[ON SCREEN TEXT]           00:00:00               In 2007, Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet wrote a book on Hollywood. In it, he listed only four perfect films:

                                                                The Godfather

                                                                                A Place in the Sun

                                                                                Dodsworth

                                                                                Galaxy Quest

Sam Rockwell:                   00:00:17               (laughs) David Mamet said that. That's amazing.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:00:29               Galaxy Quest is the story of a group of actors who were on a sci-fi television series real similar to the original Star Trek.

Alan Rickman:                    00:00:38               [inaudible 00:00:38] has we live to tell the tale.

Paul Scheer:                       00:00:41               And they get kidnapped, brought into space by a group of aliens who have studied their TV show as if it was a actual, a recording of real life events-

Mathesar:                           00:00:52               ... since we first received transmission of your historical documents, we have studied every facet of your missions and strategies.

Tommy:                               00:00:58               You've been watching the show?

Jason :                                   00:01:00               Lieutenant, historical documents.

Damon Lindelof:               00:01:03               We really want to believe um, that this stuff is real. We don't wanna believe that these are sets and styrofoam and people pretending. And Galaxy Quest basically takes that fantasy and makes it writ large. And this is the true genius of Galaxy Quest is, the fans have made it real.

Sigourney Weaver:          00:01:19               It's such a charming idea because of Star Trek and because it's so beloved. It was such a wonderful love letter to all those actors and all those fans.

Damon Lindelof:               00:01:27               It is a touchstone for film makers of a certain generation.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:01:31               For me, what I remember most about it and what I love most about is it- it didn't make fun of the fans. It- it really allowed you to have sort of a point of view in the story. This helped kind of usher in a generation of story telling that both could keep the stakes, but also not take itself not so, so seriously.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:01:48               Somebody does something first and a small number of people go, "Wow, that's amazing." And the larger culture ignores it. Galaxy Quest was way ahead of its time.

Robert Gordon:                00:01:57               I don't know when it switched over to ... It wasn't always this cult sort of favorite and then it became that and now it seems-

Dean Parisot:                     00:02:05               ... it seems to because of fans (laughs).

Fans:                                     00:02:10               La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

[ON SCREEN TEXT]           00:02:15               Fandom Presents

Speaker 3:                           00:02:19               Galaxy Quest is actually a big part of my childhood.

Speaker 4:                           00:02:22               Every aspect of it is just wonderful, the storytelling, the writing, the actors.

Speaker 5:                           00:02:30               I thought it was funny. They portrayed cosplaying a little bit.

Speaker 6:                           00:02:33               When I watched it when I was a little kid, I liked it so much I thought, I was hoping they were going to do a mini-series.

Speaker 7:                           00:02:38               Oh, I was talking with a co-worker about it today. We were quoting lines back and forth.

Speaker 8:                           00:02:41               Someone goes, "What?" We go, "Oh, we have to stop what we're doing right now-"

Speaker 9:                           00:02:43               (laughs)

Speaker 8:                           00:02:45               ... "and go watch it."

Speaker 10:                         00:02:46               I watch this movie several times a year.

Speaker 11:                         00:02:50               Who hasn't seen Galaxy Quest?

[ON SCREEN TEXT]           00:02:53               A Screen Junkies Production 

Fans:                                     00:02:56               [crosstalk 00:02:56]-

Speaker 12:                         00:02:58               And you can laugh and say, " Oh, that's me (laughs)."

Speaker 13:                         00:03:01               That whole meta take on it, analyzing Star Trek from the outside a little bit ....

Speaker 14:                         00:03:06               They weren't making fun of anybody, they were just hey, don't take yourself so seriously.

Speaker 15:                         00:03:10               We all embraced it together. It's just something that we all love and experience together.

Fans:                                     00:03:13               La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

Dean Parisot:                     00:03:13               The- the real irony, which struck me when Tim forced me to go to a screening and after the movie was over and I walked out and I sit down to have a Q and A, and they turned the lights up and the first three rows are people dressed in Galaxy Quest costumes, who either understood or didn't understand the irony of that.

Harold Weir:                       00:03:41               I would make fun of people that would dress up and go to the openings of new movies. It wasn't cool, but yeah, it wasn't- it was never cool. It was never, but- but then it became okay to do it-

Roxanne Weir:                  00:03:50               Only if it was the Galaxy Quest coming-

Harold Weir:                       00:03:52               Yeah (laughs).

Roxanne Weir:                  00:03:53               It's of those movies that you can watch again and-

Harold Weir:                       00:03:56               Again-

Roxanne Weir:                  00:03:56               And again-

Harold Weir:                       00:03:57               Yeah. I was thinking, why do I like this so much? It's because the moment in the movie where he says, "Stop, it's real." And the kid goes, "I knew it." That was me. That- that was me. It's like, I knew it.

Jason :                                   00:04:14               It's all real.

Brandon:                             00:04:15               I knew it, I knew it (laughs).

[ON SCREEN TITLES]        00:04:22               Never Surrender

Paul Scheer:                       00:04:29               Galaxy Quest happened at this very unique period of time because it was at this point where fans are still a little bit in the shadows.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:04:38               You know, when I think of how people sort of behaved about fan culture in the late '90s, I think of the Shatner Star Trek skit on SNL.

Captain Kirk:                       00:04:48               Get a life.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:04:49               Where he just says, you're a loser, you're a bunch of loser and go home.

Captain Kirk:                       00:04:53               For crying out loud, it's- it's just a TV show.

Scott Mantz:                      00:04:56               When Star Trek became really a hit, which was in syndication in the early '70s, that's when the fans started calling themselves Trekkies. That's when you had the conventions. That's when you had people turn out in record numbers to these events.

Damon Lindelof:               00:05:10               That fandom started to coalesce over the course of the next decade and basically gave birth to Star Trek, the motion picture and then of course, Next Generation and all of the series that followed. I don't think that there has been like a stretch of like two or three years where there has been no Trek being produced and that's only because of the fans.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:05:31               People loved it so much that even when it was gone, they needed to still experience it.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:05:36               Ah, spoiler alert, I was on Star Trek and I meet people every week who are inspired by us.

Brent Spiner:                      00:05:45               You know, we do these conventions, occasionally have young people come to my table and say I could only relate to your character. It's overwhelming.

Speaker 19:                         00:05:54               Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not here to ask a question. I'm here to state a fact, how all of these wonderful people on stage right now changed our lives.

Speaker 19:                         00:06:06               A lot of Galaxy Quest is the truth about Star Trek, but it was said in a way that was whimsical, beautifully done, well portrayed and non-offensive to anyone.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:06:16               Galaxy Quest is without a doubt, the best Star Trek movie because it's about what makes Star Trek special. It's about the fans.

Brent Spiner:                      00:06:27               What I mainly felt watching the film and I felt it all the way through was, why didn't we do this? Why didn't we do this? It would have been us and we would have gone through that same journey. We would have had such a big hit.

Damon Lindelof:               00:06:42               And the reason that Galaxy Quest earns its- earns its space in- inside the Trek cannon is, it really does feel like a Trek movie because it has all the hallmarks of what makes a Trek movie work, which is never give up, never surrender. Like, you can overcome sort of any problem.

Dean Parisot:                     00:06:57               We kept saying as we were making this [inaudible 00:06:59], it can't just be a comedy, it has to be a good Star Trek movie.

Speaker 20:                         00:07:05               [inaudible 00:07:05] one, thank you. Quiet now. Action. [inaudible 00:07:10]. One, two, three, action.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:07:27               In the late '90s, Steven Spielberg, Jeffery Katzenberg and David Geffen all come together and they form Dreamworks and they've got something to prove, right? These are three dudes who are at the top of their individual industries. Every other studio head wishes them well and- and tells them how much they want them to succeed and then roots for them to fail, ah, because that's the way the industry works.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:07:54               Dreamworks needs hits.

Mark Johnson:                  00:07:56               Ah, Dreamworks and we, meaning our little production company, optioned a script by David Howard that had this concept, this idea of actors being mistaken by extraterrestrials as not being actors, but being the, you know, the heroes that they appear to be in the show.

Mark Johnson:                  00:08:22               We really took to the idea and thought it was to be the basis of a terrific comedy.

Robert Gordon:                00:08:29               It was sort of like that moment where you stop at the door and turn 'cause someone says something and- and what if aliens thought that William Shatner was real? And (laughs) the full thing.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:08:38               Which was the premise. There was no other thing in the script that was- that we held onto. And we met with many, many writers. They all came in with this idea that he hated being a captain, he was trapped in this role and Bob Gordon came in to my office and he said he loved being the captain. If he could be the captain again, it would be the greatest day of his life and that simple adjustment changed everything.

Robert Gordon:                00:09:05               I said, "Well, should I read the script?" And- and they said, "No, they didn't want me influenced by it." I sort of assumed some things about it, that there would be a kind of a- a ship that they had to operate in a certain way, that each crew member would have their own thing that they had to now deal with in real life.

Robert Gordon:                00:09:19               And the moment that I really felt like that I could write it seems really super obvious now, it's when they have to admit that they are really just actors and they're not really heroes and it all goes to hell and ... When that clicked in, I was "Okay, I got it. I know," you know, I sort of know what the ... I know enough about it.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:09:37               And then it was Bob who said, "And he has to go into outer space." Right? And we were like, "What? What are you talking about?" Because we had it sort of like a, kind of a, you know, like a comedy of that era, like an Amblin comedy of that era where the aliens come to earth-

Mark Johnson:                  00:09:54               I think that Bob Gordon did make it bigger than we thought it was going to be or than we thought we could afford.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:10:02               It was Bob's brain that blew it out like that.

Robert Gordon:                00:10:04               I think there were people who sort of were scratching their heads a little bit, like Mark Johnson was sort of like, "This is a lot of explosions."

Greg Berlanti:                    00:10:12               I would say in 1999, 2000 things were still kind of in their box. If it was a sci-fi movie, it was a sci-fi movie. If it was a drama, it was a drama.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:10:24               In 1999, the vast majority of sci-fi movies were actions movies, all of these dark, gritty nihilistic sci-fi movies.

Speaker 21:                         00:10:35               You could call it the end of the world.

Damon Lindelof:               00:10:37               I think that more than anything else, Galaxy Quest is sort of like an exercise in tone.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:10:42               It is a broad comedy, of course, but it also has a real heart and real sincerity.

Mark Johnson:                  00:10:48               I would maintain that the studio never quite understood the tone of the movie, that they were expecting more an out and out comedy a la Spaceballs.

Rick Moranis:                     00:11:02               I can't breathe in this thing.

Mark Johnson:                  00:11:04               I'd never done a movie like this before. I'd never done a- a science fiction film, but they read it and even though it still needed work, said, "Okay, we're making this movie." So, we started looking for a director right away and that's when we came up with um, with Harold.

Bill George:                        00:11:27               Harold Ramis is a big, he's a- just an imposing, big guy. And you know, the one thing I will say is, having worked with a lot of directors, they're all different shapes and sizes, but the one thing they all have in common is they start talking and you go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm behind you." Like they're- they're these natural born leaders.

Charles Newirth:              00:11:43               Harold had a very, I mean, a particularly wry sense of humor and I think that, the notion was that that was certainly going to carry into the film.

Annie Potts:                       00:11:51               Do you have any hobbies?

Harold Ramis:                    00:11:55               I collect spores, molds and fungus.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:11:58               He's one of the very few directors in 1999 that can get people into a theater.

Shane Mahan:                   00:12:03               We were like, "Wow, comedy genius. It's going to be a great, funny, you know, film." The relationship that- that Dreamworks had with- with the- the Stan Winston Studio at the time was very, very fruitful.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:12:20               It tells you a great deal about how much the studio cared about Galaxy Quest, that they have Stan Winston do the practical make-up effects and they have Industrial Light & Magic do the visual effects.

Bill George:                        00:12:35               I can't remember how many Star Trek movies I worked on, I think five total. When we were brought onto a project, there are very, very high expectations. Dreamworks felt this was an- an important enough film to get an industry leader involved in it. They believed in the project.

Bill George:                        00:12:51               Immediately they knew that- that there were certain things that were going to have to do like design the protector. And one of the interesting things about that is, it's the only time in my career doing design where we had to have the Dreamworks lawyers involved with what we were doing because they were so deathly afraid they were going to get sued by Paramount.

Bill George:                        00:13:08               But one of our production assistants at ILM came up with the idea because we were having all this back and forth with the lawyers, the numbers should start off with NTE, which stands for Not The Enterprise. So we could stand up in a court of law and say it is not the Enterprise. It says so right here.

Damon Lindelof:               00:13:25               The special effects in Galaxy Quest, they hold up. When the protector crashes, it's like, those effects are still really good.

Mark Johnson:                  00:13:32               I think that all of the visual effects people and all of the make-up effects people got a real kick out of the movie.

Bill George:                        00:13:40               The visual effects were the straight man (laughs), in a way.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:13:43               You really want to state to everybody at every phase, how- how can we make this as believable as possible? I know that we're dealing with something that seems inconceivable, but how can we make the audience feel like it's real? And that comes in the form of the kind of team you put together to make the thing.

Bill George:                        00:13:59               People saying, " Well, this is a comedy, you know, it's supposed to be campy, it's supposed to be sloppy." It's like, "No. This has to be, these effects need to look real."

Crash McCreery:              00:14:07               It's always a process and it's always an exploration. You know, you just do as many ideas as you could possibly do and see what they kind of gravitate to.

Charles Newirth:              00:14:14               You know, we started to come up with design elements for it. Linda Descenna was hired on as production designer.

Linda DeScenna:               00:14:22               I was the set designer on Star Trek, the motion picture and Blade Runner and Back to the Future, II. And they called me up one day and said we're doing this movie, Galaxy Quest and Harold Ramis is the director and we want him to meet you. He's in Chicago, can you fly to Chicago tomorrow and meet Harold?

Linda DeScenna:               00:14:37               So we flew to Chicago, Charles and Mark and I. We met Harold.

Charles Newirth:              00:14:41               Harold sort of collaborating on that with the tone of the- the you know, the look of the space ship was going to be-

Linda DeScenna:               00:14:46               It was to be a kind of Star Trekkie looking film, so that we were basing the- the design of the sets on that 1963, 67 really kind of cheesy, cheap, funny TV sets and I thought it was going to be a breeze (laughs).

Bill George:                        00:15:07               The main thing they were going through at that time was casting.

Debra Zane:                       00:15:11               The before we did anything, it was about finding Jason. He has to be a leading man, he has to be the- the protagonist of that TV show, but obviously, they need to understand the comedy. They have to have a funny bone.

Charles Newirth:              00:15:24               Harold had certain aspirations for who he wanted to cast in the film and the studio had ah, other thoughts. They sort of agreed on one particular actor. If they could get him, Harold would be very, very happy with him.

Sigourney Weaver:          00:15:36               Who did he want?

Speaker 22:                         00:15:37               He wanted another co-star of yours, Kevin Kline.

Sigourney Weaver:          00:15:42               Well, Kevin also would have been wonderful.

Speaker 3:                           00:15:52               Kevin Kline? No ... well ...

Speaker 10:                         00:15:56               Nope.

Speaker 23:                         00:15:59               Possibly.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:16:00               It's really interesting 'cause the casting choices tell you where the executives are at. We want Kevin Kline in this movie. So you want somebody who's a slapstick comedic actor, who's really good at embracing like, over-the-top physical comedy? I love you Harold Ramis, but you are all kinds of wrong about that.

Charles Newirth:              00:16:16               We starting building sets and we were fairly far down the line and ah, the actor declined. Exactly right, he de-Kevin Klined. So (laughs).

Debra Zane:                       00:16:28               The people I remember that we really talked about were Bruce Willis ...

Speaker 24:                         00:16:32               Bruce Willis, definitely not, definitely not (laughs).

Paul Scheer:                       00:16:35               Ah, no. Bruce Willis, bad choice. That's a bad choice.

Debra Zane:                       00:16:38               Tim Robbins.

Speaker 24:                         00:16:39               I could see Tim Robbins.

Paul Scheer:                       00:16:41               He's too goofy, too boyish, maybe too boyish in the face? I don't know.

Debra Zane:                       00:16:46               Mel Gibson was in there too.

Paul Scheer:                       00:16:47               Let's take away like, Mel Gibson side of the road, DUI Mel Gibson. L- l- let's just go back to 1999 (laughs), a safer, simpler Mel Gibson.

Debra Zane:                       00:16:55               And a lot of people that you would be surprised really pursued it and really wanted to do it.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:16:59               Alec Baldwin was desperate to do it.

Paul Scheer:                       00:17:00               He's got the look. He's got the energy. He's definitely got the comedic chops or- or he now has the comedic chops. Good choice. Actually, a really good choice.

Speaker 10:                         00:17:10               You know, what? I've been watching this movie for 20 years. I can't imagine anyone else in those roles.

Mark Johnson:                  00:17:15               We offered it to a number of actors. It was offered to Steve Martin.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:17:19               Also Bill Murray. Rob Williams.

Mark Johnson:                  00:17:21               And for one reason or another they didn't want to do it. And the one actor who wanted to do it and made it clear that he wanted to do it was Tim Allen.

Speaker 22:                         00:17:28               You got a phaser there.

Tim Allen:                            00:17:30               Yes.

Speaker 22:                         00:17:31               Now-

Tim Allen:                            00:17:32               I framed it.

Speaker 22:                         00:17:32               (laughs)

Tim Allen:                            00:17:34               Now I'll probably have to give it back ... 'cause I stole it. I was a sci-fi junkie when I was a boy and I read pretty much everything that came out when I was a kid. There's freaks like me that collect every piece of that. I have one of he five Gorts here at my office, along with Robbie, the robot from Hidden Planet.

Tim Allen:                            00:17:55               It's very hard to do high concept stuff that- that people that's meaningful.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:18:00               Tim Allen's name came up very first from the studio and Tim was a big star, had a number one TV show. He'd been in Toy Story. He had a book on the New York Time bestseller list, I mean he was a huge, big star.

Charles Newirth:              00:18:12               I think it was Jeffery Katzenberg, who felt very strongly about Time Allen. He loved Tim. He thought he'd be great in the role.

Tim Allen:                            00:18:19               I don't know how to soften the story. I went and Jeffery Katzenberg approached me. He said, "We have- we have this idea." And we sat down at lunch and- and it was kind of funny, because I'm digging into eggs and bacon and Ramis was not eating and I looked up and ... "So, am I missing something here?" And he goes, "Well, we're just circling and idea and I'm ah, not sure that this is right for you." And Katzenberg looked at Ramis and they kind of exchanged a look.

Tim Allen:                            00:18:45               And I said, "So, I don't have the part?" And then the forks go down and they're wiping and- and wasting some bacon there. He goes, "No, because we're looking at rather than a comedian to play an action hero, we're looking at an action hero that can play ... and be funny."

Tim Allen:                            00:19:01               They're going, "So ..." And I said, "Wow." Can- do and those two needed a minute and I said, "Well, yeah. Definitely. This a little uncomfortable." I'm not sure that that's exactly what he was saying, 'cause he had other comedians in mind.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:19:15               Harold said this to me. Harold had made Club Paradise with Robin Williams. There's no disputing that Robin Williams is hilarious and a big movie star and a big comic movie star. Harold thought that the failure was Harold's, that he didn't hear Robin's comic voice clearly enough.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:19:35               He was concerned that with Tim, who he met with a couple of times, that the same thing was going to happen.

Tim Allen:                            00:19:42               Next I know, Harold Ramis wasn't working on it anymore.

Charles Newirth:              00:19:51               It was definitely a first for me to lose a director. I'd never been in that situation before and I just adored Harold, but completely respected and understood why he departed the project.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:20:02               He understood that Tim Allen casting idea wasn't like he was offending by it, or anything, he just was like, there's a voice that's good for the movie maybe that's different than the voice that's good for me and I get it.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:20:13               Anybody who knows Harold Ramis knows he didn't hate anybody ever. He had a very clear sense of his- his own art. That was a sad day to lose Harold Ramis on a movie because it's a big thing to get. Yeah.

Speaker 25:                         00:20:27               I mean, I think it would have changed the whole tone of the film really.

Speaker 3:                           00:20:29               'Cause you know, Groundhog Day has like a certain vibe to it. It's very comedic, but in a dry comedic kind of way.

Speaker 9:                           00:20:35               I think Harold Ramis has done great work, but I feel like no one else ... Any- any change to this would have been worse (laughs).

Shane Mahan:                   00:20:42               He left and we were like, "Well, now what are we going to do?" We kind of felt like, "It's not going to ..."

Crash McCreery:              00:20:48               And he never- you never know what's going to ... There's so many pieces of the puzzle that switch and change and you get excited about one, you know, ah- ah, manifestation of it and then something changes and it starts to kind of let the wind out of the sail a little bit as you move forward.

Mark Johnson:                  00:21:04               When I knew that Harold Ramis was leaving Galaxy Quest, that it was going to signal you know, probably put a big question mark in the minds of the studio.

Charles Newirth:              00:21:15               You never want to lose momentum on a project and have it go away for some reason, so I think the challenge really was to keep the momentum going in a way that the studio felt comfortable at the same time, that we would be ready to start production.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:21:31               Mark was a little stealthy, I have to admit.

Mark Johnson:                  00:21:34               I wanted to make sure that we were well on the way and that we were casting and that we were building sets and that this movie was going to happen h- come hell or high water.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:21:42               We did meet with maybe eight directors, maybe ten. I mean, but like, really th- quickly.

Mark Johnson:                  00:21:48               Dean read it and said to me, "Why don't you offer things like this to me?"

Speaker 22:                         00:22:01               How often do you watch Galaxy Quest?

Dean Parisot:                     00:22:06               Never. I haven't watched in ah, a long time and it's not playing.

Dean Parisot:                     00:22:15               I'm basically a first time director. I've done one movie ah, and it did fine. It was- it was all right, but I wasn't in the category of this movie yet as a director. I would assume I became possible because it was falling apart and someone needed to come on.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:22:31               Mark um, vouched for Dean and I think that really made a difference.

Dean Parisot:                     00:22:35               Mark is- has been incredibly loyal. I mean, Mark discovered Vince Gillian and stuck by Vince's work for 30 years to get Breaking Bad made. He's just one of those guys who like, "I like this guy's work. I like what this guy does." And- and you're in the Mark Johnson, you know, camp.

Mark Johnson:                  00:22:53               Now I know Dean well enough that when it came time for him to do it, when Harold left the movie and it- we gave it to Dean, he then had some second guessing. "Well, let me re-read it and let me make sure it makes sense for me." And there were a couple of us, me at the forefront, basically said, "No, you son of a bitch, you're doing it."

Dean Parisot:                     00:23:14               So then I got this call from Mark. If you say yes right now, I can get you on this movie.

Dean Parisot:                     00:23:24               Hi Bella, hi Lucas, hi mommy. Look, this is what daddy's doing. We're way out in the desert and there's lots of sand and lots of people and we're working to make a movie.

Speaker 22:                         00:23:36               Say hi, Alan.

Dean Parisot:                     00:23:38               My kids.

Speaker 22:                         00:23:38               (laughs)

Alan Rickman:                    00:23:40               This is what your wretched father made me put on my head.

Speaker 22:                         00:23:44               (laughs)

Mark Johnson:                  00:23:48               I think he understood the movie, he understood how to play it.

Dean Parisot:                     00:23:53               I grew up with two brothers. We all watched Star Trek when we were kids. I can watch Star Trek and be absolutely invested in it and still look at it as a ridiculous thing.

Spock:                                   00:24:03               Commanding a Star ship is your first best destiny. Anything else is a waste of material.

Captain Kirk:                       00:24:11               I wouldn't have presumed to debate you.

Dean Parisot:                     00:24:13               That show, as a kid, it opened up so much possibility.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:24:19               You can tell that the film makers love science fiction television.

Damon Lindelof:               00:24:25               It's very tricky to um, to work on something that you have incredible reverence for. You have to start from a place of, I love this thing and I- I and the last thing I ever want to do is screw it up. And to some degree, particularly as it relates to my work on Star Trek, or JJ's work on Star Trek and Star Wars, they are giving us hundreds of millions of dollars to produce our fan flick.

Damon Lindelof:               00:24:50               Because when you talk about the fans, I just hear you talking to me. We're one of you.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:24:56               And I think you have to love the kind of story and the world that you're in. It's thin line between a- a really successful fantasy action show and- and a farce.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:25:07               Galaxy Quest was really one of the first films and stories that celebrated the relationship that fans have with these kind of films, or these kinds of stories.

Scott Mantz:                      00:25:17               The first time I saw it, I went, "Uh- oh, here we go. Okay. I'm used to this being made fun of. It happened when I was in high school." But then I went, "Wait a minute, that's not what this movie is."

Speaker 26:                         00:25:28               By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Warvan, I shall avenge you.

Speaker 27:                         00:25:38               By-

Alexander:                          00:25:41               Next.

Tim Allen:                            00:25:42               In the original movie they had was kind of goofy, it was real goofy and everybody would have been goofier. That- that's how I looked at it. Dean Parisot came on and literally turned it on its ear.

Charles Newirth:              00:25:55               No question about it, it would have been a very different film if Harold had directed it. I don't know what the film would have been, it would have been I'm sure very entertaining, but that movie has the DNA of Dean Parisot, no question.

Charles Newirth:              00:26:06               One thing to know is that Robert did then make other writing adjustments ah, as the film progressed.

Robert Gordon:                00:26:13               So a lot of the stuff that um, I wrote ah, for Harold was- was you know, making it bigger. We sort of brought it back down after that.

Linda DeScenna:               00:26:21               I remember coming in on Galaxy Quest once the director was changed and um, and things were sort of a little chaotic, having there be some days that were really hard and very strange and very strained.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:26:38               Dean was afraid of it being too spoofy. So he was always double checking us.

Mark Johnson:                  00:26:45               We did not want the movie, the set to look cheesy. We had somebody and I won't mention her name, who kept on using that word and we all resented it.

Linda DeScenna:               00:26:55               We were in the middle of building them, having them look like cheesy 1963, based on Star Trek, the TV Series ...

Mark Johnson:                  00:27:03               That's not what it was supposed to be.

Linda DeScenna:               00:27:06               It kind of changed to look more like Buck Rogers. We had to accommodate that, trying to stay within our budget with everything having been designed for a whole nother look.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:27:18               It does a- a wonderful job of creating what you expect from a late '70s TV show, but it all looks real.

Dean Parisot:                     00:27:29               I looked at it like, " Oh, I've got this great movie that's smart and absurd and- and has about 12 levels of irony to it and fandom and the whole thing."

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:27:38               Dean always understood it. He understood it from the get.

Mark Johnson:                  00:27:41               Dean directed Galaxy Quest as a drama.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:27:45               To tell any story well, you have to really believe in the characters and you have to talk about them and write them and shoot them and cast them in a way that feels as real as possible and it's the thing that allows us to connect.

Dean Parisot:                     00:28:01               Tim is not the obvious comedy choice but Tim had in his life, the experiences that this character had. Tim had just had a- a major television show stop and now he was sort of out there in the universe with just a Santa Claus movie and that was it.

Dean Parisot:                     00:28:22               I think Tim understood that world of protecting yourself from the fact that you might be a one trick pony, right? That that might have been the only thing you ever did.

Tim Allen:                            00:28:32               I really related to this guy. This is kind of a lonely guy, 'cause when he gets home, he lives alone in this creepy house up in the hills and he's drunk most of the time.

Speaker 5:                           00:28:40               I think that he was the perfect cast because he plays Buzz Lightyear. Buzz Lightyear is nothing but full of himself.

Speaker 8:                           00:28:47               I can see how they might be like, "The guy from Home Improvement is-"

Speaker 9:                           00:28:50               (laughs)

Speaker 8:                           00:28:50               ... "What?" But he did great.

Speaker 9:                           00:28:53               Oh, yeah. He was phenomenal.

Speaker 8:                           00:28:54               He was perfect.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:28:55               He takes the very best of William Shatner as Captain Kirk and then he combines it and I don't know if he even did this on purpose, but the very best of Patrick Stewart as a human being. Patrick was very much the leader of our set and he would put his neck out for people and he was our captain on screen and off.

Paul Scheer:                       00:29:19               Like if you squint a little bit, he kind of looks like William Shatner. It's like, that is the perfect catch.\

Jason:                                   00:29:26               Your commander is on deck.

Tim Allen:                            00:29:28               I have a tee shirt (laughs) had a big number one on it, but I get to actually like that when I come in, "Your commander is on deck (laughs)." It was just so much fun to rib these people because no matter what they did, I am number one on the call sheet, I'm number one in this movie, but I- it's not, I- I never, I don't believe, I never believed that.

Dean Parisot:                     00:29:50               Tim was already on board and- and nobody else was. The hardest thing on this movies was casting it. Debbie Zane is fantastic at bringing in people.

Mark Johnson:                  00:30:03               Just people you wouldn't necessarily expect to see in, in those roles. It's the cast from Mount Olympus. It, it just couldn't be better.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:30:08               I think that one of the things I would go to immediately that I love about the film is getting great, great actors to do something like that. And one of the things that really began, I think, to celebrate comic book films was when amazing talent decided that it was okay to do those things. That it wasn't gonna be career ending.

Mark Johnson:                  00:30:25               Sigourney went crazy with her part.

Sigourney Weaver:          00:30:28               My agent told me about it, and, and he said, "But I can't, I can't submit you because they don't want anyone who's ever done any science fiction to be part of this movie." I don't understand that. I mean, it's, it's we who have lived in science fiction who really understand what we're doing (laughing).

Damon Lindelof:               00:30:45               You know, when I went to go see Galaxy Quest, I was certainly aware of the fact that, Sigourney Weaver, um, was in the movie Alien, but that she also had comedic chops. The fact that she's so different from Ripley, I think that if, if the character that she played on Galaxy Quest was Ripley- esque, it probably wouldn't have worked.

Sigourney Weaver:          00:31:02               And once I'd read it, I thought, "Well, I'm, I'm certainly as close, if not closer, to Gwen and Tawny, uh, as I am to Ellen Ripley."

Damon Lindelof:               00:31:12               I literally can't imagine anybody else in that part other than her.

Gwen:                                  00:31:16               "Look, I have one job on this lousy ship. It's stupid, but I'm gonna do it, okay?"

Sigourney Weaver:          00:31:22               You cannot be an actress in Hollywood without having those Gwen and Tawny thoughts. You know, you can't be in that atmosphere where it is so much about what you look like, without getting some of those insecurities. I guess, in the end they relented 'cause I forced my way in.

Gwen:                                  00:31:41               "I mean, my TV Guide interview was six paragraphs about my boobs and how they fit into my suit. No one even bothered to ask me what I do on the show."

Wil Wheaton:                    00:31:49               It's real important for everyone watching this to understand that this is before Harry Potter. Alan Rickman is known as an incredibly serious actor.

Col. Brandon:                     00:31:59               "For there is nothing lost that may be found."

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:32:04               Alan Rickman is who Bob wanted. It would be Laurence Olivier. You know what I mean? Like that's what you want.

Dean Parisot:                     00:32:08               He's not a hard sell because everyone respects his work. He's a hard sell because initially, they see it as broad. I'm now seen as an impediment 'cause I'm not putting comedians in it.

Alexander:                          00:32:18               "I played Richard the Third."

Dean Parisot:                     00:32:20               Alan is unbelievably funny. It's a different way of looking at it. It's people that are funny because they've committed completely, and that's a... It's a hard thing. It's a difficult thing 'cause not everybody's in that zone.

Tony Shalhoub:                 00:32:33               Love the script, and, um, we sat down with Dean. And we chatted.

Dean Parisot:                     00:32:38               Tony to me is a silent comedian. He's physically incredibly funny. Everything he does f-feels like Chaplin to me. It seemed that Tony was just made for this part because this part was underwritten. I'm sorry Bob. It wa- it was kind of underwritten, so there's a lot more invention uh, uh, a lot more physicality, a lot more, um, behavior rather than dialogue.

Tommy:                               00:33:05               "Man, where in the hell is he? An hour and a half late. An hour and a half."

Dean Parisot:                     00:33:09               Well, Daryl had been in Home Fries with me. The more irate he got, the funnier he was.

Roy:                                       00:33:14               "Damn, man. Come on. This ain't Radio Shack. Put the pickles on 'for you put on the onions. Three pickles, not four. This ain't pickle burger."

Chill Mitchell:                     00:33:19               See, if I was just imagining what could happen or what couldn't happen, and, and then I'm saying to myself, "You know what? You know, brothers don't go outer space too often." I got talking to LeVar Burton, and he loves it. He loves the movie, man. He was like... y-you know, it, it, it made him feel good because he feel like he was a trailblazer.

Debra Zane:                       00:33:36               If I remember correctly, I think because Dean wanted Daryl "Chill" Mitchell so badly and he was so much younger than the group, and it didn't make story sense that he would be so much younger, we had to come up with a reason for like Corbin Bleu played him as like... He was like this boy wonder. And then he went off to have a pretty huge career. It's almost like fly paper, where they all the, the right people just came and like stuck. And then they all have big careers.

Paul Scheer:                       00:34:03               It's a fun movie to kinda watch in the background. Even people like, um... "Is that Rainn Wilson?"

Lahnk:                                   00:34:08               "Sir, I am Lahnk, Senior Requisition Officer."

Rainn Wilson:                     00:34:11               Galaxy Quest was one of the very first auditions I did in LA, and actually, my part was supposed to be a lot bigger. But I'd also gotten cast in the world's worst television pilot on NBC.

Dean Parisot:                     00:34:25               Yeah, yeah, he did. He had to leave. Yeah, he would've gotten more. He was great.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:34:30               Okay, nobody had heard of Sam Rockwell.

Guy:                                      00:34:32               "What's my last name?"

Jason:                                   00:34:33               "It's um, uh, um, um, I don't know."

Guy:                                      00:34:36               "Nobody knows!"

Mark Johnson:                  00:34:37               My head turned the most was probably Sam Rockwell. I just said, "This guy is brilliant."

Sam Rockwell:                   00:34:42               I, um, did not want to do the part originally, (laughs).

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:34:48               He said no a million times, and she just wouldn't let him.

Sam Rockwell:                   00:34:51               Finally, I said yes to it because I realized that it would come out probably around the same time as the Green Mile. The role in Galaxy Quest and Green Mile would be such a nice contrast. I can't explain why I would ever say no to this movie. It was just me taking myself way too ser-seriously.

Justin Long:                        00:35:10               Uh, for me, it was, it was g- my introduction to Sam Rockwell, and to how great Sam was as an actor and as a person. That's what I think of when I think of Galaxy Quest.

Paul Scheer:                       00:35:19               Justin Long, playing a role that honestly, I think if you put him in it today, he would look like he's not aged a day.

Justin Long:                        00:35:25               Yeah, I was 20 at the time, 21.

Jason:                                   00:35:27               "What's your name son?"

Justin Long:                        00:35:28               "Uh, Brandon?"

Justin Long:                        00:35:31               There was no question mark in the script.

Debra Zane:                       00:35:34               It really was not a very big part. He was just so perfect. Like this, like that little crack in his voice.

Justin Long:                        00:35:39               "Uh, I mean, that doc..." that's from Michael J. Fox, I, who was my idol. "Doc, uh, are you telling me...? You know, it was that." (laughs). And Chris Farley, and that Chris... Remember Chris Farley going, "You know, you're, you're one of them..."

Brandon:                             00:35:55               "Uh, evidently we had a little miscommunication regarding..."

Justin Long:                        00:35:59               "You know, he's on [inaudible 00:35:59]..." He just, " You like, the, um..."

Brandon:                             00:36:03               "I actually wanna, just wanted to tell you that I, I thought a lot about what you said."

Justin Long:                        00:36:07               There's also a com-comic book guy in there. I grew up watching The Simpsons and "So he was always like, you know, best, you know, whenever he was talking to somebody it was always a little bit down to them." I was like, "I'm just gonna do (laughs), what I love." You know, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal from all the people that I love (laughing)."

Sam Rockwell:                   00:36:23               Justin's a very gifted, uh, actor and comedian, and, and he, he, he's got a great ear.

Justin Long:                        00:36:30               I love Sam listening... "Yeah."

Sam Rockwell:                   00:36:31               Yeah, yeah.

Justin Long:                        00:36:35               "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Sam Rockwell:                   00:36:37               Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin Long:                        00:36:39               Yeah (laughs).

Sam Rockwell:                   00:36:41               I've seen his impression of me. It's very... It's, it's... Yes. It's slightly exaggerated.

Brandon's Mom:               00:36:47               "Brandon honey, the garbage."

Brandon:                             00:36:48               "Ugh, Mother, I'm quite busy."

Damon Lindelof:               00:36:51               That's one of the best comedic cuts in the history of modern cinema, is that. And they're trying to get in touch with Justin's Long's character and they're like, "Are you there? Are you there?"

Jason:                                   00:36:58               "Brandon!"

Damon Lindelof:               00:36:59               And he's not answering, and you cut to him taking out the garbage.

Brandon:                             00:37:03               "Mother, I cannot stress enough the severity of the Commander's predicament."

Brandon's Mom:               00:37:06               "Don't forget the recyclables!"

Damon Lindelof:               00:37:07               Oh, he still, is a teenager who has to take out the garbage. His mom does not care that like the fate of all these people up in space depends on him. If you're a sports kid, which, I suspect, you aren't, if you are watching this Galaxy Quest documentary. It's not enough to just be in the NBA, you have to win the championship in game seven with three seconds to go.

Damon Lindelof:               00:37:29               For us, for us, it's getting the call from Captain Kirk, and he's saying, "The Enterprise is in trouble, and only you and your nerdy friends have the information required to get the Enterprise out of the situation it's in. Can you help me Damon?" Like, that's the fantasy that we had.

Dean Parisot:                     00:37:47               Uh, there were all these suggestions thrown out, and one of them was to remove entirely the sub-plot o-of Justin Long's character. Um, which is, the very heart of the theme of the movie (laughs). Um, there was, there was a little, uh, a little friction.

Damon Lindelof:               00:38:05               I can't imagine what Galaxy Quest would be without Justin Long's character and his little buddies. Um, and also when you think about like '99, the internet culture certainly exists, but the fact that there's a fandom and they, they all have different schematic areas of the Protector on... And they've got vid screens of each other up, this is like way ahead of it's time.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:38:25               I don't think for instance you could do a film today about the teen nerd, and say he was the outcast. Like, it wouldn't be true, but when I was growing up and I was the DM of my local Dungeons and Dragons group with a bunch of foreign exchange students (laughing), it was a very different thing.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:38:44               Then Galaxy Quest came along, and said, you know, "These people are heroes too. They don't have to be the funny sidekick," you know? "They can actually be at the center of the story."

Brandon's Mom:               00:38:55               "Brandon, where are you going with all those fireworks?"

Brandon:                             00:38:56               "Well, the Protector got super accelerated coming out of the black hole. We're gonna help Laredo guide it on the vox ultra-frequency carrier, and use Roman Candles for visual confirmation."

Greg Berlanti:                    00:39:05               I do think that that's a lot more prominent now. That sort of self-awareness of one of the characters, uh, that really reflects the kind of people that might watch the show or see the movie. You could really draw a direct line all the way back to a film like Galaxy Quest.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:39:20               And it's a terrific character arc where they go from being like a punchline, to being heroes. And it mirrors very much the journey of the characters who are on the Galaxy Quest show in the movie.

Speaker 28:                         00:39:32               At the end, it's the fans that actually bring the plot together, and actually save the universe.

Speaker 29:                         00:39:37               If you didn't have that, then you wouldn't have Galaxy Quest.

Roxanne Weir:                  00:39:40               And one of the things that I really like is that, um, there's a hero within all of us.

Damon Lindelof:               00:39:49               Fans in Galaxy Quest are not just the people who are attending the, the convention or Justin Long and his buddies, the Thermians are the fans in Galaxy Quest. They just don't realize that they're fans of a television show, but they literally say that this television show changed their culture. They credit this television show almost in a r- with religious awe.

Jason:                                   00:40:11               "At ease."

Harold Weir:                       00:40:15               I'm a geeky nerd or a nerdy geek. Take your pick. [inaudible 00:40:26].

Damon Lindelof:               00:40:26               Real fandom is about creating this illusion that in some way this piece of popular fiction may in fact be real.

Wil Wheaton:                    00:40:33               I have always felt that cosplay is the purest, most wonderful expression of love.

Damon Lindelof:               00:40:42               We love this show. We need this show. We want this show to be real, and you need us. The reason that there is a convention is because of us.

Harold Weir:                       00:40:51               We relate so well to the Thermians. So naïve about things-

Roxanne Weir:                  00:40:56               Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Harold Weir:                       00:40:57               In fact, why do we have to be so crass when we get to be adults? Why can't we all just stay kids, and just things are what they are? And, and we don't know that, you know-

Roxanne Weir:                  00:41:08               Lies.

Harold Weir:                       00:41:08               Lies, deception, yes.

Laliari:                                   00:41:10               "Deception."

Mathesar:                           00:41:10               "Deception."

Laliari:                                   00:41:10               "Lies."

Mathesar:                           00:41:11               "Lies."

Harold Weir:                       00:41:11               It started out with two of us because I made two costumes.

Roxanne Weir:                  00:41:15               If you look really close, our costumes aren't awesome.

Harold Weir:                       00:41:17               And they're not professional quality. I sew my own costume, but I put those uniforms on. And then I'm not me anymore, so...

Roxanne Weir:                  00:41:23               In this role, we are the Thermians from Utah.

Harold Weir:                       00:41:26               Yes. (laughs).

Wil Wheaton:                    00:41:33               It's perfect that they're octopuses because an octopus is real sensitive and really smart and very willing to sacrifice itself to preserve its children. And it's one of the reasons I have an octopus tattoo. So when they are revealed to be octopuses, I'm not saying that I get little bit of tear in the corner of my eye, but, uh, I'm not, not saying that.

Shane Mahan:                   00:41:58               We thought that's a really unique, crazy out there. They're kinda funny, but they're kind of-

Mark McCreery:               00:42:04               Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Shane Mahan:                   00:42:04               Like no one's ever seen like octopus people in a long time. When they were done, actually, about three weeks before they were, needed to shoot.

Mark McCreery:               00:42:12               Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Shane Mahan:                   00:42:14               And I got a phone call from Stan in his car one day, and he goes, "Are you sitting down?"

Mark McCreery:               00:42:21               (laughs).

Shane Mahan:                   00:42:21               I go, "No." He goes, "Maybe you should go sit down." I go, "Why?" He goes, "Steven saw the test footage and he thinks they're too ugly. He'd like them to be like close encounters aliens." And I was like, "But they're done!"

Mark McCreery:               00:42:40               (laughs). Yeah.

Shane Mahan:                   00:42:42               "They're, they're done! Uh, they shoot in three weeks."

Speaker 30:                         00:42:46               I like the octopus better.

Speaker 31:                         00:42:48               The octopus, quality.

Shane Mahan:                   00:42:50               Ultimately, it came back, "Okay, leave them as is," so there was a, a, a fleeting moment where those were almost cut from the movie.

Mark McCreery:               00:42:57               Hm.

Shane Mahan:                   00:42:58               And that would have been really tragic I think.

Mark McCreery:               00:42:59               Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Shane Mahan:                   00:42:59               I think.

Mark McCreery:               00:43:00               Totally.

Guy:                                      00:43:01               "Hey, Fred, g- um... Oh! That's not right, though!"

Speaker 32:                         00:43:08               It's not right, though.

Speaker 30:                         00:43:09               Oh, that's not right, yeah. That is not right.

Robert Gordon:                00:43:12               I had some very generic line in there. Sam is so respectful and comes up and says, "It, you know, I was thinking of playing this this way. And I was thinking of playing this this way."

Interviewer:                       00:43:20               You asked him permission-

Sam Rockwell:                   00:43:24               Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer:                       00:43:24               To change the line to, "That's not right."

Sam Rockwell:                   00:43:25               Did I really?

Interviewer:                       00:43:28               Yeah.

Sam Rockwell:                   00:43:28               Phew, wow. That's great. I'm glad I did that.

Tony Shalhoub:                 00:43:32               I'm not, I'm not exaggerating. We were making it up as we went along.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:43:36               Obviously, I wasn't there when Dean Parisot was shooting the movie, but my sense of the film is that, um, you know, at every sort of step of the way, it was a little bit like jazz. They know kind of what the s-story is that they're telling, but they have to take those risks. And, and still all of that feeling like a single kind of orchestral thing.

Dean Parisot:                     00:43:56               It was, it wasn't so well planned as you might expect. ( laughs).

Enrico Colantoni:              00:44:01               Dean, he was like the great enabler of, of choices. The bigger, the weirder, it was all good.

Debra Zane:                       00:44:10               You have to play it completely for real, including Enrico, and you know, setting the tone for the aliens.

Dean Parisot:                     00:44:21               He auditioned, and it was good. But it wasn't what I was looking for, and he got up to go. He was like... He, it was tentative. There was something on his mind. I said, "What? What, what?" He goes, "Well, I had this voice I was trying." I go, "Oh, what is it? What is it?" And that was the voice.

Enrico Colantoni:              00:44:38               There was a, a vocal exercise that I was taught at the, the dra- at the Yale School of Drama. It was just hitting all the resonators, touching all your, you know, head... There's seven different resonators, so...

Mathesar:                           00:44:53               "I must speak to you. It is a matter of supreme importance. We are Thermians from the Klaatu Nebula, and we need your help."

Dean Parisot:                     00:45:01               And as soon as he did it, I went, "Oh, that's, that's genius." As I started casting other people, we all started trying to duplicate the voice.

Missi Pyle:                           00:45:09               Uh, Debbie Zane, was like, "I don't normally do this, but I'm gonna show you someone's audition." So, I'd looked at the sides and I wasn't really sure, and then, so his audition was, um, "Hello-" you know, like that. And I was like, "Oh, okay. I know what this is."

Enrico Colantoni:              00:45:26               Is that what happened?

Debra Zane:                       00:45:27               He basically invented that whole thing.

Enrico Colantoni:              00:45:30               I didn't know I had the job yet, so I s- like, I'm glad I found this out after the fact (laughing). If I'd known that, oh, we would've negotiated a much bigger and better deal.

Dean Parisot:                     00:45:41               You know, as we had alien school everyday, they started growing and getting more fun and more interesting and, um, having their own particular quirks and traits.

Missi Pyle:                           00:45:50               [inaudible 00:45:50].

Patrick Breen:                    00:45:50               (laughs).

Jed Rees:                             00:46:00               And then just a little one at the end.

Missi Pyle:                           00:46:01               [inaudible 00:46:01].

Jed Rees:                             00:46:01               Yeah.

Patrick Breen:                    00:46:01               (laughs).

Speaker 33:                         00:46:03               The, the part that made me laugh unexpectedly when I first saw it, I thought it was gonna take me out of the theater was the limo scene where he's looking at her and everything. He's like, "What, what, what? She doesn't speak?"

Teb:                                       00:46:12               "Her translator is broken."

Laliari:                                   00:46:15               "[inaudible 00:46:15]"

Speaker 33:                         00:46:15               [inaudible 00:46:15].

Missi Pyle:                           00:46:15               "[inaudible 00:46:15]" I can't even...

Patrick Breen:                    00:46:18               (laughs). Don't hurt yourself.

Dean Parisot:                     00:46:21               And then once the ball was rolling, the, they're all so brilliant. They just kept taking it, inventing more.

Jed Rees:                             00:46:28               It had said that they, they were like Disney Land employees, and they didn't know what lies were. Patrick came up with the walking with the hands and the legs together-

Missi Pyle:                           00:46:38               Like they just got it slightly wrong.

Jed Rees:                             00:46:39               And-

Missi Pyle:                           00:46:40               They'd watched-

Patrick Breen:                    00:46:41               Right, yeah.

Missi Pyle:                           00:46:41               But they just didn't-

Patrick Breen:                    00:46:42               Yeah, and I got that from Thunderball XL5 'cause they were marionettes. And we destroyed every extra on that show-

Jed Rees:                             00:46:49               (laughs).

Patrick Breen:                    00:46:49               Because they all had to like get that hammered in-

Missi Pyle:                           00:46:51               Right.

Jed Rees:                             00:46:51               Yeah.

Patrick Breen:                    00:46:51               Any time they were walking behind the camera, they all had to be like...

Missi Pyle:                           00:46:54               And sometimes if you... Sometimes if you were really watching-

Patrick Breen:                    00:46:57               (laughs).

Missi Pyle:                           00:46:57               You'd see an extra that's just like, "Uh, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just kind of like."

Patrick Breen:                    00:47:00               They couldn't (laughing)...

Patrick Breen:                    00:47:00               "Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo."

Missi Pyle:                           00:47:01               [inaudible 00:47:01] (laughs).

Tim Allen:                            00:47:05               They came in, "[inaudible 00:47:07]" It was the longest day because no matter what we did, once they knew that, that we're laughing at it, they never stop with that.

Enrico Colantoni:              00:47:13               We were all kinda looking at each other goin', "Are we... Maybe we're just having too much fun. (laughs). We shouldn't be having this much fun."

Tim Allen:                            00:47:23               [Laughing].

Greg Berlanti:                    00:47:23               They found every joke. They found every exciting moment. They had every great line you could possibly have. No one can explain lightening in a bottle in the business.

Dean Parisot:                     00:47:32               It became what it was going to be. There wasn't anybody stomping on it.

Mark Johnson:                  00:47:37               What you always wanna do when you're making a movie for a studio, you want the studio to be making a movie other than yours that's either really expensive or very high-profile or going dramatically over budget, so all of their attention is on that movie.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:47:51               The studio was making another movie at the time. Uh, this movie Gladiator, which is a fantastic movie, and it was shooting in Malta. The actor Oliver Reed died also while they were shooting, so the most tragic thing that could happen on a movie, happened on that other movie that was shooting at the same time we did. So, you know, they weren't really paying that much attention to us.

Dean Parisot:                     00:48:13               There is no adult supervision or very little.

Linda DeScenna:               00:48:16               The sets melted.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          00:48:18               No, no. There was a literal fire.

Dean Parisot:                     00:48:20               And I wanted to shoot anamorphic. Anamorphic, uh, without getting too technical, requires a lot of light. The only thing S-Steven Spielberg ever sort of advised us to do was to put down shiny Mylar to make the floors look, have some life 'cause you're trying to get some life into everything. And this is k- a little bit of a dead set. Um, so we put down all this, all this Mylar everywhere. And we turned the lights on and it all buckles like that. Like the whole floor buckles.

Charles Newirth:              00:48:52               Never leave the set.

Bill George:                        00:48:55               Galaxy Quest is very unique in that there are three formats in the film. When it starts out, it's kind of this square television format that we're all familiar w-with. Very small, letter boxed on the screen, and then it grows. And then it becomes 1.85, which is kinda the real world where we're at the convention. We, we know we've gone from one world to another, but there's a second change in the format that a lot of people don't pick up on.

Dean Parisot:                     00:49:19               When the doors open, when he realizes he's on the deck of the spaceship, the doors open us up into widescreen CinemaScope. That's why I shot it in, um, anamorphic, so that I could have this giant, wide screen.

Bill George:                        00:49:37               When the doors get to the side of the 1.85 aspect ratio, they open it up to 2.35, and it was symbolic of him having his eyes opened to what was really happening. And the rest of the film is in 2.35. It's pretty subtle though.

Dean Parisot:                     00:49:52               If you don't tell the projectionist in the theater that that's happening, then he opens it up from 1.85, and all of sudden, that great big effect is in the curtains on the side, which is really not good. And it, and that happened apparently in hundreds of theaters. It was the stupidest idea. And then we, they had, th-they started sending out, I guess, little notes on the cans, you know? But, um, yeah, yeah. Great, good idea.

Greg Berlanti:                    00:50:18               I mean, I think one of the amazing things about great movies is that ultimately, everything happened exactly the way it was supposed to.

Sam Rockwell:                   00:50:27               We didn't know what this was gonna be, so we, we, we had... It was so eclectic, the group of people we had.

Dean Parisot:                     00:50:33               I mean, one of the things that helps is when you go on location, people become closer because they're not dealing with their regular lives. They're out in some weird place, and we were in a very strange location.

Charles Newirth:              00:50:44               One of the things that was very unique was to be able to shoot in Goblin Valley in Utah. It's a National Monument. It's protected by the government, and Dean immediately responded to that. So we flew out from Los Angeles-

Dean Parisot:                     00:50:58               "And this is where we are. We're in the middle of nowhere. There's no stop lights. There's no, no anything. It's completely empty. Just a lot of sand and dirt and rocks."

Mark Johnson:                  00:51:10               We were all getting along pretty well. We had a lot of fun there. We had some good parties in Goblin Valley, and, and, uh, you know, it was hot. And people were in latex suits, and it was hard. But we had a good time.

Tim Allen:                            00:51:21               This is a horrible macguffin to that movie.

Tim Allen:                            00:51:24               That shirt comes off on the desert in the way it's written, I'm the rest of the movie with no shirt on. And I said, "You know what, Dean? If you read this script, when do I get my shirt back on?" And he goes, "I, I don't know what to do about that." "Well, I'm not gonna do the rest of this movie. I don't mind the couple that s-sex scenes. Grease me up or whatever you're gonna do to make me look manly, but I'm not gonna do it." So that shirt just, (laughs), magically shows up on the control room.

Dean Parisot:                     00:51:52               Yes, 'cause it got beamed up with him. Whew.

Tim Allen:                            00:51:58               Shatner was kind of built at that time. IT was supposed to be, at least that part, you wanted to believe that he was an action hero. So in... I had a trainer and I ate I think cat food most of the d- time 'cause I had to stay at this weight.

Mark Johnson:                  00:52:09               You know, the, Tim, Tim's experience with his personal trainer on the film.

Speaker 34:                         00:52:15               Do you remember who your personal trainer was?

Tim Allen:                            00:52:19               Yes, of course I do.

Mark Johnson:                  00:52:20               That's Janie, his wife now. So she, she worked out with him. He had a gym there and, uh, he would work all the time with Janie, and she's now his wife.

Dean Parisot:                     00:52:29               Tim would tell me every day that we were going straight to video. Actually, nobody tried harder than he did, secretly, without, pretending like he wasn't.

Dean Parisot:                     00:52:36               "Cut, cut on rehearsal."

Dean Parisot:                     00:52:41               The entire group of them sort of became like a... They were all working off one another, and they were all working together.

Speaker 35:                         00:52:47               I think they worked t- worked well together as an ensemble. The Thermians are fantastic.

Speaker 33:                         00:52:52               You could see the chemistry. They had fun during the movie, and you can see that.

Jason:                                   00:52:56               "(laughs)"

Chill Mitchell:                     00:53:01               That's my, that's my starring moment in that movie, man. Pulling that space ship out that dock.

Enrico Colantoni:              00:53:06               Somebody was going, "Eeee." (laughs).

Dean Parisot:                     00:53:10               Yeah, I'm g- doing this, "Eeee." Uh, so, they're... Yeah, they're all reacting to me making the noise of that ship. It got exhausting after awhile.

Enrico Colantoni:              00:53:20               Can't... We just get it out (laughing).

Tim Allen:                            00:53:27               "Eeee," (laughs), it was terribly funny.

Movie:                                  00:53:28               (applause).

Sigourney Weaver:          00:53:32               We had the loveliest group of people on this movie, and, um, you can tell that Dean created this atmosphere where we could thrive in our... And we could also be very vulnerable. We could, you know, we didn't have our shells on. We didn't have our armor on, and he- and, and he, he allowed that to happen.

Dean Parisot:                     00:53:52               Sigourney had been taken so seriously in her parts, she couldn't wait to get into costume. And she had these big, fake breasts that she kept throwing at us. She wouldn't take off the blonde wig.

Sigourney Weaver:          00:54:06               (laughs). I did. I hated to take it off. Sometimes I'd even wear it home. Part of it was, "I want to find out if blondes really do have more fun."

Gwen:                                  00:54:14               "All systems are working Commander."

Sigourney Weaver:          00:54:16               I guess for me, you know, there but for the grace of God, go I. I could've gotten on a series and that would've been what happened to me. I was probably acting out something I'd felt very strongly in my career that I never had a chance to express, honestly.

Dean Parisot:                     00:54:32               You often have a collection of actors that come from completely different, completely different study of the craft. You'll have a, a, a very method actor like Sam Rockwell, a sort of Sandy Meisner style, you know? Who's probably closer to Tony.

Dean Parisot:                     00:54:47               Tim would come to the set usually a little bit late, and make, uh, vomiting and farting noises. Alan would come five minutes early, would know everybody's line. E- You could look at him in the corner going, "Ugh."

Damon Lindelof:               00:55:02               I think just to say that Tim Allen and Alan Rickman exist in the same movie together, and they're gonna play the Kirk and Spock avatars, that shouldn't work. Like, they shouldn't exist tonally in the same universe, and, and yet they do.

Tim Allen:                            00:55:15               Alan thought I was such an asshole because I'm doing cock, ball, you know, fart jokes on... Right up 'til camera.

Sigourney Weaver:          00:55:25               I remember Alan telling me, you know, that in the beginning, I don't think he really knew who Tim was. You know, sort of looking at him maybe slightly askance.

Enrico Colantoni:              00:55:35               Tim, if he had one person paying attention to his jokes, that was it. If he just had, (laughs)... It was usually Chill and me just like laughing at everything he said.

Chill Mitchell:                     00:55:44               They didn't call action, like two minutes ago, and me and him is over there acting up. Man, anything you do, it'd set him over the top. And I mean, he got that stupid laugh, so it make you laugh. Yo, man (laughs)...

Tim Allen:                            00:55:56               (laughs).

Chill Mitchell:                     00:56:00               Just no professionalism whatsoever. No, but it was so different. That's what made it so beautiful that we were so different. All the way down to Alan Rickman, God bless him. That was hilarious. He'd curse you out then invite you for wine (laughs).

Enrico Colantoni:              00:56:16               'Cause Alan was just like, "I won't laugh at him. I refuse to laugh."

Tim Allen:                            00:56:22               He always was the more respected actor. It, it's very close to what was going on. I'm j- a fucking comedian.

Enrico Colantoni:              00:56:28               It always took Sigourney to sort of tap him just gently. She was so good with him. Just like, "Come on, Tim. Come on."

Paul Scheer:                       00:56:37               I think the one moment in Galaxy Quest that really pulls everything together, when Mathesar is being, uh, tortured, and they basically, to continue the torture, tell Tim Allen's character, "You have to tell him that it's all fake, that you're actor."

Jason:                                   00:56:54               "Mathesar the, um, there's no such person as Captain Taggart. My name is Jason Nesmith. I am a, a actor."

Dean Parisot:                     00:57:04               I kept telling him that that was the most important scene in the movie, and it had to be absolutely dramatic and real and painful and horrible.

Tim Allen:                            00:57:13               I think he was worried that I was gonna be this smart ass.

Dean Parisot:                     00:57:17               That was a piece of drama that had to be a piece of drama, and that was the only day that Steven Spielberg came to my set. Tim is going through the take after take, and he's starting to tear up. He's starting t-to get very emotional. And all of a sudden I hear this voice next to me 'cause the monitor's right here, "Oh, yeah. Oh, wow." I'm like, I'm about to turn and tell this person to be quiet and it's Steven Spielberg.

Dean Parisot:                     00:57:44               And he goes, "Tim's really great in this." I said, "Yeah, I know. He's doing a really good job." And then I turned back and Tim is just completely emotional, heart wrenching actually. Says, "Yeah, I don't like these feelings I'm having. I'd like to go back to the trailer." ( laughs). I said, "Okay, fine. No, great. Fantastic." And, uh, Alan Rickman (laughs)... No I can't tell this story.

Robert Gordon:                00:58:10               (laughs).

Interviewer:                       00:58:13               What, what did he say?

Dean Parisot:                     00:58:13               I can't do it. He said, "Oh, my God. I think he just experienced acting."

Damon Lindelof:               00:58:20               And finding those real like emotional heart tugs, that's Galaxy Quest's gift to all of us. It's why it's n-not just a fun movie, but a great one.

Tim Allen:                            00:58:33               It was hard for me to be that, but 'cause it was sad, you know? That I'd, you know, really get into it. And Spielberg w- came around the corner and he goes, "Wow, that was, that was really good Tim." Like he was like a, impressed. He's like startles you 'cause obviously he just, it's Spielberg standing right there, and he goes, "That was a really good scene." And then I, I didn't know how to respond to that, and I go, "Come here you. You know who this guy is?" And I didn't want to pick one of the movies I was unsure about.

Patrick Breen:                    00:58:58               Yeah, and he would go like, "Hey, don't you know who this guy is? He directed 1941." He would do that to Spielberg (laughing)-

Jed Rees:                             00:59:03               (laughs).

Patrick Breen:                    00:59:03               And Spielberg like, "(laughs)."

Enrico Colantoni:              00:59:06               I never though Tim Allen was not a good actor, so I thought he was just doing a great job in the moment. I love actors who still are children, and they can't hide it. And Tim is a big child.

Scott Mantz:                      00:59:19               Of all the films that Tim Allen has done, Galaxy Quest is his crowning achievement. It is his best role.

Chill Mitchell:                     00:59:27               You know, Tim had a rough road, [bro 00:59:29]. We sat down talked a lot about that. That dude had been through it, and so for him to then on go from that to this, to number one on the call sheet? Come on, man.

Tim Allen:                            00:59:40               I just don't know how to hold on to an experience like that. I loved every second of that. I hated the, hated leaving. I ha- you know.

Dean Parisot:                     00:59:48               It, it's, yeah. It was, it's a d- it's int- interesting. It was fun. It was the most fun I think making a movie. When we got into post, all, all of a sudden, "Okay, now there's the movie."

Charles Newirth:              00:59:58               Another unsung hero of, of the film is Don Zimmerman, who was the editor of the film.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          01:00:02               Big Daddy D.

Don Zimmerman:             01:00:04               I don't know if there is a right rhyme or reason to it. It's a feeling. You know?

Charles Newirth:              01:00:08               He's cut everything from, you know, Liar, Liar to some of the finer Hal Ashby films. And so, he understood quirky, he understood authentic and he and Dean became a real team in that show.

Don Zimmerman:             01:00:21               In Galaxy Quest, it was just- it was a fun collaboration of music and actions, and, uh, emotions. You know?

Tim Allen:                            01:00:29               I'm in.

Don Zimmerman:             01:00:32               Dean was the kind of guy that, he would shoot, and if he gets what he wants, uh, he would ask anybody for an opinion. What do you- you- do you wanna try something? You wanna... he would always open the door for the actors to do things.

Dean Parisot:                     01:00:47               I don't think said- I didn't say no that much, did I? I mean, I just encourage everybody to try everything, usually.

Don Zimmerman:             01:00:52               You know? Sometimes- and 90% of the time it didn't work, but on the occasion, it would be brilliant. You know? And you just go, wow.

Charles Newirth:              01:01:00               So, Don was a good stabilizing force. He'd create a nice environment. He'd come down to the set, and talk about things. "Hey, maybe you'll wanna shot for this, or a shot for that."

Charles Newirth:              01:01:10               So, it was really a- it- it- it was quite a good group effort.

Damon Lindelof:               01:01:13               And the music, by the way, like, it feels like it's a riff on Trek music, but the score for Galaxy Quest is kind of great, in and of itself.

David Newman:                01:01:20               I wasn't sure what to do with the main title, so I tried to do something that was like the original Alexander Courage main title of Star Trek. And I played it for Dean and everyone and they just, they cracked up. And it was great. Then the theme, I wrote, completely wrote, which is what is in the movie now, I played second.

David Newman:                01:01:44               So, I played two opposite things and we discovered that we wanted to make it as heartfelt and glorious as- as possible. A little bit, maybe, overblown here and there, but not too much. Because in the end of the movie, this becomes an extremely meaningful situation for the characters, but also for the people watching.

Dean Parisot:                     01:02:11               When I really like what I'm doing, that just carries you through. It's like, "Oh, look what we're gonna do today, let's do that. Oh, anyway..."

Dean Parisot:                     01:02:18               You just get so involved in it, that you f- I forget about the, uh, the suits and briefcases that- that might be looking over my shoulder.

Mark Johnson:                  01:02:30               You know, and there were a lot of battles f- fought, a lot of battles fought in, um, in the editing room.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          01:02:36               That was the hardest part of all of it. Not the screen writing, not the- Harold leaving. Not the production. The post production was the hardest part.

Mark Johnson:                  01:02:46               DreamWorks got very involved in the edit of the movie and it was a little contentious.

Dean Parisot:                     01:02:49               We have this screening where, um, we think it's great, and that goes really badly.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          01:02:56               I guess it was the PG-13 screening. There were some families there. And a woman followed me into the bathroom and she was like, "How dare you? This is a Tim Allen movie."

Mark Johnson:                  01:03:06               And, uh, the studio was not crazy about it.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          01:03:08               We never recovered from that, as far as the studio was concerned. They kind of thought, like, "Oh, well it's not that good."

Dean Parisot:                     01:03:15               Everybody's afraid when you make a movie that it's not working, because they're so- they've read it a million times. They're so invested in it.

Robert Gordon:                01:03:23               None of the jokes are fresh anymore.

Dean Parisot:                     01:03:24               None of the jokes are fre- so it's- it's a very dangerous thing, after you make a movie to screen it, because it's always a mess. And then, uh, there's a whole collection of people that wanna believe that they fixed it, as well. So, it makes no-

Robert Gordon:                01:03:34               I know.

Dean Parisot:                     01:03:35               None of it makes any sense.

Robert Gordon:                01:03:36               But neither of us are responsible for the Limo.

Dean Parisot:                     01:03:37               No.

Robert Gordon:                01:03:37               Neither of us wanted a Limo.

Dean Parisot:                     01:03:39               That's right.

Dean Parisot:                     01:03:39               Ti is in the Limo and he falls asleep. And when he wakes up, he's on the spaceship.

Laliari:                                   01:03:47               Commander. Commander.

Jason:                                   01:03:51               Hm?

Laliari:                                   01:03:51               I'm sorry to wake you sir, but your presence is requested on the command deck.

Dean Parisot:                     01:03:55               That's how it was originally conceived. And I s-, uh, I'll admit to you, I sort of saw it like the Wizard of Oz. Right? That, could this be a dream or not?

Dean Parisot:                     01:04:04               Um, but ambiguous, you're never told whether it is or it isn't. That shot of the sp- of the car going up, makes it completely literal.

Dean Parisot:                     01:04:14               Uh, I mean, I get, they were- they were worried that there was a logic problem, that's- that ends up being a lot- studio notes end up o- often being about, uh, believability and logic. But I think they worried that the k-, uh, the kids wouldn't get it.

Sigourney Weaver:          01:04:28               They cut all these scenes to make it a kid friendly movie.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          01:04:31               And then, they just said, "Okay, well, now we're- it's Christmas, it's PG, it's Tim, just finish it."

Bill George:                        01:04:36               The worst day on Galaxy Quest, the darkest day on Galaxy Quest was when Rugrats the Movie came out.

Bill George:                        01:04:50               Because Rugrats the Movie was a G-rated film and it made a butt load of money. And so, all eyes turned to us and like, you need to make this a G movie.

Damon Lindelof:               01:05:01               There's like infamously that moment where Sigourney Weaver is like, she just goes, like, "(beep) this." But they put screw in her mouth.

Gwen:                                  01:05:11               Chompers?

Gwen:                                  01:05:11               Well, screw that.

Speaker 42:                         01:05:18               And you'd be looking at her mouth, it's like...

Speaker 43:                         01:05:19               That's not what she said. Yeah.

Speaker 42:                         01:05:20               It was an F. (laughs)

Speaker 43:                         01:05:21               Huh-uh (negative).

Robert Gordon:                01:05:22               She says another thing but- and you can tell what it is, but he didn't shoot an alternate.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          01:05:26               It's hilarious. And obviously we didn't even cover it. Like, we didn't even try not to do it.

Sigourney Weaver:          01:05:36               Well, fuck that.

Sigourney Weaver:          01:05:40               (laughing)

Sigourney Weaver:          01:05:40               That was terrible.

Chill Mitchell:                     01:05:41               Man, I just want that director's cut, man, 'cause we cussed through that whole movie.

Sigourney Weaver:          01:05:45               You- sometimes you thought, "Well, why don't they appreciate us more? Why don't they see what they have? Don't they see who's in this movie? And haven't they read the script? And don't they see who's directing it? And aren't they really thrilled that- that they have this very special movie?" And honestly, I don't know the answer to that, but you didn't get that feeling. Let's put it that way.

Sigourney Weaver:          01:06:07               It's really a very sophisticated movie.

Dean Parisot:                     01:06:11               With eight year old audiences.

Announcer:                        01:06:14               DreamWorks Pictures presents, Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman. Galaxy Quest.

Dean Parisot:                     01:06:22               What was in danger of happening was that marketing on that movie, which runs, u- usually the show, believed that, that was a Christmas movie for, uh, I would say, eight to 12 years olds. Um, and we believed we were making a movie for everybody.

Chill Mitchell:                     01:06:40               Now, granted, DreamWorks, I think could've did a better job promoting that movie. But I got to give them credit on the fact of, when they cut all of the profanity out of that movie, it worked.

Damon Lindelof:               01:06:53               When it comes to Galaxy Quest, you cannot deny that the movie works. And I wonder, although, I acknowledge that Sigourney Weaver saying, f- in the moment instead of screw would've been funnier. If that limits the movie in any way, uh, Sigourney Weaver or Tim Allen or any of the characters cursing, is the joke worth it, and I would say, I'm kind of siding with keeping it PG in that moment.

Greg Berlanti:                    01:07:16               The artistic process of what makes a diamond, is the two pieces of coal, you know, just rubbing up against each other, and two opposing forces, that really makes something great.

Greg Berlanti:                    01:07:26               It's a horrible process to go through sometimes, but it really does, uh, you know, it's just like when you don't have enough money to make something, it makes you be more creative in a lot of ways.

Speaker 42:                         01:07:35               It was better, family friendly, as a PG movie. I think it worked better.

Speaker 43:                         01:07:38               Those inside jokes that you have, you can have them with your kids. Like, clapping weird, or you know, just the never give up, never surrender, all of that stuff-

Speaker 42:                         01:07:47               You can-

Speaker 43:                         01:07:47               You can do that with your children, and it makes a really good-

Speaker 42:                         01:07:50               Oh, yeah.

Speaker 43:                         01:07:50               A really good shared experience.

Sam Rockwell:                   01:07:52               When I saw it at the Chinese Grauman Theater, I thought the movie was gonna be, (beep) huge.

Speaker 46:                         01:08:00               Oh, not another sci-fi, boys in space movie, where ugly aliens are threatening our universe? I'm afraid it is, it's Galaxy Quest.

Scott Mantz:                      01:08:11               I went straight from seeing Galaxy Quest to a Christmas party, and I was raving about the film. I was like, "Guys, you've gotta see Galaxy Quest." It's got everything you could possibly want in a movie, by any measure. This movie's gonna be a massive hit, but it wasn't.

Mark Johnson:                  01:08:27               And I remember at the premier, we had a premier and it was on a weekend day at the, um, the Graumans. And some people came out, some industry people came out, who are well aware of how a movie's being sold and the expectation, and turned to me and said, "Well, I can't believe how good it is. I had no idea."

Alan Rickman:                    01:08:45               If you think that this is just a film for kids, that would be the first and biggest mistake. Uh, anybody who thinks this is a film, just for eight year olds, big, big mistake.

Speaker 49:                         01:08:54               What I did particularly like about this film, uh, Alan Rickman's wonderful performance as the half reptile, half, uh-

Speaker 46:                         01:09:00               He does that well-

Speaker 49:                         01:09:01               Um-

Speaker 46:                         01:09:01               Doesn't he?

Speaker 49:                         01:09:01               Whose makeup is sort of falling apart.

Speaker 46:                         01:09:02               Yes. (laughs)

Speaker 49:                         01:09:02               Sigourney Weaver's a blond bimbo- I mean, wonderful things. I think. I think it's a lovely film.

Speaker 46:                         01:09:06               Uh, do you know what? I think it actually hits what it aims for, which happens very rarely with a film.

Mark Johnson:                  01:09:11               Just more people should've seen that movie.

Chill Mitchell:                     01:09:14               Dude you made the perfect gumbo, but you forgot to invite people to dinner, man.

Tim Allen:                            01:09:19               You never got the sci-fi car- you couldn't tell what the movie was.

Sigourney Weaver:          01:09:22               They needed a kid's movie and they- they chose this one. But it still, you know, managed to find, uh, uh, and audience, and, um, and kind of, you know, become a beloved movie.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          01:09:37               It wasn't a flop. It looked like it was gonna be a flop. It dug itself out of being a flop, by the virtue of it being good.

Tim Allen:                            01:09:44               It did, in fact, cover every single base. It got serious, then it got stupid, and then, it got funny, then it got clever. Then, it was more clever than new.

Speaker 50:                         01:09:51               I remember the feeling, when I saw it. I just kinda went, phew. You know? Good. That actually came together okay. (laughs)

Tony Shalhoub:                 01:10:00               More- more than that, it was just really satisfying to hear, to get calls or emails from people who- who really, really got it. And- and it just- it went on their list, right away as- as one of their favorites. You know?

Brent Spiner:                      01:10:14               Patrick saw it and was blown away by it, and, uh, what did he say? He said, uh, to Dean?

Brent Spiner:                      01:10:22               "Let me say something to you, I love this film."

Speaker 52:                         01:10:26               It wasn't until I got older like around, I got, uh, became a teenager, I really just noticed all the writing, all the jokes, all the like, clever satire it pointed out.

Speaker 53:                         01:10:34               It's one of my favorite films. I have it on my- on my phone, so I can watch it anytime I want on the airplane.

Damon Lindelof:               01:10:41               There is a symbiotic relationship between artist and fan. We love this thing and we want- we want to honor it. And the artist said, "We would not be here without you."

Greg Berlanti:                    01:10:50               There's no doubt that the relationship between storytellers and artists and fans, is a much more intimate one. The metaness of something like Galaxy Quest, w- was one of the first stories to kind of really shine a light on something like that and to really exploit it. And not be afraid of it.

Damon Lindelof:               01:11:07               When, uh, JJ and Alex and Bob and Brian Burke and I first got together to talk about whether or not we should make Star Trek, as a movie. We talked about Galaxy Quest incessantly. In fact, we all referred to Galaxy Quest as the second best Trek movie.

Damon Lindelof:               01:11:21               So, I'd say that Galaxy Quest had a tremendous tonal effect on certainly the first Trek.

Charles Newirth:              01:11:28               I'm- I'm working- been working at Marvel lately and Kevin Feige is a huge fan of Galaxy Quest, as are all of the production, creative production executives over there, because why wouldn't they be?

Elizabeth Cantillon:          01:11:39               I mean, Dean could've directed Guardians of the Galaxy, I think.

Dean Parisot:                     01:11:41               I love Guardians of the Galaxy. I thought it was great.

Rainn Wilson:                     01:11:44               I'm sure James Gunn and I spoke about Galaxy Quest. Yeah, knowing James, I'm sure it's a- it's a huge f- favorite of his.

Mark Johnson:                  01:11:51               So, I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy, which I liked a lot. And I said, you know, this is clearly sprung from the loins of Galaxy Quest.

Dean Parisot:                     01:12:00               What a great compliment too, though, I mean, like, that- I mean, the- there's DNA from other things in Galaxy Quest. It's- it's like that DNA keeps getting passed on. Just so long as you pull it off, it's fine.

Mark Johnson:                  01:12:10               And it made me go back to Galaxy Quest and said, "Let's reexamine it, let's talk about what to do with it."

Paul Scheer:                       01:12:17               I've been a fan for forever, and I was having a meeting at Paramount and they said, "You know, we have a lot of interesting properties here, is there anything that you would ever be interested in- in working on?

Paul Scheer:                       01:12:30               And I was like, "Well, the one thing that you have that I love is Galaxy Quest." I said, "But I mean, I don't think that's ever gonna happen." And they're like, "Actually, do you wanna do that?" And I was like, "Uh... and I immediately said, no." I was like, "No, no. I mean, I love it, but I'm not, I can't do that. That's- I can't- you can't do that."

Paul Scheer:                       01:12:47               And then, I- I left that meeting, and on the ride home, I- I was just- like just getting filled with ideas. Like, "Oh, we could do that and we could do this and we could do this."

Paul Scheer:                       01:12:56               It was the first time I ever like, went home and immediately called the person I just had the meeting with. I was like, "I- I think I have an idea. I- I have an idea." And they were like, "Really? Okay." I was like, "Yeah, yeah. I- I want to talk to somebody about it."

Speaker 55:                         01:13:07               It's a great time to be a '90s kid. A T.V. series based on Galaxy Quest, is officially in the works.

Sam Rockwell:                   01:13:14               I was gonna do, uh, yeah, the Amazon thing. Um-

Tim Allen:                            01:13:17               All the stars were aligning to re- reestablish. Everybody said, yes.

Sam Rockwell:                   01:13:22               You know, and I had some scenes with Alan. You know, I had a couple scenes with Alan, you know?

Robert Gordon:                01:13:25               Miraculously everybody wanted to do it, including, I had heard, Alan. And, um, then that just, uh, you know?

Patrick Breen:                    01:13:37               I saw him, um, about six weeks before he passed away, he came to see a play that I was doing in New York and we saw him back stage and he was a little frail and, uh, he said, he had had a stroke. You know?

Patrick Breen:                    01:13:49               And we were like, "Are you kid- what?" You know, it was, uh, but he s- he was with his wife, and he was, you know, came to the theater. He flew to New York and see plays. And, uh, we went to dinner afterwards, and he was, you know, just funny and sweet and was so lovely. And then, he died, like, six weeks later. But he didn't want us to know that he was dying. He had said, he had had a stroke.

Patrick Breen:                    01:14:10               And so, that the evening was not, in any way morbid, or sad. It was just another little, Alan's here, he's getting better and- and, um, (laughs).

Patrick Breen:                    01:14:18               I don't think he'd mind me saying this, but, uh, I hope not, Alan. Forgive me. But, uh, he had to drop out of a project, because of his illness. Uh, it was because of his stroke, he had said. And they said, and he goes like, and I go like, "Oh, who got the role." And he goes like, "Bill Nye." With great disdain. (laughs)

Sigourney Weaver:          01:14:49               Uh, well, I think his work is... first of all, you knew right away that here was such a brilliant actor who didn't take himself seriously. Who probably on some level, like me with [inaudible 01:15:03], felt he could've had a very different career, if maybe times were different or he had had different goals. That he could've been a great King Leer or what have you. Um, and he brought all that truth to it.

Sigourney Weaver:          01:15:15               Um, and Alan was such a truthful, um, actor. You know, honestly, I can't imagine our- our little ensemble without, uh, um, Alan particularly. But without any one of us, um, but I think the fact that Alan Rickman had chosen to come over and do this was- with us, w- gave us such legitimacy, you know?

Tony Shalhoub:                 01:15:38               He just, he- he was funny and sardonic, and caustic and...

Sam Rockwell:                   01:15:44               His bedside manner would seem, sort of, misanthropic.

Elizabeth Cantillon:          01:15:48               And the thing that I remember most about him, the d- day we were saying goodbye, I said, "Thank you so much for being in this movie, um, it's been great to work with you." And he said, " It's been fun, intermittently." (laughs)

Sam Rockwell:                   01:16:08               Actually, he was the opposite of that. He was such a kind-hearted, affable, beautiful guy, but he had this very sort of dry, you know, English thing, where he sorta seems like he's over everything, which made him very funny. But actually he's one of the kind- he was one of the kindest people. You know? Out there.

Tim Allen:                            01:16:28               Instead of judging me, he accepted me. And acceptance is a huge thing to have somebody accept it. Not only accept it, but then honor who- who I was.

Enrico Colantoni:              01:16:38               Uh, he was the first movie star that wanted to be my friend.

Justin Long:                        01:16:44               I did a play, I, um, years later, that he was just leaving. So, um, and I s- such a huge regret. We had a- a couple performances where I could've entered the play early and had overlap and done it with him, and I- and I f- and I felt like I wasn't ready, and I- I got a card in my dressing room that just said, uh... in really like, in, uh, in really like, um, flowing cursive, uh, and then, there's a sunset, it just said, "(beep) you." (laughs)

Justin Long:                        01:17:14               That's really funny.

Justin Long:                        01:17:16               And then the stuff inside was really sweet and he w- but it was the funniest. Uh, he just had a great sense of humor.

Alexander:                          01:17:21               By Grabthar's Hammer.

Damon Lindelof:               01:17:23               When we meet Sir Alexander Dane, he does not wanna say, by Grabthar's Hammer anymore.

Quellek:                               01:17:30               By Grabthar's hammer, Dr. Lazarus?

Alexander:                          01:17:32               Don't do that. I'm not kidding.

Quellek:                               01:17:34               I'm sorry sir, I was only-

Alexander:                          01:17:35               Just don't.

Damon Lindelof:               01:17:37               The whole movie is a set up for, can we create a moment where- where this actor, in character, as Dr. Lazarus actually says that line and means it for the first time, and that's the moment in Galaxy Quest.

Alexander:                          01:17:50               Quellek.

Patrick Breen:                    01:17:50               He just gets really centered, and he gives Quellek this gift.

Alexander:                          01:17:57               By Grabthar's Hammer, by the Sons of Warvan, you shall be avenged.

Patrick Breen:                    01:18:10               And I got to, you know, watch him do it. It was just magical.

Damon Lindelof:               01:18:16               Every time I see that, I get chills. I remember when I saw Galaxy Quest in the theater, the entire audience, just went quiet when it happened. It's like... and we were just laughing like 20 seconds ago, 'cause Tony Shalhoub blew some dudes out of a door and now here we are in this very intense emotional moment.

Harold Weir:                       01:18:33               He hates the line, but yet then, he understands, he then, understands what it really means. And that- that's, you know, that's his aha moment in the movie was that this really does mean something. You know?

Roxanne Weir:                  01:18:44               Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Damon Lindelof:               01:18:45               That's Galaxy Quest's, you know, enduring gift to all of us.

Harold Weir:                       01:18:49               The reason why we even did the crew in the first place, was when Alan Rickman died, I made Dr. Lazarus' prosthetic head, wearing those costumes, and me as Dr. Lazarus as a tribute to him.

Harold Weir:                       01:19:16               By Grabthar's Hammer, you know, that's when I'm, uh, when I'm doing Alan Rickman's character. That's- that's, you know, probably-

Roxanne Weir:                  01:19:22               He never says it-

Harold Weir:                       01:19:23               Oh, yeah.

Roxanne Weir:                  01:19:24               But when someone says it to him-

Harold Weir:                       01:19:25               I mastered that line one more time.

Roxanne Weir:                  01:19:26               He turns around and says that.

Harold Weir:                       01:19:26               Yes.

Roxanne Weir:                  01:19:34               There's a Galaxy Quest-

Harold Weir:                       01:19:36               Yes.

Roxanne Weir:                  01:19:36               Viewing.

Harold Weir:                       01:19:37               Today, at the Regent.

Bret Berg:                            01:19:40               I put many shows together here at this venue and I totally thought, "Oh, the upper ceiling is like, 200 people." And then when we sold out over 400 people, in 48 hours.

Roxanne Weir:                  01:19:54               I mean it's a family affair, right? If you're gonna do something crazy, it- it makes it nice if you do it together, because then you have something to talk about.

Roxanne Weir:                  01:20:03               Stop it.

Roxanne Weir:                  01:20:04               If you would just stop for one second, I would be done.

Harold Weir:                       01:20:06               I get off work at four, so I've been sewing from five o'clock until midnight for nine days.

Speaker 58:                         01:20:12               And he remade the suits, how many times?

Harold Weir:                       01:20:14               This is my fourth generation of suit.

Roxanne Weir:                  01:20:15               I'm excited to see the screenwriter and the director.

Harold Weir:                       01:20:19               Mathesar, Enrico Colantoni. Yes, he's my hero. I mean, he is my hero. I, uh, (laughs), but I'll have a- I mean, if I never meet him, I'll be a f- I'll okay, but his is my hero. Like, the Thermian ones, um, basically Roxanne and I will take these two. Okay?

Speaker 58:                         01:20:33               Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Harold Weir:                       01:20:33               Okay?

Harold Weir:                       01:20:34               (laughing)

Harold Weir:                       01:20:34               That's v- this is so much fun. I love being a Th- I love being a Thermian it's so much fun.

Speaker 58:                         01:20:38               It's more of a- a- an ohmage. Kind of like the film itself was. It seems only fair to say thank- it's us saying thank you for this awesome experience. You know?

Roxanne Weir:                  01:21:01               Dean.

Dean Parisot:                     01:21:01               Oh, great. (laughs)

Roxanne Weir:                  01:21:01               Look at Dean for me.

Dean Parisot:                     01:21:01               Cool.

Speaker 50:                         01:21:01               It's white.

Speaker 50:                         01:21:01               (laughing)

Dean Parisot:                     01:21:01               I like white hair. I really do.

Speaker 59:                         01:21:18               I think I'm most excited about the fact that people are still celebrating Galaxy Quest. Even though it's been years and years, and it was just a movie. It wasn't part of a big franchise or anything. But the fact that there's an event like this going on, just makes my heart sing.

Harold Weir:                       01:21:33               Um, let's go find some seats.

Speaker 60:                         01:21:33               Okay, if we can take- everyone can take their seats now.

Dean Parisot:                     01:21:54               By the end of the movie, you are celebrating that, right? That, that is actually an amazing thing that we do. That we can just give up everything and lose ourselves in this thing.

Brent Spiner:                      01:22:10               For the most part, the nerds have inherited the earth. You know? So, they were right.

Enrico Colantoni:              01:22:48               My whole pitch has gone down in 18 years, I don't think I could do that.

Robert Gordon:                01:22:52               Try it.

Speaker 62:                         01:23:03               So, we have Thermians here in the audience. H- how does this feel to you to see that?

Dean Parisot:                     01:23:08               Th- this is like a meta on top of a meta, on top of meta. Yeah.

Speaker 62:                         01:23:12               Did Harold regret it, did he ever say?

Mark Johnson:                  01:23:15               He saw the movie, loved it and he said, "It's the biggest mistake I made."

Speaker 62:                         01:23:19               How do you see the legacy of Galaxy Quest?

Dean Parisot:                     01:23:22               Legacy?

Dean Parisot:                     01:23:37               ( laughing)

Charles Newirth:              01:23:41               Every film has its own personality. Every film has its own life. And, uh, you could see the love behind the camera on the screen.

Dean Parisot:                     01:23:50               What is the value of this thing we all do, about what movies are and how we do them, and why they're worth something, and how we can mock them all we want, but eventually we fall for it.

Wil Wheaton:                    01:24:04               Being a nerd isn't about the thing you love, it's about the way that you love it.

Wil Wheaton:                    01:24:10               I think that a lot of people who grow up as outsiders, we can find a home in science fiction, because it tells us, that thing that makes you weird, in the world that you live in, it actually makes you incredibly valuable, and really special in our world.

Harold Weir:                       01:24:36               He's my hero.