These elements are well combined to make a truly comical story. We were entertained by a clever send up about the recent SCI-FI Television super series. At the same time, we were enlightened by the themes of heroism, fame, and acting as a form of lying. You need not take a deeper look to enjoy this film, but the substance is there to add richness, irony, and a quaint kind of hope.

The Captain (Tim Allen) plays a verbally abusive drunk. He has always mistreated the cast, but in the early part of the film, he stoops to insulting the fans as well when the geeks bug him with technical questions about what everyone knows had been just cardboard, plastic, and Christmas lights.

Sigourney Weaver in a blonde wig couldn’t be further from her trademark role of Ripley in the Alien series. In Galaxy Quest, her breasts bulge out of her uniform with her blonde wig coiffed to make her a perfect embodiment of the starlet in a role designed for little more than to stir the testosterone driven pulses. Yet even at that, she is offended by the Captain’s incivility to the fans.

The wise alien is played by a bitterly resentful Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman) who must repeat a chant about honor over and over again as he slaps a fist across his chest. He hates the words. He hates his fellow cast members. He hates that he has been completely sidetracked from serious theatre to this typecast, ridiculous role with weird make up and mask.

As all the actors begin to realize the importance of the real mission they would never have chosen as hapless actors, they make changes and become heroic, though still fallibly human. The people they mocked help them save the day; the words they hated to utter take on real meaning.

On a technical level, the film delights with great visual wizardry used to create the space world and to make us aware that we are on the "real" space ship, even if the transporter is more like a goo machine than the sparkling light generator we have all become accustomed to in Star Trek. Spaceballs and other similar send ups rely on completely ridiculous spoofs of the movies they parody with costumes that look like they came from the second hand store.

And so, at the heart of Galaxy Quest lies the human propensity to use story to give life meaning, richness, and fun it otherwise lacks. We create imaginary worlds to illuminate and entertain ourselves. We may even go over the edge, from time-to-time becoming idolizers of the false gods and goddesses of the screens. And yet, even if the lives of actors are fallible, and they descend to the ridiculous or craven, the enactments they create often have transcendent value far beyond the realities of their lives. Even if we as fans become gullible in our identification with screen images, the whole thing has a kind of sweet, innocent wonder that is so very human and loveable.