How Star Trek Discovery Melds Tradition & New Ideas

Star Trek Discovery, CBS All Access’ much-anticipated new TV entry into the Star Trek ranks, beamed into Comic-Con International in San Diego for the very first time in advance of its Sept. 24 premiere. While there, the cast and creators revealed during a spirited press conference, how the series -- set a generation or so before the original 1966 Trek -- hopes to build off of the core foundations established by creator Gene Roddenberry. As expected, the series will mingle sci-fi adventure and metaphoric social commentary, while pushing the envelope forward on eye-popping visuals and of-the-moment serialized TV storytelling, all in the name of boldly going where no Trek has gone before.

Alex Kurtzman (executive producer): First and foremost, the defining factor of Roddenberry's vision is the optimistic view of the future and the idea that he envisioned a world where all species, all races came together not only to make our world better, but to make every world better. I think that that's something that can never be lost in Trek. I think once you lose that, you lose the essence of what Star Trek is.

That being said, we live in a very troubled times and every day we look at the news and it's hard. It's hard to see what we see and I think that now more than ever, Trek is needed as a reminder and a buoy for what we can be, the best of who we can be.

Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green in Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek has always been a mirror to the time in which it reflected. Right now, the idea that ... the question of how you preserve and protect what Starfleet is in the wake of a challenge like war and the things that must be done in war is a very interesting and dramatic problem. It feels like a very topical one given the world that we live in now, so that is what we are always trying to maintain, but again the optimism is that thing that we must hold onto as the torch for Roddenberry's vision of the future of Star Trek.

Akiva Goldsman (producer): What we are committed to is a real fractal version of the universe. That diversity has become too easy a word. We're committed to complexity and the differences in cultures and the differences in biology and in preference and inclusion. These were the principles that Star Trek was founded on, so we chase those.

The show's mission is to be inclusive, so we're very, very purposeful about that and I think you will see as we move forward that that's by no means, an accident. It's very intentional and the storytelling question is simply that we've gotten the chance to be something pretty unprecedented in Star Trek, which is just to be serialized.

Sonequa Martin-Green (Michael Burnham): One of my favorites ideas that we explore on the show is acculturation and how when that happens, it doesn't have to mean assimilation. That's really one of the pillars, I think, of Star Trek. What it teaches is that we don't have to let go of who we are in order to learn who you are. We can do it at the same time.

I think that that's touched on a lot on The Walking Dead, and it's touched on here. It's touched on here in such a unique way and a way we haven't seen before, in a way that I think honors the legacy, but also carries it to the next level.

Storytelling is such a champion in our world and our society and it does so much for us. It shapes us and changes us and enlightens us. I just thank god that I was able to go from a show where this storytelling is so rich and so dynamic to another show where the storytelling is so rich and so dynamic.

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How Star Trek Discovery Blends Tradition with New, Relevant Frontiers, Cont.

Rainn Wilson (Harry Mudd): I grew up watching the original series. At age five or six, I started watching it. It was on reruns after school. I built models of the Enterprise, I had books on the Enterprise -- we memorized where the dorms were and where everything was in the ship.

I've forgotten all that now, but to go on the ship and then I got to in my episode -- and without giving anything away, I did get to use the Transporter Room. I got to be transported, and I got to use a phaser and I got to sit in the Captain's chair a little bit. Just iconic creations from Gene Roddenberry and his original staff, and to get to relive those as an adult fan was just one of the greatest life experiences.

Anthony Rapp (Paul Stamets): You can see how much incredible detail and care and love upon it and that's the truth. Yeah, and the first time I was handed a phaser I felt like my head was going to explode.

Jason Isaacs (Captain Gabriel Lorca): It's true that it's incredible eight-year-old fun to say "Energize," and to point the phaser or to sit in the chair…[But] the original stories in the '60s were told at the time of enormous turmoil in the civil rights movement. We're holding up the vision of the future and Gene Roddenberry created a future where people have found a solution to and divisions between people at a time when the outside world seems to be getting more divisive and rolling back a bunch of things we take for granted.

So for me, the gadgets are fun and the sets are great and I'm sure we have all the whiz-bang stuff you would wish for, but what counts is what we're putting out there and what we're showing the next generation of what we could become as a planet instead of what we might become. That's what I like about it.

James Frain (Sarek): It feels it's an honor and it's a responsibility. It's a challenge, but I think it's something that the writers create the character and so we deliver a version of what they do. And I think what the writers are doing with this character and really with all the storylines is so interesting and so complex and so revealing that it's just a joy to work with.

I don't feel troubled too much by that except when people ask me that question I go, "Oh I should probably be troubled, but I'm having too much of a good time.”

Wilson: This particular universe is a very dark time for the federation and for Starfleet with this war happening, so I don't think it would appropriate in the universe and we talk to the writers about this to have as many jolly, wackadoo episodes that were often in the original series and in The Next Generation – and that's probably one of the wonderful things about Star Trek is that you could have some episodes that were almost comedies.

This Harry Mudd is kind of a reimagining and reinvention in the same way that so many things have been reimagined and reinvented. He's a bit more dastardly than the original, but that character made such an impression on me and it’s just a dream come true to try and bring him to life with as much drama and comedy as possible.

Kurtzman: There were a lot of questions about why we were delayed, and the answer is because we knew we were going to push the technology to a place that took time. It just takes time to build a world. It takes time to build a word right. It takes time to hire the right people who understand how to take what's on the script and turn it into something that looks amazing.

The line between film and television these days is non-existent now, so the show has to look like the movie, really – especially if we're asking people to pay for it. It has to define itself and distinguish itself, so it takes a good year to launch a show correctly when you factor in set builds, visual effects. And if you rush those things, you're compromising quality. We hope to be innovating as much as possible.

We didn't want to do the bad version of this show. We'd rather take the hit for, wait why are they taking so long, than actually deliver you something faster that you can hate.

Martin-Green: I think all of us stand on shoulders of the innovation that has been in the Star Trek canon up til now. All the progression and how this is really the story of universality and this is the story of coming together and understanding that you really are one with all of life. I don't know if I can put it into words, honestly. I feel that if I try, I would cry and it would just get really messy up here, but just the honor and It's such a privilege to be a part of a story that I truly believe is going to bring people together.

Star Trek: Discovery debuts Sunday, Sept. 24, on CBS, before moving to the CBS All Access streaming service for follow-up weekly installments. The show stars Sonequa Martin-Green as First Officer Michael Burnham, Jason Isaacs as Captain Lorca, Michelle Yeoh as Captain Georgiou, Doug Jones as Science Officer Lt. Saru and Anthony Rapp as astromycologist Lt. Stamets, with Rainn Wilson appearing as Harry Mudd.