Early Thoughts On ‘Star Trek: Section 31’ (Spoiler-Free)

The Paramount+ original movie Star Trek: Section 31 debuts on the streaming service on Friday, January 24th. The movie has been shared with members of the media in advance and Paramount has lifted an embargo for initial reviews, but only those avoiding spoilers. As we like to get into the details, the full TrekMovie review will be posted on Friday. However today we want to share some of the early thoughts from three of our editors who have had a chance to see the movie, with a focus on how it fits in with Star Trek.

A different kind of Star Trek

Section 31 is something different for Star Trek. It is the first streaming movie for the franchise, branching into a new format that opens up many possibilities. It’s a star-driven project, finally exiting development hell shortly after the lead became Academy Award-winner Michelle Yeoh. It’s crafted to be a “fun” sci-fi action movie, with a big emphasis on the latter. It’s set in what’s been called a “lost era” of Star Trek in the early 24th century. And it’s trying to welcome in non-fans, eschewing any required prior knowledge of Trek lore. The goal is to deliver a Guardians of the Galaxy for Star Trek, albeit on a TV-movie scale. The end result is a mixed bag, with varying levels of success on hitting the many targets in its sights.

The plot of Section 31 is pretty straightforward, and somewhat clichéd. After jumping back in time in season 3 of Discovery, Emperor Georgiou has set up shop running a space nightclub outside the Federation, where she slinks around the joint like a sultry viper ready to strike with a quip or kick at any moment. Starfleet sends a Section 31 team led by the brooding Alok Sahar (Omari Hardwick) to bring her out of black ops retirement to help them solve a galactic crisis. He brings along a crew of quirky misfits as well as Rachel Garrett, a Starfleet minder to keep them playing within some kind of (undetermined) line. Throw in some spy movie montages, witty banter, action hijinks, with a sprinkling of character drama and backstory and you should have yourself a merry time, and you sometimes do, but the film mostly struggles to blend all of its genre ingredients. At times you can almost feel the formulaic design behind the scenes, awkwardly mashing up elements of more successful recent sci-fi movies.

There are certainly elements and moments that work in Section 31. There are some clever sci-fi concepts, albeit mixed in with a few too many tropes. Sam Richardson’s Quasi the Chameloid scientist ably hits the aspired light note, but too often other attempts at humor don’t land. Georgiou’s complicated history is genuinely explored with some nuance, using her Mirror Universe history as a cautionary tale for today. However, other characters aren’t given much to work with in terms of their arcs, making their motivations absent or even confusing, surely the result of an originally planned TV series season being condensed into a movie. The production often impresses, with elaborate costumes, props, clever sci-fi visual effects scenes and the the delightful “garbage scow” ship. Although the scale of the production is still closer to a bigger-budget streaming-era TV season finale than a modern feature film. The end result is a fleeting bit of entertainment, and not something that truly breaks much new ground for Star Trek. And there lies the biggest frustration with Section 31 from a fan perspective. The franchise is actually resilient enough to encompass all that is being attempted here, but as this movie stretches out into these frontiers, it seems to forget where it all started.

— Anthony Pascale

Sam Richardson as Quasi

Missing Star Trek’s message

As to the Star Trek of it all, Section 31 is missing the vital elements that make Star Trek unique. The usual trappings—phasers, transporters, shields, etc.—are there, as is Discovery’s Georgiou. As for Starfleet, it exists only peripherally in this movie.  It’s represented by Rachel Garrett, who says she’s there to stop murders from being committed, which is nice lip service to Federation ideals but that’s about as far as it gets. While the characters are indeed fighting to save the universe, they don’t seem particularly invested in their cause as much as just wanting to accomplish their mission. Other than Alok, we don’t know why the others have signed up for Section 31; any further character exploration is left solely to Georgiou.

Much as the Mirror Universe is best used as a way to look at ourselves and who we could have become, Section 31 was created to ask some of the hard questions about the price of the Federation’s peace and prosperity. But those questions don’t get examined here, as moral contemplation has been swapped for action-adventure. Star Trek has always been about the triumph of idealism or optimism, starting with the idea that humanity could evolve to be not just smarter or stronger, but better—with “better” meaning more empathetic, nobler, kinder, and able to consider the needs of others instead of just our own. Without it, this is just a story.

— Laurie Ulster

Michelle Yeoh doing her action-movie thing

Finding some Star Trek elements

Since in many ways the movie is meant to be standalone, Section 31 purposefully doesn’t have a lot of connections to the broader Trek canon, but there certainly are some that will be discussed in the full review TrekMovie has planned. For now we can say that Section 31 fits in with much of the general tone and visual styles of the first three seasons of Discovery. Fans of that series should feel rewarded with some character connections, but the movie doesn’t rely on knowing the Discovery lore.

As mentioned above, Starfleet is barely seen in the movie. Thanks in large part to this taking place outside Federation space, it’s hard to get a grasp on just when this movie takes place. The inclusion of a younger Lt. Rachel Garrett (future captain of the Enterprise-C) gives us a rough idea that this takes place in the early 24th century, one of the “lost eras” of Trek, between Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and The Next Generation. One nice touch is how there are hints of this transitionary era in the production design, and especially the props. The Starfleet issued phaser Lt. Garrett carries is a nice blend of 23rd and 24th century tech. And while the updated tricorders are much more present day “smartphone” looking than the TNG tricorders, the production team used the TNG tricorder sound effects for it. These little touches help connect the film to the larger Trek universe.

— Matt Wright

Kacey Rohl as Rachel Garrett with her early 24th century Starfleet phaser

Star Trek: Section 31 will premiere on Friday, January 24, 2025, on Paramount+ in the U.S. and international markets where the service is available. It will debut in SkyShowtime markets in Europe on February 7.

Read more Section 31 news and interviews from this week:

Keep an eye out fore more interviews, including some from tonight’s red carpet premiere in NYC. Also look for our full review and additional analysis.


Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.

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I just got back from the premiere in NYC. I’m not allowed to say anything till Friday…so I won’t. But I will say that %$&#@*! and $#@&*%^@!!!! to the extreme.

Ouch

Is that a good %$&#@*! or a bad %$&#@*! ?

I meant exactly what I said, and you absolutely know what I mean.

Yes, I do.
You REALLY wish that you could curse right now!

when reviews on this, the most friendly of trek sites, are reaching for positive things to say…oof

Yeah I’ll be interested to hear what the full, honest review has to say. If what they have covered is “spoiler free” then I could go into quite some detail about Section 31, but I’ll wait until the review embargo is over to make sure I’m not targeted by the Paramount police. Just believe me when I say: I agree with the Trekmovie reviewers on everything they’ve thus posted. Which means there’s a lot more that hasn’t been said but doesn’t need to be, because you already feel it. To quote a good sci-fi movie: Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Agreed.. this is starting to sound like it’s what we all hoped it somehow wouldn’t be.. but the marketing wasn’t wrong.

Yes, Virginia: sometimes you really can judge a book by its cover.

Its getting slammed everywhere. IGN, Entertainment Weekly, Den of Geek. All of those reviews say that it just isn’t Star Trek.

Would be better to spend the money on remastering the beloved DS9 and Voyager.

100% agree

I’m currently rewatching DS9 and am on season 7. It doesn’t look as terrible as seasons 1-3 did, but it could use a “spacelift”, that’s for sure!

I’d be tempted to contribute to a crowd-sourcing drive to off-set the cost of remastering DS9 in a heartbeat.

As to this thing… I’ll no doubt wind up ruing the day I watched it.

Haha. Spacelift.

Can’t take credit for it… “Spacelift” was the title of a Blu-ray featurette on the extensive restoration of TOS back in 2009.

“I’d be tempted to contribute to a crowd-sourcing drive to off-set the cost of remastering DS9 in a heartbeat.”
I’m in.

I just started rewatching DS9. I honestly thought my glasses were dirty it’s so blurry.

““Section 31,” a cynical whimper of a Trek adventure, isn’t likely to scratch that itch. It evokes nothing less than last year’s execrable “Borderlands“: both have Oscar winners slumming it for a paycheck, a suspicious cheapness to the special effects despite its budget, and the rancid stink of milking a franchise long past its sell-by date.”
says Clint Worthington on rogerebert.com.

I like their reviews, alsway well thought.

Hey I will defend Cate Blanchett in Borderlands. She was not slumming it for a paycheck. She did say she was going stir crazy during lockdowns and put down accepting to be in it to “Covid madness”

I in no way meant to insult Cate or diminish her work! After having watched S31 an hour ago, I would no longer endorse this comparison with Borderlands. Borderlands is SO MUCH BETTER than S31!
So … What happened …?? Michelle Yeoh is such a good actress. Brothers Sun was great. S31 … a cheap-looking, really badly written episode of a series that fortunately never existed.

Why did she sign for this crap Script. I don’t get it. No Star Trek, not even a bit.

Oscar winners slumming it for a paycheck

Michelle Yeoh needs to fire her agent, stat.

That agent put her in Wicked, Avatar and a Blade Runner show. Her being in Discovery predated her Oscar, so it’s not like she didn’t expect it or know the players. A job like this isn’t as much up to the agent. They may well have said not to do it, but they also probably negotiated her a big paycheck. No one goes into a job not thinking it might turn out well. She took a risk and lost, it happens.

Wow, some of the other reviews out there are savage.

Have you seen the one over on Trek Core? Let’s hope the rumours about this movies budget are false.

You mean that part of the money was spent to pay Yeoh to be in the movie?

That the budget was $80million and she was paid $20 million. Rumoured.

Also that it cost so much because they were so close to filming the S31 series and had to pay her for the whole season.

Pay or play goes back to at least the 60s, which I think is why Yul Brynner wound up in a lot of westerns, just to get something on film when his other films didn’t get greenlit. Am pretty sure all of the TOS cast got paid for the unmade 70s TV series, plus the guy who was supposed to play Xon and Persis, when it turned into TMP.

This brings up a very interesting point… this movie may be less of a new experiment as much was it was a way to fulfill contracts and figure out how to make some money. Wow.

The rumors are out of control. I read she got $12 million which is still a lot but more believable. But might as well not pay much attention to them. We all have our ideas on how this money might have been better spent, though.

Yep, sorry, typo – meant 12

Truthfully, this dreck was so Gawd-awful (Gawsend awful?) that they should have pulled a BATGIRL, simply not released it, and paid off the cast.

I mean, I can’t even articulate how awful this was.

I have read that review as well and yeah it is savage. I don’t expect much from this movie plot wise. Frankly I never did. I never thought they cared about moral exploration. Only ever making a “popcorn” flick. It definitely will have fight scenes and maybe some funny ones but beyond that I never thought this would be great. Maybe that’s to my benefit. But we will see when I watch it.

No popcorn without heart. This obviously is lacking. However I probably will have too much popcorn watching this to get over my nerves.

Have you seen the one over on Trek Core?

On the other hand, that review also tells us Discovery was “a great Star Trek series”. No, no it really wasn’t. It was okay at best. And I feel Section 31 is much the same.

Lets be honest we all knew this was going to be a dud, nothing really surprising. Time to move on to better things(if at all possible with this lot.).

We did not all know that.

Out of honest curiosity, when did you think, ‘Wow, this looks great’? No one I’ve spoken to (who still cares) is surprised it turned out this bad—it’s been obvious from the start. Everything we’ve seen or heard has been a constant stream of red flags. But you genuinely seem surprised.

I have actually liked the trailers. The movie has gotten several positive reviews. I may end up disliking it (I hated Discovery from which it comes), but I am not going into it predisposed to hate it like many here are.

I’m sure that ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES got some good reviews, too.

LMAO :D:D

OK, sure, but almost everyone realized it. The signs were there.

Untrue.

The signs were there. We hoped to be wrong.

We hoped to be wrong.”

Did you?

I’d love to be wrong and for this to be great.

We really did.

That’s fine, but you are not everybody.

Time to move on? No way. Time to pounce and get rid of these people. Hopefully.

You said it. It looked like a turkey after the first trailer dropped and that never changed. I thought MAYBE the reviews would be kinder and instead they are actually worst than I imagined.

When a site like IGN gave this a 1 out of 10 (and the review literally said it they would give it an even lower score if they could) and RogerEbert said it’s a misfire as bad as Rebel Moon then you have a huge failure on your hands.

Treikkies are going to trash this thing lol.

They already started doing that as soon as this piece of for’shak on toast was announced.

This is being absolutely crucified by the critics, that even the ardent Kurtzman era defenders have thrown in the towel and have admitted how poor it is. Sadly, most of us predicted this months ago. The premise sounded dodgy (especially how they don’t even get what Section 31 actually represents) and when the trailer dropped… oh my Q, it looked atrocious. Sorry for the bluntness but Paramount should have fired Alex Kurtzman & co years ago. They were never right for this franchise and have literally been butchering one of the studio’s greatest assets, losing them millions with such shoddy subpar output. No one wanted or had any faith in this at all.

Star Trek deserves so much better. As a great man once said: “The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!”

Sorry, but considering you hate anything that isn’t The Original Series I won’t put any stock whatsoever in your opinion.

Sorry, Alex. You gotta go!

He hates anything non-TOS… but quotes a TNG film… hates anything non-TOS…. quotes a TNG film… hates… quotes… hate… quote…

DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT…

{BOOOOOOM!!!!!}

Exactly.

Where did you get he hates all non-TOS shows? I’ve seen him say positive things about TNG, DS9, etc. Maybe I’m confusing him with someone else but it’s mostly NuTrek he seems to hate.

I’m responding (snarkily) to a conversation that took place in this thread, and I quote:

Captain Braxton: “Star Trek deserves so much better. As a great man once said: ‘The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!'”

M1701: “Sorry, but considering you hate anything that isn’t The Original Series I won’t put any stock whatsoever in your opinion.”

In short, I’m remarking on M1701’s post that Braxton hates anything non-TOS… even though Braxton (whose handle is also a Voyager reference) is quoting a non-TOS movie, “First Contact”.

Jesus I hate having to explain myself…

OK thanks. Completely went over my head lol. No worries.

Well, respectfully, you can ignore his opinion, and the writing is still on the wall. It’s pretty established by the industry that this thing is a dud.

They knew it too, the thing had a low key premiere in London – and all the reviewers were under embargo. It’s barely been marketed. If they had ANY confidence at all in it, it’d have had a limited run at a few select theatres.

Not sure why a ‘tv’ movie even needs a premiere tbh.

TV series are getting these days.. they’ll air the first few episodes at them…

Because it’s Star Trek. All the TV shows got big premieres too, at least the live action ones, from Discovery to SNW. I think Picard even got a premiere for every season, definitely the first and last one.

I agree with Braxton here and Enterprise is the one show I really have trouble with. I’ve even grown to appreciate what Disco was trying to do – even if they rarely stuck the landing.

Exactly! Basically most people thought it looked like a turkey from the beginning. This looked really really bad. That doesn’t mean the movie itself would be the one problem NEVER changed and that it simply didn’t look or feel like Star Trek enough.

That’s a pretty bad sign when you’re watching it because it has Star Trek in the title. I don’t know what Kurtzman and the rest of these clowns were thinking??? It’s sounds like they took every criticism of Section 31 and just doubled down it. And instead of making the organization closer to DS9 as most of us assumed they would they took it even farther away!

Everything about this movie sounds horrible. These people shouldn’t be running Star Trek if they are this clueless!

Firing Kurtzman won’t bring back the sort of Trek you want. As nostalgic as everyone gets for TOS, TNG, VOY and DS9, they were all of their time. Plus any executive producer will have to navigate the broader issues within Paramount. But having watched this, it has the feel of one of those movies made because of contractual obligations and not because of any real enthusiasm for the concept.

As nostalgic as everyone gets for TOS, TNG, VOY and DS9, they were all of their time.

I haven’t the foggiest idea what this even means. Bring back some sci-fi writers that actually like to grapple with IDEAS. Newsflash: they exist, today (Christopher Nolan, anyone? Or Chabon?). Bring back some folks who have actually served in the military, like Roddenberry did, or in intelligence agencies (cf. THE AMERICANS or MI:5).

People forget the Trek fatigue circa 2001-2005. There were too many story retreads in VOY and ENT, and a reduction of character development.

Part of the issue was that even back then, there was too much Trek on the screen at once (two series and a movie every 2-3 years). But they figured out the problem and, I think, finished strong with ENT.

The Trek 3.0 folks seem to have a philosophy of “throw as much mud as you can at the wall, pass it off as taking ‘big swings,’ and hope some of it sticks.”

Sorry for the bluntness but Paramount should have fired Alex Kurtzman & co years ago. They were never right for this franchise and have literally been butchering one of the studio’s greatest assets…

100% right. Frankly, they should cancel all other Star Trek projects at this point (maybe let SNW get some kind of finale, although it’s not like that’s some kind of crown jewel of the franchise), let it go fallow for a few years, and — maybe — someone who understands it can rejuvenate it. Maybe.

Bringing back beloved series is tough. BIONIC WOMAN, KNIGHT RIDER, MACGYVER all failed. Frakes was right when he said TNG somehow captured lightning in a bottle. The only really worthwhile contribution to the Star Trek canon over the past 15 years came from Chabon and Matalas, in the form of PICARD, and maybe a smidge from Doug Jones as Saru.

It’s so sad that they squandered Michelle Yeoh in Star Trek, but it is what it is. I never want to see that awful character again, and I’m starting to question whether she really was a one-hit wonder early in her career, rather than a polished, Oscar-worthy actress. Choosing your roles well is a thing.

I have not seen this movie yet. But based upon this review, I feel I need to steal a line from an even more popular sci-fi franchise:

I have a bad feeling about this!

Well, if nothing else, this sounds like it’ll at least be a fun disaster.

😂👍

I’m totally down for that. Wish he could all live chat while we watch it in real time.

Sorry to comment here twice but it won’t let me edit my previous comment to add further needed context.

Every other review out there has a headline that makes this movie sound even worse than the last review does.

IGN’s review is beyond brutal. You can obviously read it for yourself if you so desire, but here’s the golden nugget:

“Section 31 is nothing but a lousy, uninteresting caper picture with middling special effects, bad acting (yes, even Yeoh), cringeworthy dialogue, and characters you don’t care about.”

They said that in the non-spoiler review here — it’s in the same vein as “Discovery”

Sorry… couldn’t resist…

“And while the updated tricorders are much more present day “smartphone” looking than the TNG tricorders, the production team used the TNG tricorder sound effects for it. These little touches help connect the film to the larger Trek universe.”

Well, at least, it’s something.

cool – they found a library of sound effects. Too bad they didn’t find a library of 70 years of scripts and read those to find the ethos and soul of trek.

Oh yes. Wait, there was something. On Sarpeidon … Oh, damn. That blew up.

The star trek movie curse continues!

There’s no “curse” about this at all. It’s hands down the worst Star Trek movie ever made, and it wouldn’t be out of line to say it’s just one of the worst movies ever made, full stop.

If you want to see this trainwreck, don’t wait too long. Judging by the reviews I’m seeing and the talk of the ballooning budget, the smartest thing for the studio to do would be to pull the movie from the P+ program and write it off fiscally, like WB did with the Batgirl movie or Disney did with the Willow TV series. And I’m sure this has been discussed internally.

Actually, WBD never even allowed the Batgirl movie to be seen.

Disney let Willow be seen at least.

A good idea. This movie is such a failure on almost every level. I feel sorry for the actors. They won’t be happy having this “movie” on their list. It’s a really dark movie, uninspired, heartless, clumsy … and cheap looking.
S31 makes Into Darkness seem like pure cinematic art. Every 5M B-movie of the 1980s looks like art compared to S31.

I’ve quickly scanned 10 reviews in addition to TrekMovie.com’s and 7 were negative with 3 positive. Because it is not on CTV Sci-Fi up here north of the border, of course I will watch on P+, but I will definitely take advantage of the free trial period. Too bad – it seems that the trailers were pretty much indicative of what the movie is all about.

I’m actually surprised there were 3 positives…

;)

I haven’t seen this, but since most of us want something else, perhaps ‘real’ ish spies, and you have a Paramount account, try The Agency. Could be shorter but not bad at all.

You can tell people skip episodes on their old series re-watches when they need everything to be good. Allamaraine count to 10 everyone and be grateful Paramount is still throwing money at Trek even if it doesn’t stick the landing.

When you’re doing 30 episodes per season, some aren’t going to stick the landing. But that’s fine because next week’s episode will be totally different. If you’re doing a season long arc, or spending big bucks on a movie, it’d better darned well be good or you’re in trouble. DS9 blew it’s wad on the incredible pilot and I’d also argue that none of the new shows have produced anything that matches the quality of Duet.

TNG, DS9, VOY & ENT all had seasons prior to Discovery that were at most 26 episodes long.

TOS I think had weird episode counts for its 3 seasons, but what made a season differed back then.

Those were the good times, weren’t they? Duet was an incredibly good episode, brilliantly acted, brilliantly written. THAT is what we need now. Good actors in well-written shows and movies. Times are dark, but Star Trek has always been a guarantee for encouraging, humane glimpses of a bright future. I can see that in SNW. I see that in Prodigy, a sadly neglected show full of beautiful ideas and character developments.
S31 depressed me.

is that one of the great episodes of DS9? No – it’s a little rough. You know what it does do though? It advances character – particularly Quark, so it works in the context of the whole imo

be grateful Paramount is still throwing money at Trek

I’m not “grateful” to anyone for utterly despoiling what was once a thought-provoking, well-acted, and I daresay at times transcendent franchise — not always, sure, but easily enough to become a cultural touchstone.

If they truly can’t figure out a way to recapture the TNG-era magic, better to have ended it. Sometimes it’s best to leave the audience wanting more.

Thanks for these early reviews. It seems what I’d heard about the film was accurate.

IGN’s review is scathing, and that’s a site that is often pretty positive about Star Trek. Here are some excerpts:

“Section 31 arrives on Paramount+ as 100 minutes of generic schlock containing only trace elements of Star Trek.”

“The direct-to-streaming Star Trekfilm Section 31 has initiated a core breach in my soul, and my reaction is simple: This isn’t Star Trek.”

“This chintzy Syfy movie sure knows to copy from The Hunger Games and Guardians of the Galaxy (and X-Men and The Fifth Element) but doesn’t know a damn thing about being original. Or engaging.”

“Though it would still be boring, Section 31 might actually be better if you come to it with no knowledge of Star Trek lore. This way, at least, you won’t end up wondering how writer Craig Sweeny and director Olatunde Osunsanmi completely bungled the entire Trek ethos – its admittedly corny core tenants of exploration, optimism, and the pursuit of righteous achievement.”

“Section 31 is nothing but a lousy, uninteresting caper picture with middling special effects, bad acting (yes, even Yeoh), cringeworthy dialogue, and characters you don’t care about.”

“At times you can almost feel the formulaic design behind the scenes, awkwardly mashing up elements of more successful recent sci-fi movies.:

That’s what I personally call “Whiteboarding” writing. The feeling of watching a movie or show where you get pulled out of the story and imagine how each contrived plot element was drawn on a Whiteboard in the writers room. ” Insert touching character moment here” or insert “action spy style fight scene here”. And nothing feels natural or organic. I despise that feeling. I get that feeling much more often with modern Trek than classic Trek.

“As mentioned above, Starfleet is barely seen in the movie. Thanks in large part to this taking place outside Federation space, it’s hard to get a grasp on just when this movie takes place.”

This sounds like no monster maroons then?

There better be at least one! And I want to see the Excelsior somewhere or Enterprise B as a nod to cannon.

On the maroons.. definitely agree.. on the Excelsior or Ent B… I cringe at the thought of how they’d introduce a revamped design, and not use the existing one. lol.. I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

I would expect if there was one it would be the Strange New Worlds version…which was fine though I think some of the new detailing was a little unnecessary.

Agree

No monster maroons. They do have a few monster morons in the boardrooms at paramount and secret hideout who thought it was a good idea, but that’s about it.

+1

Not surprised about the reactions above or the scathing reviews already out there, this looked horrible from the start. I’ll wait for the official reviews tomorrow, but am seriously considering giving this one a pass. I don’t purposely watch bad movies, Trek or not. Life is short.

Oh, I’m still going to watch it… I’m going to see just how bad it is. Can’t criticize it without doing that.

BRAVO!

I have to know if The Final Frontier is no longer the worst Star Trek movie. So it will require a viewing at least once.

Wow, so is that counting the Kelvin Timeline movies too?

I haven’t seen such a unenthusiastic review on Trekmovie since Into Darkness. As matter of fact, I wonder which movie they feel is “less Star Trek”. I have a feeling it’s this one.

If it didn’t have Star Trek in the title someone could watch this and not know.

Rolling Stone is one of the only ones who liked it.

RogerEbert dot com’s is savage and clearly written by a fan. Compared it to Rebel Moon AND Borderlands. Double ouch.

The only Trek film to my mind to get decent reviews while sorely dividing fandom was Into Darkness. None of the films the critics hated got a cushion from their fall by the fans. Tomorrow’s going to be fun.

The Internet is calling this film an “embarrassment” and “not Star Trek”. Yikes.

This is disappointing. I was honestly looking forward to it.

The review on rogertebert.com is devastating: “no trace of the “Trek” flavor lingers here”.
“The dialogue is so agonizing and samey it feels like getting stabbed with a Klingon pain stick”
“it’s frankly a blessing that the sound mixing and a few dodgy accents make it so you can barely hear the one-liners.”

and, boom, as a final comment, reviewer clint worthington says this: “(this film) has the rancid stink of milking a franchise long past its sell-by date.”

Oh my …

my only gripe with that review is that last line: ” (this film) has the rancid stink of milking a franchise long past its sell-by date.” – yes to the milking, but Star Trek doesn’t have a sell-by date – if you’ve got the right farm producing the milk.

Alas, this herd has turned.

The fault, dear Brutus, isn’t in our stars [ie: the franchise], but in ourselvess [the writing / executives producing the drivel]

Agreed.

I don’t know if there is a place for Star Trek in this modern world. Star Trek requires an enormous amount of optimism and philosophical thought.

Society is now so nihilistic and anti-intellectual, that there isn’t a young cohort growing up that embodies those qualities.

Maybe Star Trek will go extinct because everyone has become so bitter.

that’s when it’s needed the most…

Yeah, but if there’s no cohort that appreciates it then it’s a waste.

Society is now so nihilistic and anti-intellectual, that there isn’t a young cohort growing up that embodies those qualities

I’ll set aside any meta commentary about “society” writ large and stick to Hollywood. And on Hollywood, you couldn’t be more wrong: the past 20 years have been the true golden age of TV, from the Sopranos onwards to Yellowstone.

We saw a fleeting preview of this new golden age in Berman era Trek, perhaps, especially with the serialized DS9 and ENT. But since then, Paramount so mismanaged Star Trek that the golden age proper has passed Star Trek by. They killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, and it didn’t have to be this way.

I didn’t mention anything about Hollywood or the ‘Golden Age’ so you completely self-conjured that inside your mind.

My point is that the current young population doesn’t have a culture of optimism, hope and striving for excellence. Under 30-year-olds are dominantly nihilistic, argumentative, a touch of narcissism and a lack of interest in education and especially philosophy.

I don’t see a future for Star Trek with such people as the future.

This was always going to be a MASSIVE risk and sadly, it seems it just hasn’t paid off.

I tend to disagree with that. On paper, this looks like an easy win. You’ve got Michelle Yeoh, you’ve got a healthy budget, you’ve got some fan-favourite concepts and the broader appeal of a spy action adventure in space with echoes of Guardians of the Galaxy. The problem is the execution.

Far from the first time that an A-lister has produced a turkey. BATMAN IV, anyone, with Clooney and Arnold?

The reviews alone are popcorn worthy.
NYTimes- “Set the Phasers to Shun.”

Ouch!

Now I need to see for myself if Section 31 is truly the worst Star Trek “movie” ever made.

Has TFF finally been dethroned?

(Oh c’mon. This needs approval?)

This is by far the most positive review of the movie I’ve seen today, which is saying something. I think the worst thing that can be said about any movie is that it’s unwatchable, and that’s the general consensus with reviewers. It’s one thing to be bad, it’s another thing to be aggressively incompetent to the point you’re better off not watching it at all. I think I’ve gone from being mildly curious and looking forward to the drop time, to totally apathetic. I’m sure I’ll watch it, just not sure when now.

Surprised Pikachu Face.

These reactions to this “film,” here and elsewhere suggest that now a majority of fans will feel how a minority of fans have felt while watching everything in the Secret Hideout era (Prodigy and possibly Lower Decks being exceptions). That doesn’t mean that minority is vindicated, only that everybody’s miserable now.

And frankly, the minority will take it as a win regardless, especially certain youtube channels that championed how bad the Secret Hideout era has been for them.

We all know exactly those YouTube channels you’re talking about and they are sharpening their teeth as we speak. The next few days, if not weeks is going to be a roast fest for those people.

I say no more than days at the most. I mean, unless they’re going to spend weeks picking apart every minute of the movie to stroke their own ego about how right they were, I don’t see why they’d put too much time into roasting it.

They do it for clicks and views. I’m watching one right now…

I can’t wait to hear ML31’s thoughts lol. That guy hates everything involving Secret Hideout.

And for a long time, I used to be part of that minority too. I have hated most things since 2009, but the last few years have felt like a turnaround to me. Maybe still not stronger than Berman Trek but some things on par with it like LDS, PRO and Picard season 3. I know others disagree with those too but I’m only speaking for myself.

But I still think Kurtzman is a h.a.c.k and this movie sounds like it proves it. When he finds the right people who truly get Star Trek, then it shines. But when he doesn’t we get this. And frankly when the people in charge of this were mainly came from Discovery, that was already a pretty bad sign.

Well, no surprises here. Looked terrible from the very beginning and felt nothing like Star Trek.
Hard pass for me

Well Lower Decks has been all out for sometime now. I also finished all of Foundation and For All Mankind so I could really use a Sci-Fi fix and even though this might not do much to relieve my new Star Trek withdrawals I’ll still slap on this nicotine patch, and quite happily I might add. Now when is Strange New Worlds Session 3 coming out again lol

You know whats funny ? A few days ago, if someone said ‘this isn’t Star Trek’ then someone would immediately call them out for ‘gatekeeping’. Sometimes an admin would close the thread.

Now a ton of reviews have come out, and guess what they’re saying 😉

100%

The “let people enjoy things” brigade will beam in soon enough.

Lots of Star Trek isn’t Star Trek. Hell, some of TOS is barely Star Trek. This sounds especially not Star Trek, though.

I’ll still hold off on any comments until I see it but I feel it is exactly as expected — there really was never a point to this, there was never an ask for this, and section 31 just isn’t Star Trek… And judging by everything I’m reading here, this adds NOTHING of value to Star Trek canon.

That being said, one sad aspect that no one has mentioned — if this were GREAT, if people LOVED it, it would open the door to other Trek Streaming movies with all kinds of Trek settings and ideas — a legacy movie, a Lower Decks movie, An Enterprise movie, DS9 or Voyager continuation and all kinds of other stories — Romulan War? Lost years? Who knows?

— this could be the “Star Trek V” film that nearly kills the franchise and curtails or cancels any other planned Trek streaming movies.

I can’t imagine why TPTB went with Section 31. I just didn’t see any demand for “More Section 31.”

As someone else already said here, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Just remember this, this was supposed to be the pilot to a 3-5 year season show. If this is truly as bad as most are saying we dodged a huge bullet in the long run. Most people just never wanted a Section 31 show. Many people may love Yeoh but Georgiou was always a divisive character. A mass murdering former dictator shouldn’t be starring in anything with the name Star Trek in the title. It was just a ridiculous notion all around.

Now that they FINALLY got it out of their system and when the fanbase makes it clear they don’t want this, never did and beg them to just move on already, hopefully they will.

But knowing these clowns, they may still turn it into a trilogy of movies if enough people watch it. But I doubt it now if the backlash truly does become that strong.

But that’s also the catch 22, if this thing really falls on its face, Paramount could tell themselves the streaming movie experiment was a failure and it would be over before it started which would be a shame because as you pointed out, there are tons of ideas most fans at least want to see and will be excited for them, this was simply never one of them.

I think universally bad reviews are hard to ignore. They had some plausible deniability with Disco and Picard because lots of people watched them and reviews were divided but not exclusively bad.

Now critics and fans seem united.

There sure does seem to be a lot of comments after saying you would wait to comment!

Imagine having your name attached to this. The eternal shame that comes with that.

Checked Rotten Tomatoes and with 19 votes in so far, it has a 21% score. Just for comparison sake the lowest rated Trek movie there is (you guessed it) The Final Frontier with a paltry 23% rating. This turkey is now 2 points below that lol!

Of course it’s early and it will probably get tons more by today and it can increase.But usually when something start out so low it rarely gets much higher. I can’t wait to see the audience score. That has gone a different way from the critics score at times. Maybe this will be another one of those times…but not holding my breath.

And that is JUST for the critics!

I can imagine what the audience score will be. One of those rare times the two scores match, likely.

I suspect it’s going to be pretty brutal obviously. Just how people been reacting to the trailers alone already told you most fans were not onboard with it. But now that we know the trailers do indeed represent the movie in all the worst ways possible, yeah I expect a bloodbath now.

It doesn’t mean everyone will hate it of course and maybe many will think it’s at least fun. But reading the reviews, some are saying it’s even boring which I didn’t suspect at all.

Hmmm…. It’s not looking good.

For what it’s worth I don’t think this will be the death of paramount plus Trek movies. But they’ll probably have to do a serious rethink about what direction they’re going in.

Apparently, this is one of the kinder reviews of Section 31. From I’ve read, this movie is dog trash.

Fans won’t overreact to the breaking of lore and canon right? Like everyone was levelheaded and not incensed about Star Trek into darkness and didn’t vote it the worst Star Trek ever made.

I had concerns once I saw them throw in Rachel Garrett as a character, in what seemed to have zero connection to the other appearance of the character in TNG. And from what I hear the characters are different even beyond the age and experience gap. It seemed like an attempt to attract some TNG fans over with a name drop. I will still watch because I don’t like other people making my mind up for me, but it doesn’t bode well.

I’m not one who bashes Kurtzman & Nu Trek but the idea for a Section 31 series then film was always a bad idea. I agree with the comments that this was probably completed to fulfill contractual obligations but maybe like Warner/Discovery did with Batgirl or the Wile E Coyote movie it would have been better to have buried the completed film and taken a tax break on it. Reviews have been savage and it’s not going to drive subscriptions or new eyes to Trek. Worse, the money wasted on this they could have gone into another Kelvin film, additional seasons of Prodigy & Lower Decks or producing Star Trek Legacy. I have a bad feeling about Starfleet Academy too.

At least we have SNW.

slashfilm has a story saying that Giorgio joined s31 in 2257 … which doesn’t jive with Garrett at all, since she wouldn’t be born for several more decades.

It doesn’t if jive if it was still the 23rd century. However, it’s supposed to be early 24th.

That’s actually correct. She was recruited into Section 31 just before Discovery season 2 (which takes place in 2257). https://trekmovie.com/2018/03/24/watch-star-trek-discovery-bonus-scene-reveals-a-familiar-storyline-for-season-two/
Then she spent season 2 operating as a S31 asset, and then jumped into the far future with the Disco crew. As a way to set up the spin-off, in Discovery season 3 she ends up needing to be sent back closer to her “native” (original) time – otherwise the combo of universe jumping (Mirror to Prime) and signifiant time jumping (23rd century to 32nd century) has degraded her and she’d die if she stayed so far in the future. When and where she goes is left as a mystery in DSC S3. As mentioned in our write up here, they keep the time frame of this movie pretty nebulous, Rachel Garrett being present is one of the only real ways to identify the time frame.

I’m about half way into the movie so far and I’m actually quite enjoying it. two things :

1) they made a fatal mistake linking this movie so strongly to star trek because..

2) IT ISN’T A STAR TREK MOVIE!

it’s literally a movie set in the star trek universe outside of Federation space.

once you get rid of the notion of it being a star trek movie and you look at it as an action sci fi set in the same universe but not officially star trek it becomes a lot more enjoyable.

one thing I will say so far is that it really tries far too hard to be cool. they don’t need to force it so hard. I’ll leave the rest of my critique until I’ve finished the movie.

Pretty acccurate.

I really liked it! Entertainment with essence! With what happening in our days, I find the comments about autocracy, enlightening! Now, if you want to dig and bury, you can!

Guys.. I didn’t hate it. I don’t think it’s as bad as some of the reviews I’ve read. But… it’s not a good movie, and it definitely doesn’t feel like Star Trek, at all. No spoilers herein, btw. But because it feels so detached, it makes you forget you’re watching something tied to Star Trek. That’s its greatest achievement. The story is benign and derivative, but I expected that. The mirror universe is such a tired trope, and my criticism of their use of that conceit is they make a further mess of that trope. The final act is just ridiculous with a lot of silliness. But it’s overall not as campy as I expected… which isn’t to say it feels serious. The stakes never feel big. I’ll have more to say in the spoiler review thread. Final thought is just that if this had been a pilot for a series, I’d be pissed because there is nothing here I care about seeing move forward. But as it is, it’s fine and we can all move on from it, forget it ever existed.

i hope this is such a failure that Paramount’s new ownership will have to do damage control and greenlight Star Trek Legacy. i will give it a shot and keep an open mind (hell i’ve stuck with DSC for all 5 seasons with an open mind) but have low expectations.

a DS9-esque Section 31 movie / tv show would have been awesome.

They need to do more than that, they need to boot Secret Hideout/Kurtzman/Akiva Goldsman etc.

Oh my god, enough already with Legacy. There’s nothing to greenlight since it was never a project CBS was considering. It’s not a thing.

Wanted to like it… but… Total cringe. “Spock’s Brain” without the brain. I truly do not understand how this happened. In shock something so amateur was made. How could absolutely nothing about it resonate? I just can’t.

The Section 31 team operate outside of the Federation where Star Fleet can’t work.. So they send along a Star Fleet officer who screams “I’m in Star Fleet” the moment she walks in the room while walking around with a Star Fleet phaser.

Has the Federation suddenly forgotten Star Fleet Intelligence exists?

I have not seen the movie yet. Even though I am very skeptical, I prepped by watching the Discovery 2-part episode Terra Firma (which CTV Sci-Fi conveniently aired it last night). I forgot that a few episodes from S3 were actually quite good including those two. I have to admit I really liked the Georgiou story. Too bad the rest of season 3 fell apart with the ridiculous Burn storyline.

I also read a few reviews in the mainstream press this morning including both the NY Times and LA Times reviews which were actually mediocre and positive, respectively.
Hope to watch sometime this weekend.

I’m a Star Trek fan. I tolerate a lot of things Trek. Discovery was not the best for sure, but it had its moments. I think season two was a blast And the last season was good. But this movie. Section 31. From the get-go, I think everyone knew that it was going to suck. But I gave it a chance. I’m now 49 minutes in and I’m closing the damn thing. I can’t take it. I can’t finish it. Not only Is it not good in any aspect of a movie or show? It is just simply so boring and cringe. Someone, Deserves to lose his job. By chance we have strange new worlds !