This calendar week , Star Wars : Galaxy ’s Edgeopens in Walt Disney World , bringing an unprecedented subject common experience to the citizens of Orlando , Florida . eat on the food for thought and drink of a galaxy far , far aside ! hop-skip aboard an iconic Star Wars ship ! exist in a fantastical world , populated by people in reference , an immersive experience ! It ’s unlike anythingwe’ve see to it before .
Except when Star Trek did it 20 years ago .
Yes , Batuu may be the “ it ” planet aright now , but two decades before wefrothed over Bespin Fizzes , and gawked at being able-bodied toboard the Millennium Falcon , Star Trek : The Experience essentially did what Disney has now poured millions of dollar into doing across its theme park with Star Wars . In the interminable absurd debate between Wars and Trek — why are we agitate , they ’re both pretty good!—it ’s perhaps a most curious example of the latter beating the former to the punch by a meaning gross profit .
In-character cast-members posing in front of the Experience’s main entrance.Photo:Getty Images / Stringer
First opening night at the Las Vegas Hilton in Nevada in January of 1998 , Star Trek : The Experience was in many way a sort of early dental amalgam of all of Disney ’s current Star Wars theme park experiences . There was a museum section , kin to Launch Bay , full of timeline displays and prop from the shows and movies , and not one but two ride mirrored Star Tours and the modern - 24-hour interval Smuggler ’s Run , whisking an audience away from the confines of then - present Nevada to the far future of the 24th Century .
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The Klingon Experience and The Borg Invasion 4 - D both miscellaneous and touch sequences of themed submersion with live performers ( and in the latter ’s sheath , new footage filmed by Voyager starsRobert PicardoandKate Mulgrew ) with simulator vehicle rides and 3-D movies , respectively . Hell , there was even a refreshment of Deep Space Nine ’s perambulation for you to wander around and shop in , or , just likeOga ’s Cantinain Galaxy ’s Edge , partake in a themed tipple or two in Quark ’s bar .
An early ad inviting visitors to “Join the crew and boldly go.”Image: CBS (Memory Alpha)
The Klingon Experience was perhaps the closest Star Trek : The Experience really occur to doing what Galaxy ’s Edge champions as its unique selling point . The ride catch apt exercise set changes and simulators recreate a group of rider being beamed over to a replica of the Enterprise - D set from The Next multiplication , Visitors would then go on a time - wimey dangerous undertaking in which one member of the grouping was actually revealed as an ancestor ofJean - Luc Picard , and their survival of the fittest to maintain the timeline drove an risky venture that catch the Klingons attempt to wipe out you and Picard from chronicle . In the same means something likeRise of the Resistancehopes to transport Disneyland visitant into an adventure the right way out of the Star Wars motion-picture show , The Klingon Experience was like being dumped into an instalment of Star Trek for a bit .
It ’s kind of astonishing Star Trek : The Experience exist at all , allow alone at the fourth dimension it did . In the late ‘ 90s , Star Trek was perhaps hit the butt goal of its peak . The Next Generation was long over , although the movies were still coming out . Deep Space Nine would conclude in 1999 , and Voyager a few class after . And although Voyager ’s end was shortly espouse by the launch of Enterprise , The Experience was never updated to match the then - current series . It was like a living will to that heady efflorescence of three dissimilar Star Trek enfranchisement boldly live their own way … somemore well - get than others .
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And so it would remain that will , even as the Trek franchise itself weathered a wayward storm . Nemesiskilled off the moviesas it and its bald-pated baby Tom Hardy log onto screens in 2002 . When Enterprise came to an precipitous ending in 2004 , with no next show to stick with up on the horizon , it felt like the TV side of thing had followed it into the ethoxyethane — and it had until now , when it find like there’salmost too muchon the way !
Yet through it all , Star Trek : The Experience held fast , cut up its own little street corner of Las Vegas out for itself , amid the meretriciousness and glamor of the distinctive casinos and neon - lit shows you would relate with the city — not precisely a far-famed geeky mecca . You might not have been able to determine newfangled adventure on the bad screen or on TV , but you could stillpop down to Quark’sfor a Warp Core Breach or two , or a nybble at Garak ’s privy mac and cheeseflower . What secret wouldGarakpossibly shroud in macaroni ? I do n’t cognize , but in all probability a delicious one , I reckon . Some truly sordid gossip about a Cardassian Gul or two . But the fact you could attempt to find out for yourself , even in a reality where it feel like Trek was over , is just as delightful a thought .
Soon enough , The Experience would follow the movies and render into that beneficial night . Although the rebooted J.J. Abrams moving-picture show was almost on the way , Star Trek : The Experience shut its turbolift doors for the last time in September 2008 , and even its sendoff was in character , done in the style of a Starfleet decommissioning ceremony .
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But in a world where Galaxy ’s Edge proves there ’s a seat for an immersive experience like that — as long as you had , say , the backing of anall - powerful megacorporationthatgobbles firebrand and studioslike most people would a tube-shaped structure of Pringles , albeit with less guilt — perchance there ’s a plaza for Star Trek to render to the approximation now co - opted by its longtime “ archnemesis . ” You could argue it ’s done so in convulsion and embark on already , put the feeler out with a Discovery location - free-base VR experienceon the wayand thePicard museum kill - upat San Diego Comic - Con this year . With more Trek than ever being made , why not ?
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Whether or not a 2nd Experience ever fall out , it ’s funny to think as mass flock to the chance to swig on dismal milk and pick up akyber crystal or six , Star Wars ’ nerdiest competitor wash up it to the slug so long ago .
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