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Non-Trek Worldbuilding 2: Galaxy Quest.

The Laredo character is a great bit of worldbuilding because "the child one" is so engrained in 20th century scifi that you immediately 'know' what you're dealing with, even without it being a Trek 1:1.

Galaxy Quest also has an edge over other parodies in that Sarris and his heavies really are proper bad guys, in that they're generally not funny (it's the reaction to them that's funny), bluntly violent, and it's made clear that the cast gave been extremely lucky because in a straight fight Sarris  does kill them.
 
David Flin said:
OK. I admit it. I couldn't wait to read @Thande 's take on Galaxy Quest, which you can find here. Simply a great movie.
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I fully agree. Especially with the mention of it being the best Star Trek film ever made, I've said that myself more than once.

I watched the Making Of documentary not too long ago, we were lucky to get the film (as it is) at all given that the production fell lucky - the team were protected from basically all executive meddling by the studio thinking of it as a B Movie while they all fretted about some supposedly prestigeous second film. The name of which escapes me entirely.

So we had the twin boons of a cast and crew who really cared about the world they were portraying and a studio that left them alone to make what they actually wanted to make.
 
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I'll put this on social media tomorrow I think to avoid getting in the way of the Drake's Drum release, if I get permission from myself first.

I already knew about the aesthetics stuff but it was interesting to research how Mathesar's actor came up with the alien mannerisms.
 
Anybody else having trouble opening the article on mobile devices? I get a “widget didn’t load” error message on my phone.
 
Explaining why Galaxy Quest has worldbuilding makes an important point about that particular facet of storytelling that it doesn't need to be some ancient lost continent or far-flung alien civilisation to do worldbuilding. Some of the best I've ever seen is in the film The Outlaw Josey Wales and that covers an historical time period rather than any imagined civilisation.
Charles EP M. said:
Thought: the romance plot means she's not just Uhura, she's also a Yeoman Rand who wasn't written out. She even has similar hair!
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Also the mention of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century makes me think there is an influence of Erin Gray in that programme.

The Chen (Kwan [Shalhoub]) aspect is an interesting one because its plain to see that there was some intent to comment on yellowface but winds up not making it.

There's this similarity between Galaxy Quest and The Orville that when tasked to come up with "Star Trek, but different enough that Paramount won't sue" were forced to think creatively in a way those same crews would not had they just been given the exact same job on Star Trek. I suppose there is more freedom in imitation than there is in continuation. Trying to think of some other examples: Lucas not getting the rights to Flash Gordon so creating Star Wars instead; Moore's Watchmen doing more with its own characters than it would have been able to had the original idea of using Charlton Comics characters been kept; Minority Report going from being a sequel to Total Recall to its own film.
 
Evangelion is littered with influences from Gerry Anderson but by also being its own thing, it gets to be the influence now (and everyone thinks they're pastiching Eva's intro and not that Anno was copying UFO's)
 
Charles EP M. said:
Evangelion is littered with influences from Gerry Anderson but by also being its own thing, it gets to be the influence now (and everyone thinks they're pastiching Eva's intro and not that Anno was copying UFO's)
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Coincidentally, was watching the documentary First Person Shooter yesterday and it was mentioned that some of the costumes for Joanna Dark in Perfect Dark were lifted directly from UFO.
 
varyar said:
Anybody else having trouble opening the article on mobile devices? I get a “widget didn’t load” error message on my phone.
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RyanF said:
The same.
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I just got the error message now when loading the article to link to it, but after a moment it cleared and the article loaded. On PC not phone. Varyar can you read it now? I assume Ryan can as he commented on it below.
 
Thande said:
I just got the error message now when loading the article to link to it, but after a moment it cleared and the article loaded. On PC not phone. Varyar can you read it now? I assume Ryan can as he commented on it below.
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Works on my phone now, yes.
 
Thande said:
I just got the error message now when loading the article to link to it, but after a moment it cleared and the article loaded. On PC not phone. Varyar can you read it now? I assume Ryan can as he commented on it below.
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I read it via laptop, which is where I always read them before commenting properly.
 
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Charles EP M. said:
Thought: the romance plot means she's not just Uhura, she's also a Yeoman Rand who wasn't written out. She even has similar hair!
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There’s also some TNG references in the movie beyond Laredo/Wesley. Gwen makes a comment about how in interviews she always gets questions about the engineering of her bra, which is something that Marina Sirtis also complained about.

Then there’s Alexander Dane. Dr Lazarus is the Spock equivalent, but the prosthetic make-up and warlike culture is reminiscent of Worf. Also Dane having a background as a Shakespearian actor is a bit of a nod towards Patrick Stewart.
 
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