MoPOP in Seattle
Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) has announced 24 new inductees to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame for 2016 year.
Creators:
- Douglas Adams
- Margaret Atwood
- Keith David
- Guillermo del Toro
- Terry Gilliam
- Jim Henson
- Jack Kirby
- Madeleine L’Engle
- C.S. Lewis
- H.P. Lovecraft
- Leonard Nimoy
- George Orwell
- Terry Pratchett
- Rumiko Takahashi
- John Williams
Works:
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Blade Runner
- Dungeons & Dragons
- The Matrix
- Myst
- The Princess Bride
- Star Trek
- Wonder Woman
- X-Files
Last spring, as part of its 20th anniversary celebration, the public was invited to nominate their favorite creators and works for the Hall of Fame. Twenty finalists were selected and the public was given a May 2016 deadline to vote, however, the results were never published, and the current class of inductees includes some who were not finalists, and omits others who were.
According to today’s press release:
Inductees were nominated by the public and selected by a panel of award-winning science fiction and fantasy authors, artists, editors, publishers, and film professionals. The 2016 committee included Jane Espenson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Torchwood), Cory Doctorow (Co-Editor, Boing Boing; Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom), Jen Stuller (Co-Founder, GeekGirlCon), Linda Medley (Castle Waiting), and Ted Chiang (Story of Your Life and Others).
A new exhibition commemorating the 20th anniversary Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, opening March 4, 2017, will invite visitors to explore the lives and legacies of the 108 current inductees through interpretive films, interactive kiosks, and more than 30 artifacts, including Luke Skywalker’s severed hand from George Lucas’ The Empire Strikes Back, the Staff of Ra headpiece from Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, author Isaac Asimov’s typewriter, and the “Right Hand of Doom” from Guillermo del Toro’s film Hellboy.
The Hall of Fame was previously shown as part of the Icons of Science Fiction exhibit when MoPOP was called the Experience Music Project Museum. Founded in 1996, the Hall of Fame was relocated from the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas to EMP in 2004.
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Many great names in there, but I especially woot at the inclusion of Pratchett.
I was a charter member back in 2004 of the SFMHOF. And briefly a volunteer docent. Since then the bias of the curatorial staff has finally become evident not just in their destruction of the original displays for SF, but now in their name change. They can put whatever positive p r spin on the event as they wish. But local fen will tell you that the SF museum was never really well supported by a truly committed staff and was always treated as a backwater of the music and etc. rest of the EMP building. The people Allen recruited and continues to employ found a way to finally convince the boss to DE emphasize the SF, F and H ( now huddled in a too small basement). This is partly due to the bias of Allen himself. By insisting that the building pay its own way with admissions he screwed everyone. It should have been properly endowed, like the local Frye museum and given much cheaper admission prices similar to a movie ticket. Entrance to the Museum of Popular Culture in now twice as much as that. Had Allen truly wanted a showcase for his foundational collection of SF, F and H stuff he would have commissioned a SEPARATE building (like maybe a Jetsons style facade adjacent to or near the Space Needle) and hired dedicated separate staff not hampered by the evident office politics which deflated local fen as we saw the results of the last decade of minimal support. They will be able to mount badly lit (The 50th Star Trek comes to mind) and overpriced exhibits- travelling and Allen collection based. But it will never fulfill the original promise, seen in the 2004 opening of that wing of the EMP, of what we could have had here. Fen nationwide can only await the Washington DC museum effort and the announced Lucas Museum in hopes of a better showcase. But they won’t be seeing that here in Seattle