Interview: Michelle Yeoh Talks Georgiou’s Ongoing Redemption In ‘Star Trek: Section 31’

TrekMovie had a chance to speak to members of the cast and crew of Star Trek: Section 31 at the premiere at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. A highlight was a brief chat with the star of the Paramount+ original streaming movie herself, Michelle Yeoh. We didn’t get much time—in fact we asked two questions after being told there was only time for one—but she talked about her role in the movie [with some spoilers] and what could be next.

So as Section 31 evolved from a TV show to a movie and bounced around, what was the most important thing to you to keep in there that was in the original? 

I think with the original, you know but you don’t know, because that’s Section 31 right? You’re not supposed to know. And I think with Star Trek: Section 31 the movie, we want to take you in and have a peek and have some fun with us, and see how it doesn’t work and how it could work. But the most important thing is the characters inside, especially for Philippa Georgiou.  She came from Discovery, she walked through the portal and was told, “You’re actually not the bad person. You actually—there is something good in you, and because of that, we’re going to give you a second chance,” and this is her second chance. So I think in Section 31, let’s see how good she does make it.

Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou in Star Trek: Section 31 streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

Do you think she found her redemption? Or is it an ongoing process?

I think it’s ongoing. I think after all the things that were done in the Mirror Universe, it can’t all just be washed away in one go. I think it will stay. And this time, she was trying to find closure with the love of her life, her first love, right? So there are many stories to be told.

So you’re up for more?

Oh, hell yes.

Michelle Yeoh at NYC Section 31 premiere event (Photo: TrekMovie/Cleveland Oakes)

More Section 31

Read more Section 31 coverage from this week:

There are many more interviews to come from the premiere and from the junket as well as more analysis.


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

47 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

This movie is getting pummeled by critics. “Set phasers to shun” is the headline from The NY Times.

She’ll be fine but this may be the end of the line for her character.

Same old same old for Star Trek since the first season of The Next Generation. Another day that ends in a Y.

I don’t think Section 31, a 100-minute film, is going to improve its quality in nonexistent future seasons.

It may be reevaluated in the future by people who aren’t dismissing it on the basis that it doesn’t fit their preconceptions of what is and isn’t valid Star Trek, though.

All Star Trek considerations aside, as a standalone film it’s not great.

I plan to watch it this weekend and see for myself.

So far the only thing that’s given me pause are comparisons to Guardians of the Galaxy. Those movies are comedic crap, and Trek copying that is not good.

If you take out the star trek elements (georgou backstory, some exposition dialogue/shots ( 30 sec in total ) and a few beaming scenes ) then the rest is just awful.

And then the problems glare up even more, without the trek references it is just an awful movie, with terrible writing ( o god, the lines zeph has are so cring worthy that it hurts )

The story, writing, effects are all really bad…. and this has nothing to do with wanting it to be good star trek.

Haven’t seen it, so I can judge the effects, dialogue, etc yet.

I did read summaries on Memory Alpha, and, in terms of plot, it doesn’t that bad.

Do keep in mind that people hated this movie BEFORE they watched it, so they didn’t hate it because of the effects, dialogue, acting, etc.

They hated it it on principle based solely on the basis that it is a Stat Trek series about Section 31 rather than about the crew of a starship exploring planets (just like TOS, TNG, and SNW — like ENT too, which did that but they also hated for being a prequel, which SNW also is but they don’t hate as much as they did ENT or DIS…).

Well, I watched it last night and I disagree that the story, writing, or effects were bad.

The story was very well centered around the protagonist, Georgiou. It showed her origin story and made the villain someone she is connected with, which is what this kind of movies should do.

I do find it odd that San was also catapulted into the future. That was convenient.

The quality of the writing, per se, is directly relative to the format of the story. These plots and characters were originally intended to unfold across a series, but when it became a movie that all got truncated. Consequently, their character arcs and such suffered.

For instance, in this movie Mell just died within the first 10 minutes or so. In a series she might still have died but at the end of the season, after she’s been better developed than she was.

As for the effects, they were on par with what we’ve seen in Discovery, Short Treks, Picard, and Strange New Worlds.

Maybe people were expecting the studio to spend more money because it-s a movie and are baffled by production values on par with those of a streaming series (the irony there being that production values on streaming series tend to be higher than those of a TV or syndicated series).

I imagine that the state of the Terran Empire as described by San must be a direct result of Mirror Spock’s policies that led to its downfall and the rise of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. I liked that.

Indeed, the prospect of a conduit between the worlds would have been the perfect first-season end point for Georgiou (the temptation of going home to restore her fallen Empire, maybe with her newfound goodness), with its destruction being the perfect second-season opener.

Critics were kind to TNG seasons 3-7, DS9 seasons 4-7, and a majority of the films.

Three and four years after the fact. The initial reaction of every “real” fan has always been to hate every new Star Trek series for not being like either TOS or TNG.

Ah, I was talking about professional critics. My only experience of how fandom reacted was limited to a small sampling from ‘96 onwards – TrekBBS and AOL forums. From what I could see, DS9 at that point was getting appreciated in the moment by a slowly dwindling fan base.

Cool.

I hope so, this was pretty bad and I will never understand the appeal of that character. Yeoh played her well in this movie though, but nothing I would call stellar acting either.

The movie is not the worst thing ever and has some positives for sure, but it felt like the was no reason to make this at all. It just feels like a side project isolated from everything else in the franchise.

It’s getting slammed for very valid reasons, the biggest being it just doesn’t feel like Star Trek enough and a very by the numbers story.

When Michelle Yeoh won the Oscar there was no way a Section 31 project of some sort wasn’t going to move forward.

It felt like they took the outline that had been developed for an entire season and squeezed it into a 90 minute film.

It doesn’t work.

 a very by the numbers story.

Irrational numbers, those.

The movie was not that bad, indeed it was actually likeable, but it wasn’t very “Star Trek”.
It was way better then the last seasons of Discovery, without the constant feeling-sharing and the Burnham will solve it all. Maybe too many fighting sequence that I don’t care at all.
In the end Star Trek should stick to series (Legacy? hellooo), movies are too long and too hard to build on.
I would like a Section 31 series, but more in the Bashir style that this Mission Impossible style or whatever this was.

My biggest issue with the movie (besides the bad directing and dialog and character work and all of that) was that it actually wasn’t fun at all. It was so amateurish in its attempts to be…

On the Other hand. It had some moments, tiny moments where it wasn’t terrible, but those where moments so small I can not even retell them.

Yes exactly, it wasn’t really fun, probably the biggest problem for me (among many). I was actually bored with a lot of it. The pacing wasn’t that bad (and it was only 90 minutes, I don’t know why people keep saying 100) but there were scenes that just felt lifeless.

And also agreed, there were some good moments for sure, but way more bad than good IMO.

The irony, of course, is that i was trying to be fun.

It was boring. The last 20 minutes in particular were a chore to sit through.

It wasn’t a bad movie, and Michelle Yeoh was the highlight for me. I lump this in with popcorn movies, not movies that make me have profound thought.

Oh, Space Hitler because someone will say it (I actually like the Empress).

Yeah, this was absolutely a vehicle for Michelle and it was obvious she was having a lot of fun. I enjoyed the film and I’ll definitely watch it again.

this was absolutely a vehicle for Michelle 

I’m starting to think she’s overrated these days. I enjoyed some of her early work (Bond, Crouching Tiger), but I’m wondering whether she may have peaked. At the very least, she needs a serious re-thinking of the roles she’s accepting.

Everything Everywhere All at Once wasn’t remotely as bad as this so-called Star Trek film, but it was dull and hardly the triumph the Academy made it out to be.

That’s a hot take. Like, spicy and wash your fingers after touching, hot.

She was good in Sunshine, which is a much, much better science fiction film.

I’m just glad it was only 90 minutes. Any longer and I would have shut it off. Yeoh seemed to be enjoying herself, but I don’t like the character so that didn’t matter much. It’s difficult for me to view any genocidal tyrant as a heroine.

“It’s difficult for me to view any genocidal tyrant as a heroine.”

That’s exactly what turned me off about it.
not that they tried something new. Not even the theme of Section 31, even if it was poorly realized. But making a butcher a heroine – lousy idea.

I don’t get this need to “redeem” the Emperor just because Michelle Yeoh is personally likable.

Thinking of redemption arcs in Trek, Damar comes to mind. He was part of the Occupation and complicit in a system of slavery, forced labour, and mass murder. It took a lot of heavy lifting for him to have something resembling redemption, and that was for his actions on one planet. Scale that up massively and you have the weight of what the Emperor needs to do.

I don’t think it’s the sort of thing that can be done in a movie, nor do I think it’s appropriate as fodder for a fun, comic, action romp.

Agreed. You cannot redeem Hitler or Saddam Hussain.

Kirk tried to redeem Khan..

But that store no longer accepted Blue chip stamps.

Agreed!

I just suffered through it. I went in open-minded, hoping for the best. Turns out, this is an MST3K-level “B” movie. If this is Star Trek, then Star Trek in 2025 has definitely lost its way. What a dumpster fire of one-dimensional characters and awful direction (the camera whips and zooms like they gave it to a four year old!)

Yeah. The camerawork …! Remeber a scene were they zoomed in on a figure and the image went blurry. Like in 90s budget TV.

My only disappointment was that there was no post-credit teaser scene, like we often see in Marvel Universe films. Yeah, this isn’t Marvel. But there were specialized “hints” that only became realized when the final “reveal” occurred – and it was a shocker. A shocker and a half. And the shock brought a HUGE SMILE to my face!

I should have seen it coming, but it wasn’t obvious enough to shed light on what was to come.

“STAR TREK” and the delta shield, which now appears in all new televised ‘Trek shows, first shone in reverse, then beam-morphed to its regular stance. OK, Section 31 operates almost “in reverse” of what is expected of Starfleet and people of the Federation. This story was released on a Friday. Friday, January 24, 2025.

Reverse the section number? Weird.

Is that a total THREE hints of what’s (or “who’s”) to come?

I didn’t care. This was a new story based upon Star Trek. And yeah, I did enjoy watching how the writing unfolded: how did this work OUTSIDE the Federation? Name planets and systems in the dialogue were fascinating, and I plan to look them up to find out everything previously known in canon about them. Thereby hangs many tales yet to tell……………

This did not contradict previous canon as I read so many feared it might, and perhaps future stories will show us how Rachell Garrett became the trustworthy, quick decision-maker Captain we saw in “Yesterday’s Enterprise.”

But go back to those THREE “hints” from the opening. Could James T. Kirk have been one who would perform a reasonable “operation” for Section 31 during his career? He may have, and Spock, his XO, had had experience with ’31 during the DIS era. (I’m aware many Trekkies don’t [want to] accept DIS as ‘regular’ ‘Trek canon, but let’s go with that either way for the purpose of this discussion.)

“The Enterprise Incident” is said by many to be so far from what we expected from those two men, but what if there was more to that story than we saw during that episode? More, meaning something so logical Spock would convince Kirk it was worth taking the risk, and perhaps he himself was “prompted” by ’31 for reasons even beyond what was logical, and was both professional and personal to Kirk.

We may never know unless someone writes and films such a backstory, perhaps with the SNW series or yet another one-off film such as ST: S31.

Again, I bring up the opening credit “hints”

The three hints came to me in an instant, and in that instant I yelled out lout, quite LOUDLY, and came right up out of my seat. I will not spoil it here, for those who haven’t seen the film yet. But I will indeed hint: seeing that moment led me to believe there’s a whole lot more to tell, and with this cast – especially Michelle Yeoh—-

—AND THIS PERSON, revealed at the very end—

—, there are TREMENDOUS possibilities, and this Trekkie can’t wait to see more of what happens with this crew! With a huge smile on my face, here’s hoping for more S31.”

I want to see more S31. More of everything. Everywhere. All at once.

So you’re up for more?
Oh, hell yes.”

Oh, hell no. This movie turned out to be even worse than I had expected it to be.

I wouldn’t expect her to say anything else.

I gave it a chance because of Michelle Yeoh. The intro which shows how Georgiou became an emperor was good. That was the only good scene in the movie for me. The only other thing that was okay with the film was the fact that we finally got to know San’s backstory, which I had been waiting for since Georgiou’s final appearance on Discovery before entering the Guardian of Forever. Now for the downside of the film. Where do I start? The other characters were unlikable and unnecessary. They could have done so much like bringing an aged Ash Tyler into the mix. He is after all technically not the real Ash but a klingon surgically altered with Ash’s memories imprinted on him. Physically, klingons reportedly live longer than humans. 150 years or so if I’m not mistaken. So he would have been alive in the early 24th century. Also, Jamie Lee Curtis should have been more involved in the movie. I think her character bantering back and forth with Georgiou would have made the film more interesting. I hope Paramount forgives the bad writing and that they will consider focusing their budget on better made for streaming films or the Star Trek Legacy series so many fans and actors have been asking for but the studio has ignored.

I don’t understand all the hate. Would I have preferred a different Trek tale? Probably, but this was a fun little adventure story and I thought a good redemption arc for the character, who was not likable at all in Disco. The acting was good and there was a Trek morality tale too. It was enjoyable enough for me. I appreciate that they tried something way out of the box.

I haven’t watched it yet – just the prequel bit (trying to be ambiguous). The first seven minutes.

However, most of the hate I’m reading seems to come from one of two camps :

1) It’s not Star Trek (whatever the hell that means)
2) Georgiou is a horrible character.

well, I’m 54 and was in the cinema in 1979 for TMP so I do have a little experience with Trek.

i don’t like the generalisation of Original Trek : Good, Kurtzman era : Bad.

TOS wasn’t popular. TNG and DS9 were great. But not that whole era was watchable for me.

and it’s the same in the Kurtzman era.

But the sheer hate coming out after this release I find profoundly depressing.

im not a fan personally of Lower Decks. But some of the episodes landed profoundly with me, and I recognise the talent of the creators even if its not for me.

I’ll make up my own mind on Section 31 but keep this hatred up against Kurtzman and so called “modern” Star Trek and you may inadvertently get what you want.

> TOS wasn’t popular.

Not true. Marc Cushman’s excellent series “These are the Voyages” goes into the details as to why NBC cancelled the show.

Cushman and journalistic accuracy are virtually antonyms.

Cringe. Unforgivably bad film. Let’s stop pretending this wasn’t the worst disaster in Trek history.

Horrible concept. Horrible characters. Horrible acting. I wonder why this is being so derided?

I feel like a lot of Trek fans are bitter because so many people hoped this movie would be next level and it’s just average, mostly (imo) because you can’t have a story in a movie designed to unfold over seasons of TV. If you tell me to come watch a movie because Georgiou is in it I will – not gonna lie. It was a fun film that could have been more and it’s a shame it wasn’t able to be a series and have time to present this story in a more believable way. It brought together a fun team of characters that could make some entertaining adventures if given the chance- if fans don’t hate on it so much we could get a TV series out of it after all where Section 31 could develop and entertain and Georgiou could be better utilized. It wasn’t awful. It wasn’t amazing. I kinda wish they’d left Georgiou out of it all together tbh – her character is too big for a small storyline like this if they aren’t going to go all in. There were other trek movies (hello Nemesis) I’d say were worse in quality, and those had whole crews of STTNG fully developed characters, so trying to make a new team around her was very forced. TI wish this had been a TV miniseries with Georgiou showing up occasionally and I hope this doesn’t cancel more Section 31 stuff because the possibilities are endless and Georgiou is a good fit for Section 31.