A few years ago we went to go see the Titanic Exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. The exhibit featured actual relics from the ship and props from the movie. It was tastefully done. This year in the same place we have an Indiana Jones exhibit on the Adventure of Archeology. The basic idea is to explore the history of archeology based on the characters and events from the four movies. The exhibit main flow takes you through each movie, introducing the characters and showing some props from the movie. Elements from each movie are explored or explained as mere Hollywood creations. For example the headpiece from the staff of Ra is shown. While this was just something made up for the movie they showed how its design was copied from some Egyptian earrings found in King Tut’s tomb.
After you pay your $21 and head up stairs to begin the tour, you are handed a small 7″ NFC-enabled tablet with attached headphones. You sign into the tablet and choose which artifact you want to find in the treasure hunt. All along the exhibit there are clue pedestals. You touch your tablet to the pedestal and get a clue. Some of the clues required you to touch objects in the exhibit so the NFC could register the touch. Some were small video games on the tablet. There were nine clues and if you got them all then you got your name on the board at the end. When it was not playing treasure hunt the tablet could also be used to access audio and video about each station. Sometimes there was just audio. Sometimes there was animation or video. And sometimes the audio was synchronized or streaming from a station playing a video on a large monitor. The tablet worked in Spanish or English.
If you’re a fan of the movies then the exhibit can be a lot of fun. It touched archeology from all over the world from China to Machu Picchu. It was just a touch on the archeology. If you are looking for rare Egyptian antiquities then this exhibit is not for you. May I suggest seeing King Tut when he wakes up again. This exhibit is a showcase for how Steve Spielberg and George Lucas uses existing legends and myths in a respectful way to create memorable entertainment.
I did realize that I have not watched the third and fourth films in quite a while. It is time to click on them on the AppleTV. The next exhibit at the FWMSH is Mythbusters: The Explosive Exhibition running October 11 through January 4. That should be good.
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