Piller's tell-all book on Insurrection (unpublished)

[sonak]

I finished the book early this morning. I just had to say that I found the last couple of chapters heartbreaking. Piller had such hopes that Insurrection would be well received. Sitting in with the preview audiences thinking they loved it... Rick Berman telling him they were dead... The reedditing and reshoots to improve it and the seeming improvement in audience response...

And then the reviews. Some good. Some bad. Some atrocious. But I guess from his POV they were mostly mixed.

Then seeing it the day after it opened with an audience.... a HALF-FULL audience... BTW I saw it the day after it opened and my theater was packed. I wish Piller had been in Portland when he saw the movie.

It was nice reading his relief that it had a great first weekend but so friggin' sad when he saw the drop off the following weekend and realized that he hadn't written a hit. He'd written a disaster.

I mean reading this book you realized that he wasn't Ehren Kruger hacking out Transformers 2 for a turkey sandwich and a six pack of beer. He had come up with a story that had meaning to him. He thought he had done a fantastic job. Did everything he could to make the writing the very best it could be. He didn't think he was writing the worst-though I realize it's debatable-Trek of them all. He just wanted to write something that had the heart of the television series, something gentle and full of fine characterizations but...

It just didn't work. Michael Piller for all his heart and talent had a television mindset that he couldn't overcome. That nobody on the production could overcome. Everything about the movie from the writing, to the production design and to the scope was hopelessly mired in television.

Insurrection just wasn't a movie.

It's a movie that I've always hated. But I don't hate Piller. I've read through his outlines and realized that his heart was in the right place...

...but in the end it just didn't work.

All I can say is that as awful as it was, I'm almost glad Insurrection happened. Because without it we wouldn't have Fade In, which is a far better epitaph for the kind of writer and man that Michael Piller really was.

RIP Michael! And thank you.

while I agree with the negativity on the quality of INS, you're going a bit overboard with the "it was a huge bomb" thing. Actually, though there was a big drop off from FC, it was merely a box office disappointment, not a bomb, and I think it either broke even or came out a little ahead.


It was actually Nemesis that truly was a box office disaster, a film that unlike INS, didn't even open very well, then disappeared from theaters shortly after.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

I am prone to hyperbole.

 

[Kronos]

It really does go to hell. I might've enjoyed Stardust far more than Insurrection. Still, INS is lightyears better than NEMESIS.

A kick to the head is better then Nemesis.

Thanks for the link Admiral James Kirk

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

You're welcome.

 

[JarodRussell]

The irony is that Patrick Stewart would have probably really liked the Stardust treatment. But he never got to know of it. Berman was afraid that the Fountain of Youth idea wouldn't ring with Stewart, so they threw it away. Then Stewart wasn't happy with the other thing they came up with, and then said "Fountain of Youth, great idea!". But the noobs never actually returned to the original idea. Why, I will never understand.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Michael Piller for all his heart and talent had a television mindset that he couldn't overcome. That nobody on the production could overcome. Everything about the movie from the writing, to the production design and to the scope was hopelessly mired in television.

Insurrection just wasn't a movie.

That's the main trouble with all four Next Generation movies, and it was a problem from the top-down. Berman was a television producer, he made his four films on a television scale, with television writers and directors. None of his films did anything that couldn't have been done on television, and there was no attempt at altering the status quo in any way until Nemesis -- and, by then, one could argue that it was too little, too late.

 

[sonak]

Michael Piller for all his heart and talent had a television mindset that he couldn't overcome. That nobody on the production could overcome. Everything about the movie from the writing, to the production design and to the scope was hopelessly mired in television.

Insurrection just wasn't a movie.

That's the main trouble with all four Next Generation movies, and it was a problem from the top-down. Berman was a television producer, he made his four films on a television scale, with television writers and directors. None of his films did anything that couldn't have been done on television, and there was no attempt at altering the status quo in any way until Nemesis -- and, by then, one could argue that it was too little, too late.

I read this criticism of the Next Gen movies a lot, and I don't really understand it. I can somewhat agree to it on Generations and INS, but I think that FC and NEM are both appropriately cinematic. You've got big scale plots with impressive looking space battles, etc. If you don't find them to be cinematic, what exactly are you looking for?

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

I found to FC to be fairly cinematic, though there were still some TV scale to it. Such as having Cochrane based in a little village in the middle of Montana. Most BIG movies would have had Cochrane in the blasted out remains of a big city. It would have been cool to see Cochrane and his people San Francisco. Imagine the Golden Gate Bridge in ruins. The Phoenix launching out of the center of Alcatraz... It wouldn't have changed the story much, but the scale automatically broadens.

Nemesis on the other hand... It had noble aspirations... Kind of. The plot was pure, warmed over TWOK but.. Radical changes were attempted. Death, marriage, promotions, new characters.... They did try different types of action sequences such as the Jeep chase and the shuttle flying through the corridors of a ship... But on the other hand aside from the Enterprise colliding with the Scimitar the space battles were pretty stilted, TV level stuff. A few shots here and there, shield bubbles glowing... Nothing awesome. The end of Nemesis could have been epic. Like Battle of Coruscant from RotS awesome. But it was flat. So much of Nemesis was flat.

Still despite the flatness I didn't hate Nemesis. It was better than Insurrection as far as I'm concerned. They just made a lot of mistakes with Nemesis.

Of course they made a lot of mistakes with all the TNG movies-except FC-in my opinion.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I read this criticism of the Next Gen movies a lot, and I don't really understand it. I can somewhat agree to it on Generations and INS, but I think that FC and NEM are both appropriately cinematic. You've got big scale plots with impressive looking space battles, etc. If you don't find them to be cinematic, what exactly are you looking for?

Of the four Next Generation films, the only one that, to me, feels cinematic, is Nemesis.

First Contact is as far from cinematic as you can get. In terms of direction, it's the weakest of the four; Frakes turned in very poor work. (His work on Insurrection is better, but his work on First Contact is very static, and he's not shooting widescreen.) The script is also weak; even though their Generations script goes in for more abuse in fandom, it's actually better structured than First Contact's script. The A-plot/B-plot structure typical of the television series carries over to FC, and the two storylines never really connect. The two storylines are also inconsistent in tone -- there's a dark, zombie movie in half of the film, and a lightweight, fish-out-of-water movie in the other half. They never mesh.

 

[ALF]

I will read this (so sorry to Piller's family, but I will) and I've never heard of Stardust. Sounds very interesting.

But I am letting you all know, right now, I am NOT a fan of android dreams. We had (more than) enough of that in TNG.

Let it be known. Goddamn it.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

Eh?

 

[Captrek]

That's the main trouble with all four Next Generation movies, and it was a problem from the top-down. Berman was a television producer, he made his four films on a television scale, with television writers and directors.

Harve Bennett was a television producer too. Nicholas Meyer was a novelist who had directed one feature film, Time After Time, with a TV-movie feel. Jack B. Sowards was also a TV guy; TWOK is his only feature film. Somehow, those guys made it work despite a lack of feature film experience.

 

[sonak]

I read this criticism of the Next Gen movies a lot, and I don't really understand it. I can somewhat agree to it on Generations and INS, but I think that FC and NEM are both appropriately cinematic. You've got big scale plots with impressive looking space battles, etc. If you don't find them to be cinematic, what exactly are you looking for?

Of the four Next Generation films, the only one that, to me, feels cinematic, is Nemesis.

First Contact is as far from cinematic as you can get. In terms of direction, it's the weakest of the four; Frakes turned in very poor work. (His work on Insurrection is better, but his work on First Contact is very static, and he's not shooting widescreen.) The script is also weak; even though their Generations script goes in for more abuse in fandom, it's actually better structured than First Contact's script. The A-plot/B-plot structure typical of the television series carries over to FC, and the two storylines never really connect. The two storylines are also inconsistent in tone -- there's a dark, zombie movie in half of the film, and a lightweight, fish-out-of-water movie in the other half. They never mesh.

to each their own. I can't speak to the technical aspects of film directing at all, so I won't even try. I disagree about FC's script. I certainly don't think it was flawless, but it made for probably the most gripping, most quickly-paced of any Trek movie, Star Trek XI included.



but back on topic: why exactly did Patrick Stewart get so much input as well as veto power over scripts? I think that's a problematic situation.

 

[Harvey]

He was the star and thought he had something to contribute. Paramount wasn't about to refuse him -- without Patrick Stewart they wouldn't have been able to make a Star Trek: The Next Generation movie.

 

[Therin of Andor]

why exactly did Patrick Stewart get so much input as well as veto power over scripts?

He simply turns down playing Picard until they offer him exactly what he wants. Or they shoot the movie without him. Or recast.

Ditto Brent Spiner.

 

[JarodRussell]

Stewart was Executive Producer, that's why. Spiner couldn't veto anything in Insurrection, which is why he only added questions to the draft and sent it back.

Somehow, those guys made it work despite a lack of feature film experience.

What is feature film experience? The work in pre-production, on set and in post-production is no different between films made for TV and films made for cinema.

 

[Harvey]

Well, it's a little different in terms of budget and schedule. TV moves at a much faster pace, and for a lot less money. It is also far less director-oriented than feature films.

The long writing process of Star Trek: Insurrection illustrates this quite well. If Piller's script was being produced for television, "Stardust" would have been made, end of story. You just don't have time to write and re-write for months that you do on a feature film.

 

[lurok]

Just finished reading this and like watching a car crash in slow motion. With each draft change I wanted to shout at page: "no! don't do that...that's only going to make it worse", and you can see all the faults of INS unfold before your eyes. Even allowing for longer lead time of film vs TV, it comes across that script just wasn't ready, but they had to shoot it. As others posted above, original Stardust might have been cheesier/more TNG but liked a lot of the ideas: Boothby, Romulans as antagonists, Joss vs Worf. Ho hum...

edit: I was kinda surprised as well that Spiner didn't appreciate/understand what Piller's role was on TNG, saying he didn't know how to write Data despite Piller having rewritten several TNG/Data scripts uncredited. I guess if you're one of those actors (possibly like Spiner) who's not that interested in production process and only in your part/delivered script, then it's understandable...

 

[MacLeod]

Perhaps franchise fatigue was beginning to creep in as well. Though having skimmed through the book, it looks like there were too many people with their finger in the pie when it came to the script.

 

[ALF]

franchise fatigue

OMG...oh no you di in't!
(wags finger madly)