The Mall of America’s website indicates that Star Trek: the Exhibition promises to be “one of the largest collections of authentic Star Trek artifacts and information ever put on public display. A truly impressive array of exhibits features sets, costumes, priceless museum pieces and props from numerous Star Trek television series and Star Trek feature films.”
Sadly, this description borders on a lie, if not an outright lie.
For $17 you can walk into a mostly empty space to look at so-called authentic artifacts behind plexiglass, great swaths of the props qualified with the word “replica.” As I came up to the first such display of communicators, most if not all props in the display were replicas, if my memory serves. From then on, the whole exhibition became a game of, “spot the genuine article,” as there were so many replicas strewn about like bric-a-brac amongst the real things that it became more interesting to view the exhibition in this light rather than simply be inspired by so-called “meticulous craftsmanship.”
And the replicas weren’t even very good. The replica of Geordi’s VISOR was a paint-chipped piece of junk, and I’ve seen better replicas at Comic Cons that weren’t behind flimsy plexiglass. It’s one thing to view the real thing where you expect to see years of wear-and-tear, but it’s another to view a replica that’s seen years of wear-and-tear. Just give us a newer replica, please.
After a walk through a minefield of real and fake props, you get a chance to see the captain’s chairs from the Enterprise-D and B, in addition to the Klingon captain’s chair from Star Trek III, I believe it was. So, while it was cool to imagine, “Wow! I’m looking at a prop that Patrick Stewart sat in,” I couldn’t help but be reminded of those cheapened facsimiles. Did Sir Patrick’s bottom really grace its presence on the chair sitting before me? I wasn’t sure to be too sure.
Then there was what could only be a re-creation of one of the computer consoles of the Enterprise-D engineering room (the main, center one that sat before the warp core). I indicate “could only be,” because we were actually allowed to touch the console, pretending to bleep away as we pushed buttons and things, imagining that the ship was being rocked about by Tholians. There was another re-creation of the original series bridge set, except that Spock’s little periscope was on the wrong side. While it was cool to sit in Kirk’s chair with your legs crossed and pretend to move to a shaking camera, it was all cheapened.
There was also a collection of costumes from various different Star Trek franchises as well, from Kirk’s uniform and Khan’s clothes from Star Trek II, Janeway’s uniform from Voyager, Troi’s blue dress, and while you expect to see these things to show their age with frayed hems and balled material, it all still felt like I was walking through someone’s living room or basement or garage, looking at a master collector’s personal museum of items that they picked up over the years at car boot sales and eBay auctions, except that the collector was duped into buying fakes.
As my friends and I walked out of the exhibition feeling robbed and trodden upon, we had to make our way through the Macy’s where suddenly everything even in Macy’s seemed cheapened and plasticized. It didn’t help that as we walked through the skyway between Macy’s and the parking garage that there were evergreens planted on the roof, branches sagging with Christmas lights (yes, Christmas lights still on the trees in almost June), the poor dears seemed to call out, “Oh my god. I was moved from a tree farm in the open air to the roof of a monstrosity of a building.”
It occurred to us a bit later that these trees, too, were fakes, adding insult to injury.
I’m not sure who would actually enjoy Star Trek: the Exhibition. Maybe little kids whose imaginations have yet to be spoiled by the horrible pangs of reality. But, I think even kids are smart enough to realize that what this exhibition has on display is nothing more than saddened memories of the actual saga.
If the advertisements for this exhibition would have been a little more truthful, then I wouldn’t have felt to write such a scathing attack on the experience. But, who would go to something that promises, “really bad replicas,” “moth-balled clothes,” and “phony sets.”
Maybe you would, I don’t know. But I want my $17 back.
If there’s one thing to be thankful about Star Trek: the Exhibition, is that it’s given me yet another reason never to visit the Mall of America ever again.