A Report of Star Wars Exhibition at the Renewd Observatory in Roppongi

I reported Pokemon the Movie XY exhibition held at Tokyo City View last summer. It was an impressive experience that I was able to see the real storyboards and artists’ ideas.

This time, Tokyo City View holds two big exhibitions for their new voyage. One of them is Naruto (= a super popular ninja manga that had the final chapter recently) Exhibition (in Mori Arts Center Gallery, 25 April – 28 June, 2015) and the other is Star Wars Exhibition (29 April – 28 June, 2015) inside the observatory in the 62nd floor.

Star Wars Exhibition in the 62nd Floor of Roppongi Hills, Tokyo, Japan

Signs of Naruto Exhibition and Star Wars Exhibition

This is the first half of my report about renewed Tokyo City View. It’s all about Star Wars exhibition. SW Fans, go down and meet Darth Vader!

Ah…
I just talked about an event of cute Tamagotchi Sports Day in the last post, so if you have been following Tokyo Direct Diary for some time (Thanks!), you might shout, “What? Star Wars!!??”

Wait, kawaii character lovers, don’t leave! I won’t disappoint you! Seriously!! If you agree with one or more of the following,

1. You love to see arts. You love to think and feel.
2. You don’t know what Star Wars is like in fact.
3. You are interested in freedom, democracy, and peace. You have something you want to say to the society in your mind.
4. You like something new to make your life more brilliant.

You’ll get excited at the moment you enter Tokyo City View in two meanings.

First, Tokyo City View is originally an observatory, so the scenery of the megalopolis is breathtaking! 
You will see Tokyo Tower and Tokyo Skytree through the large windows. I’ll upload the photos in the next post about general information of renewed Tokyo City View.

Second, star wars world welcomes the exhibition visitors! 

Space battleships in the observatory

I remember last summer the Pikachu balloon was at the place where the battleship is now. What will come next?

Nothing can excite star wars fans more but this!

Darth Vader, the dark lord in Star Wars movies

I saw many enthusiastic people who couldn’t help smiling to see him.

You can take photos freely on your own, but there is a better choice.

There is a professional photographer and he takes two photos of you! One is by his camera and the other is by your camera. You can buy the professional photo for 1300 yen at the counter, but you don’t need to. I saw some people getting the photo, but others don’t. It’s completely free to ask him to, so there is no reason to hesitate. When you visit Tokyo City View, never miss this Tokyo Sky Shot!

Tokyo Sky Shot. (I feel that it sounds like a shot by the surrounding troopers now…)

When you enjoyed the stunning scenery of Tokyo City and got the photo, let’s proceed to the exhibition.

Actually, I can’t show you things after the entrance because of  No Photo Policy.
It is definitely the most interesting part of the exhibition. Just words won’t be enough to express my impressions, but I do it at the most.

What are displayed there?

Real properties, real costumes, instructions about star wars world, videos of important scenes, and paintings about star wars by artists Director George Lucas selected…

They all enable us to see how the huge imaginary world was made and how artists accepted it.

There is no photo to share with you here, but I have a leaflet of the exhibition. I’m happy if you explore the things even if it is not completely satisfying.

A leaflet of Star Wars Exhibition

Personally, it was very interesting to see some artists’ understandings of the characters, events in the movies and themes.

Now I am a self-made artist. Although I have my own ways to build up an art, it is a great experience to see how the artists expressed their feelings from the movies in their paintings. Each has a different scene, character, conflict inside a specific character, aspect of the story, etc, to pay attention. I think that it is important to express what I felt confidently. 

It is my belief that everyone living is an artist because you are expressing something every day, every moment.
How about looking into other artists’ minds?

Of course, the real costumes, real someone, real lightsabers are the most important in the displays for star wars fans, anyway!

For those fans, there is something that they cannot miss.

Tokyo City View has a roof top observatory called Sky Deck and you can take photos with Darth Vader on the top of Tokyo’s skyscraper!

Photo service on Sky Deck, the open-air observatory

The service is same to Tokyo Sky Shot at the entrance; The photographer will take a photo by her camera and one more photo by your camera for free.

I saw many star wars fans satisfied with bags of exhibition souvenirs. And as I wrote, it is an interesting event for art lovers, too.

In conclusion, I’d like to mention to what Star Wars movies are like. (You are a Star Wars freak? Then, see what a new person are thinking!)

If you haven’t seen Star Wars, you may have the image that they are movies that are full of robots & robots & robots battling each other.

But the following question will change your mind.

Do you know that Star Wars is a tragedy?

It was a surprise for me who had had vague images that Star Wars is for robot-loving boys. Although it is one of the most entertaining movie series of the movies I know, it is really a heartbreaking tragedy at the same time. Interesting, isn’t it?
The only thing that I used to know was that an evil empire thing appears. The important thing is how that evil empire started. It cannot have exited from the beginning of the world, right?

I saw Star Wars movies when a rental video shop opened near my house by chance. I had not been a big fan of movies, but I started to see some. Avatar was my first SF movie and it was very interesting to me because it was entertaining but refers to social problems and humanity in the history and the world of today. So I tried Star Wars as “other SF movies.”

I was right to do so.

Episode 3 was stunning for me.
The structure of the story was perfect. And I’m sure that the movie director researched a lot about democracy – I majored in law at university and I felt so.

If you agree with one or more of the following,

1. You adore freedom and democracy. You love human rights.
2. You like Les Miserable. Or you haven’t read/seen it because it’s too long, (I was so once,) but interested in.
3. You are happy if you can learn American democracy during enjoying a completely entertaining movie on a sofa./You want to develop your English during relaxing on a sofa.

Well, thank you for reading.
And the next post will be about the observatory, not the exhibition, itself. See the beautiful, breathtaking views of Tokyo! Don’t miss Tokyo Tower and Sky Tree!!

Helpful Links

• Tokyo City View (Roppongi Hills) Official Website – In English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese
• Star Wars Exhibition Official Website
• Google Maps of Roppongi Hills
• The Easiest Subway Maps of Tokyo – The easiest way to learn how to get to Roppongi!
• Book a hotel in Roppongi & Stay at Grand Hyatt Tokyo inside Roppongi Hills