Tim Allen Offers Update on Galaxy Quest 2

The cult classic Galaxy Quest has only grown in popularity since its release over twenty years ago, and in the time since talk of a sequel has popped up more than once. In the time since its release the influence of Star Trek and fan culture has only gotten even bigger, meaning a follow-up likely has a lot to play with, unfortunately co-star Alan Rickman passed away in 2016 and in a new interview Tim Allen says that his death resulted in the sequel falling into development limbo because their two characters would have been at the center of it all. Not all hope is lost though as Allen says the script could still be reworked.

“It’s a fabulous script,” Allen said in an interview with EW, “but it had a hiccup because the wonderful Alan Rickman passed. So it all got very sad and dark because [the script] was all about [Lazrus] and Taggart. It was all about their story. It doesn’t mean they can’t reboot the idea, and the underlying story was hysterical and fun….I haven’t reached out to anybody in the last week, but we talk about it all the time. There is constantly a little flicker of a butane torch that we could reboot it with. Without giving too much away, a member of Alan’s Galaxy Quest family could step in and the idea would still work.”

Allen also maintained that the years between the film and now, or five years from now, wouldn’t have any huge effect on their ability to make the sequel either, adding: “[The sequel] could happen now or in five years and it doesn’t matter at all because when you travel at light speed, when you come back it can be like only 20 minutes, but 20 years have passed, right? That part is wonderful for the sci-fi freak in me. But right now it’s in a holding pattern.”

In the years since Galaxy Guest was released the sequel talk hasn’t really stopped, thanks to the way the original film concluded in 1999. For a few years there was a TV series in development for Amazon Prime Video with comedian Paul Scheer helping shepherd it to the screen. Sadly it didn’t happen either, but it would have seen the classic Galaxy Quest cast mesh with a new generation.

“We want to create this kind of thing that feels like this epic sequel, but a continuation. I compared it to what The Force Awakens is to Star Wars. It is continuing a story but bringing in new characters,” Scheer previously told The Wrap. “My pitch for Galaxy Quest was, ‘How can we kind of blow this out and pay off things for the fans that love Galaxy Quest, but more importantly — and the thing that I really wanted to do is — appeal to the ‘me’ of now. Who’s the 18-year-old version of me that loved Galaxy Quest now? What would they want to see? Because I think that that is a movie that we haven’t really made yet: the Tropic Thunder in the world of modern-day science fiction.”