the dumbing down of experience (and science)
I still remember my first visit to the new Hayden Planetarium, after the construction of the new Rose Center for Earth and Space was finished in 1999. And now, I regret not going back and see Passport to the Universe before the show was replaced.
The innagural show, narrated by Tom Hanks featured the new, one-of-a-kind Zeiss star projector which was custom designed for use at the Hayden Planetarium. It also introduced some amazing digital video projections, bass shakers in the seats and laser effects.
''We wanted to give New Yorkers the best sky in the whole world,'' said Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the planetarium, ''because we owe it to them.''
It's certainly a challenge to make a planetarium relevant and interesting to an increasingly science-phobic, ADD audience. And that's exactly why there was something magical about this show… the presentation reminded me alot of something you might see at Epcot at Walt Disney World.
Now living in New York, I was more than a bit excited to return to the American Museum of Natural History and the first thing I did was get tickets for the 'Space Show.' Many things about the design of the experience seemed unchanged from back in 2000, but as I watched the new pre-show I started to worry.
To enter the Planetarium, you board glass elevators and travel up into a holding area. This effort for a pre-show reminds me of something you might see at Disney. The simple act of transporting the audience out of the main museum into a mysterious dark room prepares the audience for an epic adventure into space.
I love this. It reminds me of the difference between a free-fall ride at Six Flags, where you walk right up to the ugly machine versus walking into a dilapidated old Hollywood Hotel and sneaking off into a dark and cold boiler room to board an elevator to the 5th dimension. You're priming the audience to understand and appreciate the story.
Back at the museum, the pre-show has upgraded to a show controller instead of a DVD player, that part is a win. The pre-show video is another story. Filmed outside the planetarium in the middle of the day, it clashes with the dark mysterious nature of space and the dark pre-show area. What's worse It looks like it was filmed on an iPhone with an amateur crew. I felt the video lacked the same epic wonder of space that the loading pre-show video exuded. All this in an age of Vimeo space videos of amazingness:
View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo.
When it became time to enter the planetarium, I'm sad to see that the doors are still manually opened and propped with bright orange door stops. This, I suppose, is more of a personal pet-peeve than a travesty. However, a simple set of automatic doors would contribute to both the efficiency of the show and the fit and finish of the overall experience. I honestly thought maybe I should a Kickstarter to buy the museum a set of automatic doors and a show controller.
Entering the planetarium is just as spectacular as I remembered. Thankfully the folks at the museum bucked the trend of the tipped dome theater, like what was installed at the California Academy of Science (another disappointing planetarium show). The Zeiss Star Projector hides underneath the floor, allowing you to walk quickly to find your seat.
As the current show Journey to the Stars began, I waited patiently for a favorite moment of the old show (that I remember 12 years later) when, in a burst of carbon dioxide or liquid nitrogen, the star projector dramatically rises from the floor. But that never happened. You see, the new show doesn't use the Zeiss star projector at all.
How did we go from taking the hard way to this new star projector free show?
But in housing the Zeiss in its new dome, ''We've gone against fashion and taken the harder way,'' Ms. Futter said, ''to yield a better presentation of the cosmos.'' The museum rejected the recent worldwide trend among planetariums to seat visitors in one direction facing a tipped dome that doubles as a revenue-enhancing Imax screen, capable of attracting audiences to 3-D movies.
I know it must be insanely expensive to operate and maintain the star projector and elevator unit. But that's what made the Hayden Planetarium unique. At this point, it's no better than a tilted dome show for half the price. (or free as in the case of the California Academy of Science)
I don't even want to get into the copywriting of the current show. Whoopi Goldberg's inflection and tone sounds like a mix of under-education and disinterest. Why do we continue to dumb down science? Apparently the world of Yelp disagrees with me, however one reviewer seems to agree…
I'm not sure what's going on at the American Museum of Natural History. But it seems like a shame to go through all the trouble of having Zeiss reengineer the Milky Way so that it can be seen on one Tuesday a month.
