'Galaxy Quest', a movie considered by many to be the ultimate Star Trek satire, was released on region 2 DVD yesterday. To celebrate its release, UK magazine 'Ultimate DVD' has run a special feature on the movie, interviewing the majority of the cast, including Sigourney Weaver, who played Lt. Tawny Madiso and Alan Rickmam (Dr. Lazarus).

For those not familiar with the premise of the movie, Weaver begins her interview with a short description of the plot. "These down and out actors, who used to be on this sci-fi TV show [Galaxy Quest] which was cancelled a while ago," she explains, "their lives really consist of going from one convention to another and they hate each other." Things start to get interesting, however, when a group of fans turn up at one of those conventions and asks the bickering group to "take a look at the replica they made of [the series'] spaceship."

However, it turns out that the fans are in fact a group of desperate aliens who, after watching repeats of the ill-fated television show, believe that everything they saw was quite real. "They think the shows they have seen are historical documents of our little band actually saving the universe," Weaver continues. "They end up taking us into space." Hilarity ensues as the actors - who have no real clue what they're doing and are "terrible cowards" to boot - wind up "having to save [the aliens] and actually become the heroes [they were] pretending to be."

British actor Alan Rickman believed that the movie itself was "a great idea and genuinely funny" and thought it was incredible that it had "slipped through the net". "I just thought, 'What a brilliant idea'," he told the magazine. "'How come nobody has done this before?'"

Rickman believes that the movie was so funny was that the cast played it dead straight. "If you do 'nudge nudge, wink wink', I don't laugh," he explains. "We are playing real people with real lives. You've got that as your guiding force all the time. It doesn't matter how ridiculous the situation is - these are people who have to go and buy milk. These are real people caught up in an extraordinary situation."

More of the interviews with Weaver and Rickman may be found by following this link, while for the full run-down on the DVD, including more interviews with the cast, check out the latest edition (316) of 'Ultimate DVD'.

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