The Star Trek: Section 31 streaming movie starring Michelle Yeoh debuts on Paramount+ next month, on Friday, January 24. And there is a brand new trailer revealing more of what’s to come along with a new poster.
New trailer teases a new threat only Section 31 can handle
The new Section 31 trailer debuted today during the Paramount+ presentation at the CCXP convention in São Paolo, Brazil. The new trailer has more plot details and some fun Trek Easter eggs. The trailer’s tagline is “To protect the light… they fight in the shadow.”
Also revealed today: brand-new key art.
Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou in Star Trek: Section 31, streaming on Paramount+, 2025. Photo Credit: Sophy Holland/Paramount+
Section 31 movie in January
Star Trek: Section 31 will premiere on Friday, January 24, 2025, exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and international markets where the service is available. In the movie, Michelle Yeoh reprises her Star Trek: Discovery role as Emperor Philippa Georgiou who joins Section 31, a secret division of Starfleet. According to the brief synopsis: “Tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets, she also must face the sins of her past.”
Section 31 also stars Omari Hardwick (Power), Kacey Rohl (Hannibal), Emmy® winner Sam Richardson (Ted Lasso), Sven Ruygrok (One Piece), Robert Kazinsky (Pacific Rim), Humberly Gonzalez (Ginny & Georgia) and James Hiroyuki Liao (Barry). Miku Martineau (Kate) portrays a young Philippa Georgiou.
SDCC teaser trailer…
Section 31 history recap…
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com
I’m about to press the button that will cause the video to begin playing. Wish me luck.
Update: I survived.
Am I way off or is almost every shot of Michelle is the Chameloid impersonating her? Note the yellow eyes.
Good catch there! There was a scene showing the shapeshifter shifting into her form.
I checked the other trailer and it’s the same for all the Michelle dialog that was bumping me as out of character. The trailer seems to be built around a single mission where the chameloid impersonates Michelle and there is a lot of sassier dialog.
I think this movie is being marketed to appeal to non Trekkies in a bait and switch fashion. This kind of feels like when they dropped “Star Trek” from Enterprise and used “Wherever You Will Go” in that Broken Bow trailer.
I had noticed her eye color was different, but didn’t make the connection that you did. The scenes they showed of her did seem more exaggerated than her character usually is, so it makes more sense that it was the chameloid trying to impersonate her.
I hope it is a bait and switch with the marketing, and it ends up being a good Star Trek movie. We’ll find out in January.
Also feels like what they tried to do with the Beyond teaser trailer and gave it a GOTG vibe playing Beastie Boys through it and we saw how well that movie did at the end as well.
Every time they try to market Trek as something else it usually falls flat on its face. I don’t see this going any differently.
I say all the time they have to try get younger fans but this stuff doesn’t work either. To many trying to make Star Trek come off cooler and ‘hipper’ is like someone’s 50 year old dad trying to relate to their high school friends. Everyone can see right through it.
I’m sorry my friend, but Cameloid or not, this feels like the tipping point of “not Trek” to me. I don’t know how much more I can take before I throw my hands up in the air and say F it and move on.
Obviously can’t blame you or anyone for feeling this way. That’s literally the point of a trailer, to create interest and engagement with the audience. If it doesn’t do that, then that means it failed in drawing you in.
But for anyone who is reading this, we know most will watch it regardless and I include myself in that. And most people won’t truly decide until they see actual reviews or more PR and go from there.
But yeah first impressions are always important, even for franchises that has a baked in audience like Trek. When you are paying for something, you should feel connected with it on some level. And honestly, I have not felt a single connection with this movie so far.
Ya. I am going to watch it. OBV I can’t truly judge it till I do. And l Ike I said before, the aesthetic admittedly isn’t all that different than McCoy in STIII.
But…. That’s not my issue with it in it’s entirety. This is NOT Section 31. This isn’t how they operate. This isn’t what the port STVI galaxy looks like. Im all for pulling in new fans, but not at the expense of the old ones that kept this franchise alive for almost 50 years before people started bastardizing it.
I agree. Most who are already subscribed will most likely (hate?)watch it, even if it is background noise while doing chores around the house.
But I am curious about how many will be subscribing to the service only to watch this “movie”.
Are sign ups the metric these streamers are using to judge the success of these shows now?
By all means… no one is making. You do something you don’t enjoy.
The Beyond teasers attempt to appeal to the Fast and Furious/Guardians audience was laughable, be like if the teaser trailer for Trek VI had a Guns n Roses score with Spock wearing shades on a motorbike blasting Klingons with a phaser rifle as Kirk fires an arrow in deep space in slo mo
Can’t disagree with this. I remember personally feeling so deflated after seeing that trailer. It just felt so off tone to me. And of course, the internet didn’t let me down with people yelling over the same issues.
Again, I have no problem if they want to try and appeal to younger and newer fans. But you can’t stick a square peg in a round hole either. And to be honest, I thought the way they handled it in the first two movies were fine. They marketed it as something old fans can at least get into and I still remember how great THAT first teaser trailer was hankering back to the days of early space travel while seeing the Enterprise being built with Nimoy’s voice in the end to bring it all home. That was fantastic and targeted old TOS fans like us. But then every trailer after that basically felt like Star Wars for the newer fans but that worked too.
I guess by the time Beyond arrived the movies still weren’t pulling in as many as hoped and the kids loved this wise cracking action adventure billion dollar franchise called the MCU and tried to model that but in the end did no favors to anyone.
I had an NDE.
This still looks and feels bad. I’m floored this is what they came up with? I’m just happy this mess wasn’t turned into a show.
I thought this was much better than the first trailer, but it’s still designed to appeal to the mass market and not Trek fans. But, whatever gets more eyeballs on this.
Honestly, I’m surprised they haven’t announced a limited theatrical run for this.
I thought it was better too but still bad IMO. They could still do some limited theater run but I won’t be going unless the reviews change my mind.
I’m deeply disappointed in this personally but happy if others like it of course.
Oh I know I’m firmly in the minority and that I am primarily excited because I absolutely adore Michelle. Have done ever since I first saw Tomorrow Never Dies!
Fair enough. And I’m hoping the actual movie will sway me but this is going to be pretty divisive judging by all the comments everywhere.
In fairness, every freakin’ thing these days seems to be divisive.
That’s putting it lightly. I haven’t liked anything in live action these days. I mean I loved SNW S1. But S2 jumped the shark. I hope S3 grows the beard back but from the looks of the trailers and everyone saying they are going even crazier I am not counting on it.
Judging from a lot of the comments I have been on here and elsewhere, I think a lot of people have already decided that they won’t like this movie and will not be keeping an open mind. Which is unfortunate, but not altogether surprising given human nature.
I’ll be honest with you, I have loved trek since I was 5 which was a long time ago. I have an autographed Star Trek IV poster from shater on my wall and right below it is a framed copy of he and I.
But I have been burned by this franchise since racist white Khan in the horrific Star TRek Into Darkness. I’ve tried to stick with it in the nu Trek era. I really have. I’ve tried to be optimistic. But if this movie is as bad as it looks? I’m done. And I won’t come here to complain, i’ll just be done.
Landing Michelle Yeoh was quite a coup, but it’s clear they had no idea what to do with her.
She played Captain Philippa Georgiou superbly. If they wanted to keep using Yeoh, they should not have killed her character off. They could have even kept her after “Battle at the Binary Stars” (we never saw a body, unlike with Bobby Ewing!) but chose not to.
The mirror universe character has been a stock mustache-twirler that gives Yeoh an excuse to phone in a hammy performance. This may be fun for her, and she obviously enjoys playing obnoxious characters (cf. the “Crazy Rich Asians” matriarch), but it’s serving the Trek franchise very poorly.
This is a stock trailer for a very bad action movie written by people with zero clue about the intelligence world.
I agree with pretty much everything you said but the biggest problem at the end of the day is it just looks like a very generic sci fi TV movie. If you took away Yeoh or Star Trek in the title I doubt any of us would be talking about it now.
There is absolutely nothing interesting or unique about it. It feels like a Syfy TV movie most people wouldn’t give one second about and just watched it because they were bored.
That’s my problem with it, yeah.
I enjoy all 12 Star Trek shows and all 13 Star Trek movies. I don’t love them all, but I enjoy them all. I go into any Star Trek story with the mindset of “New Star Trek! Exciting!” But sometimes, I do so knowing that the writers have an uphill battle to win me over, based on the trailers. This is one of those times.
Me too. Even now, every time something new is announced, I still get a tinge of excitement over it. There have certainly been things I been a little more skeptical about or wasn’t as excited as others like Enterprise, the first Kelvin movie, Discovery and Lower Decks. But even with all of those I was highly curious about all of them and got very excited by the time they premiered.
This is the first time, ever, I just don’t remotely care about a Star Trek project at all. Not a single thing about it has drawn me in in any way. I will be more honest about it and if they decide to pull a ‘Batgirl’ and for reasons they won’t even show it and bury it forever, I wouldn’t lose a second thought over it.
I go back to what Tony and Laurie said in the All Access podcast when the first trailer came out and they even said they had no real interest in the movie and they are two of the biggest Trek gushers here. For them to feel that because of how generic and run of the mill it looks speaks volumes. I’m very curious to hear their thoughts in the next podcast over this trailer.
But It was already an uphill battle with this project when it’s about an organization (Section 31) and main character (MU Georgiou) a lot fans don’t even like as being part of Star Trek in the first place. But then for it all to look so bad just made it so much worse.
Agreed. I’d love to see a movie about the *real* Georgiou character, the original one. The Empress does nothing for me at all.
Yes! Captain Georgiou before Burnham. I would like to see that.
Yep same. I loved the original Georgiou. The MU version has just been an embarrassment to Star Trek IMO.
Just be thankful we didn’t get a show out of this mess.
Gost, the first 2 eps of Discovery were great. Then they farted all over it.
LOL! Yeah, pretty much.
:)
The original Georgiou, the original Lorca had such potential, imo. What a waste, what a way to kick good characters to the curb. The first episode of DSC was jarring as a long-time fan, but I was willing to take the ride. Then, for me it crashed quickly.
Can’t disagree with much about this, though I personally don’t find Yeoh’s character in Crazy Rich Asians to be obnoxious. She’s more nuanced and relatable than the Tiger Moms who usually wind up onscreen.
Fair enough: “obnoxious” isn’t the right word. “Haughty,” maybe?
Totally.
Michelle is a treasure. But so is Sir Patrick and look what he did to Star Trek Picard.
THe 23rd century looked nothing like this except MAYBE to a small degree that bar McCoy was in for ST III in Search for Spock.
‘You’re gonna get a nice long rest Georgiou..’
Don’t call me tiny.
The international audience is what they are aiming for with Ms. Yeoh front and center. It’s a bonus if it does well in North America as well.
Paramount+ is currently only available in one Asian country, Japan. It’s supposed to come to Korea next year but that’s the extent of it so far.
The majority of Paramount plus exists in North and South America and a few European markets.
The overwhelming majority of people who will be watching this are Americans because Paramountplus is still mostly a joke outside of America and almost nonexistent in Asia.
They can license it.
But will they? They haven’t remotely mentioned that anywhere and it’s out next month.
If they make a deal with Amazon or Netflix then yeah, that’s different. But I just went and looked and Paramount plus is only in 29 countries so far. That’s peanuts and majority of those are in smaller populated ones minus America and Brazil.
That’s why to pretend this is made for an international audience is a head scratcher when 80% of the planet doesn’t even have the service it’s playing on including 90% of the Asian market her presence is supposedly targeting. The service isn’t even in her home country Malaysia.
This is pure speculation, but I wonder if they’re considering a theatrical release in some of the countries that don’t have Paramount+. The fact that they bothered getting an MPA rating indicates they may be considering at least a limited theatrical release in the U.S.
That’s actually a good theory. And I didn’t know they gave it an MPA rating instead of a TV one, so who knows?
But for something that is basically a month and a half away and there has been zero talk about it (since they would need time to actually promote it) is a little odd. And I went and looked at some of the few Netflix, Amazon and Apple movie releases and most of them opened several weeks before they officially landed on their services. In Apple’s case, it’s usually months before but those are rolled out like regular movies; especially with both the budgets and names who are behind them.
Of course Paramount doesn’t have to follow the same model and just release it at the same time it’s going to streaming or even a bit later if it’s mostly meant for an international audience who don’t have P+.
But if that’s the case, great. I hope it happens. As I made clear, I don’t care about the movie personally and doubt I would see it in a theater myself but same time I just want more movies, period, so this has to succeed. We saw what has happened with the theatrical movies that have completely stalled; so if streaming movies will be the only thing we get for a few years then I hope they can get as many people to make it a success.
Remember VPN is a thing. it is SO EASY to watch US streaming outside the US.
Yeah true, but that doesn’t work in Paramount’s favor in terms of official views. But I imagine most people and obviously Trek fans will watch it that way as they probably been watching most of the shows if they can’t watch them legally.
Ehh, I’m not so sure my friend. A VPN from overseas will still show as a US IP Address here. And if you have a US login which anyone anywhere in the world can technically get, then………
Oh OK, didn’t realize that. But then why are they aggressively cracking down on them? I obviously get China itself but even Netflix is pushing harder to eliminate them. If people are paying for the service and it registers as an official view, I don’t see what the issue is. But I guess it’s still viewed as pirating but everyone is still getting paid so what does it matter?
Star Trek has never done well internationally as it does in the US. So that doesn’t matter as much.
I also found it better than the first trailer, so much so that I am actually a bit intrigued.
Same. I commented to you above so I don’t need to repeat myself here
Agreed, I have trouble thinking who imagined this would be a good idea. The tone is entirely off for what I would consider a Trek production. I’ll watch it when it comes out, but not waiting with bated breath. Again, for the record I’m just glad this didn’t wind up being a series.
It’s Trek, at least in name, and Michelle Yeoh is always great but…I don’t know.
I just don’t know.
I have nothing but respect for Yeoh. But… Well… I’m also kind of sick of seeing her all over.
I wouldn’t say she’s all over- she’s been pretty low key since her Oscar win and she’s barely done any promo for Wicked.
I didn’t mean just Trek, but she’s in a lot of shows. Witcher, Brothers Sun, Shag-Chi not that long ago. It kind of became a bit of a joke for us. “Oh look, Michele Yeoh is in this one too.”
Yeah Yeoh has been in so many IPs lately it’s pretty crazy. She’s also going to be in the new Blade Runner TV show. I just found out she voiced one of the robots in the last live action Transformers movies a week ago. I’m shocked she hasn’t been in a D.C. or Star Wars project yet…but give it time lol.
She is everywhere these days.
It wouldn’t be the first time a good actor got stuck in a production of questionable quality.
So it’s time for her to have a conversation with her agent. Appearing in drivel like this dilutes her cachet.
She’s a 62 year-old Malaysian woman who has worked her way to not only win an Oscar and become a Hollywood A-lister, but to be in demand for film and TV projects across all manner of genres, and by top directors. Regardless of if all the projects she does are winners and she tempts being overexposed, her success here is completely unprecedented. The only rules she can follow are the ones she makes up as she goes. More power to her, I say!
Yeoh is very talented to be sure. But even the best actor can’t undo a bad script.
Looks great i hope it’s a success as i want to see more S31 films and more tv films set in different era’s.
I know some fans will attack the film as the Trek fanbase has some very toxic fans who hate on anything that is different to past shows/films(TOS-ENT).
But the franchise celebrated it’s 58th anniversary of this year and in order to continue surviving for another 58 it’s going to have to embrace different storytelling methods and go for different perspectives like this film.
The reason why DS9 is my favourite Trek show is because of how different it is to TNG, VOY, TOS and ENT. The reason why Discovery is my favourite of the modern shows is because it’s way different to all the other shows (old/new) and that is a blessing imo.
The whole message of the Trek franchise is to explore the unknown and embrace diversity. That is what Alex Kurtzman/Paramount is doing showing us the rich diversity of Trek by making shows that are all different to what came before.
All Trekkies should be looking to the future with open minds not wanting to relive the past with closed minds.
“Toxic fans” as a phrase should be recognized as the gatekeeping that it is.
Exactly.
Calling out toxic fans is not in anyway gatekeeping my friend.
The actual gatekeepers are the fans who hate on any new entries in the franchise because the new shows dare to have more diverse casts than the older shows and for bringing new perspectives to the franchise.
Star Trek is again a franchise that promotes embracing diversity and exploring/embracing the unknown. The new shows and TV films like this bring more diverse storytelling to us fans and showing us aspects of the Star Trek universe that never got to see in the older shows.
There is of course more to Star Trek than just a show being set on a starship exploring space and following a Starfleet crew around.
I would love to see a proper S31 TV show or even a Starfleet Security show (NCIS style show) at some point. Even a proper civilian show set on a colony (we are getting a live action comedy that will give us something like that) with the colonists setting up a new home and exploring their new world would be great.
People criticize new Trek not because it’s new, but because they perceive it to be inferior. Labeling them toxic just because of that is absolutely gatekeeping. It’s a form of silencing.
Yes, but those fans will label anything produced post-“Enterprise” as not being “real” Trek, and will even at times accuse those of liking the current series as settling for trash. (This actually happened to me just recently, and I wasn’t even defending the Kurtzman stuff!) The gatekeeping definitely goes both ways.
I like Lower Decks. I like Prodigy. I liked SNW Season 1. The rest is trash. I don’t hate nuTrek when they get it right. But thier batting average has MUCH to be desired. ESP in live action. And Discovery pretty much wrecked everything moving forward.
All due respect, who exactly is being silenced? Unless the moderators are actually deleting comments, everyone is perfectly free to express their views on this site as often as they like.
+1. exactly this
I’m always deleted/blocked even when lamenting the passing of Star Trek alumni (including in the Kurtzman era). All because I haven’t celebrated the nonsensical and anti-Star Trek dross since 2017
There are no toxic fans in Star Trek. Because if they are toxic, they are not fans. And for sure they are not Star Trek fans.
Multicultural casts and crews deserve far better stories and writing than whatever that is in the trailer. Using non-white faces to sell soulless corporate sludge is cynical and bad. And, from a social standpoint, using non-white people as foot soldiers of empire is a sad commentary on the world today (look at how the US military seemingly preys on brown and black people) but here it’s done without irony or commentary. It’s a bad-ass pro-empire copaganda black leather kicky-punchy extravaganza. As far from Star Trek as an idea can get. Ira Behr might’ve broken the franchise by letting S31 concept have legs.
There are absolutely bad-faith, obviously racist trolls out there and they should be mocked and ejected from public spaces for being the hateful barnacles on civilization that they are, but come on — this S31 looks like a huge, steaming pile of content done to fulfill a contract.
Do elaborate.
Because from where I sit, the problem is that the US civilian leadership sees a lot of regional conflicts where one group of “black and brown people” is targeting another group of “black and brown people,” and — imbued in grad school with high falutin’ concepts like “responsibility to protect” or “upholding the rules-based order” — thinks the US can rush in as a savior and sort things out.
Shockingly, this theory does not work out well, even when based on identarian politics along the lines put forth above.
(And note that I say “civilian leadership.” The Gen. Westmoreland era was decades ago. Today’s military leaders tend to be a lot more sanguine about the degree of influence we have over civil conflicts.)
In your defense, we do seem to make the same mistake when white people prey on other white people, as well.
It might even be that we need a Prime Directive.
On the contrary, I think fandoms in general will be seeing a lot more self-policing as folks get exhausted with the bullshit. All opinions are welcome, but too often the detractors steamroll their ire throughout the rest of the fandom, and that’s got to stop. That’s not merely having an opinion, that’s failing to successfully function within this structure we call the fandom at the expense of others.
“I know some fans will attack the film as the Trek fanbase has some very toxic fans who hate on anything that is different to past shows/films(TOS-ENT).”
Criticizing the trailer is not toxic. It’s just an opinion that differs from yours. Gatekeeping is far more toxic.
Criticising a trailer is one thing. But you cannot deny this fandom does have its toxic fans. Acknowledging they exist should not be considered gate keeping in the slightest.
Calling a difference of opinion “toxic” is gatekeeping.
It’s not gatekeeping calling out toxic fans because they get upset because a show like Discovery/SNW/Picard has more diverse casts then other Trek shows or that it’s written different from a show made in the 90’s.
Heck on Facebook there are many Trek groups that hate on the new shows because they think there’s to many women in the casts of the shows.
Those are the toxic fans I’m talking about and i haven’t seen any here which is why i hang around here. So this site is one of the last places that i can visit and avoid all the misogyny/racist comments that other Trek places have.
That is not what you said, though. You said this:
“I know some fans will attack the film as the Trek fanbase has some very toxic fans who hate on anything that is different to past shows/films(TOS-ENT).”
The implication was clear: anyone who doesn’t like the trailer because it’s not what they were expecting is toxic. And that IS gatekeeping.
This is it exactly. Almost no one criticizes modern Trek simply because it’s different from old Trek. They might not like that it’s different, but there are other reasons to criticize.
“Different” can mean different things. A different aesthetic is one thing. Missing the point of the source material is another.
Agreed. And I know people have seemed to forget this apparently, but believe it or not fans used to be just as hard on the older shows as well.
No, really, it’s true!!!!
Even all those shows back in the 90s that everyone raves and touts as ‘real’ Trek today got just as much flack back then as the new shows now. Even on this site before the first Kelvin movie was released, ‘Berman and Braga’ was basically used as a pejorative anytime they were brought up and the spin offs were constantly put down here for years. Because to many of these weird freaks, it wasn’t ‘real’ Star Trek if it wasn’t TOS. Everything after it was just a poor imitation of the show who gave us Spock’s Brain.
As I always emphasize, nothing gets erased here. People had just as much venom for some of the old shows and films as they do the new stuff today. The biggest irony of them all, they expected the new stuff to basically bury the old stuff once they got a real visionary to take over the franchise since Berman has apparently been a complete an abject failure after his 18 years running the franchise.
I still remember people laminating once the Abrom movies started and ushered in a new golden age of lens flairs, white Khans and apparently every planet in the galaxy takes ten minutes to get to, then the old shows will basically just fade from existence forever. They will be like what the original BSG show is today, an old remnant of a bygone era people who were around back then will remember with with a tingle of fondness but will be completely irrelevant to the modern show and completely replaced by most fans in their minds.
The funny thing is I just had this back and forth with another commenter on YouTube literally a day ago who beat his chest and proclaimed they been watching Star Trek since 1966 and things like Discovery, SNW, Kelvin movies, etc shouldn’t be considered canon and that I don’t really understand Star Trek because they trash old canon. For me to claim any of it is canon meant I didn’t know what I was talking about.
That’s when I replied to them reminding them all the contempt they have for the new shows today wasn’t any different than when TNG first premiered. And then DS9. And then Voyager. And definitely Enterprise. For someone who is so proud of themselves for having the discipline to watch a TV show for fifty years seem to have forgotten when their brethren proclaim the same issues with the shows in the 80s, 90s and 2000s as well. Of course, for some reason, few people seem to remember these times and just pretend the franchise was going down the proverbial toilet the day Abrams and Kurtzman put their dirty hands on it.
Apparently everything before that, everything was completely loved and adored by the fanbase. It’s really just Discovery and STID that people thought destroyed the franchise. Things like DS9, Enterprise, Voyager, Nemesis and on and on were highly praised when they premiered.
Of course I never heard back from this person since.
But as someone who has NO problems being critical of anything in Star Trek but generally like all of it, I wish two things: For the people who loves NuTrek to stop taking these things so personally and gets triggered anytime someone says Discovery or Picard sucks. They are just expressing their opinions about it, that’s how it works. And yes, believe it or not these shows do actually have problems. You can disagree with it, but they are there regardless.
But for the people who hates NuTrek, I also like to remind them that the older shows had just as many critics then back in the day and far far from perfect as well. Even if you still consider those shows superior to the newer shows and films (and for the record I mostly do myself), just remember there was a time people thought a lot of them were considered just as much trash back then and didn’t follow Gene Roddenberry’s ‘vision’ as many proclaimed at the time…or just sucked. And ironically a lot of those people who put down the shows back then are putting down these new shows today.
I really wish we can stop turning this stuff into a contest or ‘my Trek is better than your Trek’ which has been going on literally since 1987. It’s beyond embarrassing and the fact people still do it, including here, is why I remind myself some fans really do need to get a life and go touch grass somewhere. NONE of it matters, it’s just entertainment.
I criticise Nu-Trek for its extreme lack of professionalism, decorum and understanding of nuanced socio-political issues. The current slop being delivered is more for a YA audience, rather than a serious mature and educated audience.
Oh, I don’t deny there are toxic fans. That’s true of every fandom.
Yeah, because that approach worked so well for Homer, Shakespeare, Conrad, etc…all of whose work routinely inspires reimagings.
Star Trek is not going to survive another 58 years by producing TRANSFORMERS: THEME AND VARIATIONS.
and Star Trek is not going to survive if some fans won’t let it move on from the past and embrace new stories and fresh new characters.
Also a lot of us Trekkies who grew up watching TNG Etc.. are sadly getting old and modern audiences are used to modern story telling style and not the 90’s style some of us grew up with.
Trek needs to get modern audiences into the franchise to survive so changing things up and updating the franchise imo makes sense. Some may not agree with it but it is what it is.
New Trek gets criticized because it’s poorly written, and the writers are not up to the caliber of past writers and stories, not because of diversity. That is the crux of the issue. I could name a few modern science fiction shows that are remarkable. It has nothing to do with everyone being a woman or atypical sexualities. The writers are simply junior varsity trying to play pro ball. They’ve been given a keys to a car they don’t know how to drive.it has nothing to do with “modern storytelling” bring on modern storytelling! Just be good at it.
They’re not up to the caliber and they have it easier. They’re working with an established franchise with a built-in audience and with clear examples of material that fans have loved and fans have hated.
It’s not rocket science (I guess it’s more rocket art).
But there’s a very real argument that modern storytelling is backsliding. Were post-peak TV, post-Golden Age of TV, and there’s a lot of television out there which fits the bill of just being expensive, competent, and ultimately uninspiring “content” rather than art. Discovery fit that bill to me, and while I appreciate the generational debates that arose from how it explored connection and emotion, you don’t have to be an old fogey to recognize there were a lot of fumbles with how it handled the fundamentals of character and plot as part of that.
Section 31 is borne of the same team that made Discovery, and it bears the hallmarks of a studio that Trek creatives have noted wants Trek to be even bigger – to be their Marvel and succeed like Guardians of the Galaxy did. In 1979 they wanted it to be their Star Wars, and that did not work out until they pivoted and just let it be its own thing at a lower ebb, but creatively it drove in its own lane. Then in 2009 it kinda went back to, “Ok, but can it be Star Wars now?”
I don’t know that going back to that mentality is evolving for modern audiences so much as it is pandering and trying to make Star Trek be something it’s just not. Trek is malleable, and the movies all have different flavors and inspirations, as do the shows from week to week. But Star Trek is not Paramount’s Marvel or Paramount’s Star Wars. It’s Paramount’s Star Trek. We shall see how this film pans out, but I’m worried the franchise is losing a fiercely unique identity by aping what other franchises are doing instead of building on what it’s succeeded by doing on its own.
Very well said.
– New characters, like Poochie?
– “Modern story telling style,” like cheesy sitcoms or Moonraker?
TNG’s storytelling style was well ahead of its time and would mostly work today. It’s SNW that’s the anachronism. You seriously want to tell me that SNW is emulating sophisticated shows like BREAKING BAD, SUCESSION, or any other of a dozen modern classics I could name?
I like SNW but I agree with you, it’s still nowhere close to what TNG did over 30 years ago. I think SNW is a great show but I can also admit the reason it gets the praise it does is mostly because it does a great job of following the model of the classic shows minus DS9 and just being more optimistic and frankly fun. IE, great comfort food.
In all honesty, that’s literally the same reason people seem to like Lower Decks even if they don’t like its broad comedy. It basically follows the model of the 90s shows and a direct continuation of them. But I doubt most fans believe it’s better than those shows, but complements them nicely. I think it’s a similar case with SNW although others may think it is better indeed better than some of the older shows too. But I have a hard time personally feeling any of their episodes so far reach anywhere on the best of TOS, TNG or DS9. Even the best episode would just be considered a better than average episode compared to the classic shows but nothing more than that IMO.
Thank you. It’s refreshing to see a comment here not written by a grumpy old Trek fan.
Discovery certainly is different. It’s also s@#t.
There may be some very toxic fans as there were in the past (fans who sent death threats to N. Meyer when learning Spock will die, to M. McDowell for killing J.T.K.)
Still I hope that most of fans with the above quoted opinion are simply discouraged by the nu-Trek and express it in a non-attacking way, though vocally.
Why can they feel discouraged? Because its increased budget IMHO often leads to (over)emphasizes on … the visuals and action to the detriment of, well, the rest.
E.g. I remember a scene from the 1st season in ST:PIC when a Romulan walks in a corridor and it was… shot simply over the top completely pulling me out of the story (as if self-mocking); similarly the extremely large inner-interior-space of Enterprise in otherwise excellent character-driven ST: Short where Spock and Una got stuck together. That’s just an example of one feature – visuals.
Yup, nu-Trek is different. And often (subjective) in a… bad way (subjective) when compared to the before Bad [Robot] Trek.
All Trekkies should also have standards and not feel obliged to accept everything without criticism. Toxic fans absolutely exist. Fans who refuse to believe other fans’ criticisms can ever be valid are also toxic. The implication is that every Trekkie has to like everything, and that’s preposterous.
“Different’ doesn’t mean good. DS9 was good, and I liked it pre Season 3 too. Discovery was not good
I don’t have a problem with new Trek being new. I have a problem with new Trek being bad. And this looks bad.
PD: What you do is called gatekeeping.
‘PD: What you do is called gatekeeping.’
Nothing i do is gatekeeping my friend as i have no problem with people not liking the newer shows due to what they think is bad writing.
Heck personally while i watch and enjoy all Trek shows i do have my favourite and least favourite ones. DS9 is my favourite of all Trek while Discovery is my 2nd favourite.
SNW, Lower Decks and PIC S2/3 are my least favourite mainly due to stories that i don’t find interesting (there are a good few episodes of older Trek including in DS9 that i find boring).
As i have said i find it annoying that some ‘fans’ who hate on the newer shows because they get upset that there is more diversity in the casts then the previous shows.
They hate on cast diversity like having a non binary or gay characters/actors in the cast of a show.
Star Trek is all about exploring the unknown and embracing the rich diversity that exists but for some reason some ‘fans’ have a problem with a Trek show having a gay or non-binary characters. That hatred i will never understand and i will continue to call out.
If you still consider me calling out ‘fans’ for their hatred/racism of characters/actors as gatekeeping then i don’t know what else to say to you except there should be no racism in the Trekkie community.
yawn, looks boring. I’m also glad they didn’t waste a series on this. Hoping for Legacy, but get Academy. :( Real Trek please!
All Trek is real Trek my friend even ones you don’t like.
agree
No, it’s not. Some Star Trek has the title but none of the DNA. There is no defense for bad ideas and bad storytelling…..but mostly bad Star Trek. And this S31 film has no trek DNA in it. It’s a copy of a copy from other IPs. New trek is nothing more than plagiarism gone amok.
It’s surprising after all the complaints that the first trailer didn’t look Star Trek enough I thought they would at least add a few more elements in this trailer.
But it’s pretty obvious they didn’t because there just isn’t a lot there outside of the aliens.
They one thing they did add was an alien from “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”; apparently they didn’t quite all go extinct. I doubt that redeems the rest of it.
Maybe they didnt in the Mirrorverse?
This is real Trek.
It doesn’t look like GOOD Trek.
But claiming it’s not real Trek misses the mark.
I’m really not up for a semantic debate about whether it’s “real Trek” or simply “bad Trek.” That’s beside the point.
It’s likely not worth watching — and even if I do log on to Paramount+ in January for reasons of being a completist, it’s likely to be the one and only time I do so (barring these trailers being *really* misleading).
Well, I have to give them credit for putting together a better trailer. Much better than the teaser.
I don’t care much for the dominatrix poster though. What are they doing to Star Trek?
It’s very fitting for the character, to be honest. Not sure I’d say it’s giving dominatrix, though.
She’s using someone’s back as a footrest. I guess it is subjective what that imagery is supposed to imply.
Star Trek:Dominatrix
Please don’t give them ideas. LOL
“This is going to be bad” is left in the trailer unironically? Anyway, it does look like a potentially fun sci-fi romp on its own. But the Star Trek universe is once again depicted in a way that’s unrecognizable and off-putting in an effort to be more contemporary. Star Wars is a pretty good example of a franchise that has somehow modernized and expanded its style of storytelling while remaining recognizable and interesting. But Star Wars has its flops too so I’m just going to chalk this up to one of them…potentially. But I’m certainly going to watch with low expectations and hope to be surprised!
I didn’t think this movie could look worse.
Then I saw more of it.
Ha! Yeah, pretty much.
I do think this was a bit better than the first trailer, which was terrible. But this still does not give me much hope for the film. I’ll award extra points for the Cheron, though.
I’ll subtract those same points since the conceit in LTBYLB was that Bele and Loki were the last of their kind. I really don’t think that once they were back on Cheron, they kissed, made up, then somehow mated to produce a new Cheronian (if that’s what you’d call one of them.)
I watched it with the sound off and it wasn’t any more palatable than the first one.
By the way, is there anybody out there still filming space scenes against black starfields? Cuz this ‘nebula in every sector’ thing is getting very tiresome. Don’t any of these folks realize the beauty of a hard key light from the sun, like the earth orbit shots in FC? Or pretty much all of old school STAR WARS?
A talented YouTuber, ProvVFX, is doing some gorgeous beauty shots in the style of the 90s films. Elegant ILM-like simplicity. We don’t need swooping camera moves and dusty lenses and space phenomena in every shot. As fans we complained about plenty of things in the 90s and early 2000s. The quality and style of the space VFX was almost always the exception to that. If it ain’t broke…
You’re pointing to the exact aspect of filmmaking in general that for me took a huge fall a quarter-century back. With CGI taking hold and then rapidly (and almost fully) replacing traditional vfx, we had a greater variety and quantity of VFX, but in most instances the quality plummeted, and with it the style and look seems to have gotten arrested by certain limiting factors of CG (or of CG artists.)
Some say there is a tradeoff, that we get Gollum, which would have been much less impressive before digital. But to me giving up motion control miniature photography of model spaceships, just so you could see three times as many shots and none of them looking anywhere near as good as the ones in the previous films, was no gain at all.
It isn’t the only time ‘bad’ change was ushered in as a necessary and timely improvement either, owing to economic savings or perceived economic savings. Around the same time, the digital intermediate took hold, along with a switch from shooting film to digital, which really started happening a decade prior to when the cameras were able to even roughly approximate the quality of film.
And I just wrote a review of an upcoming book about the history of Technicolor. That company invented a camera that used three pieces of film going through a camera to create distinctive look in color photography, but abandoned it in the mid 50s as Kodak’s power grew. Then, even worse, Technicolor’s dye-transfer process, which was how many classic films were printed, went away domestically in the mid-and late-70s (I think JAWS and STAR WARS are two of the last examples), and there was only a brief revival at the turn of the century, when APOCALYPSE NOW got reworked and re-released. That dye-transfer process was actually cheaper than using Eastman Color Kodak, but it was more difficult to do large masses of prints, and the late 70s is when movies started opening at 800-1000 theaters, so it just got squeezed out of the filmmaker’s toolbox. Filmmakers are still often trying to imitate what is perceived as the technicolor look in the DI suite, but results have been decidedly mixed (in the review I describe this as ’emulation being the sincerest form of digital flattery.’)
The sweet spot for VFX seemed to be when CGI and practical effects were still overlapping. There was a need to hide the seams between the two, and it meant CGI wasn’t overplaying its hand and doing anything too showy or engaging in physics-defiance as happens all the time now. Taking a look at LOTR and Jurassic Park versus The Hobbit and Jurassic World you see there’s no leash from anyone saying, “Oh we have to match this other look which was real.”
This is Section 31, though. They have access to time travel and extradimensional technologies. There’s no reason that Cheron couldn’t be from before LTBYLB, or from a difference universe. (Granted, the movie will probably just skip over making it fit, and there will just be a Cheron there even though there shouldn’t be. If that happens, I’ll deduct those same points myself.)
agree – my first instinct was “hey cool” immediately followed by “wait a minute….”
Much better. Michelle Yeoh is huge in Asia, this movie is their target audience. If they do a screening close to home, I’m in ….
I have no idea how anyone can look at this trailer and think it’s made for an Asian audience? There is nothing Asian about it other than having an Asian in the lead role.
It’s like suggesting Suicide Squad was made to target black audiences because Will Smith was the star.
Are you by chance a white male? Because you don’t seem to be familiar with how important and powerful representation is for many people
No, I’m not a white male. I am a black male who has lived in multiple countries for over a decade, mostly Asia. And your statement has a very big hole because what is considered ‘representation’ in Hollywood is looked at very hollow in most non-western countries when there is zero cultural emphasis behind it.
You tell me, if you took Yeoh out of this movie, then what exactly would be ‘Asian’ about it? This is what I’m talking about. I have talked about this issue ad nauseam for over a decade since Hollywood has tried to appeal to markets like China by sticking in famous Chinese actors in movies and failing time and time again. Star Wars tried this very same notion with both The Force Awakens and Rogue One by putting in popular Chinese actors in those movies and both movies flopped there. ‘Representation’ doesn’t just mean having someone that looks like you in a movie, but how it also relates to you and the culture you’re supposedly representing. That’s why it rarely works in the first place because it comes off disingenuous if you have minority characters but nothing about those characters cultural heritage is highlighted in any way. If you swapped out MU Georgiou for MU Kira who does everything the same way, then what gets lost in terms of the story or character? You see my point?
Yeah, it’s great for a Chinese actress to have a main role, but that means fuck all for people in actual Asian countries. Why? Because what seems to get lost is those countries have their own movies with Asian actors and stories that conforms to those cultural norms.
But here is the other kicker, Michelle Yeoh has actually been in three Hollywood movies that are geared to Asian audiences and culture: Crazy Rich Asians, Shang Chi and Everything Everywhere All at Once. Crazy Rich Asians bombed in China. It was a hit nearly everywhere except the largest Asian country on the planet. Both Shang Chi and EEAAO didn’t even get screened there. These are three of her biggest American films ever and actually about Chinese culture; one she won the Oscar for and none of those made any impact in China. And I point out China specifically because besides being the biggest market outside of America is also where she became a star in the first place.
When it comes to her Chinese movies, she gets lots of play there. But when it comes to her Hollywood stuff, it doesn’t remotely matter.
So to suggest a low budget and generic looking TV movie that is clearly made for western and Trek/Sci fi fans is going to have some big impact in Asia just because she’s in it is highly naive. Most will not remotely care about this when even the movies she’s in that are geared towards :Asian culture and actually huge hit movies barely gets screened or noticed.
But for the record I never remotely believed that’s why Yeoh is in this movie anyway but yes, it’s great to have an Asian face be the lead in a Star Trek project. But it means practically nothing to most people outside in Asia unless they are big sci Fi/Trek fans or obviously Yeoh fans themselves.
(Sorry for the rant, but this issue really bugs me lol)
Hear, hear. Very well said.
That was worth it to have to wait for the moderator to approve in order to read!
Yeoh’s definitely been a draw in China as you say (the Crouching Tiger sequel was released to theaters there and did well), but it’s worth noting she rose to stardom in Hong Kong cinema which has its own flavor and appeal. Most of her Hollywood films do get a HK release. Also, China’s been going through a nationalist phase, so many American films have been outright denied screenings there, with Shang Chi being one of the most conspicuous. Hollywood film grosses in China have been depressed lately even when they do make the cut.
EEAAO is not quite a four quadrant movie and A24 is still a specialty film studio so they were always going to be a little tentative with the platform release even as the film picked up momentum and became their top grosser. China was never likely to approve it, though. Still, it did do exceptionally well in Taiwan.
There will always be a basic, “oh, so and so is popular in this country, so that’s good they are in it” to casting. But you’re absolutely right that cultural resonance is what really drives appeal. Hollywood’s pandering to overseas Asian audiences has very mixed results.
Thanks! And yeah you definitely bring up some great points.
Yes Yeoh is mostly known for acting in the Hong Kong film industry but her films were big in mainland China too. And of course her movies do draw attention in many other Asian countries. I don’t want to equate China=Asia but we also know that has been the main focus for Hollywood for the last fifteen years or so.
But as you said, nationalism and cultural hegemony has risen a lot more in China in the last few years and that’s exactly why this belief that this movie would have an impact (or even shown there) is very short sighted. I remember talking about this issue last year when another poster brought up the idea this movie was being made specifically for China. And I pointed out it couldn’t be more wrong because that experiment has mostly failed in the past.
I think for people who has never been there, they seem to equate China like Japan today, which has a very open view of westernize/American media and products. That’s what many American corporations including Hollywood was trying to make happen in China but it has pushed back on that very hard. Yes, it’s much more open today than it was over 20 years ago when I first visited there when the country still had the lingering effects of the Soviet/communism vibe. Today most people have iphones and have a more positive view of American culture in general but the government has pushed for a China first policy that is much more draconian today even if still much better than before.
But there is a reason not one American or international streaming site is in China today. No Netflix, Disney+, Amazon etc like you find pretty much everywhere else. It’s only Chinese owned sites. And when you open them up, you won’t find many American shows or movies on them either but understandably Chinese ones. And of course no difference for American media obviously.
They still show more American movies there, but it too is less and less these days and has become more restrictive as you mentioned.
So yeah, I wouldn’t expect a western movie starring a Chinese actor to have the same pull anymore than an American actor starring in a Chinese movie for many Americans. They actually tried that with a Chinese movie starring Matt Damon and it bombed here (but I heard it was pretty bad though).
But it doesn’t mean other Asian countries wouldn’t be shown or have a bigger impact,, but I still think end of the day the international market is mostly an after thought when it comes to Paramount+. Until they can have the presence Netflix does globally, the main emphasis will stay with America.
China has shunned a lot of Western influence in the last few years. There was a time things like Google, Uber and Amazon were all there but not anymore.
It’s still kind of crazy that iphones and Apple has such a hold there. But they also make the phones so it benefits both I guess.
Haha amazing response my friend!
And I spent a lot of time in China, yeah they don’t care about Chinese actors in Hollywood movies. If it’s good they will watch like everyone else but it’s not some big selling point like people here seem to think it is.
And I love the point you made just sticking a white American guy in a Chinese film isn’t going to suddenly get most Americans to care so why do people assume this is such a big deal the other way? As you said representation has to be more than that.
But I don’t see this movie being shown anywhere there especially since Star Trek is not big at all there. J J verse waa a fluke and ages ago now. And Discovery never ran there even though Yeoh was in three seasons of it.
Except Paramount+ is only available in Japan, India, South Korea and Thailand.
Also, Asian audiences are fickle. Yes, Yeoh can be a draw, but sometimes what appeals to a Western audience is met with a shrug in Asia. Crouching Tiger and Crazy Rich Asians were both met with a yawn as they were nothing new to them. Star Trek’s never been super popular in Asia, so this probably did factor into Paramount’s thinking, but if they’re not licensing it to third party streamers, it’s going to have a limited impact there.
This! All of this!
It looks better than in the teaser, but I’m still very skeptical.
Last bit in the trailer looks like a lightening storm in space..?
“Billions of lives are at stake.”
IIRC billions of lives were also at stake in the MU thanks to her and all the genocide she created in it. But I have to believe she now cares about innocent lives in another universe. This is why this character just doesn’t work for a lot of people.
I’m sure they will try their best to redeem her but it’s like trying to think Hitler suddenly cares about everyone else who doesn’t look like him just because he’s living in a parallel universe.
Right? She turned the MU Klingon home world into a burning cinder and now she’s a guardian of the galaxy? How can one even be redeemed after committing such acts? It makes no sense at all. ZERO.
I guess some will argue that she has a clean slate in the Prime universe, but it still shouldn’t erase her past.
She also bragged to Leland how she bombed the Talosians out of existence as well. It’s ridiculous to pretend she is anything but a complete monster when you’re eating your slaves.
And it still gives me eye rolls when people tried to defend her actions. We have seen good people in the MU, so this idea that they are all just born violent dicks isn’t true either. But if it is, then you can’t change the nature of someone like this but you expect her to help save the galaxy? It just feels all around dumb to me and I can’t wait until they move on from this character completely.
I mean, I could see how a thoughtful and deft writer’s room could tackle a subject like this. (Indeed, TNG did, in “The Survivors,” which I happened to re-watch a few days ago.) That writer’s room would not be the one we have.
I had to look that up since it has been a while. It was a good one and I agree. It would be nice if the writers of the current Trek shows would start writing stories like that. There is no shortage of modern issues or questions about the human condition that could be cleverly weaved into the stories of the new shows. It’s a Star Trek tradition that goes back to TOS.
Going to rewatch that episode now.
Exactly. If Emperor Georgiou was on track for a redemption arc, then they should have been doing the work to convince of it from the second she showed up again in season 2. Instead, they tried to stuff it all in her last couple episodes and gaslight us into believing she and her crew mates were all in on this.
Good writers can make this work. The Survivors is a nice example. DS9’s work with Garak and Damar as well. Ensign Spider easily could have joined their ranks. Seven of Nine didn’t have agency when she was a Borg, but she does start out defiant and without any regrets for her actions as a Borg. Hell, the reason Dukat got more overtly evil in “Waltz” was because they’d done too good a job making him complex and charming.
There was no such finesse with Georgiou, and they had a fantastic actor being wasted for years. They were just lucky she enjoyed the shoots and being able to vamp (no one ever really asked her to do that before).
Yeah The Survivors is the kind of writing I truly miss in classic Star Trek.
TNG especially had many thoughtful and nuance stories like this that would never fly in stuff like the Kelvin movies or the new shows where most things are very black and white.
Not a shock why that show is still very popular all these years later.
It’s so ridiculous Adolf is now trying to save people when she spent her reign killing anyone who disagreed with her
I’m still waiting for her to fall into a star.
This looks very different to what I understand Star Trek to be. I’ll be interested to read the reviews because I ain’t signing up to P+ to watch this.
This looks utterly, utterly awful. Generic, forgettable, senseless action.
Oh and the colour grading is somehow even WORSE than on Discovery.
Another threat to the entire galaxy the likes of which they’ve never seen before… except on, every, single, season of modern Trek.
And I thought after the silly Abrams movies and Discovery it couldn’t get any worse.
I was wrong.
I miss the days when Star Trek was Star Trek. Not the mess we’ve mostly gotten since 2009.
Well there are 25 seasons of Berman Trek you can go back and wax nostalgic on.
I know and exactly why I own all the classic shows and ten films on physical media. I watch them constantly.
I still want to like NuTrek but with the exception of Picard season 3 and Prodigy the rest has been lost on me I’m afraid. I will watch this movie but I won’t pay for it directly either. I will just wait until I subscribe to P+ for something else again. It just doesn’t look worth subscribing for that alone.
And I just noticed you didn’t include TOS for some reason? That was the Star Trek I was born into and been watching since literally the sixties. That will always be the top of the heap for me but as said do adore a lot of the shows that followed it, TNG and ENT especially.
I literally have no confidence in the future of our favorite franchise, Legacy.
You said it Danpaine!
It’s very sad that every new thing coming out like Section 31 or even SNW I don’t have a vested interest in. I will at least watch the latter but my anticipation for it is very low.
Also not excited about SFA or the comedy show if it gets made. The SFA cast is appealing but the show itself does nothing for me right now.
I am a little disheartened about the state of Trek right now.
Honestly, that was a lot better than the first trailer. I’m still super apprehensive about the movie (and super glad it’s not an entire TV show), but this trailer at least made it look a bit better and not just Suicide Squad in space.
You know what, enough of Alex Kurtzman.
You did your thing and I’m glad ya brought Star Trek back and all that, thank you.
Sure, we should move on from legacy Trek to some extent but now, we should also move on from Kurztman Trek and give the i.p. to somebody new.
Disagree. Kurtzman is the reason we got DSC, PIC, LDS, PRO, and SNW.
With some exceptions, that is not the feather in his cap that you seem to think it is.
I’m kinda glad we have Kurtzman, and not KK. Not everything he does is good, some of it is actually quite bad, but even in the worst seasons of modern Trek I can still manage to find a couple of nuggets, compared to the abysmal stuff fans are getting in that other “Star” franchise.
I will reserve judgment until I’ve seen it, but from what I’ve seen so far: yuck!
It looks like it was made using AI.
Generic sci-fi colour grading, check
Generic over the top “kick ass” action, check
Generic “stylish” characters, check
Generic galaxy at stake plot, check
It looks like it would be a good popcord bang bang thriller. If it wasn’t Star Trek. None of that looks like Section 31 or the 23rd century to me in the slightest (shocker) and shouldn’t The Empress already know who 31 is since Discovery already screwed them up and brought them out in the open with their own division of Starfleet in Discovery? Kurtzman at his finest continues to make this a complete reboot of Trek and gives Abrams a run for his money. Usually I am way more optimistic than this but it feels like all the good new era Trek shows are being canceled and save for Picardo being replaced with crap x2
I’m slightly confused about Georgiou not knowing who Section 31 is since she obviously does after working with them.
I’m not hard on Kurtzman as others are here but yeah he’s made a lot of head scratching decisions like how Section 31 was introduced in Discovery in the first place. It felt completely out of whack of what we knew about them and now oddly trying to put the genie back in the bottle by saying everyone has forgotten about them in this movie apparently.
I just don’t understand why do things like this in the first place? If you wanted to make Section 31 a known entity and part of Starfleet, fine, but you can’t do it in the freaking 23rd century. It makes NO sense in canon. And yeah, you can certainly just say they decided to classify the group and they went underground, but that’s what they already did in the 22nd century. So according to the canon we have today, the group started off as a secret black ops division in the 22nd century that decided to go more public and apparently legit in the 23rd just to go underground again later? This is WHY I hate prequels. If you can’t do it right, then just don’t do it at all then.
And even if this movie be some miracle manage to retcon that, if it’s just a bad movie, it won’t remotely matter because the people who already hate and written off Discovery will just do the same for this anyway if it’s bad.
“This is the greatest threat Starfleet/Federation/galaxy has ever faced” line is the new 47. Doesn’t mean anything and is way overused.
agree! So many great episodes of Trek were not universal enders but human crises of mind or soul.
Trek has lost the humanity inherent to good sci-fi in lieu of lasers and explosions
Going to hold judgement until I see the actual movie, but there was a couple things in that trailer that I want to note.
I’m feeling that space station doesn’t really fit with the era. It looks more 31st century.
Shield bubbles are back, so thumbs up to that. I was getting sick of the form fitting shield.
We only get a small bit of Garrett in trailer, but the characterization hit me as right.
I’m not dumb enough to think my opinion really matters that much about this, and I dont think I’m going to get a really good idea of what this will be like from a trailer, and I’m not sure it’s my cup of tea, but I’ll give it a try anyway when it comes out. Trailers have been deceptive before. Every show that’s in a genre you like (or a franchise) deserves a chance, and you can’t really give it a chance without actually watching. If Michelle Yeoh can still want to do this even though she’s won a big award, then the least I can do is give it a try. I really hope that Michelle Yeoh gets to do some acting that doesn’t have to do with action, because she’s way more than just an action hero, she’s a smart person and a really good actor. Mere action hero actors don’t get Academy Awards.
I didn’t like a single second of that.
Sad to say, same here. Trying to be positive about this, but just not feeling it at all.
Agreed
Same. Another terrible trailer.
Yep!
Yes.
This looks nothing like how Section 31 would operate.
This always sounded like a bad idea, and the trailer only confirms it to me. I like Michelle but was never a fan of her mirror Georgiou. Should’ve kept the original prime Captain Georgiou and run Discovery with her at the helm.
Don’t want Section 31, don’t want Academy, just give us Legacy lol
Legacy isn’t a thing. If you want legacy characters, then don’t worry, they have been and will continue to be in every Trek show.
❤️
Looks pretty abysmal to me, but I’ll be watching at some point after it comes out. Thankful this isn’t a series instead.
Not gonna lie, I thought that trailer was really good. I don’t think it interests me as a Star Trek property, but for whatever it’s supposed to be, this action packed space romp, I think it sells the product well. I’ll probably watch it, certainly at some point, especially if I see good reviews. One of the reasons I never returned to Discovery (or Picard season 2) is because I see the fan reaction, and the general audience reaction, and know that it’s not worth my time. But if this ends up getting buzzy and makes a positive impression on people, I’ll give it a spin and see how I feel.
WOW, does this look Bad!! I sure hope it is much better than this trailer…and I’m a big fan of DISCO.
Everything wrong with modern Trek summed up in 1:53.
Well, with the first trailer I though that maybe this wasnt not for me, but I was ready to give it a chance. This new trailer has changed my mind and now I know that, definitely, is not for me.
Is it Star Trek Section 31 or a Suicide Squad ripoff?
Kurtzman: YES!
since the first info dropped that’s been clear
Goodness me, this looks atrocious.
This is going to make Into Darkness look like Citizen Kane. How the mighty have fallen.
Ha! That comment got a chuckle out of me. Agreed, this is likely to be pretty terrible.
LoL! Finally, a chance for STID to be considered good.
The sooner they jettison the Disco-verse the better. Some change IS for the worse.
inb4 toxic, diversity, whatever. I loved all Star Trek up until Discovery came out. Even the Kelvin-verse wasn’t too bad. Filled to the brim with diversity.
Since Discovery it’s been a mixed bag. Terrible writing, at times. Ham fisted messaging. Utterly needless visual changes (they could seriously have just made everything look a bit more modern and detailed, a la Star Wars’ new shows and movies, which, at times, contain computer screens that look so 1970s or 80s).
But yeah I dislike this flavour of Trek for two key reasons –
I think the change was much earlier: 2009 JJ Abrams Star Trek. Ever since then, Trek has been made for a different audience. The best example of this is the OTOY Unification video which was made for the old-school audience, even though it was basically no story.
The one exception is Picard Season 3, mostly. Even that season, as much as I love it, has many cringe-worthy current-Trek vibes.
This S31 movie is just, well, it is exists for sure. I hope that maybe the pendulum will swing back to the Star Trek vibe of the past.
Yep love the OTOY short and Picard season 3. The Unification short especially felt like the Trek people grew up with in the 60s.
JJ verse and those movies feels like something made for teenagers on speed. Super action junk with dumb plots and dumber science.
I have a feeling this movie will be in the same league as those.
Yeah Discovery is easily the worst Trek show out there but sadly this movie might be in the running as the worst now. I’m not going to completely judge it until I watch it but the only reason most people would even bother with this drek because Star Trek is in the title even if none of it feels like Star Trek .
This what happens when you leave h.a.c.k.s in charge.
didn’t know there was a new star wars movie nearby. leia looks angry. and where’s yoda??
i’ll give it a try and be open minded about it but i have very low expectations.
Appropriate this coming out on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, because it looks like a disaster. There is nothing about this trailer that makes me want to give up 2 hours of my life to watch this story.
Oh dann! 😂
That’s an epic burn if I ever seen one.
I just looked at Trekcre and someone posted the likes/dislike ratio on the video:
Like: 1751
Dislike: 4309
Am I’m surprised, obviously not. However I will say the only other Trek trailer that was upside down like this one was the first Lower Decks trailer when it was launched. People originally hated that one as they did this one. But once it premiered it turned it around and now loved by most fans.
So we won’t know until we see it of course. I still don’t have faith this will be good but I could change my mind.
But if this really tanks that’s not going to bold well for future streaming movies.
Not really a shock when you see how its being bad mouth everywhere. I hated the first trailer and this one isn’t any better IMO.
Every time I think NuTrek is getting something right, I always say it but making stuff like this is still a reminder why it’s not close to being good as the golden age of Trek. But Picard season 3, LDS and Prodigy comes the closest IMO.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but one thing to probably remember is only Trek fans are engaging with any trailers or anything at the moment. Normies will only notice when it’s released either via curiosity via “New” or word of mouth and that could change overall perception of like or dislike
I will include SNW in that too personally.
So we can at least both agree they are doing more good than bad these days. And that’s why I like this board, even people who are not that happy with NuTrek still have found some positives about it, even if it’s just 1 or 2 shows.
Section 31 however, does feel a lot more on the hate side, at least the trailers. I don’t have any big interest in it but since it looks like streaming movies will probably the only thing we will get on a regular basis it has to do well enough. Paramount+ doesn’t have the money to just throw at failed projects. But same time if this is a stinker, then I don’t know how many people will be begging for another one. That’s why I just hope it’s decent or at least better than most of us are thinking it will be.
Wow! This looks shockingly bad…The eight minute film with William Shatner had more “Star Trek” in it than a thousand of “Star Trek” films like this will have…Honestly, this looks about as bad as can be…Put people in charge of ST who actually love and understand it. This trailer is absolute trash
Looks good. Can’t wait.
A lot of money that could have been better spent on Star Trek Legacy.
That’s a good point. Bummer it will never happen. I am thankful we got Picard Season 3 at least.