Latest news with #MelbourneMuseum
Time Out
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Australia's first official Star Wars café is coming to the Melbourne Museum this winter
Calling all Jedis! If you or someone you know is a major Star Wars fan, then in the words of Yoda: very good news, we have. Australia's first official Star Wars café will be opening its doors at Melbourne Museum on June 7, a one-of-a-kind pop-up to delight children and adults alike. While it's a pity it couldn't have opened on May the 4th to coincide with the day the nerds among us say to each other "May the fourth be with you", we couldn't be more excited to board this culinary spaceship. Museums Victoria has worked together with both Disney and Lucasfilm to bring the immersive eatery – an idyllic lunch spot to grab a blue milk and a bite to eat before or after you've viewed the museum's Lego Star Wars exhibition – to life, with fans of all ages set to feel like they're dining in a galaxy far, far away. The Star Wars Galactic Café invites visitors to dine aboard the Corellian Star Cruiser, and while we're not quite sure yet what to expect, promotional images suggest the presence of Stormtroopers – so remember to bring your light saber! We've also got intel on the menu, which features kooky options like the vegan Sorgan Burger (a chickpea and kale patty stacked with greens, avocado and pickles inside a potato bun), the Vietnamese-inspired Naboo Garden Vermicelli (a noodle dish featuring plump prawns, fresh herbs, nuoc cham, shallots and a sprinkling of toasted peanuts), and a zingy Outer Rim chicken katsu. Gluten-free options are available, and for a salty side, try the Asteroid Fields golden sweet potato wedges and sour cream. Whatever you do, don't skip dessert: a rich bitter chocolate parfait with sponge and crushed Oreos (Death Star by Chocolate) or a Chewie gingerbread cookie. And it wouldn't be a true Star Wars dining experience without blue milk, so you can also expect the iconic Tatooine beverage here. "Combining world-class hospitality with the timeless appeal of the Star Wars galaxy, the Star Wars Galactic Café offers Melbourne Museum's visitors yet another way to engage with this premier exhibition, in a cosmically cool atmosphere," said Museums Victoria CEO and director Lynley Crosswell. The Star Wars Galactic Café will open at Melbourne Museum on June 7 from 10.30am to 3.30pm daily. More than 2000 people have already snapped up a table, so if you don't want to miss out – make a booking here. Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox. RECOMMENDED:
The Guardian
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The galaxy far, far away comes to Melbourne in a new LEGO exhibition
When you hear the term 'dream job', what comes to mind? Movie star? Chocolate taster? Astronaut? Well, for kids big and small, Ryan 'The Brickman' McNaught has a fantasy career that's hard to top: judge of TV show LEGO Masters and certified LEGO professional. In his latest project, McNaught has channelled all his skill and passion into creating a 'galaxy first' LEGO Star Wars exhibition at Melbourne Museum. This cinematic-scale exhibition – which took more than 25,000 hours to complete, using more than 8 million LEGO bricks – offers visitors the chance to see some iconic Star Wars characters, spaceships and landscapes re-created in LEGO, as well take part in hands-on LEGO activities, such as building LEGO starfighters and custom lightsabers. The exhibition opens on 4 May. From kids to the young at heart, it's a rare chance to get up close with the galaxy far, far away. C-3PO and Ryan McNaught. Photo credit: Dani Evercroft. Visitors will find classic characters created by the LEGO master, including favourites such as C-3PO, Princess Leia and Darth Vader. Anyone who's ever tried to construct a small-scale LEGO Star Wars set will know what a challenge it can be, so it's easy to imagine the skill needed to build detailed versions of full-sized characters and spacecraft – some of which are as big as four metres high. McNaught finds joy in that challenge, and has plenty of favourites pieces he's excited to show off. 'Over the years I've always loved a 'cutaway' model where you can see the inside of something awesome, like the Death Star or a Star Destroyer, so they are super cool, but, unquestionably, my favourite [pieces] are the characters,' he says. 'Making a face in LEGO is easy, but making a face that looks like someone is hard – so hard that there aren't many people that can do it at all, so that makes them awesome.' As well as Star Wars characters in LEGO form, the exhibition offers an interactive, hands-on experience, with visitors getting the chance to build some LEGO sculptures of their own. There will be interactive elements and engaging experiences for fans of all ages. Battle scene exhibition. Photo supplied. 'I think [I'm most excited by] the interactive components of the exhibition where our models hopefully inspire people to make their own stuff,' McNaught says. 'For example, making your own Star Wars fighter, then having it scanned and watching it fly around in combat out the window of a Star Destroyer.' The scene inside LEGO Star Wars: The Exhibition resembles a Star Wars film set, populated by life-sized droids, full-scale lightsabers and realistic starships. For McNaught and his team, building the LEGO Star Wars exhibition was a painstaking labour of love. It took, he says, a long, collaborative effort to get the exhibition off the ground. 'It's far from only me; we have a dedicated team of 38 people who make it happen,' McNaught says. 'It's nearly 25,000 hours of designing, engineering and building – there's so much work that's gone into it. I've personally been working on this project pretty much nonstop – apart from filming LEGO Masters – for three years.' Getting this project off the ground was no easy task. McNaught and the team needed a lead time of six months just to source the rare and unusual LEGO bricks required for these one-off builds. Even then, the skill needed was 'way over the next level', McNaught says. Ryan McNaught in the Millennium Falcon cockpit. Photo supplied. 'The thing with this exhibition is it is about firsts,' he says. 'There's a reason the majority of the models we have made have never been done before. It's because they are so hard, technically, and these models are pushing the limits of what LEGO can do. I mean, imagine making the first ever life-sized Princess Leia and not doing it justice?' Despite the thousands of hours and millions of bricks taken to bring the exhibition to life, McNaught feels as if he hasn't even scratched the surface of the Star Wars universe. 'The museum is only so big,' he says. 'The Star Wars galaxy is so content-filled I could make another two of this exhibition with all new things. Imagine Boba Fett's [starship] Slave I, or a giant sandcrawler as examples.' The Emperor's throne room. Photo credit: Eugene Hyland. It's fair to say that 'The Brickman' loves his job. He get a lot of joy out of all that planning and building with LEGO, and is excited by the impact that exhibitions such as this can have on visitors. 'I get to bring happiness to people, so that's pretty awesome,' McNaught says. 'Hopefully I'm inspiring a Sally or Johnny to take over from me one day.' After seeing the exhibition, visitors can continue their adventure by exploring the main Melbourne Museum galleries, with general admission included in all tickets. Embark on a journey through the galaxy's first LEGO Star Wars exhibition.
Perth Now
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
From a galaxy far, far away, comes LEGO Star Wars show
Two of the most powerful cultural forces in the universe - Star Wars and LEGO - have combined to create a galaxy-first exhibition. LEGO® Star Wars™: The Exhibition features characters and scenes from the iconic film franchise, painstakingly recreated in tiny plastic bricks - from the light-saber battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, to a two-metre-high recreation of the Death Star. The models were constructed using over eight million bricks - that's four 40-foot shipping containers full of LEGO - by the Brickman team at a workshop in the Melbourne suburb of Tullamarine. The project took dozens of people 25,000 hours to design and build over three years, one brick at a time. "All of these LEGO models here have no instructions," explained Brickman Ryan McNaught, Australia's only LEGO Certified Professional and one of the hosts of the hit television program LEGO Masters. "It's not like a big LEGO set that we buy and we can put them together, it's craftspeople of unique skill and talent putting those together," he said. It's expected more than 350,000 people will visit the exhibition at Melbourne Museum, which has already sold about 7,000 tickets before opening day on May the Fourth - Star Wars Day - otherwise known as this Sunday. Darth Vader and several Storm Troopers showed up at a media preview on Wednesday accompanied by ominous music, and were among the first to enter the exhibition followed by a large contingent of politicians and reporters. On show inside was a lifesize model of C-3PO built from pearl gold and metallic silver bricks, ordered especially from LEGO headquarters in Denmark. There was also a two-metre-high rotating Death Star, with cutaway sections showing hundreds of tiny LEGO baddies at work in various tiny scenes referencing the original trilogy. The Victorian premier Jacinta Allan - well versed in all things Star Wars - even hoped to try out the master of evil Emperor Palpatine's throne from the second Death Star, as Darth Vader and his cronies looked on. Lord Vader, am I allowed to take a seat?" she asked politely, only to get some intimidating deep breathing from the dark side in response. Never mind, she did hit the right buttons in the Millennium Falcon cockpit, sending it briefly into hyper-speed. The LEGO company's first intellectual property deal with a cultural franchise was with Star Wars back in 1999. "I wouldn't think that the Lego brand would be what is today, if it wasn't for Star Wars and that collaboration way back 25 years ago," said Troy Taylor from the LEGO Group. Among the most challenging pieces to build was a model of Darth Vader's helmet - as an iconic piece of pop culture, it had to be exactly right. The eyes of LEGO models are crucial to their success, and in Vader's case some rare windscreen bricks from 2012 managed to impart the appropriate amount of evil. The most challenging build of all, according to McNaught, was a 2.6 metre high model of General Grievous, a purely digital character who appeared in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and had to be a thicker construction in parts to make it structurally sound. Fans visiting the show will be able to make their own creations, such as LEGO light-sabers that illuminate on video screens and can be used for duels. "This sort of stuff has never been done anywhere in the world before, the combination of physical and digital," said McNaught. And as any Star Wars fan would know, building your own light-saber is the ultimate step to becoming a Jedi.
