Galaxy Quest is a 1999 American satirical science fiction comedy film directed by Dean Parisot and written by David Howard and Robert Gordon.

Though the series' former star, Jason Nesmith, thrives on the attention, his co-stars Gwen DeMarco, Alexander Dane, Fred Kwan, and Tommy Webber resent him and the states of their careers.

The next morning, when they pick him up, a hungover Jason does not grasp that the Thermians are actual aliens who have transported him to a working re-creation of the Galaxy Quest starship, the NSEA Protector.

Jason believes he is on a set, and performs in character as he confronts the Thermians' enemy, Sarris, who demands the "Omega 13", a secret super weapon with unknown capabilities mentioned in the show's finale, but never used on screen.

Aboard the Protector, the cast learn that the Thermians, who possess no concept of fiction, believe the episodes of Galaxy Quest are true "historical documents".

[11] Howard stated he got the idea while at an IMAX presentation, where one of the trailers for an upcoming "Americans in Space" film was narrated by Leonard Nimoy, a leading actor from Star Trek.

[12] Producer Mark Johnson, who had a first-look deal with DreamWorks, did not like Howard's script but was fascinated with its concept of space aliens who misconstrue old episodes of a television series as reality.

Gordon, who did not read Captain Starshine until after the film was completed, started from the premise of washed-up actors from a sci-fi series involved with real extraterrestrials.

[11] Gordon's initial drafts added elements of humor to Howard's script, such as the Protector scraping the walls of the space dock when Webber pilots the real ship for the first time.

[15] Sigourney Weaver, who had worked with Ramis on Ghostbusters, said that he also wanted actors who had not appeared in science-fiction roles before, a choice she thought odd since veterans of the genre would know what was humorous.

[15] About his role, Allen said he based his performance more on Yul Brynner's Ramesses II from the 1956 The Ten Commandments, and less on William Shatner as Captain James Kirk from Star Trek.

[6][9] Rickman also provided input into the prosthetic piece that Dane would use to play Lazarus, saying "it was important for it to be good enough to convince the aliens who believe we're the real thing, but also cheesy enough to imagine that it was something he applied himself".

[15] The scene where Dane, as Dr. Lazarus, gives a final, powerfully emotional speech to Quellek, played by Patrick Breen, used Rickman's sense of drama, according to Rockwell.

[11] Weaver had loved the script since her first read when Ramis was the director, stating "that great sort of Wizard of Oz story of these people feeling so incomplete in the beginning, and then during the course of this adventure, they come out almost like the heroes they pretended to be in the first place".

[15] Rockwell fashioned Fleegman after cowardly characters from other films, such as John Turturro's Bernie in Miller's Crossing, Bill Paxton's Private Hudson in Aliens, and Michael Keaton's "Blaze" in Night Shift.

[15] Long said he was nervous auditioning as an unknown actor at the time, competing against Kieran Culkin, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Tom Everett Scott.

Wilson said that a deleted scene involving Lahnk, released with the film's home media, was wisely cut given how nervous he was, flubbing his lines several times.

[17] She used color theming to help distinguish the key elements of the film, with steam blue for the Thermians and the Protector, while Saris and his species were made to be a green tone that stood out against that.

[23] Gordon had not planned to write a "family-friendly" film, and his initial script included mature scenes, such as DeMarco attempting to seduce aliens, and the crash of the escape pod into the convention hall decapitating several attendees.

[11] The prefix of the Protector's registration number NTE-3120 ostensibly alludes to some sort of similar space federation, but in reality stands for "Not The Enterprise", according to visual effects co-supervisor Bill George.

[11] In his review of Galaxy Quest, James Berardinelli states that the movie shares the "same central conceit" with a short story by Ruth Berman titled "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited" published in the 1976 anthology Star Trek: New Voyages in which William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley are transported to the real Enterprise while filming an episode of Star Trek and are pursued by Klingons.

The New York Times's Lawrence Van Gelder called it "an amiable comedy that simultaneously manages to spoof these popular futuristic space adventures and replicate the very elements that have made them so durable".

[34] Joe Leydon of Variety said that Galaxy Quest "remains light and bright as it races along, and never turns nasty or mean-spirited as it satirizes the cliches and cults of Star Trek".

Esquire's Matt Miller said in 2019 "the film absolutely holds up as one of the best sci-fi satires ever made—one that challenges our obsession with massive Hollywood franchises, the nature of fandom, and some of the more problematic cliches of the genre.

[36] Writer-director David Mamet, in his book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business, included Galaxy Quest in a list of four "perfect" films, along with The Godfather, A Place in the Sun and Dodsworth.

The film also depicted fandoms using their numbers to influence production companies to revive cancelled works, such as with The Expanse, Veronica Mars, Arrested Development, and Twin Peaks.

[6] Several actors who have had roles on various Star Trek television series and films have commented on Galaxy Quest in light of their own experiences with the franchise and its fandom.

In January 2015, IDW launched a four-issue series set several years after the events of the film called "Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues".

[57]Speaking to the Nerdist podcast in April 2016, Sam Rockwell revealed that the cast had been about ready to sign on for a follow-up with Amazon, but Rickman's death, together with Allen's television schedule, had proved to be obstacles.

A central plot element was to have the Protector and its crew affected by time dilation during space flight, which Allen considered a boon for the uncertain production of the film.