I thought I’d written this before!
In the earlier part of this century, I wrote a series of
essays for an online discussion group called THE FRIDAY CHALLENGE. The editor
Bruce Bethke, challenged all sorts of my pre-conceptions, the first one being
to explore why Michael Shaara, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE KILLER
ANGELS had dropped out of the science fiction business...
At any rate, I also wrote comebacks for the critical
panning of “Green Lantern” and its star, Ryan Reynolds; as well as against the lukewarm
reception of “Men In Black 3”. I even wrote at paean to the archetype time
travel movies, “Back To The Future”.
I could have sworn I’d written about “Galaxy Quest”…but I
was mistaken and today I’ll take make a few of my own observations.
First of all is that GQ was entirely a parody of Star
Trek: The Original Series. While this is obviously true, it was far more than
that. Certainly, it used ST:TOS as a
jumping off point to show what the writers might have done with the show using
today’s sensibilities and technology.
But it was more than just a parody. For example, toward
the end of the movie, the alien Quellek is murdered by the aliens who serve
Sarris, a vaguely lobster-oid alien with a screwed in eyepatch like the Klingon
captain, Chang in “ST: The Undiscovered Country”. Unlike Spock, whom Rickman is
intended to mock, his character Dr. Lazarus is not only intelligent, but caring
and passionate as well. The moment Quellek dies is a turning point for the
character Alexander Dane – all of a sudden, he realizes that there has been an
underlying power in the part he’d played so blithely for the three years the
show was in production (this is never mentioned so I assume that the length was
the same as ST:TOS).
While virtually all the reviews I read dealt with the
parody aspect of the film, how well it was executed, how closely it paralleled
ST, and how everyone fell off their seats laughing, I believe there was
something more. I believe GQ mocked all of us and our absurd glorification of
unreality.
The Thermians in the movie are part of a highly advanced
technological civilization, that much is undeniable given the movie’s premise,
going so far as to use some sort of technology hinted at in another ST
television show, VOYAGER. In that series, technology was used that I have never
seen discussed anywhere: circuitry in the form of “neural gel packs”. GQ makes
graphic note that the Thermians use such technology when the “phaser pistol” is
crushed by the “chompers” leaving a gun’s shell in a mass of bluish goo. They
have a tremendous ethical system as well, being not only unfamiliar with lies
and deceit, but also incapable of subterfuge: it takes no prompting at all from
Captain Nesmith to induce them to tell the entire truth about their captain and
show the graphic video files of her torture and demise. They refer to the GQ
series episodes as historical documents.
This seems to tickle the funny bones of the reviewers of
the movie – and not once does anyone mention that we are as naïve as the
Thermians. We’re not as virtuous, nor are we as technologically advanced, nor
are we as brave, nor as committed to relationships – but we are as idiotic in
how we watch television and use all of the other media at our disposal (and I
mean that in the literal sense).
We avidly watch “reality” TV – shows like THE BIGGEST
LOSER and AMERICAN IDOL and SURVIVOR suck us into their universes and we gobble
them up without pausing to think that the weekly “show” we watch is editorial
cuts, compilations, and intentional deceit made to lead us to absurd
conclusions that we too can lose hundreds of pounds; become a superstar;
survive horrendous conditions – all on our own. The TV shows are, after all,
sold as “reality TV”.
When Mathesar, the leader of the last remnant of Thermian
civilization finally realizes that GQ was a lie, he is horrified. He realizes to
Sarris’ huge amusement, that everything his people believed is false.
That would be a great message, but GQ insists on giving our
“reality TV” shows back to us by saying, “Nah! Just kidding! BIGGEST LOSER,
AMERICAN IDOL, SURVIVOR… they’re all really real!!! You can win the
Powerball!!!! You can really win the Publisher’s Clearing House zillion dollar
grand prize!!!!! Hahahahaha!!!!!!! We were just kidding about ‘reality’!!!!!!!
We are reality...”
And that is what I think is the saddest thing about the
movie. It had a chance to say something important. It said it.
Then it chickened out and unsaid it.
*sigh*
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