Galaxy Quest 4K review
Dec 01, 2024- Permalink
Dean Parisot’s 1999 comedy Galaxy Quest is both a parody of, and an homage to, the Star Trek show and fans. Tim Allen plays Jason Nesmith, an actor who starred in a 1970s sci-fi show called Galaxy Quest as Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, who helmed the starship NSEA Protector. Nesmith now spends most of his time attending fan conventions with his former cast: Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver), who played Lieutenant Tawny Madison, the ship’s communications officer, Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman), who played Dr. Lazarus, the ship’s science officer, Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub), who played Tech Sergeant Chen, the ship’s chief engineer, and Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell), a child actor during the series who played a precocious child pilot. The Thermians, a group of aliens led by Mathesar (Enrico Colantoni), have intercepted the show’s broadcasts and believe it to be a historical record of a real ship’s adventures and request the help of their heroes to protect them from Sarris (Robin Sachs). Can the group of actors find in themselves the bravery their characters had and help this alien race? The cast of Galaxy Quest also includes Sam Rockwell, Patrick Breen, Missi Pyle, Jed Rees, Justin Long, Jeremy Howard, Kaitlin Cullum, Jonathan Feyer, Heidi Swedberg, Wayne Péré, Samuel Lloyd, Rainn Wilson and Joe Frank. The movie is celebrating its 25th anniversary and Paramount has released a 4K version that I’ve had a chance to look at.
The 2160p HEVC / H.265 encoded upscaled 4K digital transfer with Dolby Vision and HDR10 begins with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio before moving to 1.85:1 and 2.39:1. These aspect ratio changes are an artistic choice moving from the original series, the convention world, and finally the adventure the cast embarks on. I’m making an assumption that it’s an upscaled 4K as Paramount’s press notes don’t explicitly state what elements were scanned in 4K but effect were most likely capped at 2K then. That’s actually a little more technical than I usually dive into as I don’t generally count pixels and care more about a) the movie itself and b) how it looks and how that serves those who love it. How does it look? The image looks sharp with excellent detail in facial features, textiles and environments. There’s also a pleasing level of film grain. Colours, from bold primaries to subdues greys, look very good and black levels are deep without any crush.
On the audio side of things, you have the choice of an English Atmos soundtrack that folds back to Dolby TrueHD 7.1 as well as French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. For laughs, there’s also a Dolby Digital 2.0 track in the alien Thermian language. Subtitles are available for English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish. The Atmos track puts the height channels to good use with action and music cues and the surrounds place you in the scene, whether it’s in space or at the conventions. Your subwoofer gets a nice workout too and dialogue is clear and prioritized in the mix.
The Galaxy Quest 4K comes with a digital code, but no Blu-ray disc. Once again, a digital code is not available in Canada. A SteelBook edition is also available for those who like those collectible cases. There is one new bonus feature, a Filmmaker Focus with director Dean Parisot, while the legacy materials include some lengthy production and cast featurettes, deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer.
Galaxy Quest is both a loving spoof and tribute to sci-fi fandom and a funny movie in its own right with a great cast. Combined with great audio and video and nice features, the Galaxy Quest 4K is easy to recommend.