So Meghan e-mailed me at work a few weeks ago and asked if I would like to go see The Minnesota Orchestra play a bunch of sci-fi music. I saw the words “sci-fi” and immediately said, “YES! YES!” This is not so much because I’m a huge sci-fi nerd (I wouldn’t even classify myself as a moderate sci-fi nerd; I don’t even watch Battlestar Galactica), but because it came from Meghan, and having her volunteer to do anything even remotely related to sci-fi is almost unheard of.
Turns out, this wasn’t just an orchestra playing sci-fi music. After reading the attached literature, I found out George Takei would be narrating, and they would be showing various images of space on a big screen. And, even though it was a Star Trek actor hosting the event, they weren’t just doing Star Trek music; they were also doing Star Wars and various other sci-fi related material. It sounded really cool!
As it turns out, it wasn’t cool. Not cool at all.
They did two shows, one last night and one tonight. Meghan & I went last night. We got there a little after seven; just in time to not see the costume contest (hosted by Cities 97) because of the exceptionally tall crowd standing in front of the too-short stage. Apparently, there were some fun droid costumes and stuff. The only ones we managed to see were people who entered just to be dorks and were only wearing little fuzzy antennae.
Apparently, this performance was part of some sort Pops festival designed to get people to actually go see the orchestra. And since it was a sci-fi thing, they made all of the orchestra staff wear t-shirts designed to look like Star Trek uniforms, and they got a bunch of Tribbles and hung them on the walls all over the place. The bar was even serving “Romulan Ale” and whatnot. Basically, it was a tiny sci-fi convention, except at orchestra hall. Also, since it was movie related, whoever put this thing on decided it would be a good idea to sell popcorn and let people eat it in the music hall.
Yeah, listening to an unamplified orchestra while the guy behind you is grabbing popcorn out of his bag and chewing is AWESOME. What a great idea.
I should point out the orchestra itself was actually pretty awesome. Hearing them playing the original Star Trek theme was amazing. It’s a simple theme, but you don’t usually think about how it’s an entire orchestra playing it. Seeing an orchestra playing it, and having it sound exactly like the original theme music is kind of surreal. In contrast, hearing the Minnesota Orchestra trying to duplicate the work of the London Symphony Orchestra (in the Star Wars main title and Duel Of The Fates, from Ep I) was a bit disappointing. They did a good job with what they had; I just don’t think they had enough personnel to quite do it justice. Still, it was really fun to hear. Although, they played the Star Wars main title last, which I thought was odd, and it was actually a short compilation of the themes from the original Star Wars movie that I think was on the abridged soundtrack. They did a similar thing with Star Trek called “Star Trek Thoughout The Years”, which was basically a compilation of themes from TOS, DS9, Voyager & TNG (in that order I believe).
Which brings me to the two things that made the whole production silly and boring. First, George Takei. Okay, I respect the guy, and it was neat to see him up there on stage, but I came to see the orchestra, not listen to George Takei recite a memorized narration that has nothing to do with anything. Especially not when George Takei talks for 10 minutes for every time the orchestra plays 5 minutes. I would have rather he get up there, introduce the show or something, and then leave, and come back after intermission. Instead, we got to listen to him wax poetic on on Mars and/or E.T., and then watch him sit, droopy and motionless, in a chair while the orchestra played. And not in a darkened corner. No, he got to sit right in the center of stage next to the conductor and in front of the entire orchestra. Doing nothing. I actually thought at first that he might have died on stage, because he was sitting so still in such a lackadaisical posture. He did this during every piece in the first part of the show. Then, for no apparent reason, during the second part, which actually did focus on movie music, he disappeared after the first piece, and didn’t come back until it was Star Trek time.
I guess my point is, he was distracting.
The second silly thing was the “images of space”. This turned out to be a cheap slideshow that somebody apparently put together in Powerpoint of pictures they found on the internet. At one point during the Marssection of Gustov Holst’s The Planets, a picture of a family soccer game was inexplicably shown on the screen in between shots of the surface of Mars. This was, unfortunately, the most entertaining part of entire slideshow, and I missed it because I was watching George Takei apparently take a nap. And if you’ve heard Mars, you know how weird it would be to watch someone take nap during it, especially right next to the orchestra.
During the sections of music that were directly from movie soundtracks, they showed slides of movie stills on the screen. Does this make sense to you? They had a movie screen and were playing music from the movieswhile showing still photos from the movies. Ugh. And if that weren’t dumb enough, they kept the movie stills up on screen for minutes at a time. During the 10-minute theme from E.T., I think we saw a total of 8 stills. And then, during the Star Trek Though The Years, the only stills they showed were from the original series, even though the music contained themes of four different shows, three of which were on TV over 20 years later.
For me, I would have much rather just had the orchestra up there playing the music, no interruptions, except maybe to introduce the piece of music (which could have been done by the conductor). Although, if it was up to me they also would have just played the entire soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back front to back. And, in that case, they probably should have shown the movie up on the screen as well. Ooh, ooh!! And without dialog, I could just supply the dialog myself! Oh man this is awesome I need an orchestra.