Never Give Up, Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary (2019)

Director: Jack Bennett

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tim Allen, Sam Rockwell, Justin Long

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. It had been on my list of things to watch on Amazon Prime for a while, though.

Did I Like It: It’s a mostly fine film, of a piece with other fan celebration documentaries like Back in Time (2015), Ghostheads (2016), or What We Left Behind (2019). The stars are interviewed. The fans are interviewed. Hopefully a couple of things the viewer didn’t previously know are examined, or at least examined more deeply than they were previously known. Everyone who liked the original thing comes away with a nice warm feeling. It isn’t the cutting edge of documentary, but I can easily think of worse ways to spend an hour and a half.

I had known at one point that the late, great, Harold Ramis had once been on board to direct the film but dropped out. He made Analyze This (1999), a film that would have likely collapsed in on itself without Ramis, so everything worked out. I had no clue that it was largely over the casting of Allen, and it was nice to hear that there were no harsh feelings over the issue, just an honest disagreement.

The debate over the casting of Jason Nesmith/Commander Taggart is the most revelatory information. Ramis’ number one choice of Kevin Kline would have been interesting, as he is a comedic actor of the first order, but his on screen persona has always felt far away from the Shatner energy that Allen would be charged with channeling. Bruce Willis and/or Alec Baldwin might have worked, but only if they believed in the movie. Either one of the sleep walking through the film wouldn’t have worked, and the whole film would probably be unwatchable in the here and now if Mel Gibson fought the rock monster.

The one failing of the film is that it didn’t take a deeper dive in the one subject this film could touch on, and we aren’t likely to see any elaboration on anywhere else. Just before the inimitable Alan Rickman passed away, production was going full speed ahead on a sequel miniseries for Amazon Prime. They talk about briefly, and with appropriate sadness, but What We Left Behind creates hypothetical future material for that series out of nothing. This film doesn’t touch on where the characters ended up and what they would be doing now, and there were even scripts written on that project. It’s a missed opportunity in an otherwise perfectly fine experience.

Galaxy Quest (1999)

Director: Dean Parisot

Cast: Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shaloub, Sam Rockwell

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, come on. What do you think? I saw it opening weekend.

Did I Like It: It’s beloved for the reason. Many people count it among the best Star Trek films, and even a few people place it as number one, ahead of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). That, to me, feels like too much.

The special effects don’t age exceptionally well, yet another casualty of relatively early CGI without a lot of artistry behind them. The space battles and weird phenomena (more on that later) probably wouldn’t pass muster on a Star Trek television series from the same era.

But that hardly matters. The Wrath of Khan is the best version of these films, and large swaths of its VFX footage are pulled directly from the previous film. This film is great great. Every joke lands, and the thought that Tim Allen could give a performance that has any sort of dramatic believability without shielding himself with Pixar’s plastic seems ridiculous, but there he is, making us believe in Nesmith’s anguish at having to be found out as a fraud. The movie absolutely hinges on that scene, and he delivers.

I would say it is inarguably in the top half of Trek films, and just precisely where in the ranking depends on your average. The film precisely hits all of the targets it wishes to satirize, while never looking down on the subject, minus a chomper sequence or two. There are few comedies that work on the same level. A film like Last Action Hero (1993) may aim for the same territory, but struggles to connect on almost every level. The only film I can think of that qualifies is Young Frankenstein (1974). Even Blazing Saddles (1974)* never quite works for me, and I’m imagining most of the world does not want to hear the aggressive shrug I have for Spaceballs (1987).

So why am I not putting it at number 1? Well, primarily, I don’t think I’ll ever let go of my perhaps irrational love of The Wrath of Khan, but more specifically, there is a moment in this film that grates on my nerves and feels like rocks rattling around in my head whenever it plays out. Just at the end, when Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell) flies the Protector back to Earth, he says that he has to go through a black hole. Which they then do.

I wouldn’t normally want to reach for the Neal deGrasse Tyson angle of criticism, but that isn’t how wormholes work! Nesmith even asks if there is any objection to going through the black hole, and everyone sort of goes along with it. I do. I have an objection, but they didn’t ask me. Trek and other space opera clearly flies in the face of real science regularly by virtue of its very existence, but that just seemed like a silly moment that doesn’t even function as a joke.

If they had said wormhole, I’d be fine. They edited around Sigourney Weaver saying “fuck,” they couldn’t have fixed this? If it had been, the whole thing might be, as David Mamet of all people claims, one of the few perfect films of all time. As it stands, it is quite excellent.

*Hard to deny that Mel Brooks had a hell of a year in 1974. Regardless of my particular tastes, the only other single calendar year where a single director made two verifiable classics that stand the test of time, is 1939, where both The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind were credited to Victor Fleming. Although the auteur theory was at least two years away from having any undeniable case studies, and he had to abandon the former in order to take over the later. Here’s a good question: why am I spending all of this time on my review of Galaxy Quest talking about this? The world may never know.

Toy Story 4 (2019)

Director: Josh Cooley

Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Tony Hale

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Honestly wasn’t even sure I wanted to see it. I mean, the story ended with Toy Story 3 (2010), right?

Did I Like It: I’m absolutely baffled by the realization that—without this story—the story of Sheriff Woody (Hanks) would be tragically incomplete.

I’ll do you one better than that and issue an even more bold statement about this movie:

Woody’s odyssey is the single greatest Buddhist story since Groundhog Day (1993). Think about it. Really, the Toy Story series up until this point is about being locked in a cycle of suffering. Woody and company are in danger of becoming lost. Through their own cleverness, and by defeating some kind of dark heavy (in the guise of Sid, Stinky Pete, or Lotso) are once again back in the arms of a kid, and once again left to contemplate their inevitable planned obsolescence.

It’s always thrilling and more often than not heart-warming, but it is inevitably destined to repeat itself. Even the transfer from Andy to Bonnie that got the characters a new lease on life only begins the cycle again.

It is only when Woody is able to let go of his attachments that he is able to find any sort of evergreen peace and happiness. He even let’s Buzz take the lead role with Bonnie nee Andy’s toys, a prospect that drove Woody to attempted murder in years past. It’s a profound emotional journey that would be impressive in any film, much less the fourth entry in a franchise twenty-five years old. And it is the men this time that are afforded what might have in a previous era been the more feminine emotional (or at least more sensitive) journey. Even Buzz (Allen) who gets comparatively little to do is trying to find his inner voice, paying some comedic dividends. It’s the women who are the action heroes. Even the supposed heavy in Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) isn’t thoroughly a villain and gets to enjoy the fruits of a world that was never really a zero sum game.

Instead of being an afterthought, this (now we can all say final, right?) entry in the series is perhaps the most thought-provoking animated film I’ve ever seen.

Although I’m a little miffed that my super-duper special complete toy-box blu ray collection of the first three films is going to have to find someway to get along with a copy of this movie on my shelf. A minor complaint.