This whole story screams "podcast".
Missing 32" Enterprise finally found...
- Thread starter Dar70
- Start date
He certainly asked for it back.
Laches is a defense that can be claimed in a civil proceeding. It asserts an unreasonable delay in pursuing a claim has occurred that as a result somehow prejudices a defendant, or prevents him from putting on a defense. The question then is, what constitutes an unreasonable delay in trying to recover property that has just resurfaced?
There are three different issues here- a criminal issue that likely involves a statute of limitations, and a civil issue that also likely involves a statute of limitations. However there is also a replevin issue that involves recovering personal property. A claimant has to establish that he has a superior right to the property versus the person he is suing. There is no statute of limitations issue here because the act of possessing stolen property is ongoing since a person doesn’t lose ownership simply because their property is out of their hands.
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When Abel came asking for the model, Roddenberry should have said, "We plan to change the exact shape of the Enterprise anyway for ST: TMP, and in any case there's nothing about my 3-footer that you couldn't learn from photos, technical drawings, and an AMT model kit."
I'll bet he kicked himself for not saying that.
I'll bet he kicked himself for not saying that.
Well, that’s the problem. We don’t know what he said. Just that it appears Robert Abel possibly had the model. And we know how things ended with Robert Abel.
I think CBS has a rapid response team of scientists and historians who fly out to the site of any Star Trek archeological find. They're like Thunderbirds, but instead of International Rescue, they're for vintage Trek props and costumes. I mean, I just assume.
Something like The Great Enterprise "Robbery", Cold Case: Enterprise, Enterprise:MIA or the like.
These are the same people who lost the Enterprise D (6 or 4? I don't remember) less than 10 years after TNG went of the air?I think CBS has a rapid response team of scientists and historians who fly out to the site of any Star Trek archeological find. They're like Thunderbirds, but instead of International Rescue, they're for vintage Trek props and costumes. I mean, I just assume.
When Robert Abel & Associates were brought on for the movie, Roddenberry told them that he wanted any redesign of the Enterprise to start from Jefferies' redesign for the Star Trek II TV series. But the redesign wasn't all on the page because Jefferies had been working on the plans while also working on Little House on the Prairie. He omitted many of the details from the drawings that could be lifted from the original Enterprise... in this case, the 33 inch model (as the 11 foot model was already at the Smithsonian).
So giving Richard Taylor's team Jefferies' redesign as a starting point meant giving them both the drawings and the 33 inch model. This is why Taylor's description of the Phase II Enterprise model in his 2013 interview sounded like the 33 inch TOS Enterprise... not being a fan of the series, he had no clue what the model was.
Shortly after the release of TMP Roddenberry personally called Bob Abel and asked for the model back, and Abel later informed Roddenberry that he wasn't able to find it. In all public discussions about the model Roddenberry never named any of the parties who were involved, just leaving it at it was loaned out and not returned.
I never pushed beyond this point in my research because both Roddenberry and Abel were gone by that time.
So giving Richard Taylor's team Jefferies' redesign as a starting point meant giving them both the drawings and the 33 inch model. This is why Taylor's description of the Phase II Enterprise model in his 2013 interview sounded like the 33 inch TOS Enterprise... not being a fan of the series, he had no clue what the model was.
Shortly after the release of TMP Roddenberry personally called Bob Abel and asked for the model back, and Abel later informed Roddenberry that he wasn't able to find it. In all public discussions about the model Roddenberry never named any of the parties who were involved, just leaving it at it was loaned out and not returned.
I never pushed beyond this point in my research because both Roddenberry and Abel were gone by that time.
Hm. Dayton Ward had a story he was working on, “The Enterprise Job,” about some fans heisting the 11-foot Enterprise model out of the Smithsonian a while ago, I wonder if this might revive his project.
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Seriously? That sounds... I don't even know what it sounds like but I'm pretty sure it's positive.
I think the most he wrote about it on his website was this post from 2012, and according to Google, the most recent update was a standing entry in his monthly "what I'm working on" post in 2016 that had been unchanged for a while.
To be fair, he probably just dropped it off at Robert Abel & Associates and not paid much attention to the admin at the front desk that day. I don't have the impression anyone at the time considered it a priceless artifact that needed a formal acknowledgment of the transfer with signatures, etc.
I heard it was destroyed, melted by the lighting as I recall.
Different story—never heard that one. I understand many thought Wah Chang himself destroyed it in frustration because Star Trek wasn’t supposed to employ him because he was not part of a union and as such he never received official onscreen credit for his work.
Of the two explanations, I'd say the more melodramatic one is more likely to be fictitious.
Thing is if it had been ruined by the studio lighting you’d think that would be something generally known. But as it is no one apparently knows for certain what happened to it. Stock footage from “Balance Of Terror” was reused in “The Deadly Years” and when it came time to film “The Enterprise Incident” the BoP miniature was nowhere to be found.
If it had been damaged while being filmed you’d think that would have been noted.
That’s just for C&Ds…UGH! models will tell you all about itI think CBS has a rapid response team of scientists and historians who fly out to the site of any Star Trek archeological find. They're like Thunderbirds, but instead of International Rescue, they're for vintage Trek props and costumes. I mean, I just assume.
Preserving assets? Ha!
Even ILM has shut down their model shop…dirty sods.
Storage unit buyers…repo men…meter maids…pawn/fencers…executives…all individuals who make money off another person’s misery.
My guess is that the person who pinched it has long since died…unable to pay the storage unit fee—thus the sale.
Death pays all debts
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