Star Trek: The Tour…Worth Your Latinum?
Star Trek: The Tour…Worth Your Latinum?
Feb 06Star Trek has taken so much of my money over the years. Granted, this is mostly my fault — I didn’t really need that shoddy plastic Kira replica with the oddly-sloped shoulders and buggy eyes (she looked nothing like Nana Visitor and almost exactly like a vaguely pissed-off duck with a drinking problem), nor should I have spent my hard-earned pennies on the masses of out-of-focus 8×10 glossies littering the tables at Creation cons. And yet, I still nurse a certain nerdly bitterness regarding the franchise’s fan-bilking ways. After all, if I’m going to dump latinum into Paramount’s overflowing coffers, the least they can do is give me a better show than Enterprise.
Anyway, when I first heard about Star Trek: The Tour, I was skeptical. Admission is $35 (and much more if you want the full VIP Experience!) and for what? What are they going to show me that I haven’t seen before, huh? I envisioned a room full of crappy props connected to an even larger Star Trek shop, the whole thing narrated by a virtual Walter Koenig.
But then my friend John Charles happened to catch a 3 a.m. promo hosted by everyone’s favorite lusty carnival barker, The Shatner, and he got all excited about it. And I decided maybe I was excited about it, too, because another thing Star Trek does really well is, you know, hype. So, with spouses in tow, off we went.
And you know what? For all my fannish skepticism, my bitching, my loud complaining as I handed over $35 (plus processing fees!)…it was AWESOME.
No, seriously. The Trek overlords did a bang-up job with this exhibit. As we entered, the dulcet tones of “Faith of the Heart” piping over the sound system (warning: you will have to hear that song approximately 13 billion times before you leave), I was immediately impressed with the extensive collection of costumes, prosthetic heads and props assembled — every series is represented, and it’s not just C-List schwag, like Picard’s Ressikan flute or whatever. Odo’s fucking head is in there.
When I saw the Guardian of Forever, I actually screeched, “Hey! There’s the GUARDIAN OF FOREVER!” Surprisingly, photography is not prohibited, so you can snap away to your heart’s content as friends and family members prepare to annihilate the timeline and save poor Joan Collins.
Another neat element is the “Saucer Corridor,” which re-creates a few key TNG hotspots: sickbay, Picard’s quarters, and even the transporter room, where you can beam in and out with the assistance of the perky technician.
One of the best reasons to go, however, is the pretty cool photo op. Yes, they are going to charge you an arm and a leg to actually BUY said photo, but look at it this way: at the Star Trek Experience in Vegas, all you get is that weird pic where your head is superimposed onto an androgynous-looking body standing next to the crew of your choice. Here, you get to pose ON THE BRIDGE OF THE ENTERPRISE. TOS or TNG. Whoo! I got to sit in the Big Chair on the TNG bridge, and I totally did my best Picard “engage.”
Of course, there are a couple of clunkers amidst the goodness. If you wish, you can stand in line to ride one of the shuttle simulators, which sends you on an intergalactic, Borg-fighting adventure. These are pretty much like any other motion simulator, except the graphics look like they’re from 1997. The voiceover, as provided by Michael Dorn or possibly a Michael Dorn sound-alike, is on the phoned-in side, but maybe that’s because Dorn is sick of always saying how today is a good day to die and shit. (Wil Wheaton and Tim Russ do a much better job at the Tour-ending “Encounter Theater” — good show, Wesley and Tuvok!)
At the end of the Tour, you are plunked out into a shop next to a makeshift “Ten Forward.” The Ten Forward is on the chintzy side, complete with such con-friendly food as a “Seven of Nine Veggie Burger” and “Phlox Fries.” Yum?
Anyway, I realize a lot of this is sounding pretty fangirly, but it’s just cool to experience something Star Trek-y that I can wholeheartedly recommend, especially after that disappointing last series. I think the nicest thing is that the folks who assembled this exhibit actually seem to, I don’t know…get it. The series’ history is honored. The interactive elements bring out the fan in you, even if that fan is still crabby and bitter about Berman and Braga’s mishandling of the franchise. The whole thing feels genuinely thought out, rather than slapped together for a quick buck. And I’m just really hoping that’s how the next movie is going to feel too, you know?
So, alright, here’s some more latinum, Star Trek. Maybe I’ll even buy all the DVDs to complete my half-finished DS9 collection.
