Galaxy Quest Review

I grew up watching the various Star Trek series. I absolutely loved Star Trek, its characters, and the stories. A number of years later a brilliantly written movie was released called Galaxy Quest (1999). It's a fantastic bit of comedy satire that parodied the original Star Trek series beautifully; both the TV show itself and the actors in the show. It's a fantastic comedy film, and it's even funnier if you're a Star Trek fan.

The sci-fi adventure television series "Galaxy Quest" took place aboard the intergalactic spaceship NSEA Protector. Eighteen years after their series was canceled, actors Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen), Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver), Sir Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman), Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell) and Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) are making appearances at sci-fi conventions and shopping mall openings in costume and character. They are wallowing in despair and at each other's throats until aliens known as Thermians arrive and, having mistaken the series for fact and consequently modeling their entire culture around this, the Thermians take the cast of actors into space to save them from the genocidal General Sarris (Robin Sachs) and his armada.

The characters here are great. Tim Allen is playing a fictional character variation of William Shatner who had played Captain Kirk. Jason is arrogant and cocky, and has a passion for and possibly dependence upon the Galaxy Quest series. He loves the enthusiasm of his fans and the revenue it tends to bring him, small as it may be. Jason is also a notorious ham and subpar actor; a lot like Shatner. The late and great Alan Rickman is depicting a hilarious fictional version of Leonard Nimoy; who for many years couldn't seem to separate himself from the Spock character. Alexander in Galaxy Quest was an accomplished Shakespearian actor who took the television role for the income, but was never able to shake himself free from the role afterwards. He loathes the Galaxy Quest series with all his soul and refuses to deliver his character's line to please fans. He hates that even when delivering quality material for the series, he was constantly upstaged by Jason's hammy melodrama. Sigourney Weaver's character is loosely based on Nichelle Nichols' Lieutenant Uhura character on Star Trek. Gwen's character was the communication's officer and didn't do much other than repeat what the ship's computer says. Gwen didn't like her role in Galaxy Quest because she was little more than a token female character who was present just to look attractive, which was more or less what Uhura did in Star Trek. These characters are so well written and satirize the characters and actors they parody with perfection.

There are so many nods to the Star Trek series and the culture that surrounds it. Sci-Fi conventions are about the only place these fictional actors get any recognition anymore. The fans at these conventions have a very loose grasp on reality, not unlike existing stereotypes of convention attendees. There is a group of kids, lead by a very young Justin Long, who have memorized schematics of the ship on the Galaxy Quest series and essentially know how to operate everything on the ship and the science behind it. The socially awkward fans beg Alexander for autographs which he begrudgingly grants them with disdain while they repeat his character's line "By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Worvan, you shall be avenged." It's meant to remind us of Spock's iconic line "Live long and prosper."

During fight scenes with aliens, Jason manages to lose his shirt just like the character of Star Trek's Captain Kirk notoriously did on a regular basis. There's an extra from the Galaxy Quest series who tags along with the actors into space. He's terrified on an away team mission to a planet surface because no one knows who he actually is and he expects to be an extra who dies on the mission, just like the red shirt ensign who always dies on the original Star Trek series. The other actors assure him that's ridiculous and won't happen. This extra asks them, "Did you guys ever WATCH the show!?" Gwen's character on Galaxy Quest was present to look attractive. Her job was basically to repeat everything the ship's computer said to the captain. Since the ship the actors are taken to was modeled after the Galaxy Quest series, the ship's computer doesn't respond to anyone other than her, thus forcing her to do the same thing she did on the series. Tommy Webber (who himself is a play on Wil Wheaton's Wesley Crusher), tells Gwen how annoying it is that she repeats everything that is said to her. "Look!" Gwen shouts in response. "I have one job on this lousy ship, it's STUPID, but I'm gonna do it! Okay!?" The actors constantly have to rely on their memories of the TV show they were in to save their lives and fight against alien threats. It's just hysterical all the little jabs and jokes at the Star Trek series and culture make their way into the movie.

The Galaxy Quest movie came out seventeen years ago, as of this writing, and it holds up quite well. The CGI effects are slightly dated, but still look pretty darn good. I think Galaxy Quest was a B movie of sorts. That. or the camera work and visuals were intentionally designed to resemble something campy and cheesy. But it works really well in this context. The makeup and costume designs looked ridiculous and fake when it needed to, and well made and believable when it needed to. I think the movie has aged quite well.

Galaxy Quest is such a good movie. It's funny, has fantastic satire, has a great cast who clearly gets the jokes and references they are spoofing, and is a great piece of cinema writing. It's aged well in the past seventeen years, and remains a good, solid movie. It makes fun of Star Trek without being insulting to it. Galaxy Quest is a good movie on its own, but you'll easily get a lot more out of it if you're a long time fan of Star Trek. This is worth seeing, and owning a copy. As of this writing, it is streaming on Netflix. This is not something you should miss.

Unicorn City Review

Independent films are generally hit or miss; they are often made and written by amateur film makers who haven't quite mastered the art just yet. As such, a lot of independent films are overlooked or never seen. Unicorn City (2012) is an obscure little title that ended up having a lot of heart and a remarkably low budget.

Voss (David McGinn) is a gamer who is unemployed and looking for work. After much searching, game developer company Warlocks of the Beach interviews Voss for a management position. He seems a good candidate but lacks evidence of the leadership skills necessary to land the job. Given one week to prove himself, Voss does the only thing a rational adult would do; create a Utopian society for gamers called Unicorn City, where everyone plays their characters in a Live Action Role Playing (LARP) Game. Voss convinces his gaming guild to follow him into the mountains and has Marsha (Jaclyn Hales) a long-time gamer and best friend to document his abilities. However, Shadow Hawk (Jon Gries), Voss's gaming nemesis likes having control over the game and, as much as possible, over the lives of those who play it. It's not long before Shadow Hawk shows up to overthrow Voss' Kingdom and claim it for himself. Things get progressively worse and Voss's geek utopia begins to fall apart along with his hopes at getting his dream job.

While there are a lot of fantasy elements in this movie, it's not actually a fantasy. It's literally a bunch of reality-deprived geeks, most of whom probably live in their mother's basement, pretending to be princesses, knights, elves, and even centaurs. They have obviously homemade costumes to help them enact their fantasies. This is primarily a comedy of errors with some romantic overtones, though it blurs the lines between real life and fantasy. At one point Voss has to save Marsha. While the danger is very much real, they both stay in their LARP characters during the conflict. It's surreal, ironic, and kind of funny.

There are only about three characters in Unicorn City who aren't super geeks. I enjoy my geeky pastimes, but I've got nothing on these ubergeeks. My knowledge of a few Klingon insults pales in comparison to these guys. The movie really captivates geek culture in all of its socially awkward glory without bashing it in any way. The dialogue is brilliant. There are lots of very clever nods to geek culture that will probably go over most non-gamers' heads. The game company Voss is interviewing at is called "Warlocks of the Beach", which is a play on the actual gaming company "Wizards of the Coast", who is responsible for the famous Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons games. This isn't to say that only gamers will get these references. Similar to how Galaxy Quest was probably much funnier to Star Trek fans due to all the in-jokes and references, audiences who have played D&D are more likely to get a bigger kick out of Unicorn City.

There's a catchphrase that goes, "Fake it 'til you make it." meaning to imitate confidence so that as the confidence produces success, it will generate real confidence. The purpose is to create a positive feedback loop so as to avoid getting stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy related to one's fears of not being confident. That is essentially the theme here in Unicorn City. All the main characters have real-life issues they are facing, and they lack the confidence or skills to overcome them. They draw upon the strength they have given their in-game alter ego characters and learn to overcome their real world problems. "You are what you pretend to be," they are frequently reminded. I really like this theme of drawing strength from the fantasies these movie characters have created for themselves.

This is a hilariously low-budget film and it wouldn't surprise me of most of the wardrobe came from clothes lying on the floors of the cast members' bedroom closets. It looks pretty cheap, but since these characters are usually unemployed 20-somethings, it fits really well. There's a common folly in independent films where some shots are held just a little too long and ends up making the shot feel a bit awkward. This happens several times in Unicorn City, but that may have been intentional to accentuate the awkwardness of the bumbling geeky characters who seem to lack much self-pride in the first place. 

Unicorn City is a decent film. It's a fun idea, has funny relatable characters, a good theme, great dialogue, and manages to tell a decent story on a very low budget. It's not without its flaws, though. It features a couple of amateur actors, it slows down a lot in the second act, and features some bland camera work. These are hardly deal breakers, though. Unicorn City's weak points pale in comparison to what it manages to do well. The movie is rated PG, but probably won't appeal much to younger audiences. There's a lot of geek culture involved in this movie, so the geekier you are, the more you'll get a kick out of it. It's on Netflix Instant Play as of this writing, but you can also watch it for free (with commercials) on Hulu.com. I thought it was a fun movie, but not quite worth owning a copy of. It is good enough to seek out for a viewing sometime.

Here's the trailer for Unicorn City. Check it out:

Are you a gamer? Are there any table-top RPGs you'd like to see made into a movie? I wouldn't mind seeing a good Dungeons & Dragons movie made. I'd also love to see a Werewolf: The Apocalypse movie. Comment below and tell me about a game you'd like to see made into a movie and why!

Zoom: Academy for Superheroes Movie Review

I love watching all kinds of movies. I know there are movies made that are campy and cheesy, but are still fun and entertaining to watch. I can think of several fun superhero movies like that. Zoom (2006) is not one of these films. Even for a ridiculous superhero movie,Zoom was excruciating to watch. It was so bad that I occasionally found myself watching my sleeping cat; watching him do nothing was much more entertaining than it was watching this movie.

Dr. Grant (Chevy Chase) discovers that a super villain named Concussion (Kevin Zegers) is making his way back through the space-time continuum to our dimension to destroy the world. General Larraby (Rip Torn)  decides to form a new Zenith Team, a team of superheros, to fight Concussion. The only remaining member of the original Zenith Team is washed out Jack Shepard (Tim Allen), also known as Captain Zoom. Shepard is called in to train the new Zenith Team with the help of Dr. Marsha Holloway (Courtney Cox), a big fan of Zoom who only knew him through the comic books written about him. A group of four kids with special powers are gathered; Dylan West (Michael Cassidy), a 17-year-old boy who can become invisible; Summer Jones (Kate Mara), a 16-year-old girl with telekinesis; Tucker William (Spencer Breslin), a 12-year-old boy with the power to enlarge any part of his body; and Cindy Collins (Ryan Newman), a six-year-old girl with super strength. General Larraby wants to enhance the powers of the kids with Gamma-13 radiation, even though it is the same thing that turned Concussion evil. It's a race to prepare the kids to work as a team and master their powers, but Shepard's bitter and sarcastic attitude only complicates things as Concussion draws ever nearer.

This was one of the most poorly written films I have seen in a long time! I'm fairly certain that the writers have never read a comic book, or seen a superhero movie. It's as though they browsed around Wikipedia for 10 minutes collecting all the superhero buzzwords they could find and stuck them into the Zoom script wherever they thought it made grammatical sense. Here is a line from Dr. Grant early in the movie: “We've been tracking a pan-dimensional anomaly that seems to be moving toward our time-space continuum.” None of that makes sense! I'm not demanding realistic science or anything, but even if you're using fantasy science (as many superhero stories do) it should at least make some kind of sense. The movie doesn't even explain how they conclude that this pan-dimensional anomaly is a harbinger of a specific super villain. Another thing about the script that really bothered me was  General Larraby insists on getting awkward, socially outcast kids. Why? Why wouldn't you want already trained professional adults to grant super powers to? And even if they needed to be children, why get social outcasts and awkward ones? Some scenes were added to appease younger viewers, like playing baseball and having dances in a secret government lab. None of the military officers or scientists seem to think this is a bad idea even though they know what is at stake. I'm not even sure anyone bothered reading the script before production began; the writing is awful! It's the kind of script only a flamethrower could improve.

Characters can be pretty easy to get wrong, but it's almost as if creating good characters for Zoom was avoided at all costs. The kids were quarrelsome, there was an undeserved romantic interest between Summer and Dylan and another between Shepard and Dr. Holloway. Shepard was even more juvenile than the children were. General Larraby refused to tell them, without a good reason, why they were being trained. In fact, we're given reason to suspect Larraby of being a villain himself, but he isn't. The characters had kind of an X-Men style set up, except that the lead superheros were all brats and Professor X was an immature loser. Then, when they do manage to get their act together, they decide that they aren't just friends, they are family! All of these children already have a family; they aren't orphans. They didn't have something missing in their lives that needed to be filled, they didn't come from a bad family environment and were seeking a paternal figure elsewhere; they simply put up with one another long enough to be able to work together for about 10 minutes.

I think the producers (and us viewers) were hoping that since Tim Allan skillfully made fun of one genre he should be able to do it again. Galaxy Quest (1999) was good, but Zoom was not. For the love of sanity, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! Destroy any copies you find! Hide your kids! Hide your wife! Protect your children from this insulting drivel! Watch your pet cat sleep instead; it's a much better use of your time.

What are some of the worst superhero movie you've ever seen? Zoom is easily one of the worst, but have you seen one that was even more horrible? Comment below, let me know!