Galaxy Quest was a fun project. It was written by people who really loved Star Trek, and understood the fans. There were a lot of “in” jokes: from the designs to the characters and situations.

The ships each presented their own challenges. The Protector has those long, curved, thin wings with bent roots. We had to use high tech materials to make them light and rigid enough to survive shooting. Sarris’s ship was very organic, so we sculpted it almost entirely from clay. It took a lot of clay since the models were over 8 feet long.

There was also a smaller, low-res “TV show” version of the Protector made for scenes of the old TV show. It was intentionally not as detailed or weathered so that it looked like it came from a low budget TV series.