Preview: 'Star Trek: The Exhibition' comes to San Jose

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Preview: 'Star Trek: The Exhibition' comes to San Jose

By Charlie McCollum

cmccollum@mercurynews.com
Posted: 10/20/2009 04:32:35 PM PDT
Updated: 10/20/2009 05:14:48 PM PDT

It's all there: phasers, communicators, the bridge of the original Enterprise, a transporter, a Borg cube, even a Tribble.

On Friday, the Tech Museum in downtown San Jose will open "Star Trek: The Exhibition," billed as the largest-ever exhibit of sets, costumes, original props and priceless museum pieces from the five TV series and 11 movies that make up the "Star Trek" canon. And the show — making its only Bay Area stop here — covers the full "Star Trek" universe, from the original 1966 television series to this past summer's box-office hit.

The exhibit will let museum-goers "experience the unmatched imagination, vibrant artistry and ground-breaking technology that have made 'Star Trek' the most enduring science fiction franchise in history," said Peter Friess, president of the Tech, during a press preview on Tuesday, which included a Data, a Captain Benjamin Sisko, a bevy of faux Klingons and a real Mr. Sulu (actor George Takei, on hand to provide a measure of gravitas).

Friess and others involved in the show hope this will be the biggest "blockbuster" to come to the Tech since the museum started booking high-profile traveling exhibitions two years ago. Projections indicate 100,000 or more visitors will come, and the museum plans to expand its hours over the holidays to accommodate the expected crowds.

"Our first two major exhibits" — "The Body World" in 2007 and "Leonardo" last year — "were incredibly
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successful, and we think 'Star Trek' will be even more so," said Dan Fenton, chairman of Team San Jose. "We see people coming from way outside the borders of San Jose, staying in hotels, eating in restaurants and really experiencing San Jose and this region. We think this is a great economic generator."

There is reason for optimism, since the show doubled attendance at the San Diego Air and Space Museum in 2008 and doubled the number of visitors to the Detroit Science Center earlier this year. "Pop culture is very significant in driving museum attendance these days," noted Friess.

He also said "Star Trek" — like the two exhibits before it — are part of an effort to change perceptions of the museum: "The future is life-long learning. The Tech doesn't want to be just a kids' museum anymore.

"We're still testing our exhibits and what works for our audience. Right now, we are looking for big exhibits all over the place," he said, adding that he would like to bring in major exhibits from India and Mexico to reflect this area's demographics.

While the core of "Star Trek: The Exhibition" is the same as it was in San Diego and Detroit, there have been additions, and "the overall set is bigger" — more than 15,000 square feet — "than anywhere we've been before," said Natalie Dolan, the show's program director. Added for the San Jose installation are costumes from the latest "Star Trek" movie and a special tabletop computer programmed by Microsoft to let museum-goers take the famous Kobayashi Maru test that Captain James T. Kirk beat in his Starfleet Academy years. (He cheated.)

While many of the more 200 pieces in the exhibit are real — including filming models of USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, the Borg cube and costumes from the original TV show — the sets are replicas, carefully built to the original specifications by scenic designers who worked on the films and TV shows.

"If you can touch it or sit in it, it's a replica," said Allyson Lazar, the show's collections manager. "If you can't, it's the real deal, and that includes all the costumes. The Kirk and Spock uniforms were worn by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, and they're actually in pretty good shape — just a little color fading, which is to be expected."

But the replicated sets should provide a bit of a kick for "Star Trek" fans.

You can sit in Captain Kirk's command chair on the bridge of the original NCC-1701. ("It's definitely everyone's favorite photo op," said Lazar.) Along a corridor, you can peek into Captain Jean-Luc Picard's ready room (among the details, a bottle of Chateau Picard, made from the Picard family's vineyards). One room is dominated by a full-scale model of the Guardian of Forever — the time portal from "The City on the Edge of Forever," one of the original series' most famous episodes.

In the transporter room, you can step onto the platform — and watch yourself be "energized" on a video screen.

For his part, Takei seemed to enjoy the chance to sit at a replica of his old station on the bridge and step onto the transporter. And he thought the idea of a sci-fi franchise taking its place in a museum dedicated to advances in technology makes perfect sense.

Noting that Martin Cooper, the Motorola engineer who invented the cell phone, based his version on the communicators used in the original series, Takei said, "'Star Trek' was an extraordinary show, given the pap that was on the air at the time. We looked to the future with optimism and confidence in our ability to innovate, to create, to solve problems, to be inventors.

"And over the years, what had seemed like science fiction way back then, has become science fact. It takes the imagineer to imagine, 'What if?' — the seemingly impossible. ... It takes the researchers, the scientists, inventors to make that 'what if' a reality."

Star Trek: The Exhibition

When: Friday through, at least, Jan. 3, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday; 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thanksgiving weekend and Dec. 19-Jan. 3
Where: Tech Museum of Innovation, 201 S. Market St., San Jose
Tickets: $25, adults; $22, students; $19, children 3 to 17; www.thetech.org.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13603359