Two ovals, side by side, each flattened on the inner side. A sickly orangey-red (or maybe red-y orange) color inside both. Some technical specifications hovering in mid-air inside both, like something you’d see in an industrial architecture program. But nothing recognizable as human. No beauty. Everything flattened and washed out.
This, according to the Pacific Science Center’s “Star Wars: Where Science Meet Imagination” exhibit running March 19 through May 8, is exactly what Darth Vader sees from inside his mask. This is Darth Vader’s view of the entire universe. And while the “Star Wars” exhibit has plenty of models, games, brain teasers, and kid-friendly thrills, it’s this Vader-eye view that sticks in my head. No wonder the guy had such a bad attitude.
The exhibit probes the gap between existing technologies and the “Star Wars” world, with a frank admission that we’ve got a long way to go before acres of cloned infantry or sentient androids march past. At one video station, legendary “Star Wars” robots C-3PO and R2-D2—the only characters seen in all six “Star Wars” films—explain the wide gap between the effortless artificial intelligence shown in the films, and today’s robotic technologies.
You’ll see plenty of “Star Wars” models at the Science Center, from assault tanks to Podracers, Destroyer Droid Models, and Luke’s beat-up but much-loved Landspeeder, which he used to carry the droids back to his farm in the first “Star Wars” film (now known, thanks to George Lucas’ somewhat arcane numbering system, as “Episode IV: A New Hope”). As the first film’s technical designers admit on video, the first film, at least, meant to show life in space and on other worlds as less than pristine. A little beat-up, a little jury-rigged. Kind of like life as we live it.
As the films went on, the budgets got bigger and the looks got sleeker. You’ll see X-wing and Y-wing fighters belonging to the Rebel Alliance, and TIE fighters from Vader’s Galactic Empire. In a separate building, you can take a ride inside the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo’s famous interstellar freighter.
Not all the exhibits accentuate “Star Wars” artifacts and ideas. The exhibit designers want kids to think about how what’s in the movies relates to life now, and in the near future.
One game invites the player to augment him- or herself using bionic parts. A player takes the part of a student studying for an important test, a man taking a woman out on a date, or a security guard looking for criminals.
The super-powerful mechanical eyes, ears, and brain augmentations can help a player. But they can also set him or her back. The goal is to promote extensive, critical thinking about what the future may hold, to remind us that few technological innovations end up wholly positive.
Another installation challenges players to build a settlement on Tatooine, the home planet of Luke Skywalker featured prominently in “Episode IV: A New Hope.” Working collectively, the players must build a working spaceport, construct a moisture farm community to provide adequate water, and operate a camp for the small Tatooine creatures called Jawas. Again, the practicalities of resource management, protection from predators, and day-to-day headaches come up as the players try to make their settlement work.
Overall, the exhibit does an exemplary job of combining “Star Wars” fun, and behind-the-scenes stories, with learning and thinking about the not-too-distant future in which we all will live. Children and adults alike should enjoy the thrills and challenges.
But you still couldn’t play me to spend my life trapped behind Darth Vader’s mask.
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