A road trip to a galaxy far, far away

So the Mr is a big Star Wars fan.  I was too back in the day.  Matter of fact, he and I had the same Darth Vader shirt as kids.  Kismet.  I was keeping an eye out in the sci-fi universe for something I could surprise him with.  When I saw someone talking about this exhibit he went to, I thought it would be fun to plan a road trip and make a day of it.

So off we went to the Cincinnati Museum Center for the Star Wars and the Power of Costume exhibit.

The Mr seemed thoroughly confused and I don't know if he thought I was dragging him to some cosplay thing or something but he had an energy of "what are you getting me into?" emanating from him.  I wouldn't drag him to a cosplay deal without a proper costume.  (By the way, no masks, face paint or light sabers, etc are allowed so basically it should say 'don't even bother.')

It had screen-used costumes from all of the original movies starting with Obi Wan Kenobi.

Actually, after the movie, it had been loaned out to other movies all the way up to The Mummy and then they lost track of it until 2005 when it had been discovered hanging with some monk's cloaks! (Not on the tour, just a search of the internet confirmed what the Mr recalled hearing.)  It's next to Queen Amidala's outfit from The Phantom Menace.

We got the audio tour because I read reviews that it was worth the extra $5 and it certainly was!  All of the corresponding numbers that you entered that started with 1 would have Mark Hamill giving commentary about what you were seeing.  The kids also had numbers that started with a 2 and we learned real quick to ignore those because they were two highly annoying random people who were talking with their vocal fry trying to sound hip.  It was enough to make you want to punch a wall so we learned within 30 seconds never to push the kid's version again.  We were also surprised how many people didn't splurge for it and then looked at us with envy as we were looking at certain things or pieces on the wall that were pointed out to us via the audio device.

I loved the Darth Maul vignette since he was my favorite character from the prequels (even though like many, I'm not a fan of the prequels).  It was very interactive and showed scenes from the movie behind it, you could push buttons and make their light sabers light up.

They had the concept art for him which varied from creepy clown...

...to literally the stuff of nightmares.

I was quite happy to see Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia robe and I was anxious to snap a pic.  Well, the camera didn't want to work on her exhibit and had been working fine up to that point.  I took it as a fun prank from the afterlife and rebooted and finally got the pic.

They even had her little digital watch.

There were so many outfits that Natalie Portman got to wear as well as her decoy and hand maidens and it was fascinating to see the inspiration for these pieces from the material to the hairstyles.

Of course the iconic metal bikini outfit Carrie wore as Jabba's slave was there and it's worth the $5 for the audio tour just to hear the story Mark tells on that one.

It was cool to see Boba and Jango Fett too.  Boba was always one of the Mr's favorite characters.

I think we both got a little gushy inside seeing the droids...

My favorite exhibit was seeing Han and Chewie.

You could even feel Chewie's hair in a sample they put out.

The evolution of Palpatine was pretty cool too...right down to his fingernails.

Gorgeous dresses Natalie Portman was lucky enough to wear, there were too many to show them all.

We liked the detail of the robo-hand in the wedding costumes.

Darth Vader was there but it was the 2005 version.  Still iconic but I was really hoping for the original.

Of course, we got to see Yogurt Yoda as well.

I liked it way more than I thought I would.  It was really interesting to see how your favorite characters evolved from a drawing or how bits of one drawing for one character were used for another one.

It was cool being able to see the dresses up close to see detail since they were in glass cases.  If you leaned too far over the platform for the older costumes, the museum workers would head your way.

At the end is an awesome Kenner toy exhibit that's tied in with it that shows all of the old action figures including Chewbacca who went in with the Mr when he had his tonsils yanked as a tyke.

It's $6 for parking, $24 per adult and $5 for each audio wand.  I think it's a little borderline pricey and should've thrown in the audio wands for free given the price but whatever.  It's partnered with LucasFilm and the Smithsonian so it's worth seeing.  The exhibit is open until October 1st and you have to buy tickets for a time slot so I'd suggest getting them online like I did.  We got there earlier than our slot and they moved us to an earlier time with no issue.  It was 90 minutes for us to truly lollygag through the whole exhibit and feel like we took everything in.  We were in no hurry and it wasn't so crowded that we couldn't get the pics we wanted and everyone was very courteous to other guests looking at something.  Many were people our age and it was sweet seeing dad explain to his kids with enthusiasm of who the characters were and why they wore what they did especially from the 70's/80's movies.

If you're a Star Wars fan at all, you absolutely should go see this within the next month before it goes away.

Are you a Star Wars fan?

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