Galaxy Quest Has An R-Rated Director’s Cut
Galaxy Quest's original director's cut was an R-rated version complete with naughty words and other shenanigans.
Galaxy Quest is one of those underrated classics that everybody loves when they think about it, but doesn’t get mentioned all that often in the pop-culture conversation. That’s a shame because it was a pitch-perfect satire of Star Trek‘s conventions (not to mention Star Trek conventions) that also happened to be a better Star Trek movie than the franchise itself had provided in years at the time.
It’s quotable it’s hilarious, and in a perfect world, it would have spawned a long-running franchise. Of course, that might have deprived Harry Potter fans of their Severus Snape, but that would have been a small price to pay for more adventures of Commander Peter Taggart (actually actor Jason Nesmith, actually actor Tim Allen), Lt. Tawny Madison (actually actress Gwen DeMarco, actually actress Sigourney Weaver), and Dr. Lazarus (actually actor Alexander Dane, actually actor Alan Rickman).
Galaxy Quest is also one of those rare movies that is equally enjoyable for all age groups. Grups will love the sly references to the SF shows they grew up loving, while kids will love the silliness and the adventure.
That being the case, it’s kind of hard to believe that Galaxy Quest‘s original director’s cut was an R-rated version complete with naughty words and other shenanigans. That’s according to John Carter producer Lindsey Collins, who told Collider that she learned of the film’s more adult origins from Sigourney Weaver herself. Find out what Collins said about it after the jump:
We had lunch with Sigourney [Weaver] who was telling us that there actually used to be an R-rated version of that movie which was awesome. It was the director’s cut and it was R-rated and everybody was swearing and there were sex scenes, and the whole thing.
They didn’t know what to do with it, so they had to re-edit the whole thing and made it what it is today. We were like, ‘How do we get our hands on the R-rated version of Galaxy Quest?’ She said ‘I don’t know!’ and we were like, ‘Come on, Sigourney!’
It’s hard to know just how much the R-rated version differed from the theatrical release, since it doesn’t actually require that much edgy content to get pegged with the higher rating, especially if that content is sexual in nature.
As much as I am curious to see this cut of the film, I am actually glad that they went with the more family-friendly version for release. Galaxy Quest is one of those movies I can’t wait to introduce my kids to. I’d rather the R-rated version remain just a curious footnote.
