Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination

This Sunday I took a minivan full of friends to the Lafayette Science Museum to see the exhibit, Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination.  I spent most of the time on the drive there explaining to my unsuspecting friend how Star Wars is a glorified love story with light sabers and blasters so that guys will watch it. 




The kids in the back of the van were watching Star Wars episode III, the highlight (I think) of all the Star Wars movies that shows what a mad love story it is and of course the birth of Darth Vader. 

Yes!  He did it for love everyone!  Anakin was trying to save Padme from dying during childbirth.  He has this horrible premonition of the event and knows he cannot live without her.  Mr. Ugly Ole Palpatine uses his jedi (or shall I say sith) mind tricks on poor weak Anakin (yes, Yoda told him long ago that attachments make him week AKA his mother and now Padme)  and basically tricks Anakin in coming over to the dark side.


Palpatine promises Anakin that together they can discover the secret to keep their loved ones alive.  Anakin at this point says he would do anything to save Padme, so off he goes to kill all the jedi children (very morbid) and anyone else that gets in his way.  Poor Padme tries to track Anakin down to see for herself that the rumors are true and red-eyed Anakin thinks that she has turned on him because Obi-Wan sneaks out of her ship. 

It's a horribly tragic scene and yes, it brings me to tears every time.  And the score, the music, it is so awesome as Anakin changes and then massacres and Padme tells him through tears "Anakin, you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I cannot follow!"

Later, Palpatine rescues Anakin - who is now known as Darth Vader - on the verge of death without an arm or legs, and burned to a pulp.  At this point you bring on the big black suit that keeps Darth Vadar alive, and our sweet little Anakin returns to consciousness.  Here he finds himself in a big suit, and that after everything he did Padme still died in childbirth.  And the big burly scary Darth Vadar screams "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"


And there you have it!  Why in the hell do I know all of this????!!!!!!  I think I asked myself that a few times while I was explaining it to my friend and tried to ignore the crazy look she was giving me!  Ha!

Anyways, we get to Lafayette and every other parent in the area has decided to do the same thing on Sunday because the line wrapped around the building and to the end of the block.

It took us about forty minutes to make it up to the front of the street where Thomas posed for a photo with the Darth Vadar poster.  You can see me in the reflection and his light saber is strategically placed across my body (no pun intended) as if it were my own.  I told you the force was strong with me!

By the time we made it inside we could see a sign that read "Millennium after 5 PM".  This basically meant that the Millennium Falcon Experience ( a five minute.. ride??? or something) was only available after 5 PM and you had to buy separate tickets for that.  This was the area where you got to see the Falcon's cock pit and all kinds of other cool stuff, one of the many reasons we drove two hours to the event.  By the time we made it to the ticket counter, it was sold out :(  I'm still upset about that. 

However, we did get to see lots of amazing props from the movies like Luke Skywalker's land speeder....

And my favorite part was when we saw the show at the Planetarium and learned all kinds of cool things about our Sun the star!  The seats in there were all cadillacin' back and I wished that the seats at all movie theaters were like that. 

All in all it was a great day and I would do it all over again, but the next time I will buy tickets in advance through Ticketmaster and see the Millennium Falcon Experience!