Star Trek: The Experience (Las Vegas, 1998 - 2008)

[belloq87]

I searched and couldn't find an existing thread, but I thought it might be appropriate to have a designated place to talk about Star Trek: The Experience, which remains one of the most impressive themed attractions I've ever seen. My parents took me there for my 15th birthday, and I was as amazed by it as anything at Disney or Universal. In many ways, it foreshadowed the kind of immersive, "in-universe" themed storytelling that both companies would more fully explore in the 2010s.

Right around when it closed, a performer there named Vernon Wilmer created a very lengthy documentary series -- called STAR TREK: MY EXPERIENCE -- about the place, complete with copious home movies of backstage areas, as well as lots of background information about the creation of the attraction. It was fascinating stuff... and it vanished from the internet about a decade ago. Wilmer has apparently (unfortunately) passed in the years since, which made me believe his work had become lost media. I've periodically searched for it over the last decade, but never found another version of it.

Well, it's somehow on Internet Archive now. If you visited The Experience and want to relive it, or are curious about what a special place it was, here you go with part one of three!


And if anyone has some fond memories of The Experience, I'd love to hear them!

 

[Mad Dog]

Best overall attraction I ever experienced until RotR.

 

[belloq87]

Best overall attraction I ever experienced until RotR.

There's a lot of influence (intentional or not) from The Experience in Rise.

 

[Jake S]

There's a lot of influence (intentional or not) from The Experience in Rise.

I'd love to hear from the designers but it certainly feels intentional.

 

[Tobias]

I was fortunate enough to have experienced this, and it was definitely something special. Borg Invasion was fun (if a tad anticlimactic), and the journey from the pre-show to the theater was a nice bit of mini-HHN with the Borg attacks, especially with a great moment of the Borg pulling a crew member up through the ceiling.

As for the Klingon Encounter, that was hands down one of the best attractions outside a major theme park. From the multi pre-shows with a little ride in the mix, to the flat-out journey you take from beginning to end, it was really impressive. Now it also depended on the actors, but thankfully my experience was with a great batch of actors who truly sold the heck out of it, all the way down to the technician at the end who was befuddled how we all got backstage.

And then there's that transporter effect, *chefs kiss*. Easily one of the GOAT's of special effects and it has not been truly replicated ever since. It's one of the few effects that has stunned me, a factor being it's treated as a surprise for maximum effect. And it's also why I'm eternally annoyed by the teleporter effect on GotG: Cosmic Rewind as that effect is botched in every way possible compared to this.

 

[belloq87]

The transporter effect was incredible.

There's behind-the-scenes footage of them testing that effect in this video:

 

[Rideguy70]

I also got to experience this a few times, and even did a behind the scenes tour. One fact I never forgot is that on the ship, there are/were many markings on the pipes, such as "GNDN-23". And they informed that GNDN stands for "Goes nowhere, does nothing"

My personal favorite touch was that when the ride was over, you were escorted out by a very confused janitor, wondering why were were in a spaceship and complaining about how they were going to have to clean up the mess of the crashed spaceship into the hotel. They would then "sneak" you out some utility corridors, where you'd pass a TV set plays a newscast about a spaceship that had just crashed in Las Vegas.

Now that was some serious immersion.

 

[belloq87]

My personal favorite touch was that when the ride was over, you were escorted out by a very confused janitor, wondering why were were in a spaceship and complaining about how they were going to have to clean up the mess of the crashed spaceship into the hotel. They would then "sneak" you out some utility corridors, where you'd pass a TV set plays a newscast about a spaceship that had just crashed in Las Vegas.

The storytelling with all of that was very clever stuff.

Another great touch: before you get beamed to the Enterprise, you watch what appears to be a legit safety instruction video for the flight simulator, and the interior looks really cheap and junky, because it's not supposed to be a "real" spacecraft. Then, minutes later, when you get into the "real" shuttle, the interior is very detailed and convincing.