The Most Inspiring Lesson from the 90s' Funniest & Most Moving Sci-Fi Film: Galaxy Quest's Lesson of Never Give Up! Never Surrender!

EVER!

The Movie that Busted Every 90s Guy’s Guts!

One of the greatest Sci-Fi movies to come out of the 90s, and one of the funniest of that era has got to be Galaxy Quest. This movie came out at a time when it had been some time since Spaceballs and Star Trek was kind of winding down (at least as far as I know), yet remaining a serious passion of a great many serious fans.

The movie had a solid cast with the top billed actor being Tim Allen. Now anyone who is by now familiar with this Substack knows that I’m quite fond of Allen, due to my father having been a massive fan of his.

That said the secondary leads were also great, such as Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver, each of them were to throw their all into their roles.

The plot of the movie is relatively straightforward; the washed up crew of a popular 80s knock off of Star Trek are drafted by some pretty weird aliens into saving the galaxy. Naturally hijinks ensue and you have a cast of characters who are nowhere near as competent as their in-universe ‘on-screen’ counterparts.

That being said they react more competently than any hollywood actors then and to-day likely could have responded to and what is more is that throughout the movie one cannot help but feel that each of the characters have a great deal of heart.

The Movie’s Message

The message and heart of the film lies in the opening line of the movie, and what is that powerful line? I’ll let Tim Allen tell you himself.

The line if you didn’t pick up on it is; ‘Never give up, never surrender!’

Why is this a line worth remembering? Because it is one that Tim Allen not only says with considerable passion but it is true.

It is true to the film, in that the heroes could give up at any time and surrender. They even do so if briefly near the end, only to nearly lose their lives. This is why they could not give up, could not surrender. Why? Because it means running out of time, it means falling into failure, it means death.

And so often in life this is how it is. To give up, is to lose all that you have, all that you have built, all that you are.

Compromise isn’t giving up, but just no longer trying, no longer throwing yourself into things heart, body and soul. This is actually a philosophy that reflects the nature of much of Europe, as it embodies in one sentence the creed that has been burnt and drilled into every infant’s skull since the time that Rome first took form. Since the first stones were laid down and down through the centuries.

It isn’t for nothing that even the Greeks believed in this prior to Rome. Achilles in the Iliad doesn’t screech about surrender, about the inevitability of defeat but instead about the glory that awaits, the righteousness of his cause. Hektor fights on because he believes in his people, in his cause, same as Odysseus who never truly gives up, and thus never truly surrenders on his journey home.

This is what it means to be of Europe. This is what each of her sons’ have carried forth not just in their genetics but in their very souls and hearts.

Odin in the Norse Myths doesn’t walk to his fate, he chooses to gamble, negotiate and fight it. He fights that his son Baldr might one day create something better than he could, so that he never truly gives into his fate and never surrenders to it.

Nor does the likes of Roland in the Chanson de Roland. How could he give up? How could he surrender? How could he when his Empereur is counting on him? This is what makes him defy the odds at Roncesvalles.

Because while some might call it foolish, it is more that it is about a ‘Fool’s Hope’ as Gandalf calls it. A fool’s hope is something that involves being mulish, being stubborn to a fault and if need be being an utter and complete idiot who has no quit. Here is the quote exactly.

“All now took leave of the Lord of the City and went to rest while they still could. Outside there was a starless blackness as Gandalf, with Pippin beside him bearing a small torch, made his way to their lodging. They did not speak until they were behind closed doors. Then at last Pippin took Gandalf's hand.
'Tell me,' he said, 'is there any hope? For Frodo, I mean; or at least mostly for Frodo.' Gandalf put his hand on Pippin's head. 'There never was much hope,' he answered. 'Just a fool's hope, as I have been told. And when I heard of Cirith Ungol--' He broke off and strode to the window, as if his eyes could pierce the night in the East. 'Cirith Ungol!' he muttered. 'Why that way, I wonder?' He turned. 'Just now, Pippin, my heart almost failed me, hearing that name. And yet in truth I believe that the news that Faramir brings has some hope in it. For it seems clear that the Enemy has opened his war at last and made the first move when Frodo was still free. So now for many days he will have his eye turned this way and that, away from his own land. And yet, Pippin, I feel from afar his haste and fear. He has begun sooner than he would. Something has happened to stir him.”

You see? Why doesn’t Gandalf give up? Because though his heart almost failed him, it did not.

Our hearts may almost fail us, but they will not. They could never do this. We’ve a duty, a burden and a joy too great to give up!

We carry with us, with each breath, with each heartbeat the legacy of our ancestors and the duty to our descendants to pass on something whole and intact. And make no mistake we will! We will carry the day, because the night is darkest before the dawn, and the day lies before us. We also carry that most important of secrets, the most important of lights, and that greatest Truth in our bosoms; in the end we win.

This is the secret which our ancestors knew, we know and our children surely do know; we win. It is why the mountains stand strong with us, the seas may rage with us, the vales, the glens, the valleys and the plains and the forests all whisper and murmur to us. Each of them and each of their furry and unfurred inhabitants know; we will win.

“Never give up. Never surrender!”

How well the script-writer chose his words, and how well Tim Allen uttered them. Because they are matter of fact.

But the same is true in the east. I mean when the night was darkest for the east, when the monstrous Qin Shi Huangdi triumphed and crushed all rivals and he stamped his mark into every inch of China, wreaking a path of destruction and madness to rival the worst of Commodus’ fits, and the destructive flame of the worst conquerors’ acts of vandalism, did the people surrender to him? No! They fought on until they got not him or his heirs as Emperor but Liu Bang instead.

Who was Liu Bang? One of their own. A former bandit who was imprisoned, and who loved his people that was his crime. He fought for his soldiers, defended them and would not give up on them so that even his enemy’s soldiers deserted them for him. This was the people’s Emperor.

In Japan when all was darkest, and the people could well have surrendered they did not. Taira no Kiyomori made them wealth, and the Minamoto burnt that wealth and the land, scarring it and yet did people give up? Did they surrender when the Hojo succumbed to madness? Or the Ashikaga after decades of decent rule? No, they didn’t even truly give up in the Sengoku Jidai though it would have been so easy to have done so.

Instead they persisted and got the Edo period with its peace, culture and serenity instead. Same goes for Korea; they had the insanity of the Goryo Kings after nearly a thousand years of Three Kingdoms at war. The Goryo surrendered to worse monsters in the form of the Mongols only for the people to persist whilst their Kings failed them.

What did they get out of it? They got the Joseon period in which the light of civilization reached its apex. They got the wise rule of the likes of countless Philosopher-Emperors who nurtured, loved and cared for their people and civilization as a gardener would his garden or vegetables.

The Chinese fell into disarray after the Han, yet from the chaos sprung the golden age of the Tang, and then when they fell there was the Sung. But did they truly give up to the Mongols? No, they persisted until they got the Ming and Qing.

Nobody wins by giving up, nobody triumphs by way of surrender. No one in Eurasia knows how to, if we’re being completely honest. No one who carries that blood in their veins knows how. Nor should they know how.

We should not teach our children to give up, to surrender and to throw their lives away. We ought to teach them that it is never too late, and that they should never give up, never surrender!

This is what that phrase must mean to us.

And think about also the great heroes who came in the Occident after Rome was utterly destroyed; France, Germany, Spain, England, Scotland, Greece. All these things sprung from her corpse. A family of nations each one glorious and destined to become even more so than Rome in her glory days.

The Francs could easily have succumbed and given into the stupidity and imbecilic Merovingians who did little good for Francia. But instead the people persisted, and the burgeoning nation kept pushing forward until she got the Carolingians out of the ‘deal’, with Charlemagne conquering and civilizing much of Europe, and while his dynasty faltered and gave itself over to a variety of them in Germany, in France it continued in the female line through the Capetiens lineage.

Then there was the Visigoths smashed to pieces by treachery and wicked foreign invaders who treated them like cattle and made a point of enslaving and destroying them. Asturias arose from the shadows of the northern mountains, from which a bevy of kingdoms arose to destroy the enemies of Spain.

The Greek Empire may well have fallen in similar fashion in 1453 but none of her vassals ever give up, none truly surrendered and in time, in a few centuries they fought back, they reclaimed themselves and pushed the Turks out of Europe.

This is what it means ‘Never give up, never surrender’, and it is a lesson that is of the utmost importance.

Conclusion

So in conclusion make this line your own, carve it into your soul. It is important and it is undeniably glorious and magnificent and important. It is unrivalled under the sun as the Japanese would put it. Why? Because it is the stuff that nations are made of.

A Fool’s Hope is still better than no hope, and still better than surrender or weakness. We must persist, because only we can persist, only we can carry forth our legacy to the next generation.

And this is what so many of those opposed to those of us who love hope, who continue one despite the hardships cannot understand; we have no quit in us. When Sinestro tells Hal Jordan ‘You’re not strong enough’ in the one movie, does Jordan give up? No, he growls, ‘It just takes a little incentive (to win)’ and victory for us is seeing a brighter tomorrow for our sons’ and our daughters.

So the whole attitude of ‘It is over’ is not true.

Birthrates aren’t what you wish they were? Fine, we’ll still win. People are invading? So? We’ve won every other conflict in the long term. So our system is rigged against us? Jokes on you, we’ve built them up from nothing and seen them burnt to ashes before, so we’ll burn them and rebuild them from nothing.

As the saying goes, others may need strength to survive the storm, but we don’t. Why? Because we ARE the Storm!

So yes; ‘Never give up! Never Surrender!’

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Also Crown of Blood has a new edition, with maps, character bios and more!