FADE IN: The Making of Star Trek Insurrection - A Textbook on Screenwriting from Within the Star Trek Universe by Michael Piller
Michael Piller is an underrated figure in Star Trek fan circles. Some fans forget how rough the first couple of seasons of The Next Generation were when Gene Roddenberry brought ST back to syndication. Gene over did it drinking his Kool-Aid after years of being hailed for creating a Utopia. In the first few seasons, the show suffered from following Roddenberry’s rules, because apparently, humans will be perfect in the perfect system. Piller was one of the writers who helped to save Trek.
He also did another impossible thing by turning Stephen King’s amazing novel The Dead Zone into a long-form TV show that actually worked. I always respected Piller’s work on TNG/DS9/ The Dead Zone. So I always thought it weird coming off First Contact the best TNG movie that Piller wrote, such a just ok ST movie in Star Trek Insurrection. Don’t get me wrong, Insurrection is fine. Certainly better than Nemesis.
Anyone who is a screenwriter such read this book about the process of writing this film. Piller wrote this book shortly after the movie was finished and tried to sell it before his death in 2005. Yeah, Piller died young, and perhaps that is why he felt he could write a warts-and-all all book. The studio didn’t really like how it made folks in the production. This was short-sighted in my opinion. But Rick Berman, Patrick Stewart, and probably Brent Spiner felt the book made them look petty.
Not me. I gained respect for everyone involved who was trying to make a movie by committee. Piller puts his various treatments and the “what if” versions of the movie, are interesting. Some of those versions are better than the final movie (while sorta re-doing episodes of TNG). The idea of Heart of Darkness with Data as Kurtz sounds awesome, but I am not sure it would have worked for the public as well as me.
Sandra Piller (his widow) could not get permission to publish, which is too bad because this book should be taught in screenwriting classes. It still can, I suppose, because she made it free to read online. That is how I read it.
A must-read for Star Trek fans, but more importantly for Screenwriters.
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