DVD Review: Galaxy Quest -- Deluxe Edition (1999)

This Hilarious Cult-Favorite

Is Now Available As a Deluxe DVD & Blu-ray

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I'm not sure if I was in another galaxy during the winter of '99 but when I received information about the tenth anniversary deluxe edition release of director Dean Parisot's Galaxy Quest, I was sold within an instant upon seeing the names Alan Rickman and Sam Rockwell. Likewise, I was completely stunned that I'd never caught it before.



Yet, just as I was about to say that I'd love to review it-- my eyes moved lower on the screen wherein the clincher to the entire press release arrived with three little words proudly promising, "Sigourney Weaver Raps." Yes, it may be in an extra and not actually the film but the idea of the classy, tall, elegant and accomplished three-time Oscar nominee pulling a Dr. Dre seemed far too irresistible to pass up.



While of course, admittedly I knew that it would help if the movie was good but when-- day in and day out-- you read an overflowing inbox filled with various press releases and news articles (with way too many awesome offerings and precious little time to take in as much as I'd like to discover), I'm always on the lookout for that something extra to grab my attention and share with Film Intuition.



And obviously, in that respect, I'm not alone as the geniuses at Paramount knew that Weaver rapping would make the title stand out even more than in its beautifully (and rather expensive looking) futuristic packaging as they made the wise decision to slap those same three words in yellow font on a sticker that adorns the beautiful, 3D hologram style box for the Deluxe Edition's debut on shelves May 12th.



Marketing wise, the release of Galaxy Quest (which technically wouldn't celebrate its tenth anniversary until December) received an early and logical push now to help thematically tie in with both Paramount's big screen, fun summer blockbuster Star Trek from helmer J.J. Abrams along with the killer new Blu-ray releases of the classic films and series that also boldly offered fans the chance where Kirk had never gone before.

And for those who were unfamiliar with the material, such as yours truly, this premature bow as a collectible DVD was more than justified with this surprisingly heartwarming yet hilarious good-natured spoof of the Star Trek franchise (both on-screen and off in the lives of the actors and their undyingly devoted fans) with the thinly disguised fictitious version of the series, appropriately sharing the title Galaxy Quest.

Once an admittedly cheesy yet wildly entertaining television series-- the movie opens with a look at a clip of the Star Trek like vintage clip and then catches us up with the show's cast twenty years following the now cult hit's cancellation as the actors grudgingly eek out an undignified living cutting the ribbons at new shopping centers, signing autographs at science fiction conventions while posing for photos and answering trivia that fans obsess over when questioning the logic of the "mythology" and rules perpetuated throughout the series.



When the film itself begins, the frequently late, hung-over and always sneaking off for extra solo gigs-- Tim Allen's hilariously egocentric actor Jason Nesmith-- who's the crowd favorite for his William Shatner modeled role as Galaxy Quest's Commander Peter Quincy Taggart seems to fare better than his colleagues.



While the show's one-time bit player Guy Fleegman (a terrific Sam Rockwell) serves as the emcee and scheduler for the crew-- having been so insignificant to the series that his nameless character died in episode 81-- essentially he serves as the bridge between the fans and the actors as he's stuck in the middle himself, never fully accepted on either side. Of course, we're not sure which one is less co-dependent or extreme as the fans dress up like their favorite characters and line up in droves to cheer and celebrate whereas the cast struggles to put on their game faces, wondering what happened to their careers.



Rounding out the rest of the main "cast" of both the film and the fictitious show, we have: Allen's jealous sidekick in the form of the resentful and frustrated formerly Shakespearean thespian Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman in a role that channels Nemoy's Spock) who has said his famous one-liner so many times he's ready to snap; Weaver's beautiful blonde Gwen DeMarco, whose only role aboard Quest as Lieutenant Tawny Madison was to show as much cleavage as possible while simply serving as the translator to repeat whatever it is the computer has just said; Daryl Mitchell's former child actor Tommy Webber who played the youngest integral member of the crew; and Tony Shalhoub's illogically named Fred Kwan who played the "Asian" Tech. Sergeant Chen despite the fact that... well he's as white as his USA Network character Adrian Monk.

When Jason is persuaded to appear in what he assumes is merely a paid side appearance by a group of strange yet aggressively friendly "fans," the movie ventures away from what we assumed was its satirical premise about has-beens struggling with their former glory and lives stuck on nostalgic repeat with as Shalhoub described a beautiful misdirection as Jason finds himself face-to-face with real aliens who-- after having mistaken old reruns of Galaxy Quest for factual "historical documents" completely rebuilt the ship to its exact parameters (useless, cheesy set-pieces and all) to recruit him to help fight an evil intergalactic villain set on destroying their race.



After Jason returns to Earth, his cast-mates assume he was simply trying to steal another gig out from under them and come along, only to find themselves all in an outer space reality version of Galaxy Quest minus the rubber bullets. Highly creative and incredibly amusing both in the screenplay form from writers David Howard (who sold the spec script from the midwest and amazingly found his work realized) and screenwriter Robert Gordon as well as the talented ensemble cast.



Following as Allen explains the director's advice to ignore the "jokes" and tendency to go for broad humor by playing everything seriously, the movie works so incredibly well for that reason as it's a film lampooning a franchise while also respecting it in a way that makes Galaxy Quest a movie that's still hard to pinpoint. As Weaver notes-- first acknowledging that it's probably the film she's been in that people have loved the most-- viewers didn't know what to make of it and ten years later they still don't as Allen simply confesses that "every part of [the film]... is great."



Filling the work with the same kind of absurd logic that is apparent in series like Star Trek with a hallway that's filled with an intense gauntlet of medieval like blades and traps that can slice and dice stars serving no purpose other than to entertain (as Weaver's character complains throughout that they're stuck re-living the same badly written episode this time for real), it's even more amusing as it requires the assistance of the Galaxy Quest version of a Trekkie as Jason has to contact Ed star and "Hi, I'm a Mac" actor Justin Long as an obsessive, nerdy teenager who helps return the crew to safety along with his dedicated friends.

Yet, somehow managing to wrap the actors all up in the arc as well as Rockwell's unappreciated bit player worries that he has to die in this version of Galaxy Quest since that's what he did in the show and Rickman realizes just how important it is to say those same old lines once more with feeling-- it's an unexpectedly lovable romp that's guaranteed to entertain.



Augmented with fond featurettes that roll out new interviews (as opposed to the same old material usually found in re-releases) and of course the extra where Weaver-- inspired by Daryl Chill Mitchell-- composes a rap for her agent's birthday in a video filmed by Parisot and co-starring some of the Quest crew, the film's a blast and one that I wholeheartedly wish I would've seen back in its initial release, although perhaps it may have fared better as a summer blockbuster a la the work its gently toying with in the form of Star Trek.

DVD Review: WALL-E (3-Disc Special Edition)

On DVD November 18

In honor of this week's DVD & Blu-ray release of Pixar's incredible animated film, WALL-E, I'm offering you an insider's view of the DVD that Walt Disney Home Entertainment and Pixar Animation Studios were kind enough to send my way. However, before I go into the DVD features, first I'll serve up an excerpt of my original theatrical review of WALL-E, originally published on July 6, 2008.

WALL-E
Directed by Andrew Stanton

"Although most of us run from fix-ups, even if they are preferable in my humble opinion to speed-dating, matchmaking websites, and singles bars, imagine what a tough sell it would be to try and set up a friend like WALL-E. The pitch would have to be well-rehearsed but would most likely go something like this: “I know this great guy. Well, he’s self-employed which in our technology driven society is really impressive… oh, well, technically he’s in waste allocation, actually. He loves movies—Hello Dolly is his favorite and he listens to show-tunes all day. Yes, I’m sure he likes females. Other hobbies? Well, he collects things… oh, um sporks, Rubik’s Cubes, bras, bowling pins, Zippo lighters. Personality? Well, he’s someone of few words, kind of a loner… no, actually, he doesn’t really have any friends but you just know he’s one of the good ones. Wait-- where are you going?”

Needless to say, if WALL-E lived in today’s society and not seven hundred years in the future, he’d be the prime candidate to star in a modern remake of the Ernest Borgnine classic Marty. If you know, it was animated by those wizards at Pixar who by now probably have so many awards that they could possibly build an entire studio out of gold. There’s just something instantly huggable about the titular lead character in their latest film WALL-E that turns viewers into the office busybody, the over-eager relative or worse, those smug married friends who all just want to see this adorable Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth-Class robot find himself a nice robotic girl already. And while we’re at it, hopefully a fellow movie buff unafraid of director Gene Kelly’s less-than-stellar 1969 Barbra Streisand film Hello Dolly and someone with whom WALL-E can roam his bleak, deserted, overwhelmingly trash filled, sun-drenched and beige version of Earth set seven hundred years in the future where rampant consumerism and greed have taken the color out of everything with nary a blue sky, crystal clear lake, or flower, and one in which humankind abandoned years earlier to live blissfully ignorant, fat and happy reaping the benefits of virtual reality in space."
(Click Here to Read the Rest of the Review)

The 3-Disc Special Edition DVD

With a bonus third disc that contains a DisneyFile Digital Copy that's compatible with both iTunes and Windows Media Player allowing you to bring the film with you on your laptop or portable video device (like the newest generations of iPods), the true overwhelmingly impressive content of the set is spread out over two state-of-the-art discs.

Overall, it features-- as director Andrew Stanton noted in the press release-- documentaries and behind-the-scenes content that "are treated like an AFI special [wherein the Pixar employees]... explain and talk about these things at the level that we talk about them day to day." These were made via Pixar Studio's "in-house DVD department," which lets viewers inside the offices of that amazing studio in order to give us "a huge scope of how much knowledge and talent goes into "every aspect of making an animated film as highly complicated and intellectually challenging as WALL-E.

With a crystal-clear transfer of the film on Disc 1 which also contains a promo clip, trailers, feature-length filmmaker commentary, deleted scenes, and Presto the original animated short which preceded the film, two of the major standouts on Disc 1 come in the form of one of those terrifically detailed documentaries which focuses on "Animation Sound Design" with Star Wars veteran and master sound-man Ben Burtt as well as the brand new, knock-em-dead short BURN-E.

With BURN-E, a new character who like our beloved trash compactor also fulfills a duty, with BURN's being as a repairman, we're treated to an imaginative and ingeniously hilarious action packed and old school blend of comedy and musical choreography reminiscent of the Disney heyday as BURN-E who loves Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" as much as WALL-E cherishes "Hello Dolly" keeps getting interrupted by our mischievous garbage-bot mid-repair. With tools flying off into space and his nerves wearing thin, Stanton's love of both classic Disney animation as well as the work of Kubrick shines through as we encounter a 2001: A Space Odyssey homage in a short that not only was good enough to have been included somehow in the theatrical film but also would've helped aid in WALL-E's overly sluggish, dark, and dissatisfying finale of the otherwise brilliant Pixar movie.

Additionally, Ben Burtt's behind-the-scenes struggles to create every single sound effect from the voices of the nearly silent characters Eve and WALL-E to each individual beep and squeak is a fascinating film-school quality featurette that celebrates the history of the Disney sound department as we're taken behind-closed-doors to look at the wondrous artifacts from rain machines and more but also a tribute to our limitless imagination as Burtt toys with a slinky and other everyday devices used in unpredictable ways to create what on the surface seems to be a cacophony of sound but somehow blended together makes the memorable universe of WALL-E. Admitting that it took a full year just to find the right sounds for the main characters, the tireless work from the sound department which is made much harder when working in the realm of animation instead of live action and twice that when the characters seldom speak, is in the end described as consisting of tens of thousands of decisions to ultimately lead to the acceptance of thousands of sounds that when played together help make or break each and every scene that makes it an overall whole.

View a Sound Featurette from MovieWeb

While the second disc is divided into two different menus for film fans or for families and contains so many extras that you could spend days delving into each and every one, by far the most impressive inclusion in the lot was the award-winning director Leslie Iwerks's compelling roughly ninety minute documentary The Pixar Story. Fascinating enough that it could've been released theatrically or at least been submitted into numerous film festivals, it's a wonderful portrait of the approximately twenty year history of the animation studio that chronicles the lives and professional involvement of its three key players-- John Lassetter, a Disney lover who would go onto direct the wildly successful Toy Story, computer and physics genius Ed Catmull who blended together science and programming with animation as he became not only responsible for the first use of 3D in a live action 2D film but also helped transform George Lucas's Lucasfilm Ltd., as well as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs who met up with the Pixar men at precisely the right time, believing in their ability and becoming their greatest financial advocate and backer in a relationship that still holds strong today.

Weaving in history of animation and especially the men's love of the classic Disney cartoons that inspired them, along with great insider tales about life at CalArts studying alongside future Disney animators turned filmmakers including Tim Burton and Brad Bird as they were mentored by the lovingly dubbed "Nine Old Men," who helped establish the distinctly Disney emphasis of injecting emotion into hand-drawn images, it's a gripping and passionate piece of filmmaking.

The Pixar Story also recounts some of the checkered history between Pixar and Disney when animators were scared to death that 3D and computer animation would make the exquisite hand-drawn lines of the Disney studio obsolete as people began losing jobs in a technological shakeup and Lassetter was let go when his mind and imagination for the blending of animation and technology proved far too daring to his parent studio.

Additionally containing some great personal anecdotes from others associated like George Lucas who was always at the forefront, embracing computer potential before it was hip, along with interviews with Lassetter's wife who had to share her husband with the overwhelming demands of Pixar, above all it's an ode to the power of imagination and the oft-repeated thesis that Lassetter notes in that "art challenges technology and technology inspires the art," as so many diverse talents came together whether they were computer PhDs or animators to fully embrace a new exciting medium of filmmaking.

A must-see for anyone who owns more than one Pixar film (and I'd venture to say that'd be basically every DVD owner) as well as aspiring artists and history buffs-- much like Disc 1's short film BURN-E, Disc 2's The Pixar Story is not only worth the investment but incredible enough that one wished they would've been included either as a double feature with WALL-E or somehow more been made more accessible to audiences without DVD or Blu-ray players.

A beautifully crafted set, despite some clumsy packaging that's a bit frustrating for those whose hands are bigger than WALL-E's as the discs open out sideways, WALL-E is nonetheless packaged to be as efficient and compact as the little, adorable main character himself and sure to capture even more hearts when you can bring him home.