Here it is, the promised review of the Star Trek: the Exhibition, currently housed at the San Diego Air and Space Museum (it will be moving to another venue in January).
I had the good fortune of being able to go to both this and the Las Vegas Star Trek Experience before it closed within the span of three months, so I am able to compare both. My basic opinion of the Exhibition is this – as a stand-alone thing, it’s pretty cool. Comparing it to the Vegas Experience, however, it feels incomplete. More on that later.
The way the Exhibition is laid out is pretty cool – you enter a foyer area that has a huge obelisk with the “where no one has gone before” speech engraved on it, and behind that is a massive revolving original 1701-A Enterprise (which is very much lacking in detail and accuracy – this definitely was NOT a shooting model). There are various gold-painted models of the ships of Starfleet next to a monitor running a video montage of scenes from the movies and shows.
Then, the highlight (for me): the bridge from the original series, recreated.
If you are a classic Trek fan, this is as close as you will get to the original set that you’ll find in a public venue, and it’s worth the price of admission just to be there. You get to sit in the captain’s chair (or anywhere else, for that matter, if for example you want to man the helm) and have your picture taken (which you can later purchase, for $22). Of course, I bought mine.
(Now, I can nitpick the fact that it is not the complete bridge – it cuts out a chunk of the segments between Spock’ station and the viewscreen – or the fact that the layout of some stations are inaccurate, but I’m not that big a geek.)
Next (after security had to pull me away from the bridge) you have an original series “costume hall” that also features one of the $1000 original series Enterprise models from Master Replicas (it’s gorgeous) as well as collection of props from the original series. I have no idea if any of the costumes or props are originals, though I kinda doubt it – all look “newish.”
Suddenly you are in the hallway of the Enterprise-D and facing the (closed-off) quarters of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. A Picard costume is displayed and props are scattered throughout the area (again, most were not originals). Walking past Picard’s offiice you encounter a Next Gen-era Transporter pad, which you can have your picture taken on (again, a fee applies) as well as a HUGE Borg cube model (an original shooting model, I think), a next-generation prop display, and more costumes from ST:TNG and two captain’s chairs – the Klingon Captain chair from Star Trek III and Picard’s command chair. Both these were originals, as they were roped off…
Going down the hallway you can go right or left. Going right lands you in front of a section on time travel with a HUGE replica of the Guardian of Forever, with Vic Perrin’ dialogue from “City on the Edge of Forever” playing on a loop as the Guardian lights up. Cool (and yes, you can take your picture taken leaping out of the Guardian if you want). Going left you end up in a large exhibit called “The History of The Future” which goes chronologically from right to left (?!) and starts with TOS and ends with Nemesis…. It’s very similar to the timeline that was in the Star Trek Experience, though the Experience timeline took up a lot more space and had more details and photos. A section for the new Star Trek prequel/sequel/reboot is on the far LEFT (which I guess makes sense, since the movie starts with future Spock) and is, basically, empty.
Next to the History wall is the mother-load for model fans: LOTS of models from the movies and series, almost all originals. You get the shuttlepod from the first movie, the Stargazer from ST:TNG, the USS Excelsior (from the flashback Voyager episode, NOT the movie model), a couple of alien shuttles from ST:TNG, and a (non-original) model of the Enterprise-D. Two LCD screens next to the models were showing the high- and low-lights of Trek: one was showing The Wrath of Khan, and the other showed Nemesis (shudder).
And, basically, that was it. There were two simulator Trek rides on the other side of the museum (one was down when I was there, the other was a ST:TNG sim that had you in a shuttle fighting the Borg as the pre-recorded Michael Dorn as Worf spoke to you). There were NO items for sale based on the exhibit besides the photos and magnets (yes, magnets).
So, is it worth it? Well, since you can’t get to the Experience anymore, yes, it is worth it if you are a die-hard fan. BUT if you are a casual fan, your reaction may be “meh.” I still think that if you combine both into one “tourist trap” you will have much more of a draw for the casual fan (as the Experience was much more ST:TNG era and the Exhibition is focused more on the original series, a combined attraction can cover all the bases). Even then, it won’t beat the best Star Trek exhibit I ever went to, which was the one the Smithsonian had in the early 1990s.
Check it out if you can.
UPDATE: Well, I feel stupid: found out after this review was written that the Star Trek: The Expo was originally much larger, and also contained a lot of Next Gen stuff. The San Diego Exhibition is HALF the initial show, the other half is at a museum in Arizona. Which pretty much negates my primary criticism of the San Diego exhibition…