Kristen came and visited this weekend. Now that we live in St. Louis again, it’s a much more reasonable drive for her to come visit her niece, whom she hadn’t seen since last May. Around the time we figured out that she’d be coming in, I was also made aware of a new Star Trek exhibition being displayed at the St. Louis Science Center. The exhibition will be there until May, so there wasn’t really a huge rush…but, on the first Friday of each month, they run a special deal where they cut the cost of the exhibit in the evening and they show a movie in the Omnimax theater. And the movie this month?
“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” Largely considered the best “Star Trek” movie. As Khan said, “In my estimation, you simply have no alternative.”
We went to the exhibition after dinner and after we dropped Brooke and Meg off at home. The exhibit itself was pretty neat, though I would have preferred fewer “replica” props. Sure, they had actual uniforms worn by the various cast members throughout the series. They had uniforms from each of the members of the crew from the newest movie, Spock’s robe from “Star Trek IV,” General Chang’s uniform from “Star Trek VI,” and representative uniforms from all of the captains across all of the series.
There were a few ship models and some of the original props, but there were quite a few of the aforementioned replicas, mostly in the realm of communicators, badges, phasers, etc. They definitely had some real ones and, to be honest, I’m sure the difference between the replicas and the real thing (which were only props, never truly “real”…) is minuscule. Still, seeing more actual props that were used on the various properties would have been nice. They did have scale models of a transporter and the Enterprise-D bridge from “The Next Generation,” mostly so they could take a picture of you and charge a ridiculous amount of money. Still, it was cool to sit on the bridge of the Enterprise.
In the end, however, the real attraction for me was seeing “Star Trek II” in the theater. It came out in 1982, the year I was born, so I’ve never actually seen this movie in a theater setting. To be fair, it wasn’t ideal because they were projecting what looked like the DVD version of the movie up on a screen that is meant to wrap around you. So, the image was kinda “curved,” and projected a bit higher than I would have liked. The contrast was a bit “off,” as well, especially when the crew was shown on the bridge in very dark lighting. But hey, when you’ve seen the movie countless times, you can forgive such things.
What I can’t forgive, however, is the omission of certain, key scenes. Specifically, those regarding Scotty’s nephew. As in, we see the kid, but certain lines of dialog that establish his relation to Scotty (as opposed to him being Random Engineering Cadette #7) are completely missing. It’s just really weird as it’s been in every other version of the movie I’ve seen, so I just wonder where the heck they found this one.
However, seeing the movie with a crowd of people for the first time just brings an extra “magic” to a movie I’ve seen more times than I can count. Once you’ve seen a movie you love enough times, there isn’t much else you can do to bring anything fresh to the viewing experience. However, watching it with 200 other fans, some of which dressed as Starfleet crew or Klingons, is definitely unique. Hearing cheers and jeers throughout was somewhat distracting, but still pretty great.
Overall, I think we had a good time. Glad I got to see some bits of “Star Trek” history, and that I got to share it with my sister. In the end, we came, we saw, we lived long and prospered. It’s all I can ask.
Cool!