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Rick and I would go over the memos and try to pick language that made sense. Rick
would frequently discard dozens of suggestions until the technobabble sounded right to him.
I’d write all the technical dialogue as well as I could. The secret, I always told writers,
was not to depend on the technobabble to explain anything. It’s there for decoration. Make

sure the audience can understand what’s going on despite the technobabble. I knew the
actors hated technical dialogue (on the TV show, they used to call it “Piller filler”). And I
knew as sure as I sat there that when the picture was done that Rick would come out of the
screening room, as he always did, and glare at me and say, “There’s too much technobabble

in this film!” And we’d try to cut some out. But at this point in the process, he always insisted
that I close every techno-hole in the script. And I did.
By November 15 , I had a draft that he felt was ready to send to the studio.
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M. Piller & Model of Enterprise
Photo Credit: Piller Family Collection

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