Sneak Peek at Paul Allen's Sci-Fi Museum

Comte writes "About three hundred charter members, local sci-fi cognoscenti and assorted geeks got a sneak peek last night of Paul Allen's $22 mm Science Fiction Museum prior to its official grand opening this Friday." Comte peeked, and contributes his impressions of the museum -- read on below to see what it's like. If you're in Seattle with a few hours, he says it's worth dropping in. (The rest of the text is his.)

The Museum, incorporated into Allen's "Experience Music Project" in the Frank Gehry-designed "Blob" at the foot of the Space Needle is divided into several sections, with "Homeworld" taking up the bulk of the mid-level. This exhibit includes "The Sci-Fi Hall Of Fame," along with a nifty timeline of s/f related events from history; a display system that projects stunning 3-D representations of planets onto a globular surface; "Not So Weird Science," focusing on how fiction has influenced scientific and technological innovation; and my personal favorite, "The Science Fiction Community," displaying examples of fan-fic, 'zines, and memorabilia that will have the most rabid s/f geek drooling in admiration: the legendary Forrest J. Ackerman's first published letter to Amazing Stories back in the 1930's (Ackerman is listed as a member of SFM's Advisary Board, along with other notables such as Arthur C. Clarke, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury & Greg Bear, just to name a few), a first-draft manuscript by Theodore Sturgeon, Ellison's Smith Corona manual typewriter, a signed, first-edition copy of Aldus Huxley's "Brave New World," the first Hugo Award presented to Ackerman in 1953, and other juicy items (many of which presumably come from Ackerman's personal collection).

One floor down are the other exhibits. "Fantastic Voyages" includes the much anticipated "Space Dock," a virtual representation of famous sci-fi spaceships (although a number of notable examples are missing: there's no TV Jupiter II, none of the ships from the "Alien" series, only one example from the "Star Trek" franchise, and no "Liberator," Eagles or TARDIS -- the Brits being generally underrepresented throughout the Museum), as well as the bulk of the prop and costume displays. Although this area tends to be rather heavy on TV/film memorabilia, there are still some choice items here: a model of the U.S. Capital dome used by Ray Harryhausen in "Earth Versus The Flying Saucers," original models from "Land Of The Giants," "Alien," "Close Encounters," the TV "Buck Rogers," "ET," and "Trek," along with a literal arsenal of weapons, including original phasers, a LIS blaster from Season One, a crossbow used by Jane Fonda in "Barbarella," and an original 1930's-era raygun from the Buck Rogers serials, among many others.

This is followed by perhaps the most disappointing section, "Brave New Worlds," encompassing the "Cities of Tomorrow" display, a CGI-driven exhibit similar to "Space Dock," but which only shows environments from three sources: a rather whimsical view of life in the 4th millenium courtesy of "The Jetson's," Ridley Scott's 21st-Century Los Angeles from "Blade Runner" (look for Dolly The Sheep on one of the rooftops!), and depictions from "The Matrix." This is followed by "Experimental Societies," basically just a display of the usual genre literature, and "Out Of The Ashes," currently limited to a few costume pieces from the 1968 "Planet Of The Apes."

The final section: "Them!" is pretty much what you'd expect -- a representation of aliens exclusively from TV/film media. The Queen Alien is pretty impressive up close, and there's a funny interplay set up between "Robbie The Robot" and "LIS's" B-9 using cleverly interspliced voice clips. At the end is a small gallery of sci-fi artwork, mostly inconsequential book-cover art, but with several pieces from acknowledged masters such as Chesley Bonestell, Frank R. Paul, and the real treat -- practically the entire collection of artwork produced by Fred Freeman and Rolf Klep for Werner von Braun's 1953 "Colliers" magazine series.

Overall, I'd say if you're interested in seeing a pretty good collection of items that encompasses more than just a "Planet Hollywood" style display of film memorabilia, then this is probably worth the $12.95 admission if you're in the neighborhood, particularly if you have at least two hours to spend going through the interactive exhibits. I'm not totally convinced it's worth the $40 to cough up for the annual membership, however, in speaking with one of the Museum staff, I was informed that some of the exhibits will change over time, with new items from Allen's extensive collection being swapped in and out. Otherwise, most of the displays are considered "permanent," although it seems pretty clear at least some of them can be replaced -- and in the case of "Brave New Worlds," probably should.

Photography is prohibited in the Museum (and the lighting level was too low for me to sneak any decent shots with my Zire 71), but if you want to take a gander at some press snaps of the exhibits, check out the Seattle Times "Inside" section.

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Thanks to comte for the report.

Re:No Doctor Who? No Farscape?

[Comte]

Actually, Moya DOES appear in the "Space Dock" exhibit, and there are a couple of minor references to "Doctor Who" scattered throughout, but again the emphasis on U.S. s/f may simply be due to (as I stated in an earlier post) issues with licensing rights, or because memorabilia from these series aren't readily available. After all, it doesn't matter how much $$ Allen has, if there aren't items to be purchased, even he can't do much about it.

Re:Why no photography?

[Azrael Newtype]

Isn't it obvious? The more you come back, the more he can shaft you for at the inevitable gift shop.

Re:OH DEAR GOD!

[kfg]

A friend of mine who knows my fondness for 1950s and 60s Italian racing cars recently showed up at my door bearing gifts, two Hot Wheels cars, a 1961 Ferrari 156 F1 and a 1967 Ferrari P4, that he just happened to see while grocery shopping and thought I'd like them.

"Kewl!", says I, and start to open them.

"What are you doing!?", says he.

"Ummmmmmm, I'm opening them?", I respond.

"What for?", he asks with a slightly incredulous look on his face.

"So I can spend the next hour or two pushing them around my desk while making 'Vroom, vroom' noises with a big smile on my face. Thank you. You made today worth living."

I'm still not sure he gets it.

KFG

Buy a clue Paul...

[Alomex]

Paul Allen doesn't get it. Museums have exhibits of objects made on a visual medium, like paintings and sculptures. How exactly is a museum setting appropriate for a music collection for Jimmy Hendrix? who wants to see a twenty feet high pile of electric guitars, all of which look pretty much like the other, but they just so happen to have been owned at some point in time by oldie band X?

Not content with all the EMP fiasco now he brings us a museum of science fiction! Not a library or a cinematheque of science fiction but a museum!

I know people like to say Allen was the smart one and Gates was not, but so far the record goes the other way. I take Bill's purchase of the Leonardo da Vinci documents over the EMP any time.

Glad to see the integration of the literature

[geekotourist]

As an SF fan, I'm often slightly annoyed ("slightly" because I've become used to it) at the ignorance (1) of the differences between written and media SF as shown by pop culture writers and reviewers. The media coverage given to the museum will reduce this ignorance by some amount- however marginal- that's good.

Most media SF is 30-40 years behind written SF, both in topics and style. Few current SF movie or TV shows show concepts that weren't already old-hat in the 1970's SF literature. This museum doesn't seem to be afraid of gently pointing this out. As many board members are SF writers I could guess how they'd push giving credit where it is due. Of course the movies have had much more influence in terms of numbers of people seeing them (I read a calculation saying 23 of the top 25 movies by popularity have been SF/fantasy [4brad.com]).

But for influence on science and technology- the books and stories have done quite a lot more. For one example, I like a quote [boingboing.net] that Cory Doctorow (who does fine post-singularity writing [craphound.com]) has on Neuromancer:

"Neuromancer didn't predict the future. Neuromancer *created* the future. If you would understand the past twenty years' technological advance and retreat, this book is required reading. I re-read it every year, just to get an edge on the year that's coming, and to glory in Gibson's prose and cunning artifice."

I think Heinlein created more engineers than Sputnik did.

(1) When talking about SF topics, pop writers can get away with a show of ignorance that wouldn't work for many other genres. How many reviewers compare a movie to anything more than other movies and/or "the Time Machine, F451, Ray Bradbury, Star Wars, the Matrix [and if they've done extra research] P.K.Dick"? That'd be like mystery reviewers starting with A.C. Doyle and ending with Agatha Christie. How many reviews of books like "Prey," "Oryx and Crake," "Children of Men" or "Fatherland" mention anything about similar SF books (books written in some cases decades before) and instead talk about how original the popular author's idea is? (For example CoM published in the early 90's, vs Greybeard published in the early 60's. Many reviews of the former didn't mention the latter.)