind of historical archive of their exploits, so much so as to take it as a reference and base a good part of its technological advances on it. In fact, they even made a functional recreation of the NSEA Protector, their Enterprise.
The seventh best Star Trek movie
Everything is reminiscent of the feature film in Star Trek, and although comedy is very prominent in the fiction, at the end of the viewing the viewer will, in essence, feel that they have seen a real film from Gene Roddenberry’s franchise. What’s more, a survey published among users of a well-known portal even placed Heroes out of orbit (Galaxy Quest) as the 7th best film in the saga.
Followers of the adventures of Kirk, Picard, Archer and company love this science fiction film, so much so that, as with Star Trek, they long to see a new installment that refuses to have the green light, although a few months ago we had news that Paramount would be considering turning it into a TV series.
Where to watch Galaxy Quest on television
Out of Orbit Heroes (Galaxy Quest) has been available for several months on SkyShowtime and recently premiered on Netflix. For its part, a science fiction and comedy program is available on Disney+ that also started as a parody but has ended up being a worthy Star Trek series that one of these days I hope to be able to tell you more about, The Orville.
