Casting: all major roles should be entrusted to the family and friends of the producer. “Should we entrust these parts to experienced ‘A’ or ‘B’ list actors with track record and box office pull?” “Nah. Waste of money. My golfing buddy Jack says he’s been thinking of getting into acting… let him take a crack at it. Hey, and that girl at Starbucks, she’s cute and I bet she’d love to do a movie.”
Music: the soundtrack should consist entirely of the most obvious, cliched and endlessly recycled music we can think of, including (appallingly edited) montages set to ‘Hallelujah’, ‘The Final Countdown’ and ‘Heard It On The Grapevine’. These and all other selections are to be included because we feel like it, not because of any thematic relationship to what’s on screen at the time. The tracks we use do not need to be consistent or compatible in any manner. The ‘70s funk’ sequence can slip right in next to the ‘30s swing’ sequence with no trouble at all. This is art, there are no rules. We must also fail to address the need to secure international copyright clearance for all the music we use, thus triggering interminable legal wrangles that stop the film from ever actually being shown. Eventually, we put the movie out as it is but with all the music removed, this being the only legal way to get it shown. What do we replace the missing music with? Nothing. Just silence.
Characters: we proceed on the basis that a character is just someone who speaks lines and does whatever the plot requires at any given moment. No character will have any depth, background, motivation, consistency or appeal of any kind, nor will it be possible for any audience to care what happens to them. We ignore the possibility that action should be in any way related to motivation, which in turn we regard as irrelevant to movie-making. It is perfectly okay for a character to contradict what he or she said five minutes earlier. It’s a movie, not a psychoanalysis seminar.
Plot: we proceed on the basis that a plot is just making sure the explosions and exciting bits come up roughly every seven minutes. There can be quieter, talky stuff in between, but it isn’t important except insofar as it leads to the next thing that blows up. Note: things that blow up are cool, but it’s even better if the characters are running towards the camera and then the thing blows up behind them, hurling them to the ground, and we show this in slo-mo.
Science: science is whatever we want it to be. If it’s convenient for our hero to go back in time, then he pushes a button on a ‘Backwards in time’ gizmo. End of analysis. The ‘fiction’ bit of ‘science fiction’ means we can do what the hell we want. We’re selling popcorn, not giving a physics lecture. It’s possible if we say it is. By the way, speaking of time travel, it does not give rise to any paradoxes or complications whatsoever. Because we say so.
History: see ‘Science’ above. It’s fine to refer to historical events, but remember history is whatever we say it is. If we say Lincoln had nuclear weapoons, then he had nukes. End of analysis. A few bonehead critics will make a fuss, but we just point to the ‘-fiction’ bit at the end of ‘science fiction’ and we win the argument.
Wardrobe: everyone knows that science fiction means shiny silver space suits and stretchy one-piece outfits in eye-catching Spandex. There is no reason to buck this trend, especially if we can get a hottie actress to wear something very tight, stretchy and skimpy.
Aliens: we don’t want to throw money away needlessly. Someone is an alien if we say they are. The fact that they look exactly like a normal person is not a problem. If we really want to go the extra mile, dab them with some powder that’s green or blue or something. This is more than enough to convey the idea that he’s an alien. Saves a lot of time as well.