1. It's Hysterical.
Most of the times Trek works best is when it shows its sense of humor. Some of the best TV episodes ("The Trouble with Tribbles") and most of the best films (The Voyage Home, most of Wrath of Khan) were heavy on the humorous content, so it makes sense that the best Trek film is a full-blown comedy. Following the washed-up stars of Galaxy Quest, a barely-veiled version of the old Star Trek TV show, we see them grudgingly attending a nerd-populated GQ convention before getting abducted by real aliens, who have modeled their civilization and technology on the intercepted episodes of the show. Faced with their fake adventures bought to real life, the crew has to hilariously remember how they dealt with all of this crap 20 years ago, but this time, their lives are on the line. And while the script and plot are ingenious, a lot of the comedy has to do with the next reason.

2. The Cast is Amazing.
Aside from special guest villains like Christopher Plummer and Malcolm McDowell (and guest Vulcans like Kirstie Alley and Kim Catrall), the main casts of the various Star Trek films were all taken from their respective TV shows. But the crew of the Protector is a well-constructed affair, made up of established and soon-to-be rising stars. Tim Allen plays the egomaniacal commander, Sigourney Weaver plays the show's jaded sex appeal, Alan Rickman plays the British stage actor turned resident alien, Darryl Mitchell plays the grown-up child prodigy, Tony Shalhoub plays the wonky ship's engineer, and Sam Rockwell plays an extra with delusions of grandeur. And that's just the crew! Throw in Enrico Colantoni, Rainn Wilson and Missi Pyle as the real aliens and Justin Long as an obsessive fan, and it's pretty much a cast made in heaven. It actually makes you think about what the Trek films would have been like if they had re-cast for the big screen.

3. The Special Effects are Top-notch.
In case that roster of A-list talent didn't clue you in, this was no low-budget comedy. The special effects are impeccable, as good as any Trek film, and with good reason. The creature effects, specifically enemy commander Sarris and his army of alien invaders, were done by Stan Winston Studios, and the CG effects, including ship-to-ship battles and giant rock creatures, were done by Industrial Light & Magic. So the people who worked on Iron Man and The Terminator and Star Wars worked on this film -- a smart decision, considering they were making a sci-fi epic for the ages, here. Maybe somebody should have hired one or both of them to make the plastic-surgery aliens in Star Trek: Insurrection look less dumb.

4. There's Very Little Time Travel.
For God's sake, Star Trek -- will you quit it with the time travel? Every single movie, you're going forward or backward in time, meeting Zefram Cochrane or Young Spock or whatnot. Galaxy Quest manages to make do with only 13 seconds of time travel, and it's only as a last resort. So give it a rest, will ya?

5. It's Totally About Star Trek.
Sure, the ship is called the Protector and not the Enterprise, but come on. A logical, psychic alien first officer? A brash, shirt-removing captain? A boyish navigator? This script would require only a few search-and-replaces to be turned into a Star Trek movie, and I actually kind of wonder if the opposite of that happened, and this thing actually started out as some sort of doomed Star Trek project before becoming what it is today. Hey, weirder things have been written -- there are people who write entire books about William Shatner fighting his fictional alter egos. While that may fly below the radar, a movie calling Shatner a self-absorbed drunk and portraying Trek fans as delusional lunatics may have boldly gone a step too far. ...Accurate though it may have been.

Pick up the new GalaxyQuest DVD here, and let us know your favorite Star Trek movie below.