'Star Trek: The Exhibition': The Experience. Set Phasers on FUN!

The Place, the final frontier. These are the pictures and account of my time visiting Star Trek: The Exhibition. My mission: to explore familiar, old Star Trek TV series and movie props and costumes; to seek out new and overpriced Star Trek memorabilia from the gift shop; to dorkily go where several tens of thousands of other dorks before me have gone before ...

... to a fantastic, world-touring Star Trek exhibition now currently open for guests in Beijing!

DAAA DA DA DAAA DA DA DAAAAAAA!!! DA DA DA DA DA DAAA DAAA DAAA DA DA DAAAAAA!!!!

Um, yeah. I went to the Star Trek exhibition. It was, in a word, wondrous. It was wondrous, I tell you. Even now I miss it. Even now, I miss the Star Trek exhibition and think back fondly on it, wistfully on it. I’m currently writing this from a beach in Thailand, drowning in billowy, billowy Buddhism capri pants, sippin’ on a Singapore Sling, positively ensconced in ladyboys, and I miss the Star Trek exhibition. It’s just that good.

Behold! Come trek with me!

Star Trek: The Exhibition is touring the world in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the maiden voyage of the Enterprise, first launched into space and the world's imagination in September 1966, with the debut of TOS (ahem, that’s “The Original Series”). Since then, the franchise has gone on to live long and mostly prosper with six more TV series, 10 feature films and counting, a very underrated TOS cartoon series, conventions all over the world, so much stuff you can buy and obsess over, and, basically, a full-on way of life and philosophy of being. In those 50 years – in those five decades – the franchise has weathered the changing tastes of a new generation, paradigm shifts in entertainment technologies and platforms, Wesley Crusher, and a worldwide socio-cultural transformation from the era of its conception during the US/USSR “space race” to the post-modern, digital age landscape we inhabit today.

Star Trek: It is, quite simply, the most important science fiction work ever put to screen.

NOPE! Shhh ... shush! Not listening! Na-na-na-na. Star Trek is number one! NOTHING else. Not listening! Star Trek is number one. I WILL FIGHT YOU.

Side Note: But, yeah, if you haven’t, you should check out the old Star Trek TAS (the animated series) currently available for free on Youku. I blasted the whole thing just yesterday, and can confirm, Star Trek the cartoon is totally gnarly. If only for Lieutenant M’Ress, a member of the bridge crew who is, for some reason, a sexy cat lady and speaks in sexy cat lady English. PuururrrrrUURUurrr!! Haha, that’s pretty on-the-nose, Star Trek! Spoiler alert: Scotty throws her the D in like episode 14. And it’s a kid’s show. (Seriously, check it). 

ANYWAY. I digress! M’Ress! What a deep cut. What were we talking about? Star Trek: The Exhibition. According to the press release, they’ve got over 40 costumes and 160 props used in the productions from 1966 to 2009. Feels like they’ve got just about enough!

Oh, I know, no biggie, yeah: JUST A KLINGON BAT’LETH.

Hugh?

In addition to that, they’ve got some neat-o production stuff like a bunch of original TNG (Star Trek: The Next Generation) scripts:

Kind of mindblowing to see it actually written down. With the acting on the show at such a caliber, I always thought they just sort of scatted out their science jibber jabber lines like professional jazz musicians. Skiddle-dee-doop-dap! Deflector shields this! Dip dee dip didlde dap doop! Tachyon fields that!

But the main draw, however, of Star Trek: The Exhibition are the life-scale installation pieces — the fully recreated sets. In addition to an authentic-looking hallway piece, they’ve got:

The Captain’s Ready Room on Enterprise D

Oh my god. You can just picture him ordering down some TEA, EARL GREY, HOT before settling in with his Ressikan flute (Episode: “Inner Light”) to play that song that sounds like Gizmo from The Gremlins singing.

A Transporter Pad

HAVE YOU GOT HIM? LAFORGE. LAFORGE, HAVE YOU GOT HIM?

And ...

A Life-Size Recreation of the Bridge of the Enterprise D!!!!!

I have not the words, my friends. There are no words. This is basically why I pretend I got into Starfleet in the first place, my friends, for this moment right here in the hallowed Captain’s Chair. Just recreating some solid memes for my new MySpace profile pic. 

Check it out: I’m just appearing before this kid like Q about to put his whole damn village on trial for the crimes of humanity. 

You know when things get super tense on the bridge of the Enterprise and some crazy shit is going down, like Romulans are doing sneaky Romulan stuff on the viewscreen, that’s when Commander Riker always takes the opportunity to strike Commander Riker’s INTENSE CONCENTRATION POSE, which is throwing a serious leg up on the COMM and giving whoever is in the chair a healthy dose of Riker crotch.

So that’s what this is ...

Ahhh ... So fantastic. Is there a word or phrase in Klingon to describe complete fulfillment and gratification?

Ah yes ...

Wa'Hu' naHmey je'ta' be'.
 
Exiting through the gift shop ...

The gift shop was full of like ... maybe 40 percent Star Trek stuff and 60 percent “f*ck it, just put in some random space shit in here.” Like a calendar of Saturn and a bunch of snow globes, I guess? They’re selling miniature Eiffel Towers in there, it’s pretty great, the sheer effrontery. Kind of looks like the duty-free shopping at the airport in Saskatoon. Or like they had five minutes to put the thing together and someone just raided their senile old Icelandic grandmother’s attic for stuff, like QUICK THEY’RE COMING.

For Star Trek stuff, they’ve got t-shirts, buttons, scarves, and a few plastic toys. I came away with a scarf, a shirt that’s like nine sizes too small (obvi, they sold out of XXXXXXL on the first opening of the exhibition back in some flyover state somewhere), and an official “Wrath of Khan” communicator device that was manufactured in 2009.

It only works like one in nine times but when it does, oh man, it rumbles out Captain Kirk screaming KHAAAAAAAAAAAN! and I’m the happiest man in the entire Alpha Quadrent.

What a steal at like RMB 9,000. 

So that’s it! Star Trek: The Exhibition. Is it worth it? If you’re a Star Trek fan, most definitely, yo. Come on. For sure. For everyone else ... um ...

What’s that you say? Um, yeah, I guess it does only go up to 2009, like as if this thing was a marketing drive put together for the opening of the JJ Abrams’ first Trek movie seven damn years ago, and all this stuff has been sitting in some dusty old warehouse for almost a decade. Now that you mention it, it’s EXACTLY that. They couldn’t update it? Like, they couldn’t include any of the stuff from that last movie Into Darkness or the upcoming Beyond? Nothing about the new TV show coming out?

Pah! Whatever. It’s fine. It’s all good. It’s not like the Star Trek brand has ever been slapped on an inferior product before!

Star Trek: The Exhibition is on at The Place until February 22. Open from 10am to 10pm. Tickets are RMB 100 per person. RMB 220 for groups of three.

Photos: Morgan Short