A movie script had Picard stripped of his rank

Captain Picard would have had more troubles in Insurrection

After the success of Star Trek: First Contact, Paramount didn’t hesitate to move forward with the next movie starring The Next Generation cast. Though, according to WarpedFactor, producer Rick Berman came up with several ideas that were all action, including Picard being kidnapped and replaced with a lookalike imposter (which actually inspired the idea of Nemesis) and another that would have brought back Data’s evil twin brother, Lore, Paramount wasn’t interested in any of Berman’s ideas. The studio was looking at finances, and the most financially successful Star Trek movie up to that point was Star Trek: The Voyage Home. So it wanted the next TNG movie to be just as light and totally opposite from First Contact.

Michael Piller went to work writing the first script with an idea of creating a movie about family with a “Fountain of Youth” type of story. He titled the script “Star Trek: Stardust,” and in that first treatment he had Picard meeting up with an old Starfleet Academy buddy, Hugh Duffy. Duffy was in all sorts of trouble, having become a renegade trying to stop a war between the Federation and the Romulan Empire. That sent Picard to the Neutral Zone to bring Duffy back, but, instead, Picard helped him stop the Romulans from taking over a planet that had the Fountain of Youth.  At the end of the movie, Captain Picard was arrested and stripped of his rank by Starfleet. Because nothing says family like losing your career, right?

The second draft of Insurrection changed things for Picard

For whatever reason, Pillar decided to change his story and have Picard choose to resign from Starfleet because he felt like he was unable to follow the Prime Directive anymore. Before the movie ended, though, he would have been reinstated, which would have made the whole resignation thing seem kind of flat.

Enter Patrick Stewart. As associate producer, he was sent the second script and wasn’t a fan. He thought the movie was more suitable to an episode of television rather than a big-screen movie. Paramount agreed with him, and Pillar went back to the drawing board. Then the script we all know from Star Trek: Insurrection was born.