Galaxy Quest Had An 'Alien School' For Thermians - And It Got A Little Weird
While the hit 1999 sci-fi comedy "Galaxy Quest" was a love letter to the classic "Star Trek" series from the late 1960s and its follow-up "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the cast members were still allowed enough room to make the characters in the film their own. In fact, some of the film's actors, including Enrico Colantoni, were able to build their characters from scratch.
Colantoni plays Mathesar, the leader of the alien race the Thermians, who seek help from the crew of the NSEA Protector from the classic TV show "Galaxy Quest" to battle their nemesis Roth'h'ar Sarris (Robin Sachs). Unbeknownst to the Thermians, however, Peter Quincy Taggart (Tim Allen), Tawny Madison (Sigourney Weaver), Tech Sergeant Chen (Tony Shalhoub), and Dr. Lazarus (Alan Rickman) are just actors.
In an official "Galaxy Quest" featurette, Colantoni said Mathesar's slow and oddly paced delivery — which was accented by blurts of various other noises — was rooted in a lesson he picked up in drama school: "The voice came from a vocal exercise I learned at Yale. It's just a touching of all the seven resonators," Colantoni said.
Director Dean Parisot quickly hired Colantoni, and effectively, the actor became a teacher for an ad-hoc Alien School to recruit more actors. "[The casting director said,] 'We have to cast this [movie] really quickly and I normally wouldn't do this, but I want to show you one of the other actor's audition," Missi Pyle, who plays the Thermian Laliari, said in the "Galaxy Quest" featurette. Recalling Colantoni's smile and stiff-neck demeanor, Pyle remembered thinking, "I know exactly what to do now!"
Colantoni played Mathesar as 'an innocent guy'
Further commenting on his creation of Mathesar for "Galaxy Quest," Enrico Colantoni recalled in a 2016 interview with The A.V. Club that the sky — or make that, space — was the limit when it came to crafting the character. "To tell you the truth, when I'm given the opportunity to audition for serial killers or aliens, I figure I've got carte blanche to make s**t up," Colantoni explained to the outlet. "Because nobody can say, 'Oh, an alien would never behave that way.' So, f**k it: I'm gonna play around with it. So, I said, 'I'm gonna make [Mathesar] more like a Jehovah's Witness coming to your door on a Sunday afternoon, just like a perpetual youth.' Because what I read, he was such an innocent guy."
Sam Rockwell, who played the self-centered Guy Fleegman, an extra on the "Galaxy Quest" TV show, marveled at what Colantoni had created as Mathesar. Soon enough, Rockwell noted, the other main Thermian actors began to follow suit. "Enrico really invented the whole way that the aliens speak. He came up with it," Rockwell said in the "Galaxy Quest" featurette as he mimicked the Thermian dialogue. "Then Rainn Wilson, Patrick Breen and Missi Pyle sort of joined in with Enrico's invention and they all created this language together, and Dean [Parisot] was like, 'That's awesome!'"
Once again, Colantoni was the center of attention, recalling with laughter in the video that Parisot issued a simple request to the actor's Thermian co-stars: "Do what he's doing!" The actors clearly followed the director's instructions, as well as more Thermian lessons he had in store for them.
The Thermians' walk was also taught in alien school
While the language and the facial expressions were key characteristics of the Thermians in "Galaxy Quest," the aliens were no doubt made whole by their distinctive gait while on their feet. "We had Alien School for an hour every day, and that's where we came up with the walk, where you go against what you usually do with your arms ... it's incredibly hard to walk that way. Try it sometime. Go the opposite way your arms normally go," Dean Parisot said in the "Galaxy Quest" featurette.
The late Alan Rickman — who starred as the grumbly actor who eventually realized the full power of his Dr. Lazarus character — praised the work Colantoni and company put into the Thermians. "It was immensely disciplined, what they were doing," Rickman said in the featurette. "There wasn't a move out of place. It's like they have an electric wire between them all and that's an endless joy to watch."
With any luck, Colantoni will be called on to teach Alien School once again since "Galaxy Quest" is getting the series treatment from Paramount+.
Apparently, Colantoni and his fellow "Galaxy Quest" stars all hit the right notes since the film was a hit at the box office. So what did the "Star Trek" cast really think of "Galaxy Quest"? For the most part, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" stars Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Wil Wheaton thought the film was spot-on, as did "Star Trek" star George Takei. William Shatner begged to differ in a response that was likely in jest, Shatner-style.