Galaxy Quest (1999) 4K Blu-ray Review

TweakTown's Rating: 88%

The Bottom Line

The classic sci-fi parody holds up great 25 years later, and has been treated with care and respect by the studio in its 4K debut.

Pros

• Very nice 4K transfer and Dolby Atmos upmix
• Decent new 20 minute featurette

Cons

• Some previous bonus features aren't included

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon for $29.67 USD

Buy at Amazon for $37.72 CAD

6

Released at the tail end of Star Trek's mid-90s popularity, Galaxy Quest was conceived as a gentle - even loving - parody of the long-running series, but was greeted with a muted response, exacerbated by an embarrassing marketing campaign that failed to convey its qualities.

Subsiding on the grift of convention circuits, the washed-up former stars of a cheesy sci-fi TV show led by egocentric Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) are unknowingly drafted to assist a group of naive aliens in their battle against a ruthless warlord, Sarris. Having misunderstood interstellar broadcasts of the show for 'historical records', the human crew becomes stranded on a real version of the spaceship, leaving the actors to stumble through to save the day and salvage their own faded stardom.

Twenty-five years on, the stature of the film has achieved cult status, with Star Trek fans even proclaiming it the "seventh best" Star Trek film at a 2013 convention, putting it ahead of three of the four Next Generation features. Despite some talk about potentially making a return via a streaming provider, it's a shame that this hasn't yet come to fruition, as the material would suggest almost infinite potential.

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Video transfer

Galaxy Quest is presented in its original (variable) aspect ratio of 2.39:1 in the Rec. 2020 color space, finished with the dynamic Dolby Vision and static HDR-10 high dynamic range formats and encoded with AVC H.265 compression.

For the past 15 years, Galaxy Quest has been available in a fairly decent high-definition Blu-ray, but Paramount's new 4K transfer comprehensively blows it out of the water. That said, there's definitely a roof to the improvements to what the original 35mm digital outputs can provide, having been rendered at 2K resolution due to the limitations of late 90s CG. Still, modern film scanning has improved exponentially, and coupled with the deep color gamut and HDR that the format provides, you really see the film in the best way possible.

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The image is a clear and filmic presentation, which retains the look of the negative and resists the temptations of noise reduction and other so-called restoration traps. Overall, this is a glorious restoration and, without a doubt, the definitive presentation of the film released in the home video. It will likely remain unsurpassed.

Overall, it is a really pleasant and technically proficient transfer that will please fans.

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Audio transfer

Galaxy Quest is presented in Dolby Atmos.

In preparing catalog 4K release, it's incredibly rare for Paramount to stump up for a Dolby Atmos mix, but in an acknowledgment of the film's stature and potential for improvement, the studio has done just that here. And what a thumping experience it is!

Mirroring the on-screen content, Galaxy Quest starts out relatively constrained to the front surround channels, but once the action kicks into gear, so the audio follows. From that point, the surround channels are kept engaged throughout much of the runtime, brimming with detail and activity throughout the various space battles and planetary excursions. Subwoofer usage is satisfyingly deep, and the addition of the height channels provides a nice bit of added immersion to draw the viewer deeper into the experience. I couldn't detect any overt audio sync issues (apart from Sigourney Weaver's obviously deliberate "screw that!" line), and thus, there's very little to complain about.

Overall, it is an excellent sound mix that is taken to new heights, and props again to Paramount for going the extra distance for fans.

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Bonus materials

Galaxy Quest's Australian release comes in a one-disc edition that eschews the Blu-ray disc available in some overseas editions. Luckily, Paramount has authored the 4K disc to include the majority of bonus features previously offered, although die-hard fans may want to hold onto that previous edition for everything. Let's jump in.

First up is the brand new Filmmaker Focus with Director Dean Parisot Featurette, which takes a retrospective look back at the film's legacy and overwhelmingly positive standing over its 20-minute duration.

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Supplementing this is several vintage featurettes including Historical Documents: The Story of Galaxy Quest , Never Give Up, Never Surrender: The Intrepid Crew of the NSEA Protector, By Grabthar's Hammer, What Amazing Effects, Alien School: Creating the Thermian Race and Actors in Space which amounts to around one hour of video and give a decent sense at critical parts of production, despite their promotional nature.

Next up are around 11 minutes of Deleted Scenes, which were wisely kept on the cutting room floor but are still great to have preserved, even if their quality looks to be VHS sourced and in poor shape. Finally, we have the original theatrical trailer and an alternate Thermian audio track, which features the alien language throughout the entire film. It's certainly funny for a few minutes, but the novelty quickly wears off.