Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Sixteen years after the cancelation of the TV show Galaxy Quest, the ensemble cast ekes out a living signing autographs at fan conventions and making appearances at store openings. Lucky for them, the gig of a lifetime comes along when they're recruited by an alien race—which has been watching the show as the TV signal races through space, believing it to depict real life on Earth—to rescue them from a band of outer-space warriors.

Tom Norton calls this the best Star Trek film ever made—and he may be right. The story, which spoofs Star Trek, its fans, and even out-of-work actors, is wildly entertaining. Furthermore, the casting is perfect, with Tim Allen as the pompous captain, Sigourney Weaver as the hot blonde, and Alan Rickman as the resentful Royal Shakespearean actor whose career was sidetracked by the popular TV role. I've read some pretty funny comments from Patrick Stewart and other Star Trek veterans that praise the film not only for its parody, but how the fans who understood the science behind the show end up being the true heroes in the end—how fitting!

Remastered earlier this year for its DVD release in May, I was disappointed that the Blu-ray wasn't released at the same time. Regardless, it's here now, and it looks pretty good. The sun-baked flesh tones found on the 2000 DVD release are gone, and the result is a more natural presentation. Colors have more pop—as they should with the expanded HD color gamut—and the black level is much deeper and more stable with improved shadow detail. At times, the image can look a tad soft and flat, but the CGI-intensive scenes and alien make-up hold up pretty well in the AVC/1080p encode.

I've always been a fan of the DTS 5.1 soundtrack found on the DVD release, and the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track on the Blu-ray is even better. Bass is tighter, panning effects have more realism, and dialog sounds live, not recorded. The third act features some impressive discrete effects with plenty of action from every speaker, and the score from David Newman has never sounded better.

Special features include a making-of featurette entitled "Historical Documents: The Story of Galaxy Quest," which offers recent interviews with the cast and crew; a closer look at the characters in "Never Give Up, Never Surrender: The Intrepid Crew of the NSEA Protector"; "By Grabthar's Hammer, What Amazing Special Effects," a short featurette on the special effects; and "Alien School: Creating the Thermian Race," which pertains to the aliens depicted in the film. Additional supplements include a somewhat embarrassing rap video by Sigourney Weaver, seven deleted scenes, a Thermian audio track (which gets extremely annoying within a couple of minutes), and the theatrical trailer (HD).

Instead of my usual conclusion, I'll leave you with some words from William Shatner regarding the film, courtesy of Wikipedia: "I thought it was very funny, and I thought the audience that they portrayed was totally real, but the actors that they were pretending to be were totally unrecognizable. Certainly I don't know what Tim Allen was doing. He seemed to be the head of a group of actors, and for the life of me, I was trying to understand who he was imitating. The only one I recognized was the girl playing Nichelle Nichols." Classic! Highly Recommended.

Release Date: November 17, 2009
Studio: Paramount

Movie: 9/10
Picture: 8/10
Sound: 9/10

Review System

Source
Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player

Display
JVC DLA-RS1 projector
Stewart FireHawk screen (76.5" wide, 16:9)

Electronics
Onkyo Pro PR-SC885 pre/pro
Anthem PVA-7 power amplifier
Belkin PF60 power conditioner

Speakers
M&K S-150s (L, C, R)
M&K SS-150s (LS, RS, SBL, SBR)
SVS PC-Ultra subwoofer

Cables
Monoprice HDMI cables (source to pre/pro)
Best Deal analog-audio cables
PureLink HDC Fiber Optic HDMI Cable System (15 meters) from pre/pro to projector

Acoustical treatments from GIK Acoustics