Shatner gives us his perspective on the Star Trek movie behind-the-scenes action, from the cancellation of the original tv series, through Star Trek: Generations with Kirk's death.

His point-of-view makes creator Gene Roddenberry look idiotic most of the time, with bad ideas for films, having become too eccentric for the Paramount execs. Shatner watched Roddenberry "get slam-rollered, flattened by studio politics." He was removed from the driver's seat and given a ceremonial title of Executive Consultant.

The book also provides several perspectives of Shatner's co-workers, including the actors, producers, directors, etc. These offer additional interesting insight into what happened off camera.

Shatner says how he believed that after Star Trek: The Motion Picture was trashed by critics and after the premier ("well, that's it. We gave it our best shot, it wasn't good, and that'll never happen again"), he believed that was it; he didn't foresee Trekkies flocking to see even a bad movie. It was a decade in the making, and despite being "slow and bad with worse word-of-mouth", it made over $100 million.

How did Shatner feel about Kirk's death in Generations?:

...when Rick (Berman, producer of ST: TNG) first called me and told me about wanting to knock off the captain, it really didn't bother me at all. Not one bit. In fact, I got really excited, thinking, "well if this really is going to be Kirk's last hurrah, what better way to close the book? It's dramatic. It'll be great fun to play, and if it's well written and important to the story, it'll be good for the film as well."

"I find it very satisfying, even awe-inspiring, to realize that the Star Trek universe has now grown to the point where Kirk, Spock, Picard, Sisko, Janeway..none of us are absolutely vital to its continued existence."