Fi's Five Favorite Works of Metafiction #5: Galaxy Quest
For the month of July, I'll be analyzing my favorite fictional analyses of fiction. Did you catch all that? Good. No, there's no specific connection between metafiction and the month of July. I just wanted to.
In the number five spot, we've got Galaxy Quest.
****Mild Spoilers****
For those who don't know, Galaxy Quest is a movie parody of Star Trek. Yes, Star Trek gets parodied a lot, but this one has Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Tim Allen playing Jason Nesmith, the equivalent of a washed-up William Shatner.
That's what's special about Galaxy Quest, apart from its cast: the level of metafiction it shoots for and successfully handles. Its characters aren't just space explorers in a Trek-esque universe; they're out-of-work actors from a Trek­-esque show, living off their residual fame on the convention circuit. That is, until they're abducted by aliens who believe the show is real, have modeled their society after it, revere the actors as heroes, and are desperate for their help.
In their efforts to do the right thing, the actors have to deal with the silliness of all the details that have been copied from their fictional world.
This means trying to keep a former redshirt actor who tags along for the ride from being devoured by something every time they step outside,
"What's my last name?! My character isn't important enough for a last name!"
Navigating architecture designed primarily for action sequences,
It's difficult to see, but those metal pieces are moving about in a dangerous and clearly nonfunctional manner.
And racing against disaster countdown timers that stop automatically at 00:01, regardless of when the problem is actually solved.
Their adventure teaches them how to be heroes and friends and understand the value that their fans can already see in their lives' work, but when they reach a tough spot, they have to call in a specialist.
In possibly the most geek-life-affirming ending ever, Jason has to call a fan he brushed off earlier at a convention to ask him how the ship's mysterious Omega 13 device works. The geek knows every fan theory ever posited and uses them to save all their lives.
...After helping his mom take out the trash.
*Geek warm-and-fuzzy sigh*