A Visit to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis

I am currently 24. Kelly is is currently 23. We have no children at this time. Yet we were at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis this past Sunday. Why? This is why...

Yes, that is actually Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi Starfighter from Attack of the Clones.

On March 23rd, 2009 the Star Wars: The Clone Wars - The Exhibition opened at the museum. Kelly asked if I wanted to go when she found out about it a few weeks ago and I said we could if we were able to fit it into our schedule. Well Sunday, June 7th was the day.

We left West Lafayette at 9 AM and arrived at the museum just after 10 AM. We parked (in their free parking structure) and took the short stroll across the skywalk to the actual museum. Here's a picture of Kelly posing on the skywalk. Downtown Indianapolis is visible over her shoulder.


After purchasing our tickets we entered the museum to the view of the starfighter, pictured above. We made it down to the ground level where I got my picture taken with a Jedi near the actual prop starfighter.


And you know I had to get a picture with Captain Rex and Clone Trooper Denal (wall stickers, not real).


The actual exhibition was basically a small scale version of my trip to the Franklin Institute to see Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination in April 2008. The children's museum exhibition focused mainly on stuff from the new animated series and there was even a sneek peak at a design for season 2!


The place was appropriately decorated with 2D cutouts of the main characters, ripe for pictures of course!

Kelly poses like C-3PO.

I pose with Jabba the Hutt with Asajj Ventress looking over my shoulder. Jabba looks almost 3D thanks to the cutout contours and the camera flash.

Kelly and I try to grab a quick shot with Anakin.

Like many Star Wars exhibits, there was no lack of film props. Weapons and costumes were the focus, which came from the movies (I think mostly AOTC, to tie-in with the cartoon a bit).

Lightsabers and blasters from the Star Wars films.

Anakin's Jedi robes from AOTC.

The Clone Wars stuff came in the form of sculpts, maquettes and drawings. Director Dave Filoni developed a coll sign-off for the prototypes. He used a stamp or signature that said "Plo Kool" if he agreed with what he saw. Below the Mace Windu, Padme Amidala and Chancellor Palpatine get the OK from Filoni.


The coolest things there were definitely the 3D sculpts. They had a few busts (Chancellor Palpatine, Mace Windu, Count Dooku and a Clone Trooper) as well as scaled full body ones.

Production Clone Trooper bust from The Clone Wars.

Padme, Anakin and Ahsoka production maquettes.

As I said before, there was a TON of production art. Here are a few of my favorites.


After taking in the entire exhibit - which you can do in about 30 to 45 minutes - we got some tickets for the planetarium show at 11 AM. We also took some time to check out a few other exhibits, such as the aquarium, model trains and the dinosaurs.


Once we are all finished, which was a little before noon, I took one last picture of Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter and the trip was over.


I took a bunch more pictures. You can see the Star Wars-related ones here and any other exhibits here. It was a great trip and another thing to add to my Star Wars site. I'm definitely glad we got to go!