Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, a traveling exhibit, is setting up shop in Franklin Institute in Philadelphia this weekend. Two years ago, during our Jaunary 2006 trip to Boston, we saw it at the Museum of Science. My brief review of the exhibit:

…has lots of models and costumes from the entire saga. The “science” of Star Wars galaxy is explained and compared with contemporary science from this galaxy. In some ways, we are not far off from things in the Star Wars universe, but sadly lightsaber technology remains elusive. Also, the Millennium Falcon is worth doing too. Sadly, we were not allowed to take any photos inside the Falcon.

The Inky preview is critical of the “science” part of the exhibit which is a reasonable assessment, but not many people are there for the science anyway.

Both Erica and I really enjoyed the exhibit, more so than the one the Smithsonian had in the late 1990s. Since Philly is less than three hours up I-95 from D.C. so you can make a day-trip out of the visit. If you want to make a weekend out of it gophila.com has a package.

I recommend buying tickets in advance though to avoid the lines, particularly for the Falcon simulator which is a separate admission.

The exhibit runs until May 2008.

[flickr : my photos tagged with starwars/slideshow]

Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, Frankin Institute, Philadelphia