Star Trek: Discovery (2017)

Probabil asta e scopul, sa fie mai fiorosi decat cei vechi.

Cica in seria asta noua vor fi prezente cele mai multe specii de extraterestri, din toate seriile de pana acum.

mai rau e ca put a filmele star trek din ultima vreme, cel putin din ce am vazut in acest trailer. Care filme au fost foarte slabe, parerea mea

That leads me to advice item #1, which I think is the most important advice for writing any kind of Star Trek story: the characters drive the story, not the other way around. Star Trek has always been at its best when it’s about the characters - their motivations, their experiences, their backgrounds, etc. The best Star Trek series had the most interesting, compelling characters that had exciting, fun interactions with each other and the adventures they went on.

So #1: come up with unique, appealing characters that you’d want to see every week and interact with each other in interesting ways and which have some unique point of view to offer on the various adventures they’ll go on. Once you’ve defined them well, you can come up with a scenario to put them in, decide what challenges to throw at them, then let their personalities drive their responses. That will make their characters more consistent and the show more believable.

#2: Star Trek is about having proactive, optimistic view of how we will deal with the unknown challenges of the future. Unlike a lot of recent sci-fi, Trek tries to represent the best of what humanity can accomplish if we work together to face the unknown. The characters don’t have to be perfect, and they don’t always have to succeed: but it’s the *trying* that makes them interesting, honorable and inspirational.

#3: Star Trek has always had a progressive view of the future. Sometimes that can come off as preachy, but if done well - with clever allegorical stories and some moral complexity, it can convey that view that humanity will get better as we go on. The long arc of human civilization has always bent towards more and more inclusiveness, tolerance and rationality, even if we occasionally take tragic steps backwards (like here in the States right now).

#4: Futuristic technology that’s been somewhat prescient has always been a part of Star Trek. Try to look around you and see what technology is on the cusp of being reality in the next couple of decades. Try to extrapolate from tech trends and incorporate that into your world. Integrate that vision of the future into your ship and its reality in a natural and believable way. Don’t draw too much attention to it or over-explain it or do a whole episode about it, just work it into your stories in an organic way. Almost take it for granted. It will seem more realistic that way, IMO.

#5: Star Trek is about the future. Don’t go backward, move the franchise forward. Don’t fall into the trap of fetishizing the known or past of Star Trek or its lore. Make a show that will appeal to people who have never seen Trek before. Like TNG did, create a new show that recreates the essence of what made the original Star Trek great - an interesting cast of characters on a ship exploring the unknown and dealing with mysteries and varied moral, philosophical and intellectual challenges.

#6: Star Trek is about exploration and facing the unknown, NOT about war. I think, too often, it’s easy for writers to fetishize the ships and the technology and the action aspects of Star Trek and they lose the core of the show. It’s okay to do a storyline about war and conflict, but it should not be the defining mission of the series.

#7: Understand dramatic structure. You don’t necessarily have to follow the 5 act structure with cliffhangers/hooks at each commercial break - many modern series don’t need those now that premium format shows air on platforms without commercial breaks. That’s very freeing and allows you to be more flexible with your structure. You can even do long story arcs, but that can be a dangerous trap to fall into. Your individual episodes still need to be interesting and dramatically satisfying on their own. They still need to have their own dramatic flow - rising action, peaks, valleys, conflict and resolution. The best, clearest and most concise book I’ve ever read on screenwriting was recommended to me by a Hollywood screenwriter and script doctor: “Save the Cat” by Blake Snyder. You can get it on Kindle or whatever platform you like, I think. It’s a quick, entertaining read and I highly recommend it. It will definitely change the way you approach writing a dramatic story. You don’t need to follow its rules strictly, but it’s good to know the rules so that you know when and why to break them, and what affect that will have on your story.