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The New Adventures of Galaxy Quest are real.
The Galaxy Quest TV show was chock full of Accidentally-Correct Writing, and the galaxy around us really does resemble what the show described. As such, it would have been relatively trivial to film the revival series in the real outer space — or to have the relatively experienced "crew" engage in actual adventures in space, this time with a camera crew to record the "historical documents".

The computer is the Midnight Entity and has a weak hold on Gwen.
Hence each feels compelled to repeat the lines of the other, with some paraphrasing. Terrifying to contemplate, but WMG knows no such limits.

The Thermians have a Waaagh field.
In other words, their beliefs shape reality. This is how they were able to build such a functional replica of the Protector and all of its incumbent technology. Whenever the TV show invented a technology for its own purposes, the Thermians were able to make it real. Whenever the show introduced some "outside" phenomena, the Thermians could adapt existing things in their galaxy to mimic the function they served in the "historical documents", explaining how beryllium spheres and the "Maaktar stealth face" can really work even though they were just invented by some TV writer on Earth. They even did this to the Omega 13 device, whose function was not understood by anybody connected with the "historical documents"; the Thermians took the specifications from the show and built it, but this required an incredible energy output which made them too terrified to actually turn it on.

Indeed, this is why Thermian society has no concept of lying; if their beliefs shape reality, lying is either impossible or incomprehensibly dangerous. Mathesar may have thought that the crew genuinely turned the ship into a crude model to deceive Sarris.

The U.S. government knew of the Thermians all along.
In a development that would make a Conspiracy Theorist require a change of trousers, they kept everything secret. In this case, they decided The World Is Not Ready, but they thought about how to ease Earth's population into discovering the reality of outer space.

The government identified the Thermians as their favorite alien race — they had incredible technology and vast potential. But they were also frustratingly naive, constantly under threat, and as the Thermians themselves later explain, undergoing incredible societal upheaval. However, the government clandestinely influenced the production of Galaxy Quest, knowing that the Thermians could steal cable and might pick up some guidance from the show. It worked better than the government could have imagined, with the Thermians rebuilding their society in the show's model. The show would have continued, but when the government realized that the Thermians could build a functional Omega 13 device, they abruptly ordered the show cancelled out of fear of what the device might do. (They were too late, but the Thermians were just as scared.)

The government did not anticipate that the desperate Thermians would enlist the show's actors for help. But they're in for another pleasant surprise, as the actors help the Thermians escape their tormentor Sarris — and bring back some of that incredible Thermian technology. (That's trillions of dollars worth of stuff, man.) The government decides to let the actors off the hook in exchange for them giving the tech to the military. Meanwhile, the government commissions The New Adventures of Galaxy Quest as a first attempt at Plausible Deniability (like something Stargate Command would do), up to and including casting one of the aliens.

Galaxy Quest is set in the same universe as Men in Black.
Similar to the above WMG, but in this case, it's not the government who knows about the Thermians; just MIB. MIB would ordinarily step in to prevent the Thermians from abducting the show's cast, but Thermian technology is far ahead of anything they've seen, with transportation technology on par with Star Trek transporters, so they couldn't be stopped. At the end of the movie, MIB confiscates the ship, neuralizes all the convention attendees, and deputizes the cast of the show.

Most Writers Are Human, but at least one of the original Galaxy Quest writers was not.
This would explain why the Thermians were so easily able to replicate the show's technology. The alien writer would be able to introduce plot elements that mirror what's really out there, with their Earth colleagues none the wiser because it doesn't sound any different from the usual Techno Babble. It further explains how the show could write their ship as running on "beryllium spheres" and the actors could find actual "beryllium spheres" lying around to power the real ship.

As for why: similar to the above WMG about the U.S. government, this writer liked the Thermians and wanted to help them rescue their society from disarray. In this case, a writer who was sufficiently in tune to galactic politics could well have fashioned Galaxy Quest into stealth propaganda (like the Biblical Book of Revelation), which the Thermians thought was a real description of actual events (also like the Biblical Book of Revelation).

Galaxy Quest is the tenth Star Trek film.
This is entirely to fit it into the Star Trek Movie Curse, which states that every other Star Trek film is crap. It worked for the first nine films, but the tenth film, Star Trek: Nemesis, was scheduled to be good but turned out to be very crap. However, Galaxy Quest was released in between Insurrection and Nemesis, allowing it to fill the role of the "good" Star Trek film and Nemesis to slot in as the "bad" one (and the 2009 reboot as the "good" one, and Star Trek Into Darkness as the "bad" one, and so on).

Alexander was screwed out of his earnings from the show's first run.
It's based on the brief shot of his home when he talks to Gwen on the phone. You can hear police sirens in the background, and it doesn't look as well-equipped as Gwen's is or nearly as much as Jason's is. Now, you can easily say it's because Alex doesn't give a crap, whereas Gwen (being a girl who cares about such things) and Jason (being The Captain and eager to show off his digs) very much do. But why would Alex not care? He's a highly accomplished Shakespearean actor (five curtain calls!), and it's not like he played a bit character; he was essentially Jason's Number Two. No, it's because he got shafted on the pay for his role on the show.

It dovetails nicely with a few things. First, it explains why he's that disgruntled and resentful of the show and his castmates, even beyond his stupid catchphrase and the prosthetics and the other things his castmates didn't have to deal with. He doesn't even pretend to still enjoy the show, not even for the fans' sake. Second, it was depressingly common around the time the film was made for British actors to get paid less in Hollywood than their American counterparts for similar roles. (Or, as was also depressingly common, his lack of experience with Horrible Hollywood led him to be cleaned out by a predatory or incompetent financial manager.) And third, this really did happen to Leonard Nimoy, on whom he's partly based.

The "space station" housing the Protector is actually the remains of the Thermian homeworld.
As the Protector flies out, we see the station as a whole, and it looks like an asteroid or something similar. It could be a chunk thrown out of a planet — all that's left of the Thermian homeworld after Sarris destroyed it.

The Invention of Lying is set in the future of the Thermian race.
They found a new planet, settled in, and re-established their society. Their obsession with the "historical documents" led them to keep their humanoid appearance, if not learn how to become humanoid or intermingle with humans like Fred and Laliari (or is it Laliari?). The main character is Fred and Laliari's descendant.

The previous Thermian commander built the Omega 13 but didn't tell anyone what it actually did.
The Thermians didn't build the Omega 13 from the specifications of the "historical documents" — none actually existed! And indeed, why would they, when on the show the Omega 13 was little more than a MacGuffin? It didn't matter what it looked like or how it functioned. No, here's how it went down:

The previous Thermian commander was brilliant and charismatic — a natural leader, perhaps even the one who suggested that the Thermians model their society after the "historical documents". But he was so brilliant that he actually understood, however minimally, the concept of deception. He didn't know how to lie, but he knew how to hide information from others. The commander, of his own initiative, built a functioning Omega 13. Lacking any real description, he instead built a device that did what he thought the Omega 13 was supposed to do — not a bomb, but a 13-second range time machine, the same minority viewpoint that Brandon believes. However, he knew that it would be hard to convince the others that it wasn't a bomb, so he just kept quiet about what it did like they did on the show.

The other Thermians were quite befuddled by their commander's sudden deception; Mathesar could only describe him as "not strong". But Sarris's discovery of the Omega 13 was the catalyst for his genocidal aspirations; it wasn't until then that he decided to wipe out their planet. The commander, thinking It's All My Fault, felt extremely guilty and became even more pensive and prone to deception. So when Sarris tortures him to death, he says, "I have told you all I know" — and he's lying! He's the first Thermian to do it. And he did it to misdirect Sarris, who knows Thermians can't lie, and protect what was left of his people, even at the cost of his own life. That's pretty strong!

This is how the other Thermians can claim not to know what the Omega 13 does — they didn't actually build it. While Teb acknowledges that they don't know that it is a bomb, it clearly uses enough energy that it can plausibly function as one (and a really ridiculously big one), which is why they're afraid to turn it on. Without knowing their former commander's motivations, the Thermians reluctantly conclude that he did build a bomb for whatever reason.

Guy really didn't have a last name until Jason gave him one.
On the shuttle ride, Jason doesn't have a clue what Guy's last name is, but on the surface, he offhandedly calls him "Fleegman". Now, one might say it's because Jason was stressing out on the shuttle ride and blanked on it. But it's not much less stressful on the planet's surface, is it? No, Jason invented a last name for Guy and casually dropped it to give him his vital Nominal Importance. He either bought into Guy's Wrong Genre Savvy or was just trying to shut him up, but either way, with his quick thinking, Jason saved Guy's life.

Alexander is an experienced martial artist.
Going back to his Shakespeare days, he's got extensive training in stage fighting (notice how Jason tells him, "You used to pull your punches!" after they fight in the airlock). He parlayed that into training in a real martial art, hoping it would make him a better actor. The Galaxy Quest writers made his character into a Proud Warrior Race Guy in part to allow him to be The Cast Showoff. And indeed, on the real Protector, he takes down at least one bulky alien soldier (if not several), as part of his Roaring Rampage of Revenge at Quellek's death (so he's not acting), and he's waving "karate chop hands" to boot. The "Maaktar chant of strength" might also have been based on a Kiai technique Alex uses offscreen, which is why it's so effective on the ship.

Sure, if you know anything about stage fighting, you know that it's so different from actual fighting that a learning a real martial art won't help very much, at least in a non-action series like Galaxy Quest. Perhaps Alex was hoping to break out as an Action Hero, but his native Britain doesn't care much about that kind of movie, and in America they won't take a British action hero seriously unless he's James Bond himself. He pressed on anyway; that's just how serious Alex is about his craft. Or maybe he really wanted to play Macbeth but saw Throne of Blood and went off the deep end from there.

Reggie from Men in Black is descended from Fred and Laliari.
If you meld a human and a Thermian, you would get pretty much exactly what J helps to deliver.

Guy was an Ensemble Dark Horse on the original show.
Sure, he was cast to be a Red Shirt, and the main cast always considered him as such. But his hammy acting was so memorable that among the fans, he became a One-Scene Wonder. This is why he's being enlisted as the emcee for conventions, even though the main cast doesn't recognize him and he still lives with his mom. When he stumbles off the ship on the convention stage at the end, he's introduced as "another shipmate!", as if it wasn't unusual — maybe they recognized him and thought he got promoted. He was planned to be an Ascended Extra as a nod to the fans before the show got cancelled, and his introduction to the main cast in the reboot is meant to make up for it. In short, he's basically Kevin Thomas Riley.

The Thermians at the starport joined the Protector's crew after it left.
We see many Thermians at the space station housing the Protector at the beginning of the film, but late in the movie, Mathesar sadly comments that the crew is all that is left of his people. The launch of the Protector with "Laredo" at the helm was explicitly a "historic event"; while many Thermians were on the bridge to see it, many others went to the starport to see it from the outside. The ones on the outside then used pods to return to the ship after it left.

The Thermians aren't the only aliens to have based their society on intercepted TV transmissions.
It's apparently a common thing in that part of the galaxy, where you'll also find:
  • A society based on Gilligan's Island, where they live on tropical islands and use Bamboo Technology;
  • A society based on Hogan's Heroes, split between those posing as prisoners of war and those posing as camp guards;
  • A society based on the Batman series, where the good guys fight crime in costume and the bad guys all have a visual theme and punny-named henchmen;
  • At least one society based on Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, and the like, split between those posing as the pioneers / settlers and those posing as the natives;
  • A society based on the Disney Zorro series, split between those posing as the Spaniards and those posing as the natives.

Nothing like Star Wars ever happened in the universe of this movie.
Galaxy Quest aired from 1978 to 1982. And there's no mention of any other space franchise during that rough time period. For as cool as Galaxy Quest might have been, are we expected to believe it beat The Empire Strikes Back in popularity? No, it did not.

In this timeline, George Lucas just sat on Star Wars as a silly idea and was basically an indie director, friends with Francis Ford Coppola but never making anything mainstream outside of American Graffiti and Howard the Duck. The trio of writers credited with making Lucas' brainchild a coherent narrative — Alan Dean Foster, Leigh Brackett, and Lawrence Kasdan — instead brought their talents to Galaxy Quest (see what Gene L. Coon, Robert Justman, and D.C. Fontana did for Star Trek).

Without Star Wars, there was no Industrial Light & Magic. And without ILM, there was no significant catalyst for the emergence of other special effects companies. This left visual effects as a cottage industry, dominated by "in-studio specialists" or notable individuals (e.g. Ray Harryhausen, Douglas Trumbull, Wah Chang, Stan Winston, Brian Johnson). Galaxy Quest probably had No Budget ("the digital conveyor was just Christmas tree lights"), much like Star Trek: The Original Series. It still probably looked better than Star Trek, though, because it could recycle its props and sets from any one of a number of sci-fi shows and films of The '70snote , whereas Star Trek had to make everything from scratch and had to recycle their sets from old Westerns.

It also leads into the next WMG:

In this movie's universe, the sci-fi genre is at least twenty years behind where it is in our world.
Our world owes its obsession with science fiction to not just Star Wars, but really a renaissance that began in The '90s in which the whole thing was taken more seriously — better writing, deeper and more complex characterization, Darker and Edgier themes, and extended Story Arcs. But this would have still relied on memories of Star Wars and the other things it directly inspired. While there might have been individual high-concept sci-fi films made in the years after Galaxy Quest ended (e.g. Blade Runner, The Terminator, Dune), there weren't very many and they tended to quickly date themselves.

Without that catalyst, there would be only very few contributions to the maturation of the sci-fi genre, in either film or television, in the two decades after the cancellation of Galaxy Quest in 1982. Instead, we saw Short-Runners, the occasional Acclaimed Flop, and forgettable formulaic schlock, some of which may have a cult following (the way Doctor Who did outside Britain at the time) but none as big as what Galaxy Quest had. The New Adventures of Galaxy Quest might advance things forward a bit, especially with at least one real alien involved in the production, but it would be another couple of decades before that graduates to something like, say, Babylon 5.

Galaxy Quest succeeded because it didn't have Star Trek's social commentary.
Life was different back in The '60s, and Star Trek reflected that; Gene Roddenberry made certain that the show would be somewhat grounded in reality and audiences could relate to it, hence why it focused more on politics than space battles. Sure, Star Trek didn't have the budget to make cool sci-fi gadgets (as explained in the previous WMG), but Roddenberry also wanted to reflect the relative optimism of his time, even in the face of the Cold War and The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement and everything else that was happening. It was vaguely reflective of The Western, which was still a thing back then.

No such luck for Galaxy Quest. By the time it debuted in 1978, audiences had gotten more cynical, the Vietnam War was over, and The Western had been killed by The Rural Purge. In "our" timeline, Star Wars filled that hole with its cool Space Battles and Laser Blades. Galaxy Quest was made by someone closer to Roddenberry than to George Lucas, but who recognized that audiences wanted to see cool gadgets and escapist adventure and were less interested in hard-hitting social commentary (if it did show up, it tended to be in the style of M*A*S*H or a Norman Lear show). A lot of the gadgets are souped-up versions of what existed on Star Trek, but it still explains things like the "chompers" and the Omega 13 device.

The Thermians' appearance generators are more than just a visual disguise.
They actually change their biological shape and processes to be more like something else. It's a radical and almost miraculous technology, which in typical Thermian fashion is downplayed and used for disguising themselves in A Form You Are Comfortable With. It's how Thermians can display human-ish looking blood when they're injured (like Mathesar when Sarris tortures him, or Quellek when he gets shot). Even things attached to the Thermians can change shape; note how they pick up uniforms when they transform, and how Mathesar emerges from said torture wearing a leg brace designed for humanoids.

All this also adds a new dimension to what exactly it was that Guy saw that was so "not right" when Fred and Laliari started making out.

The black hole at the end caused some Time Dilation.
When the Protector emerges from the other end, almost no time has elapsed (they don't even take the time to change, even with their Clothing Damage!), but on Earth, weeks or even months have passed. But this actually resolves a problem: Why are there two Galaxy Quest conventions, just days apart from each other, in the same city? The answer is that there's a lot more time in between them than one might think. Notice that none of the actors start freaking out that they have to get back to Earth right away because there's another convention they have to attend. If there were, they'd point out that they're not getting paid for their time on the Protector, and unlike Jason they are professionals who want to honor their commitments. Heck, the whole reason they joined Jason to begin with is that they thought it was another job. It also explains why Brandon is not at said convention when Jason calls him to ask for help — that happened before the black hole, and the convention isn't for another few weeks.

Perhaps the actors' friends and family back on Earth are starting to get worried, but it's evidently not a huge deal (the Coincidental Broadcast in Brandon's living room only mentions that the fans at the con are starting to get restless). The actors probably knew the Time Dilation would happen, because that's what usually happens on the show. When Tommy reminds everyone that they have to go through the black hole, Jason asks if there are any objections, and they all just blow it off — he's not asking if they think it's unsafe, but rather if they're okay with essentially going missing on Earth for a few weeks. Either they don't think anyone will notice their absence, or they've figured out how to use the "interstellar vox" to contact a phone on Earth to explain their impending absence away.

Brandon was banned from the convention at the end of the film and seeks revenge.
That explains why he's not at said convention, even though he's clearly a huge fan. Brandon (or perhaps one of his friends) got banned for particularly embarrassing nerdy behavior. He thinks it's unfair, but he can't get back in, so he just goes to every other Galaxy Quest event he can find, even silly innocuous ones like opening a big-box electronics store (although he may just have chosen to go to that one hoping to see Jason again to clear things up). Now that he's responsible for guiding the Protector's bridge back down to Earth, he can help it land anywhere on the planet he can reach. After all, it's a big planet; how else could the Protector pinpoint the same city where the crew left? But rather than guide it down to a runway, the desert, or a runway in the desertnote , he guides it down to the parking lot of the convention center, pointing it right at the wall where the stage would be. He was hoping to embarrass the con-goers by wrecking their event and goes to witness said embarrassment, but when he sees the crew's triumphant emergence, all he can feel is pride in being a fan of such an awesome show.

The Chompers seen in the film were part of the ship's waste disposal system.
Refuse would be tossed down a garbage chute, compressed in to smaller and smaller blocks by the Chompers, and then finally incinerated. After all, waste disposal in space is a tricky thing. As for why you'd have to go through them to reach the control panel for a critical part of the ship, well... that's for another WMG.
  • It depends on where you are on the ship and where you want to get to. From where Jason and Gwen were, going through the Chompers may have been the only route that didn't bring them closer to Sarris's troops.

Sarris and co. are also humans in disguise
This explains how Sarris is so conversant with human concepts ("acting", lying) and human culture (he even knows what tissue paper is, I doubt that's a translatable concept).

Being a product of the late 70s/early 80s, Galaxy Quest is fortunate to have just a bit less Values Dissonance than Star Trek TOS
It really helps to debut almost a decade after The '60s were essentially over as well as not being contemporary with westerns which were long passé by 1978. So the Cowboys and Indians IN SPACE! format that a signficant number of TOS Trek episodes took was definitely not on display in Quest. The sexism that was part and parcel of the swinging sixties was an embarrassment by 1978, Galaxy Quest's year of debut. Gwen, for all her complaining about how her character's purpose seemed to essentially be Fanservice, is especially fortunate that the show came along when it did. It could have been a lot worse ten years prior to that. Star Trek TOS had it's share of faux pas such as Mudd's Women, Spock's Brain, The Enemy Withinnote , The Paradise Syndromenote , and especially Turnabout Intruder, all of which Galaxy Quest can be proud to say would not have happened on their watch.

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