National Film and Sci-Fi Museum — Attraction in Milton Keynes

the sci fi museum is good and i think worth the money if you’re really into these things. i enjoyed it as someone who loves films and really likes a few of the things on display (doctor who, alien, etc) but is not a sci fi nerd. there were a couple of cool things that i wasn’t expecting eg a couple of props from the flintstones movie. my boyfriend really enjoyed it and has seen most of the things displayed, there were some more niche things like a big collection of blake 7 props/costumes and he loves that show.

i think some reviewers are missing the point of the museum, it is to appreciate that these are the actual things used in these iconic films which is really cool if you like these films and appreciate filmmaking, particularly how intricate some of these older props are in pre cgi days.

however i think not being able to take photos is a bit silly, they say it’s because ‘these are people’s things that they’ve lent us’ (which i don’t think is true for a lot of the items judging by the info next to them) but i don’t really get why that means people can’t have a photo with them that is going to probably be seen by a handful of people on social media! doesn’t make sense to me, but im not super bothered by it.

i found it more annoying that they don’t have labels by a lot of the items. before we went in the guy who sold us the tickets said something along the lines of ‘there are a few things that don’t have labels because we haven’t had time to label them’. obviously that’s not his fault, i assume that’s what the owners / management have said. he said we could ask him what they were afterwards but you kind of forget what it was afterwards because 1 there is no label to prompt you and 2 you can’t take a photo to remind you to ask! also he was busy afterwards in the shop and i couldn’t be bothered to wait to ask to be honest. i would say this was maybe 15-20% of the exhibits which, as someone who goes to a lot of small museums, is quite a lot of items that were unlabelled. i think it’s a real cop out to say that they only just got them and haven’t had time. even if they labelled them with temporary labels printed on printer paper and written in comic sans, that would be better than having none, the presentation is not as important as the info!! there were a couple of empty display boxes just sitting there which didn’t look great either. seeing as how the museum is only open 4 days a week i think someone could spend a few hours sorting out the labels and have them ready for the next week. i really can’t believe they got all 30ish unlabelled items shipped in yesterday and just hadn’t got round to it!!

overall i did enjoy my time here despite my criticisms, and it was really exciting for my sci fi nerd boyfriend who doesn’t tend to enjoy museums as much as me, which is why i have given it 4 stars. the price is fair given the amount of items, if you actually appreciate them for what they are, but if your appreciation of sci fi means you’ve seen star wars and nothing else then i don’t think you should spend your money here because it isn’t for you.

i’m only rating the sci fi and film museum here, we didn’t go in the lego museum or the arcade. i think the price is a lot for both of these, i think the lego museum was another £15 each (can’t be sure as we didn’t ask, i think it was written somewhere) and it was another £15 each for 2 hours in the arcade and you had to go in at a specific time like in 2 hour blocks throughout the day which seems bizarre to me. we would have liked to spend maybe 30 mins in the arcade because we had to leave at the end of our holiday, but wasn’t an option. we love arcades and i think spending £15 to have access all day would be fine but for a specific 2 hour block i think is quite steep. obviously you’d pay more if you go to a london arcade bar for example but that’s a different vibe. we went to oxo museum in malaga this year which was an amazing arcade / video game museum and you could spend as much time as you liked there for like €15 pp so i think we’ve been...

Haven’t even visited yet and the customer service so far has not been the best. First of all they advertise admission as £14.50…but then sneakily add on another £1 per ticket (which you don’t find out about until the checkout) claiming it’s out of their hands because ticket sales are dealt with by Eventbrite 🤷🏻‍♂️ That I wouldn’t probably mind so much, but I thought the £14.50/£15.50 was for the museum AND the arcade area-but they say it’s a separate business (even though it’s the same building and an almost identical ticketing system screens) so it’s £15.50 each person in each setting-hence why I can see why so many people are commenting about it being overpriced for either place. I do think £15.50 for 3 hours in an arcade isn’t the worse price at all, however I guess that depends on how many other people are there on the day when you arrive and whether you can get on the machines you want to play on. We originally had a works group of 7 people wanting to go expecting to pay a total of £101.50 (7x £14.50) to spend a good portion of the day walking around a museum and then the retro arcade afterwards. However, once I explained the costs had more than doubled to £217 (7x £15.50 plus another 7x £15.50), that number dropped to just two which was a real shame. Secondly don’t expect a fast response for your messages. Both the museum and the Pixel Bunker don’t have a phone line. In 2023!? 🤦🏻‍♂️🙄 So the only way is online questioning. I tried their direct website and got zero response. I had no choice but to message via their Facebook page on the 10th November 2022. No answer again, so I message once more on the 11th January 2023 (2 months later after still hearing no response) but STILL nothing…so I send a final message asking even if the messages are getting through to which I finally get a reply! I was always friendly and courteous on my messaging but their responses are short. No greeting, no thanks, no apologies for not responding after you explain you’ve been waiting 2 months and the only way I can describe the feeling it like it’s you’re ‘bothering’ them by asking for information. Let’s put it this way, their generic automated Facebook response has much more friendliness typed in it than whoever it is that responds directly. Latest conversation (when I asked why they charge extra hidden ticket costs and that they should be advertising the correct ticket costs) has now been completely ignored given I was speaking with them almost 3 hours ago. In times like these, I would have a very different attitude to customers willing to give their money away. We’ve now decided not to go as it’s a long round-trip for us and by the sounds of it not worth the entrance fee let alone finding out that we can’t even take photos of our day out-I mean why? It’s not like it’s going to spoil the surprise as you’ve already ‘seen’ the stuff on TV or film and surely the experience of seeing it in the flesh so to speak is the whole reason for going? I think someone needs to explain the difference between the real world and the sci-fi one. Maybe they genuinely think they have real alien artefacts which are government classified secrets hence the no photo rule 🤷🏻‍♂️ Although, that might explain the high entrance costs and hidden charges at least. Finally I see their replies and information saying they are a ‘charity’? I’m confused now as not only are a lot of large museums free to enter, but if you are a charity how can you enforce an admission charge-because surely that’s a business then? What would be better is maybe bring the cost right down to say £7 which sounds like a more fair price for the smaller exhibit and in addition it will attract a lot more visitors (including repeat business as well as new recommendations). Then they could state that all monies (or profits taken) go to whichever charity they are supporting, so you at least feel like your money is helping a good cause. Shame really, we were looking forward to a day out. Maybe if it expands and they revise their costs we will...

Just wanna get this out first, this place is fantastic I am so happy to have gone and had a fantastic time - but there are things that need updating/changing.

Firstly, the collection of items are fantastic. I came from Leeds to see Ludo, as Labyrinth is my girlfriend’s favourite movie (and it’s her birthday). Absolutely fantastic to see all these items from movies we love, there were some real, unexpected surprises that I didn’t expect to see here that had me feeling excited like a kid in a sweet shop.

The staff were great, the guy who showed us in and went over the rules with us was great and the younger lad who answered a few of my questions in the Star Wars area was also great.

We also had a nosy look into the Lego museum being built, whilst browsing the wrestling figures for sale, looked fantastic hopefully down MK as I’d love to see this when done

Here’s what needs to be updated though, the attraction as a whole could do with a clean up. There was a lot of dust and a few dead flies in the display cabinets. The shop could do with some organising too. For example, I mentioned before about browsing the wrestling figures, these had been bought one by one and there were just gaps and blobs of blu tac where they were once stuck down. Nothing major, and it didn’t ruin the experience at all - but it would be nicer to not have to notice something like a dead fly.

The biggest thing I think needs updating is the signage/information. We were left guessing about 50% of the collection as there were no information about it and we didn’t appreciate certain things as much as we may have if they had information about them. Let us know what they are, if they were screen used, for the bigger pieces (like Ludo) how the museum came to own them, etc. A few displays had signage, but not all. We noticed there wasn’t any signage around the Star Trek costumes, so we kind of just skipped through this section as we aren’t big fans and couldn’t learn anything about the pieces.

As a final point, I want to challenge some other reviews. This attraction is not a “30 minute” experience. We were in the museum for an initial 2 and a half hours, went for a look around the shop and then went back into the museum for another 30 minutes. When I got to the Adams family section, I was expecting the museum to be coming to an end, yet this was only really half way. The comments about it being unorganised are a bit pointless also, most the Star Wars props are in a themed area, all but one of the Sherlock props are in a themed area, all the doctor who props are in one area, etc. I can understand the price comments, it is quite expensive but the comments about it not being worth the admission are unfair. I think £10-12 is a better price for Adults.

Overall, great attraction. Loved it and would really like to come back (especially with the Lego museum opening soon). I urge anyone who has ever watched a film or television show to visit this place, you’ll find something there you can connect with. With a bit of TLC this can be the type of place that seriously puts Milton Keynes on the map. Great attraction, thanks for keeping these historic items from our beloved films and tv shows in good condition and allowing us...