Museum

One of the most popular displays at the Science Fiction Museum is, in essence, a screensaver. A wall-sized screen depicts a high-orbit scene with dozens of fictional spacecraft — including the Starship Enterprise, the Millennium Falcon and the Planet Express ship from "Futurama" — blithely cruising past the "window."

It's a fun little conceit, though perhaps too little (the entire looped sequence is only 90-seconds in length), to do what it unintentionally does: It draws attention away from the annotated scripts, first-edition pulp novels, unremarkable-looking manuscripts and scuffed film props that are the bread-and-butter (or the Soylent Green and Arrakeen Spice, if you will) of the SFM's permanent collection.

Here you'll find the captain's chair from the original "Star Trek" series, a Darth Vader suit that was worn by a stuntman in "The Empire Strikes Back" and a first edition copy of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" — items that were previously boxed up in movie studio warehouses or sitting in main SFM benefactor Paul Allen's rumpus room.

It's a wonderland for geeks. Those who favor fiction that doesn't feature giant robots will probably spend all their time at the SFM watching the spaceship screensaver and counting the seconds until their genre-inclined spouse/sibling/acquaintance finishes poring through the SFM's fascinating collection of sci-fi odds and ends.

By Geoff Carter
NWsource staff