Script To Screen: “Galaxy Quest”

A fun early scene from the 1999 movie Galaxy Quest, screenplay by David Howard and Robert Gordon, story by David Howard.

Plot summary: The alumni cast of a cult space TV show have to play their roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help.

Here is the scene from the script:

Here is the scene in the movie:

This is an example where what was shot was edited differently in terms of its order … and lots of cuts. Can you spot the changes?

Such a wonderful movie. Check out this video which tracks the metamorphosis that takes place with the character Alexander Dane, played by Alan Rickman, the touchstone a specific line of dialogue: “By Grabthar’s Hammer”:

If you’re a fan of the movie, you can check out a week-long analysis we did on Galaxy Quest here including the transcript of a live Tweet-Cast that included several professional screenwriters.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

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