Gauging Interest: Saving The Enterprise-A Filming Model

[kkt]

Why should the Smithsonian have TWO Enterprise models? There are great museums in parts of the country other than Washington DC. I'd like to see it in a museum open to the public, that is qualified to care for it well, that is elsewhere. Maybe the west coast or the midwest. But for now it belongs to Bezos - maybe he'd leave it to a museum in his will. (I hate what happened to Paul Allen's philanthropic adventures after his death: the Computing History Museum abruptly closed, the computers in the collection dispersed, and the people who were qualified to keep them in operating condition layed off. Seattle's Cinerama movie theatre was rescued by the city. The Museum of Pop Culture is still open but continues to struggle. It seems like if cared enough to start these institutions, providing a fate for them that would outlast him should have been part of the plan.)

 

[kkt]

One of the rather unique factors of this BBS is the frequent clustering of people expressing aggressive indifference to something other people care about. They don't care about whatever ~it~ is specifically, but they damn well care that ~you~ care.

Am I going to lose sleep over Jeff Bezos owning the refit Enterprise model? No. But ideally something like that should be in a museum accessible to the public, much like a da Vinci painting should be in a gallery, and not on some random billionaire's yacht.

Luckily Bezos does seem to have a very long term outlook with his "long time" interest and that 10,000 year clock somewhere out in Arizona or New Mexico. He'll probably want to have a Blue Origin museum eventually. And the Enterprise-A would make for a good exhibit near the entrance...

Most of the cultural progeny of the 20th century was created by people whose work was ultimately owned and controlled by a handful of major corporations. So even though a filming model may seem like a punchline more than something serious, there is a live issue here.

Definitely NOT on a yacht, please! Dampness and water damage are preservation nightmares.

 

[Christopher]

Why should the Smithsonian have TWO Enterprise models?

It already has more than one, as I posted above. There's the 12-footer, the "Catspaw" medallion, and an AMT model built by an aircraft carrier crewman in the '60s. I think it's still possible the restored 3-footer could end up there. Why is it odd for a museum collection to have multiple items? How many Leonardos does the Louvre have?

 

[kkt]

It already has more than one, as I posted above. There's the 12-footer, the "Catspaw" medallion, and an AMT model built by an aircraft carrier crewman in the '60s. I think it's still possible the restored 3-footer could end up there. Why is it odd for a museum collection to have multiple items? How many Leonardos does the Louvre have?

I don't know exactly. A bunch. But Leonardo actually chose to live in France towards the end of his life so it's not surprising that a bunch of his works ended up there. Kind of a shame that fewer ended up in Italy, where lived most of his life.

Hollywood creations should have some representation in L.A.