Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary

David Mamet said that? That's amazing.

- "Galaxy Quest" is the story of a group of actors

who were on a sci-fi television series real similar

to the original "Star Trek."

- By Grabthar's Hammer we live to tell the tale.

- And they get kidnapped, brought into space

by a group of aliens who have studied their TV show

as if it was an actual recording of real life events.

- Since we first received transmission

of your historical documents, we have studied

every facet of your missions and strategies.

You've been watching the show?

- Lieutenant, historical documents.

- We really wanna believe that this stuff is real.

We don't wanna believe that these are sets

and Styrofoam and people pretending, and "Galaxy Quest"

basically takes that fantasy and makes it writ large,

and this is the true genius of "Galaxy Quest"

is the fans have made it real.

- It's such a charming idea because of "Star Trek"

and because it's so beloved, was such a wonderful

love letter to all those actors and all those fans.

- It is a touchstone for filmmakers

of a certain generation.

- For me, what I remember most about it and

what I love most about it is it didn't make fun

of the fans, it really allowed you to have a sort

of point of view in the story.

This helped kind of usher in a generation of storytelling

that both could keep the stakes,

but also not take itself so so seriously.

- Somebody does something first, and a small number

of people go wow, that's amazing, and the larger culture

ignores it; "Galaxy Quest" was way ahead of its time.

- I don't know when it switched over to,

it wasn't always this cult sort of favorite,

and then it became that, and now it's huge.

That's because of the fans.

- "Galaxy Quest" is actually a big part of my childhood.

- Every aspect of it is just wonderful:

the storytelling, the writing, the actors.

I thought it was funny.

They portrayed cosplaying a little bit.

- When I watched it when I was a little kid,

I liked it so much, I thought, I was hoping

they were gonna do a miniseries.

- I was talking with a coworker about it today,

we were quoting lines back and forth.

Someone goes, what?

We go, oh, we had to stop what we're doing right now

and go watch it.

- I watch this movie several times a year.

- Who hasn't seen "Galaxy Quest?"

- And you can laugh and say, oh, that's me!

- That whole meta take on it, analyzing "Star Trek"

from the outside a little bit...

- They weren't making fun of anybody, they were just, hey,

don't take yourself so seriously.

- We all embrace it together, it's just

something we all love and experience together.

- The really irony struck me when Tim forced me

to go to a screening, and after the movie was over

and I walked out and I sit down to have a Q and A,

and they turn the lights up and the first three rows

are people dressed in "Galaxy Quest" costumes,

who either understood

or didn't understand the irony of that.

- I would make fun of people that would dress up and go

to the openings of new movies.

It wasn't cool, but yeah, it's never cool, it was never.

But then it became okay to do it.

- Only if it was the "Galaxy Quest" coming out.

- Yeah. (laughs) - It's one of those movies

that you can watch again and again and again.

- I was thinking, why do I like this so much?

It's because the moment in a movie where he says,

"stop, it's real," and the kid goes, "I knew it!"

That was me, that was me, it's like, I knew it!

It's all real.

I knew it, I knew it!

- "Galaxy Quest" happened at this very unique period

of time, because it was at this point where fans

were still a little bit in the shadows.

- You know, when I think of how people sort of behaved

about fan culture in the late '90s,

I think of the Shatner "Star Trek" skit on SNL.

Get a life!

Or he just says,

you're a loser, you're a bunch of losers, and go home.

- For crying out loud, it's just a TV show.

- When "Star Trek" became really a hit, which was

in Syndication in the early '70s,

that's when the fans started calling themselves Trekkies,

that's when you had the conventions, that's when you had

people turn out in record numbers to these events.

- That fandom started to coalesce over the course

of the next decade and basically gave birth

to "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," and then of course,

"Next Generation" and the all the series that followed.

I don't think that there has been a stretch of like,

two or three years where there has been no Trek

being produced, and that's only because of the fans.

- People loved it so much that even when it was gone,

they needed to still experience it.

- Spoiler alert, I was on "Star Trek," and I meet people

every week who are inspired by us.

- You know what, we do these conventions,

occasionally have young people come to my table and say,

I could only relate to your character, it's overwhelming.

- Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not here to ask a question,

I'm here to state a fact how all of these wonderful people

on stage right now changed our lives.

Aw. (audience cheers)

- A lot of "Galaxy Quest" is the truth about "Star Trek"

but it was said in a way that was whimsical, beautifully

done, well-portrayed and non-offensive to anyone.

- "Galaxy Quest" is without a doubt

the best "Star Trek" movie, because it's about

what makes "Star Trek" special.

It's about the fans.

- What I mainly felt watching the film, and I felt it

all the way through, was, why didn't we do this?

Why didn't we do this, it would have been us,

and we would have gone through that same journey.

We would have had such a big hit.

- And the reason that "Galaxy Quest" earns its space

inside the Trek canon is it really does feel

like a Trek movie, because it has all the hallmarks

of what makes a Trek movie work,

which is never give up, never surrender, like,

you can overcome sort of any problem.

- We kept saying as we were making this, dude, it can't just

be a comedy, it has to be a good "Star Trek" movie.

- One, two, three, action!

- In the late '90s, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg

and David Geffen all come together, and they

form Dreamworks, and they've got something to prove, right?

These are three dudes who are at the top

of their individual industries; ever other studio head

wishes them well and tells them how much they want them

to succeed and then roots for them to fail

because that's the way the industry works.

Dreamworks needs hits.

Dreamworks and we, meaning our little production company,

optioned a script by David Howard that had this concept,

this idea of actors being mistaken by extra-terrestrials

as not being actors but being, you know, the heroes

that they appeared to be in the show.

We really took to the idea and that it would be the basis

of a terrific comedy.

- It was sort of like that moment where you stop

at the door and turn 'cause someone says something,

and what if aliens that that William Shatner was real?

I think that was the full thing.

- Which was the premise, there was no other thing

in the script that we held on to,

and we met with many, many writers.

They all came in with this idea

that he hated being the captain,

he was trapped in this role, and Bob Gordon came

into my office and he said he loved being the captain, if

he could be the captain again, it would be the greatest day

of his life, and that simple adjustment changed everything.

- I said, well, should I read the script?

And they said, no, they didn't want me influenced by it.

I sort of assumed some things about it,

that there would be kind of a ship that they had

to operate in a certain way, that each crew member

would have their own thing

that they had to now deal with in real life,

and the moment that I really felt like that I could write it

seems really super obvious now.

It's when they have to admit that they are really

just actors and they're not really heroes, and it all goes

to hell, and when that clicked in, I said okay, I got it.

I know, I sorta know, I know enough about it.

- And then it was Bob who said, and he has to go

into outer space, right?

And we were like, what?

What are you talking about?

'Cause we had it sort of like a, kind of a,

you know, like a comedy of that era, like an Amblin comedy

of that era where the aliens come to earth...

- And I think that Bob Gordon did make it bigger

than we thought it was going to be or

than we thought we could afford.

- It was Bob's brain that blew it out like that.

- I think there were people who sort of were scratching

their heads a little bit, like Mark Johnson was sort

of like, this is a lot of explosions.

- I would say in 1999, 2000, things were still kind of

in their box; if it was a sci-fi movie,

it was a sci-fi movie, if it was a drama, it was a drama.

- In 1999, the vast majority of sci-fi movies were action

movies, all of these dark, gritty,

nihilistic sci-fi movies.

- You could call it the end of the world.

- I think that more than anything else, "Galaxy Quest"

is sort of like an exercise in tone.

- It is a broad comedy, of course, but it also has