Experience Music Project

A photo of the AVATAR exhibit at the Experience Music Project|Science Fiction Museum in Seattle.

Some very strange creatures are showing up in U.S. museums this month — even stranger than cadres of black-clad art-school graduates. From West Palm Beach, Fla., to Seattle, museums are showcasing new science fiction and fantasy exhibits that celebrate the art and science behind the genres.

Among the otherworldly offerings:

• "AVATAR: The Exhibition": Those curious about Pandora, the 22nd-century world created for the 2009 blockbuster movie “Avatar,” can head to the Experience Music Project|Science Fiction Museum (EMP|SFM) in Seattle, where you can explore the processes behind the movie, shoot your own scene on a performance-capture stage and view props, including a 13-foot Amplified Mobility Platform suit used in combat scenes.
• "Out of this World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television": Now open at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Fla., this exhibit features more than 30 costumes and objects from TV shows and movies, including “Batman,” “Blade Runner,” “Battlestar Galactica” and “Star Trek.” Note to parents: the Batman costume is the one George Clooney wore with the anatomically correct torso.
• "Tim Burton": This retrospective of the offbeat director’s work features props and costumes from “Corpse Bride,” “Edward Scissorhands” and other films, along with some of his earliest drawings and specially commissioned “creature sculptures.” The show runs through Halloween (of course) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Some might question the relevance of science fiction and fantasy exhibits in more traditional museums, but it’s not such a stretch.

Take Tim Burton. “He looks at the afterlife and what happens after we die,” said EMP/SFM associate curator Brooks Peck, in an interview with msnbc.com. “He treats those things in a whimsical way, but it’s still very deep. You can put him right next to a Renaissance painting about angels and demons.”

As for sci-fi and fantasy-based exhibits in general, he adds, “Science fiction is the mythology of our time. Of course, you’d see it at LACMA and places like that.”

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Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.