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Last year I met Paul Allen at an Experience Music Project opening. I decided to introduce myself. After all, he's one of the richest men on the planet and I had worked for him (via the EMP) for years. Even better, I had the perfect in. I had seen his picture in the paper, plugging his upcoming science fiction museum.
“You were standing in front of the poster of one of my favorite sci-fi films, 'The Day the Earth Stood Still,'" I explained to him.
His eyes instantly lit up. “Is it really?” he deeply contemplated.
Yes, Paul Allen is a bit of a geek. After all, he did name one of his companies (Vulcan) after Mr. Spock’s species. But there's nothing wrong with being a geek, especially since I'm guilty of geekdom myself. In the 1980s, I put out a Kate Bush fanzine that was actually titled “For the Love of Kate” (and, bizarrely enough, copies are now in EMP’s collection). “The Day the Earth Stood Still”—a film in which an interplanetary emissary, who looks rather like John Kerry, comes to earth warning us about abusing atomic power—really is one of my favorite sci-fi films. So I was definitely interested in checking out the ephemera of another one of Allen’s obsessions (along with that Jimi Hendrix fetish) in the brand spanking new Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (or SFM, as it’s since been acronymed).
To update you, when EMP opened in 2000, there was a motion simulator ride called “Funk Blast,” which gave you a quick history lesson in funkology. The ride’s storyline was supposed to change over time, but, well, that never happened. Instead, the ride was shut down, and the empty space used for exhibits for a while. Then, the creation of SFM was announced.
The museum is essentially one big memorabilia display, but it’s presented attractively. The opening gallery, “Homeworld,” for example, has a starry ceiling; the other exhibits resemble the interior of a space ship. It’s less interactive than EMP—no gallery where you learn to play extraterrestrial instruments, no devices to point at exhibits to get more info (granted, using those MEGs can be pretty frustrating), though there are a few kiosks that are touch-sensitive. There are also some historical/educational elements: the history of the genre and a Hall of Fame honoring sci-fi writers. But the big draw is the “stuff,” or, in museum parlance, the Artifacts.
Unlike EMP, where most of their goods are in storage, about 95 percent of SFM’s collection is on display. There’s Captain Kirk’s “Command Chair” from the original “Star Trek” series, which looks surprisingly small, compared to the power it seemed to convey on TV. Ditto the Self-Destruct Panel from the same series, which looks rather like the children’s toy “Lite-Brite.” In contrast, Darth Vader’s helmet from “The Empire Strikes Back,” looks sinister even in its display case. There’s a clear raincoat worn by Joanna Cassidy in “Blade Runner” that wouldn’t look out of place on Broadway today. Creepiest of all, there’s the full-size “Alien Queen” model from “Aliens”—and at 19-feet, it’s very disturbing.
Donna Shirley, the Museum Director, formerly directed NASA’s Mars exploration program. Interestingly, she describes her job as not too dissimilar to her work for NASA: “Making sure people have what they need to do the job, helping them get together and communicate, reminding them that they have to stick to the schedule. I’ve also carried out trash, drilled holes for the text plaques, helped move furniture, you name it!” She actually took the trash out at NASA? “Sometimes!” she says.
And Shirley wants you to do more at SFM than just ooh and ahh over the stuff. She wants you to think about “the interplay between science fiction and reality. In the ‘Brave New Worlds’ gallery,” she points out, “we have ‘1984,’ and ‘Minority Report,’ all the totalitarian society kinds of things. And in light of the Patriot Act, and the big debates over privacy versus protection, privacy versus security—those are huge issues today,” she admits. “And you’ve got issues of slavery; if you notice, in the ‘Out of the Ashes’ exhibit, there’s a leash that Charlton Heston wore [in “Planet of the Apes”] that looks very much like the leash that the prisoners in Iraq are wearing. So there’s some powerful imagery, and some powerful reflection on real issues that you get from science fiction. There are all kinds of themes that people write in science fiction or put in science fiction movies that aren’t dealt with anywhere else.”
It’s not a surprise to hear such comments from someone who cites “Dr. Strangelove” as one of her favorite sci-fi films (and Shirley gets bonus points for naming another of my favorites, “Lilo & Stitch”). But it’s not a point hammered home by the museum; it’s one you pick up through inference. Fans coming to SFM to drool over the “Star Trek” phasers and signed first editions of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” trilogy may come away with a somewhat new perspective of life, as we know it: Today geekdom, tomorrow the world?
The Science Fiction Museum is located at 325 5th Ave N in Seattle. 1-877-SCI-FICT and on the web at sfhomeworld.org.
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