A good retcon. Shame that this concept was not developed in the script.
I'd forgotten how little the Tholians are in "The Tholian Web."
- Thread starter JonnyQuest037
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When I was a kid I assumed the ruins were what was left of a city, it never occurred to be at the time (so I didn’t consider it for the next 45 years) that it was also referring to NYC - oops...
Now I like that title even more.
I believe the preferred nomenclature is “crystal spheres”.
City On The Edge of Forever was a great episode, culminating with Kirk's grief at the loss of Edith and someone who had really gotten under his skin! It would have been marvellous to see Joan return as Edith in Generations but well...! 
The BBC always showed this episode third in their run for some reason! 
JB
The BBC always showed this episode third in their run for some reason! JB
Yeah. I like this concept, but I'd like it a lot more if it was in the script.
I don't think the episode contradicts it, so it's more of a fleshing out than a retcon.
It would have been marvellous to see Joan return as Edith in Generations but well...!
JB
May have made GEN bearable for me.
I think Joan Collins was even available during the filming schedule in the spring of 1994. I bet no one asked.
Probably not. I'm sure they were more enamored of the idea of creating a new long lost love interest for Kirk, even if it's one we never saw (Just one in a series of baffling decisions in that film).
I'd forgotten how little the Tholians are in "The Tholian Web."
Thus inspiring a little nonsense:
One little, two little, three little Tholians,
four little, five little, six little Tholians,
seven little, eight little, nine little Tholians,
ten little Tholian - whatevers
Thus inspiring a little nonsense:
One little, two little, three little Tholians,
four little, five little, six little Tholians,
seven little, eight little, nine little Tholians,
ten little Tholian - whatevers
...
I always assumed that the title city was New York City since it was a vital cusp in history.
In "The City on the Edge of Forever":
On any habitable planet, ruins extending to the horizon indicates a settlement large enough to be considered a city. So dialog in the script establishes that there is a ruined city around the Guardian of Forever.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever_(episode)
Watching the episode recently, I have noticed in some shots a line of structures in the background, a line of vertical structures with a hortizontal thing running along their tops. It looks like it could be part of the columnade of a ruined Greek temple, or a Roman aqueduct, or maybe a modern building with a large horizontal section extending over and between between two vertical sections.
I don't know if this building on the distant skyline was in the original episode or is a change in the remastered version.
Here is some information about the remastered version:
But either way, the existence of the ruined city around the time portal, or Guardian of Forever, is sufficiently established. That city exists in Star Trek canon.
And today I thought that a city surrounded the Guardian of Forever would really be existing on the brink of disaster or "the Edge of Forever". All it would take would be one inhabitant accidentally or deliberately going though the Guardian to the past of the city to create changes that would unmake it, prevent it from ever existing.
And we also see that parts of the city extend right up to the edge of [the Guardian of] Forever.
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Harlan Ellison said he wanted the Guardian to be surrounded by runes, but this was misheard (by Matt Jefferies or a producer or someone) as ruins. So the set was built with ruins, which was an accident but in my view an improvement. Who goes around using the word "runes" without explaining it? Kirk's line about ruins in the transcript must be from the Roddenbery re-write, which of course is what got filmed.
I either got that from Harlan doing a youtube video, or possibly a Starlog interview in print.
I either got that from Harlan doing a youtube video, or possibly a Starlog interview in print.
That story is rubbish.
I've read Ellison's script drafts. And the staff rewrote the script mightily after that, so Jefferies and Co. wouldn't have been working off Ellison's descriptions anyhow.
Didn't Matt Jefferies skip COTEOF because of illness, anyway? I believe that his assistant (blanking on his name & I don't feel like searching for it at 2:30 in the morning) did the production design on the episode.
You didn't like GEN?
Apart from one or two quips, I really enjoyed it for the most part! 
JB
Then again if she had of appeared even in one or two scenes then Kirk would have known that this was either his fantasy or the after-life as he must have remembered her demise back in 1930! 
JB
JB
That story is rubbish.
The Ellison story I heard, it was told probably 40 years after the fact. So his mind might have filled in some blanks, or he might have been joking. I'll bet he was joking.
Good point! I was saying something similar about Obsession in another thread. I love it when Star Trek scripts leave things to the imagination.
Ellison's "city" was on a far off mountaintop. The only details he ever gives of the area where the time "Vortex" stands is that it's set in a "rocky defile" and the Guardian(s), which start as humanoid figures and end up as some vaguely defined object/entity left to to the production to design. There are no ruins or runes or whatever.
Since we've moved from little Tholians to City, does any one know who wrote the line:
A question. Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question.
I always thought that line was really good. One of the best of the series.
A question. Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question.
I always thought that line was really good. One of the best of the series.
Ellison.
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