Star Trek: 10 Biggest Takeaways From 'William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill'
8. They Are Legion
In its earliest days, Star Trek helped define the modern fan phenomenon. The 'Save Star Trek' letter writing campaign, spearheaded by Bjo Trimble, and the sadly departed John Trimble, managed to keep The Original Series on the air for a third season. Then, the storming ratings in re-runs, and the emergence of the Star Trek convention in the 1970s gave the show a new life and a go at the movies. The rest is… history still being written.
Production company behind You Can Call Me Bill, Legion M, continues that fan spirit by being "the first entertainment company designed to be owned by fans," with over 40,000 investors at present. As Shatner told the Today programme, that "original idea" was one of the reasons he agreed to do the documentary. You Can Call Me Bill writer/director Alexandre O. Philippe is certainly also a science-fiction fan, having previously directed Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019) and The People vs. George Lucas (2010).
One of Philippe's earliest documentaries — Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water (2004) — was equally about Star Trek fans. Whilst its title is a partial quote from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Home Soil — the crystal being's description of humans as "ugly giant bags of mostly water" — the documentary primarily follows a group of Klingon speakers, members of the Klingon Language Institute (KLI), and also features the Klingon language's creator Mark Okrand, and Klingon himself Michael Dorn.