Dr.J was in town this weekend, ostensibly to see the Lord of the Rings exhibition at the Museum of Science, so in addition to the enjoyable meals and general catching up and hanging out, we actually went to the exhibition.
We bought tickets on-line last night and pulled into the museum parking lot right on the nose of our 2:00pm entry time (of course, making us about 10 minutes late). I have to say, it was convenient to go straight to a ticket kiosk to get our tickets, but it probably wasn't worth the service fee given that there was practically no line when we got there. (I'll grant that there may have been some additional waiting that we missed because we were late and that some of the timeslots may have sold out during the day.)
Anyway, all told, I enjoyed the exhibition. Although I skipped all the interactive exhibits, I liked seeing the props and models and found the written commentary and videos pretty cool. I particularly liked the clip about dynamic forced perspective. Forced perspective is already cool since, when done properly, it's basically impossible to detect the smoke and mirrors because it's entirely based on how our brain perceives and interprets a 2D image, and to realize that they were able to rig up a system so they could maintain the visual illusion from a moving observation is just the total SHIZ-nit.
So, just a handful of observations while we were there:
First, on a general note, I do find it somewhat interesting that a movie exhibition is being held at the museum of SCIENCE. The SOOTTAD points out, correctly, that there's a lot of applied science going on. There's also a lot of costumes and nifty looking stuff that's just kinda cool to look at, but I suppose if you're there to see the science, you'll probably find it.
Annoying kid #1: several of the video stations have multiple segments that you can select through a set of up/down/play buttons. On two occasions, a kid would go up to select a video, watch it for maybe 2 seconds and then wander off, leaving us to watch a video clip we'd probably already seen 2 or 3 times already.
Annoying kid #2: there was a video station on the riders of Rohan, including an interview with Miranda Otto, who played Eowyn, and a clip from her showdown with the Witch King in Return of the King. The SOOTTAD is standing a few feet back from the screen watching this clip, Dr.J and I are sitting on a nearby bench, and there's a skinny adolescent kid, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, standing a few feet in front of us, back and to the left of the SOOTTAD.
[If the following is a spoiler for you, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU that you haven't either read the book or seen the movie?!]
The Witch King goes into his rap about how he's a badass and no man can kill him and how Eowyn is toast. Merry makes a surprise intervention striking him low below the knee from behind giving Eowyn her opening. Casting off her helm as she regains herself, she says defiantly, "I am no man," cries out and drives the killing thrust into the space where his face would occupy.
The SOOTTAD lets out a "Whoop!" with a quiet fist pump (we are in a museum, after all), and the kid lets out a cynical "go girl power," under his breath and shuffles away. (the SOOTTAD disagrees and thinks it was a girl, but confirms the tone of the comment) You can almost feel the eye-roll.
So yeah, Girl Power. That's there. But it pumps me up too. As the SOOTTAD reminds me, it IS one of the best fight scenes (if not the best one-on-one fight scene) in the third movie. But to me, it's also a classic representation of the underdog beating the odds-on favorite. It's the noble and righteous striking down evil. It's the cocky, bad-ass bully that misreads and underestimates his opponent and receives a much-deserved defeat.
And I remember being that jaded, cynical (and annoying) kid. And I still find it annoying.
Ok, so sometimes I find a lot of things annoying.
We were there for 3 hours and may have stayed longer if they hadn't kicked us out.
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