Thanks, and sincerely, again, Maurice…and "terrifying" is indeed the word.
I have read some scripts…indeed took quite a number of courses at a local film school…but have zero actual experience.
The trailer shows its age, unfortunately (and Closed Caption, its all scenes from my pilot script). What would (perhaps) have seemed gosh-wow circa 2003 is (I'm glad to say) old news today. I've also been thinking in terms of an SFX-light production.
I'm in complete agreement as to your criticism re: "Muslim," etc. I think I'll leave off here -- again with thanks for your (and others') advice, but will close by posting a few short character bios, just to show I've more in mind than stock diversity.
David Winfrey
Captain Fazal Allende—Tall, charismatic, of mixed Middle Eastern and Central American descent, Allende was first offered a Starship captaincy at 30, but declined for the sake of his pregnant wife. For some decades a widower due to a planetary disaster, he taught at the Academy before taking command of Endeavour, whose assumption of Jim Kirk’s former patrol route he sometimes regrets. Allende is a “half-breed” eidetic, his memory not perfectly photographic, but near enough he retains the names of his entire crew (indeed, much of Starfleet), and considerable else. He wears his long dense hair in a braid, sports a thick salt-and-pepper beard, and enjoys rank’s privilege in regularly (though not daily; times have changed) pointing his vessel towards Mecca, that he may properly pray. Allende enjoys a strong personal relationship with many of his command staff, who respect both his quiet deliberation and his slow-to-kindle but powerful temper.
First Officer Shelia Hansen—a statuesque blonde, 45 years of age, Hansen has a reputation throughout Starfleet as a hellacious shore-leaver. She entered the Academy when 23, and within two years began a romance with Allende. Upon graduation, she took her lover’s advice to strike out with a vengeance, electing service upon an autonomous, long-ranged exploration cruiser. Shortly into her first mission, she and her crew suffered contact with a spatial anomaly, thanks to which they experienced some years’ duration in what was to the galaxy proper a matter of weeks. On returning, Hansen, highest ranking of her cruiser’s survivors (and thanks to its plight, now 41) confronted Allende as a near-equal, served as his First (in both senses) on the scout Heinlein, only to face his refusal to wed her (or keep a “Captain’s Woman”) on Endeavour. She practices “safe distancing maneuvers” both aboard and ashore, and seems likely to win her own Starship in due course. She is close friends with Endeavour’s Chief Engineer, and a joking thorn in the side to the ship’s Science Officer, who she sees as having a fetish for Vulcan logic he would do better without.
Chief Engineer Regina Brahms—a soft-spoken redhead in her early 30s, Brahms has few peers in her expertise and inventiveness. She declined upon Academy graduation a high post in Starfleet’s engine design department in preference to, as she put it, “playing with real toys” – a number of which (of quite another sort) she shared and/or alternated with Hansen when roommates, back then. Like many another engineer, she takes herself to be Endeavour’s “owner,” but revels in (and indeed, often suggests) the chance to take the ship to her limits.
Science Officer William Daystrom—tall, strikingly handsome, about 22, Daystrom bears the burden of being son to a one-time “boy wonder” whose greatest creation ran amok to the tune of nearly 500 dead. This debacle rendered William something of a pariah at Starfleet Academy, due to which he assumed an almost Vulcan demeanor, becoming, on graduation, a sought-after candidate for Starship duty…yet suspected of being so marked by events that “offers” were few. Allende, well-acquainted with both duty and loss, has given him the chance to show himself a fine Science Officer. Daystrom appears to have few interests outside of his duties, and – having been raised a somewhat conservative Catholic – may well consider the M-5 to have been not merely a tragic mistake, but an Abomination…which if so, would put him at some risk of damnation due the sins of the father.
In his off-hours, Daystrom knits.
Chief Medical Officer Spask—As a full Vulcan, Spask is of indeterminate age. He appears to be forty-five or so, but may be as old as sixty Earth years. He has, in any case, made quite a career in the Starfleet Medical Corps, and had more than enough time both to acclimate himself to humans and all their foibles, and to allow himself the sometime-pleasure of being unexpectedly demonstrative of emotion (at least to the level of a very dry wit) in their presence. Although we will at best allude to the fact, Spask is a distant relation of the first Vulcan to marry a human, an event which was the scandal of Vulcan some 100 years ago. Spask plays the Vulcan harp only under great duress, and quite badly. He will also, on occasion, tell rather bad jokes. As to the latter, though, it is a moot point whether Spask is revealing himself as being humor-impaired – or taking pleasure in playing humans as straight men (sic) in making them the butt(s) of his humor. The smart money would be on the latter.
