With the rate of scientific change we are living in, by the time you go to press, at least two of your ideas will be obsolete. If you want to tell great and complex ideas, they better resemble something they already recognize or the subtlety will be lost on them. You have lots of things working against you. What is the cure for this planet-romance space fantasy which is about to make everyone forget movies like The Martian even exist? You are going to have to write a space opera that people will take seriously.

For the most part, if you substituted wizards for Jedi, and made the two factions governments on a planet, you could be telling a tale of epic fantasy and miss nary a beat, complete with Dark Lord, magic sword, peasant farmer and a princess to rescue. Star Wars is a science fiction space opera only in the most rudimentary ways. With Disney poised to turn everything in the world, lettuce, hammers and oranges into Star Wars paraphernalia it is getting harder to create space opera which doesn’t resemble fantasy more than it does science fiction. In the late 1970s, the Star Wars franchise (1977–present) created by George Lucas brought a great deal of attention to the genre.

An early notable space opera film was Flash Gordon (1936–present) created by Alex Raymond. and the Ender’s Game series (1985–present) by Orson Scott Card. Notable space opera books include the Foundation series (1942–1999) by Isaac Asimov et al. Space operas emerged in the 1930s and they continue to be produced in literature, film, comics and video games.

Instead a play on the term “horse opera”, which was coined during the heyday of silent movies to indicate clichéd and formulaic western movies. Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes space warfare, melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, and often risk-taking as well as chivalric romance usually involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced abilities, futuristic weapons and other sophisticated technology. What is space opera, anyway? Wikipedia defines it this way:

Is star wars a space opera