20 Things You Didn’t Know About Galaxy Quest
8. The Villain Is Named After A Film Critic
Producer Mark Johnson holds more grudges than lonely high court judges. He’d worked on Robert Redford vehicle The Natural fifteen or so years earlier, a movie which had received pretty good reviews from everyone except the New York Observer’s Andrew Sarris, who had called it “a pathetic strike-out” (blissfully unaware of how cringeworthy it would become to use a film’s premise as a metaphor with which to critique it).
There was no love lost between Johnson and Sarris, although it’s doubtful the latter lost any sleep over it - and when Johnson’s new sci-fi comedy needed a name for its alien villain, a reptilian monster that pillaged and burned all that stood before him out of some sick desire to destroy all the good in the universe, he thought of the man who sh*t so comprehensively on his beloved project a decade and change earlier.
The intergalactic warmonger became General Sarris - but the real life Sarris wasn’t bothered:
”It probably won’t make enough money for me to sue for $10 million. I’m 70 years old. This guy wants to insult me? Oh, boohoo. As long as they spelled my name right, I’m okay.”
The eye patch, however, was another nod to Trek - it was cribbed from the left-eyed patch worn by Christopher Plummer’s Klingon General Chang from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which (in canon) was bolted to Chang’s face to scare small children as he passed in the street.