The Guardian of Forever

The replica was from a touring prop show that was exhibited in science museums in the mid-late 2000s. I saw it sometime around 2009-2010 (the museum was showing Star Trek '09 in IMAX, so that puts a lower limit on the time frame for my visit). Aside from a bunch of props and replicas on display they also had a partial TOS bridge set and other stuff (including, apparently, a GoF that I don't recall at all).

 

It's still in situ
Waiting for a question

 

It’s strange that there is so little documentation on its design and construction. Matt Jeffries seems to have saved all of his paperwork for the various TOS sets and props.

 

Perhaps there is or will be some information about the Guardian of Forever set piece/prop in the Roddenberry Archive?

@Jules / OTOY

 

There is an effort to track down all the physical set pieces where we can, not sure about that one specifically, but maybe the Okudas do. We have talked about recreating the GOF set as closely as possible form set references, but we haven't gotten there just yet (mostly been working on the TOS Enterprise interiors since the Cage sets completed last summer).

 

And not really in all that much of a hurry, either, as it happens.

 

The Guardian was probably built quickly, of light-weight materials, from a very rough sketch with only approximate dimensions. Thus its exact size and shape were whatever happened to come off the craftsmen's tools. If so, there never was much documentation.

 

If memory serves, Jeffries didn't work on this episode. I seem to recall he was perhaps on vacation, and another designer stepped in for him. One whose name escapes me.

Sir Rhosis

 

I think the guy would have gotten a card in the end credits. Maybe it was Rolland Brooks.
https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x28/cityontheedge_755.jpg

 

The Guardian wasn't "waiting" because all time is the same to a four-dimensional entity.

An 18-inch Stonehenge scribbled on a napkin.

 

I wonder how Harlan would have felt about the whole Carl thing.

It did say it was "awaiting a question"...

 

GUARDIAN: I answer as simply as your level of understanding makes possible.

 

I think that the problem may have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.

 

I wonder if it was perfectly circular originally…imagine how many years it would take to deform…

 

How do you deform a pan-dimensional object? If you push along any of our familiar 3 dimensions, will the object give along some unknown dimension and disappear? What if the Guardian was built by the same "people" that built the multiverse? What if the Guardian is "those people"?

KIRK: Are you machine or being?
GUARDIAN: I am both and neither. I am my own beginning, my own ending.

 

That's a great line, as it basically confirms the existence of self sufficient causal loops in the Star Trek universe - and apparently the GOF is itself the result of such a time loop!

 

when was the old grouch happy about anything?

 

On February 12, 1987, from approximately 11:01:01am through 11:03:16am. But, he always denied it!

 

You know, if Harlan had been alive when that episode was filmed, he might have done well playing Carl himself!

 

Although I love the Back to the Future movies as they are, I considered one interesting angle they might have used in the third movie. While making their escape back to 1985, Marty and '85 Doc accidentally appear in Nov. 5, 1955. The thunder clap of the Outatime arriving startles '55 Doc into slipping off his toilet and hitting his head on the sink...