“‘Galaxy Quest’ is, unquestionably, the finest ‘Star Trek’ film.”
So mentioned Wil Wheaton within the 2019 “Galaxy Quest” documentary “By no means Give up”, and he ought to know a factor or two in regards to the topic, having spent a few years boldly entering into “The Subsequent Technology”, “Picard”, and “Prodigy“.
Whereas we respectfully disagree with Mr. Wheaton — “The Wrath of Khan” is clearly primary — the 1999 “Trek” spoof is not too far behind. It is that uncommon parody that absolutely understands what makes its material tick, with out ever making enjoyable of the supply materials or — crucially — its followers.
Dean Parisot’s film manages to cram in all the essential story beats, whereas additionally pointing a finger at some acquainted “Trek” tropes — one in every of which has apparently impressed the title of a weapon in “three hundredth Evening”, the penultimate episode of “Starfleet Academy”‘s first season.
The Omega Fan
In “Galaxy Quest”, the so-called Omega 13 system was put in on the NSEA Protector. Sadly, not one of the common crew had any thought what it was for.
Within the authentic TV-show-within-a-movie “Galaxy Quest”, Commander Peter Quincy Taggart ordered the Omega 13’s activation, just for an end-of-season cliffhanger — and the present’s subsequent cancellation — to go away followers trapped in perpetual limbo, destined to spend eternity questioning about its precise function.
However when Jason Nesmith (the actor who performs Taggart, himself performed by Tim Allen) activated the system “for actual” within the fully-functioning Protector constructed by the Thermians (the movie is so meta), it turned out to be a “temporal matter re-arranger”. TL;DR model? It gave customers the flexibility to journey just a few seconds again in time.
A model of the unstable Omega particle already existed in “Star Trek”, and Captain Janeway’s crew had a mission to neutralize the extremely harmful substance in “Voyager” season 4 episode “The Omega Directive” (which debuted earlier than “Galaxy Quest”).
But it surely absolutely cannot be a coincidence that the top-secret variant “Starfleet Academy” Huge Unhealthy Nus Braka stole from Starbase J19 Alpha in “Come, Let’s Away” is known as Omega 47, only a stone’s throw away (34, to be exact) from Omega 13.
In truth, whereas this Omega’s performance may be very totally different from the “Galaxy Quest” iteration — it shreds subspace, rendering warp journey unattainable inside its blast radius — it feels just like the “Trek” writers’ room is taking the chance to unleash an amazing huge NSEA Protector in-joke on an unsuspecting thirty second century.
It is arduous to think about the guardians of the James Bond franchise doing related with the sharks with laser beams hooked up to their heads from “Austin Powers”…
Agent 47
As for the 47, that is related too.
In addition to being — like 13 — a main quantity, 47 has a protracted historical past in “Star Trek”. In truth, it is arguably the ultimate frontier’s reply to 1138 in “Star Wars”, A113 in Pixar, or 42 in “The Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy”.
“Trek”‘s numerical obsession was initiated by “The Subsequent Technology” author Joe Menosky, who began writing the quantity into scripts as a tribute to his time at Pomona Faculty in California.
Forty-seven has particular significance there because of a jokey pupil challenge from the ’60s, which tried to show that the quantity seems in nature extra typically than every other. It has no foundation in scientific reality, however the thought caught on to the extent that the tutorial institution now has an annual celebration on April 7 (4/7).
It additionally impressed Menosky to make sure that 47 turned ubiquitous within the idealized way forward for the Federation. The quantity has subsequently made dozens of cameos throughout “TNG”, “Deep Area 9”, “Voyager”, “Enterprise”, “Discovery”, and now “Starfleet Academy”.
And whereas I am no conspiracy theorist, including 47 and 13 collectively provides us 60, and this 12 months is Star Trek’s sixtieth anniversary. Coincidence? Virtually actually sure, however enjoyable nonetheless.
So, as Nus Braka and his Venari Ral fleet put together to deploy his new Omega 47 toy to chop the Federation off from the remainder of the universe, consolation your self with the information that its title seems to have been impressed by “Starfleet Academy”‘s writers having a little bit of amusing.
The finale episode of “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” season one debuts on Paramount+ on Thursday, March 13.
