Tour 'Star Wars' exhibit with C-3PO

'Star Wars" begins and ends with C-3PO, who utters the first and last lines in the six-film saga. So who better than Anthony Daniels, who played the golden droid, to serve as our docent for today's opening of the Science Museum of Minnesota's highly anticipated "Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination"?

The exhibit takes the science fiction of the films and connects it to the real-world science of today. More than 50,000 tickets have been sold in advance for its 10-week run, outselling the museum's previous smash, "Body Worlds."

The first display features one of Daniels' favorite props: Luke Skywalker's full-size X-34 landspeeder, which carried C-3PO, Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original 1977 "Star Wars" film.

"I don't want to destroy people's illusions, but we weren't really floating on air," Daniels said in a recent call from his native England. "We were riding around on three wheels with gas in the tank -- most of the time." (Don't get him started on the time they ran out of gas in midscene.)

"What created the magic was the science of reflection, because at the bottom of the car, hiding the wheels, were mirrors that reflected the sand in front of the car to make it look like the sand behind the car."

In the fictional "Star Wars" universe, vehicles such as the landspeeder use various forms of "repulsor" technology, so that part of the exhibit segues into interactive stations offering real-world examples of that idea.

For maglev trains, which levitate using magnetism, visitors must add magnets to a toy train and then experiment with it on three courses. For hovercraft, which move over a cushion of air, visitors get to take an actual one-person hovercraft on a 30-second ride. It's sure to be one of the exhibit's most popular attractions.

"I keep going back to it because I keep getting it not quite right," Daniels said.

Another interactive display demonstrates the challenge of getting a robot such as C-3PO to walk on two legs, a complex process that humans might take for granted. Visitors must perfectly manipulate the hips and knees of two robot legs to get them to move across the floor. Mess up during the challenge, and the legs will fold up.

"It looks silly, but when you start to do it, it's actually quite irritatingly difficult," Daniels said.

Sure enough, on a recent preopening visit, the Science Museum's project leader for special exhibits, Joe Imholte, had a tough go of it.

"You see there? I failed," Imholte said as he demonstrated the station. "Both of my legs came off the ground."

Sowing the 'seeds of science'

Daniels, 62, got involved with the traveling exhibit a few years ago when the folks at the Museum of Science in Boston who created it asked him to record narration as C-3PO. He ended up doing much more, including writing an introduction to a companion book and serving as the exhibit's ambassador.

"The films are known worldwide as entertainment, but they were taking them as a serious bedrock for learning and trying to sow the seeds of science in young people's minds, people who maybe would like to become scientists," Daniels said.

The exhibit contains 80 artifacts from the making of the films along with 20 interactive activities in two main areas: a 5,000-square-foot space about getting around and a 7,000-square-foot space about people and robots. It took about 20 people a few weeks to assemble it all, more than double the amount needed for a typical special exhibit.

Because everything uses "Star Wars" as a starting point, the exhibit might not mean much to those who don't know a wampa from a Jawa. For those who do, one display shows a costume of the former -- a snow monster from the second film, "The Empire Strikes Back" -- and compares the clothing worn by humans on the ice planet Hoth to real extreme-weather gear worn by explorers in Antarctica. The spirit of the latter -- a diminutive race that scavenges droids on the desert planet Tattooine -- is embodied in a 15-minute multimedia theater show about robots that's set inside a cavernous Jawa sandcrawler.

Closely examining the many spaceship models from the movies has rewards for hardcore fans, revealing in-jokes added by the propmakers. Han Solo's Millennium Falcon has a minuscule tag on the rear that says "Drive safely," and the miniature version of the Rebel blockade runner shown in the opening scene of the original movie has a tiny "Star Wars" poster inside one of its rooms.

Take a ride on the Falcon

Another highlight is a mock-up of the Millennium Falcon cockpit, a separate $3 admission. Four people at a time can enjoy a five-minute multimedia show that simulates a ride in Han Solo's souped-up Corellian freighter.

"You really get the sensation that you are going somewhere," Daniels said. "The original cockpit [on the set] was rather boring. Nothing worked and there was nothing to look at out of the window, apart from rather bored cameramen looking at you and wishing you'd get the lines right."

The museum's Omnitheater is showing the film "Special Effects," which includes segments about "Star Wars." The film also has a separate admission, although there is a ticket package that includes it.

The exhibit closes Aug. 24 and can't be extended, because it's going to Australia immediately afterward. Touring it typically takes 45 minutes to an hour, but visitors can linger as long as they want -- and Daniels has seen many people who do.

"It's quite funny watching all ages at the exhibit, almost furtive to begin with," he said. "'Flicking a switch? Oh, that's kind of boring.' And then it's, 'How does this work?' You see them regressing and becoming fascinated. So literally, like the films, there's something for every age group."

Randy A. Salas • 612-673-4542.