# Galaxy Quest Returns! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 29, 2008, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299 "2008-04-29T00:45:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/41 "2008-05-05T15:50:46Z")
Hey guys, I just wanted you to know that, the reactors won’t take it; the ship is breaking apart and all that… Just FYI. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/42 "2008-05-05T15:58:48Z")
[QUOTE=cmyk] _Sigh_ I want a movie. [/QUOTE] Indeed. The show must go on. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/43 "2008-05-05T16:03:23Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] The show must go on. [/QUOTE] Scene-stealing hack. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/44 "2008-05-05T21:34:10Z")
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow] Scene-stealing hack. [/QUOTE] It’s a pile of rocks! It doesn’t _have_ any motivation! ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/45 "2008-05-05T22:07:47Z")
The show must go on. Damn you! ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/46 "2008-05-05T22:58:51Z")
Let’s get out of here before one of those things kills Guy! My only complaint about _Galaxy Quest_ is that it and _Men In Black_ apparently used up all of the sci-fi funny in Hollywood, so by the time they got around to making the ill-advised _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ movie they were all tapped out and couldn’t get around to actually inserting punchlines to the jokes. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/47 "2008-05-06T02:50:51Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] My only complaint about _Galaxy Quest_ is that it and _Men In Black_ apparently used up all of the sci-fi funny in Hollywood, so by the time they got around to making the ill-advised _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ movie they were all tapped out and couldn’t get around to actually inserting punchlines to the jokes. [/QUOTE] The _Hitchhikers_ movie was only ill-advised in the sense that they cut out nearly all of the original material that was funny and ill-advisedly replaced it with some pointless rambling that wasn’t: the BBC TV version clocked in at about 3 hours, and with some judicious editing {to both beef up Trillian’s part and trim the running time a little, plus an altered ending if they wanted to resolve the romance by leaving Arthur and Trilllian stranded on prehistoric Earth} would have made a perfectly good shooting script. Humma Kavulla? What was that all about? ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/48 "2008-05-06T05:26:54Z")
[QUOTE=Scissorjack] Humma Kavulla? What was that all about? [/QUOTE] Sadly, I’m told that we can blame Douglas Adams for that. Apparently Humma Kavulla and the Vice-President of the Galaxy were both invented by him for the film. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/49 "2008-05-06T10:32:55Z")
[QUOTE=Leiko] Sadly, I’m told that we can blame Douglas Adams for that. Apparently Humma Kavulla and the Vice-President of the Galaxy were both invented by him for the film. [/QUOTE] Adams was his own worst enemy as a writer: despite his talent, he never really made it past “promising” during his entire authorial career, mostly due to too much success - and money - too early, a nonexistent work ethic and an inability to leave old material alone and move on. Did anyone _really_ need more than three Hitchikers books? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/50 "2008-05-06T16:41:12Z")
[QUOTE=Scissorjack] Did anyone _really_ need more than three Hitchikers books? [/QUOTE] Yeah, his publisher. He wanted to stop at three. ---
**Author:** ![ArizonaTeach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/45deac/32.png) [@ArizonaTeach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArizonaTeach)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/51 "2008-05-06T17:10:44Z")
[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher] Yeah, his publisher. He wanted to stop at three. [/QUOTE] But the tagline “The increasingly misnamed Hitchhiker’s Trilogy” is pretty cleverl. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/52 "2008-05-06T18:20:57Z")
[QUOTE=Scissorjack] The _Hitchhikers_ movie was only ill-advised in the sense that they cut out nearly all of the original material that was funny and ill-advisedly replaced it with some pointless rambling that wasn’t: the BBC TV version clocked in at about 3 hours, and with some judicious editing {to both beef up Trillian’s part and trim the running time a little, plus an altered ending if they wanted to resolve the romance by leaving Arthur and Trilllian stranded on prehistoric Earth} would have made a perfectly good shooting script. Humma Kavulla? What was that all about? [/QUOTE] It was ill advised in that the intellectual property–including Adams’ drafts of a screenplay that included ideas about Humma Kuvala and the POV gun–were taken over by a bunch of Hollywood hacks who may have had the respect for the material that they claimed but lacked the talent to make it funny. Despite the fact that _Hitchhiker’s_ is quintessential British comedy–meaning that the characters don’t stop to mug for laughs as is procedural dogma in American comedy–the film production removed virtually all English aspects and basically turned it into an extended sit-com pilot, rather than the loose collection of absurd comedy sketches that the original radio series was. (Not that this error is exclusive to American adaptations of British works; one can see the same in any number of ill-considered _Saturday Night Live_-based films.) It just entirely missed the mark on nearly every joke in the way that _Galaxy Quest_ and _Men In Black_ completely failed to do, and alternately abandoned punchlines or set ups every step of the way like a Mormon missionary in a strip club. Adams was actually somewhat resentful about _Men In Black_, feeling that certain elements were suspiciously similar to _Hitchhiker’s_ (although I think a stronger case could be made for _Galaxy Quest_ in that regard). [QUOTE=Scissorjack] Adams was his own worst enemy as a writer: despite his talent, he never really made it past “promising” during his entire authorial career, mostly due to too much success - and money - too early, a nonexistent work ethic and an inability to leave old material alone and move on. [/QUOTE] I don’t know that I’d go that far; he was certainly nascent as a novelist during the early _Hitchhiker’s_ novels; part of this was no doubt to the fact that the radio series had been by definition episodic, and also written at the very last minute; and of course, he was not experienced as a novel writer at that time, having aspired to Footlights/Python-esque sketch comedy, which is a very different type of writing. _Life, The Universe, and Everything_ (largely based off of an unproduced _Dr. Who_ script he’d written a few years earlier) was more of an actual story than a series of random funnies interspaced with narration, but also a little wobbly in places (though it counts as my favorite of the series owing to the Somebody Else’s Problem Field and the Wowbagger The Infinitely Prolonged). The last two novels of the series were disposable and despairing, in that order (Adams once stated that _Mostly Harmelss_ was written at a “particularly bleak” year of his life, presumably during which the _Hitchhiker’s_ movie was moved from the back burner to the root cellar and when he was separated) and don’t count as a high point, but the underrated _Dirk Gently_ books actually show a lot of growth as a writer in crafting a narrative into which brilliant ideas (like the Electronic Monk) could be inserted rather than trying to weave a story from a handful of amusing scenes. He’s certainly a far better writer and satirist than most of his pretenders, and it’s a shame he devoted so much more time to trying to get _Hitchhiker’s_ rendered in film (with predictably disappointing results) rather than further developing as a novelist or working in sketch comedy. As for work ethic: Adams spent a lot of time working very hard on abortive or ephemeral projects like _Starship Titanic_ or _Last Chance To See_. Authors–nonhack authors, at any rate–don’t just sit down and crank out a novel because it is time; they write when they have a story to tell. One might as well criticize Steinbeck for wasting time diving with Ed Ricketts or working in Hollywood having contributing to is lack of output after _East of Eden_. Of course, a prolific author–say, [Stephen King](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33676) or [Tom Clancy](http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/tom_clancy_really_happy)–will happily crank out the next shatfest, or baring even minimal creative impulse, license his trademark name to any product that promises big profits to keep the revenue stream coming. You have no idea how much it costs to drive an M60 tank around your twenty acre Maryland compound, or go through ten eight balls of high grade Bolivian marching powder a day. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/53 "2008-05-06T19:22:50Z")
Darn you, **Arizona Teach** , for raising my hopes of a _Galaxy Quest_ sequel. Tony Shaloub _and_ Alan Rachins, what’s not to love? “We have enjoyed preparing many of your esoteric dishes. Your Monte Cristo sandwich is a current favorite among the adventurous!” ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/54 "2008-05-06T20:21:15Z")
Again, as with the _Bill and Ted_ movies, I sometimes become foolishly emotional watching this movie, the top three scenes being:[ul] [li]the first sight of the _Protector_: “My God! It’s _real!_”[/li][li]Quellek’s death scene, especially the look of rapture on his face just as he dies[/li][li]the very sincere salute Jason makes to Brandon and his friends from the convention stage.[/li][/ul] Excuse me, I have something in my eye… ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2008, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299/55 "2008-05-06T20:38:07Z")
**Stranger** , I’d actually rate _Last Chance To See_ as one of his _best_ books, and it was a real shame he didn’t pursue that line of writing further: some of it, like the conversation with the Japanese monk who explains that although the temple has burnt down and been rebuilt three times it’s still the same temple, is wonderful writing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/galaxy-quest-returns/447299.md?page=2)