Galaxy Quest TV Series Coming to Paramount+
Paramount has taken “Never give up, never surrender” to heart. The Hollywood Reporter has learned that a TV series follow-up to Galaxy Quest, the sci-fi comedy film from 1999, is being developed for Paramount+. Galaxy Quest starred Tim Allen, Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, and Daryl Mitchell as the stars of a decades-old Star Trek-like TV show called Galaxy Quest (with Sam Rockwell as the show’s version of a Red Shirt) who are abducted by aliens who think the show was real and ask the actors to save them from an evil dictator. It’s a great homage to Star Trek and a lot of fun on its own accord. A sequel was being planned years ago, but when Alan Rickman passed away, it was shelved. Now, it’s back, and it’s being developed by Mark Johnson, an executive producer on the film; they’re currently looking for a writer. The original actors were involved in the previous attempt to revive the film, but this series is in early development, so nothing is set in stone.
Coincidentally, I watched Galaxy Quest the other night, having not seen it in several years. It’s a great movie, funny but also human, with the characters going through arcs forcing them to rise to the occasion and become the heroes they once played on television. (In his book Bambi vs. Godzilla, legendary filmmaker/playwright David Mamet cited Galaxy Quest as an example of what he considers a perfect movie; at first, I thought he was making a joke, but he went into detail about it.) It’s also a love letter to fans, and not just Star Trek fans; the movie forces jaded actors tired of being known for a sci-fi show to see themselves through their fans’ eyes and realize why they matter to so many people. It’s more relevant today than it was when it was made, which is probably a big part of why it’s endured as a favorite among genre fans.
So, right off the bat, it feels like the spirit of Galaxy Quest is unlikely to be maintained today. There are rare movies and shows that celebrate fans – or at least simply give them what they want without calling them racists – but those are outliers, and when they show up in a theater or on TV, they’re treated like one of those two-headed snakes you see pictures of in magazines. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is one such movie, and the implications of its success are palpable, but it didn’t take a week for Disney to learn nothing and start calling everyone who doesn’t like the trailer for The Marvels a bigot. I don’t know on which side of that line Mark Johnson falls. The Hollywood Reporter cites his work for AMC, where he produced Breaking Bad (one of the greatest TV shows of all time) and Interview with the Vampire (where the main character from the book and movie – a wealthy French landowner from the Antebellum South who owned slaves – is now black). But one bet is safer.
There’s also the reality that all of these people are much older now. That was part of the gag in Galaxy Quest; the actors were twenty years older and hadn’t moved on from the show that made them famous, in some cases because they were typecast and in others because they were content to milk it for everything it was worth. One of the better sight gags, as well as a commentary on the pitfalls of being a child actor, is Daryl Mitchell’s Tommy Webber, who was a kid when the show aired and is now an adult stuck reliving the character he played before he was ten years old. That integral aspect of the story is no longer relevant, and even if they try, it’ll just feel like a lazy retread. (How’s that for meta-irony?)
Aside from all of that, the elephant in the room is that Alan Rickman is gone. Rickman’s Alexander Dane, who played the Spock-like Dr. Lazarus, was perhaps the best part of the movie, a Shakespearean actor stuck attending sci-fi conventions and repeating arch dialogue from a show about lasers and spaceships to teenagers who’ve never seen the inside of a real theater. But by the end, he got it; he understood what Dr. Lazarus meant to these people by seeing the sacrifices those who loved him were willing to make because of the example he set, and he became the character he once despised. It goes without saying that Rickman was perfect in every beat, and no one else can play Alexander Dane. So, what does the show do now? Do they recast the role? I don’t think anyone who loves Galaxy Quest would accept that. Leave him out? Then it’s not the same because a big part of the magic that made Galaxy Quest so special is gone.
Finally, what’s the point? What would the story be? The Thermeans need their help again? Some other alien race thinks TV shows from Earth are real and abducts them for a different mission? Aliens invade Earth, and the Galaxy Quest cast members have to fight them? These all feel like silly excuses to go back to the well. The film was a singular experience that forever changed these people. It also ended on the perfect note, with the cast reviving Galaxy Quest on television. There’s nowhere to go from there; they’ve had their arcs and are better, humbler, more appreciative people who share a secret no one else in the world knows – alien life exists, and the cosmos are vaster than any of us can imagine. That should be enough. I love Galaxy Quest, and I’m immensely glad it exists and that I’ll be able to watch it whenever I want, but I don’t need more of it. Sometimes, a story has to end at its logical conclusion, and Galaxy Quest did that. Look what’s happening to virtually every other IP out there – including the one Galaxy Quest is based on – and take the win.
And if they’re planning on remaking it with a new cast, they need to get someone to locate their souls.
