Interview: Alex Kurtzman On The Evolution Of ‘Section 31’ And What He Has Learned Running Star Trek TV

Alex Kurtzman interview - S31 red carpet NYC - TrekMovie

In addition to our chat during a junket last week, TrekMovie also had a chance to talk to executive producer Alex Kurtzman at the premiere in New York City premiere of Star Trek: Section 31. We spent a few minutes with the man who oversees the Star Trek franchise on TV to talk about how this new streaming movie fits into Trek, how it has changed during years of development, and what could be next for this format.

So, fans have been worried [about Section 31]…

Yeah, I know!

So what would you say is the Star Trek of it all that would reassure them?

Here’s what I would say. I think that first and foremost, as a fan, and as many fans that I’ve spoken to, I think you you tend to find Star Trek because you feel somehow like you don’t fit in, right? And Star Trek becomes a safe place that tells you it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to be a misfit. And this is a movie about misfits, right? And so in a way, it’s, I think, reinforcing one of the things that is elemental about Star Trek.

The other thing I would say is that Section 31 asks this really interesting question, because Trek has always been a mirror that holds itself up to the moment. Right? It’s not really about the future, it’s allegorical stories that are about what we’re dealing with now. And in that way, we’re asking ourselves “Who do we have to be in order to protect our freedoms? Who do we have and what has to be done in order to protect our freedoms? And where is that gray area?: Because it’s always easy to talk in black and white, but it’s very difficult to talk about the gray area, right? And that’s an active debate about the nature of Section 31 that’s existed since DS9, and we’re taking that to a new place. So ultimately, I feel like what we’re saying is that in order for Starfleet and that beautiful vision that Roddenberry had of this optimistic utopia, in order for that vision to exist, in order for the light to exist, you need people who operate in the shadows. And it’s a yin and yang. You can’t have one without the other. So I feel like ultimately, even though we touch on dark things in the movie, it’s not a dark movie. It’s a very fun movie, and it reinforces what I think is essential about Star Trek, which is the idea that in the future, our better angels have won. They’ve led us to a better tomorrow, and that’s what we have. And just because the misfits in our movie aren’t the kinds of characters that can don a Starfleet uniform and be on a starship, they want the same thing that a Starfleet officer would want, which is that vision that Roddenberry had for a better tomorrow. And in that way, I think it’s just another color in the rainbow of Star Trek.

Joe Pingue as Dada Noe in Star Trek: Section 31 streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

I know Section 31 went through a lot of changes, from a TV show to movie… Other than Michelle Yeoh, what else was kept from that original idea?

A lot, actually. You know, the fact that we had worked for so long on the on the show… We built a world, we built characters, we built an idea, we built an arc for her, and it’s the same story. The difference is, we would have told it in 10 hours. Now we’re telling it in two. And what, for me, is really fun is that it’s really a space Western. You know, if you look at the paradigm of a Western, she’s like Clint Eastwood in a Western. She’s a gunslinger with a past that she’s been running away from. She’s offered a chance of redemption, she has to decide if she’s going to take it. That’s a really fun thing to be able to do in the context of Star Trek.

I know [Discovery‘s Ash] Tyler was initially going to be in the series? Was there anyone else from Discovery who was possibly going to be in it? 

I mean, we would have considered it, but you’re in a very different timeframe, so you would have had to deal with time travel, which, of course, has been done many, many times in Star Trek. But, you know, it’s always a question. You don’t want to do it just to do it, you want to do it because the story demands that you have to do it.

So why did you pick this particular time [early 24th century] for it?

Because of Rachel Garrett… I think we felt like you needed a Starfleet officer in the mix, saying, “Wait a minute. this is what Star Trek these are the rules, why aren’t you following the rules?” and she just was the perfect—the other thing that, again, you asked, like, why should a character be in there? To us, what was so fun was the idea of a proto-captain. She’s not the captain that she becomes. She actually learns an incredibly important lesson about sacrifice and what it means to lead because of this experience. So when you watch [TNG’s] “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” you can go, “Oh, right, actually, she learned part of what happens there from her experience in Section 31” and then suddenly it becomes a richer and more dimensional experience.

L to R Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou and Kacey Rohl as Rachel in Star Trek: Section 31 streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Michael Gibson/Paramount+

Do you think these streaming movies are going to be a way forward for Star Trek? And if so, like, are there things you’re already considering for possible new ones?

I think it’s entirely possible. We’ll see how people react. There’s a lot… Paramount is going through a lot of changes right now, we have no idea what that’s going to mean. At this point, all we can do is just keep our noses down and keep working on Star Trek. But I think anything’s possible. I think Trek, in its soul and in its core, is, is a series, right? It’s an ongoing adventure. It’s a five-year mission. But the movies have also proven that some stories are better told in two hours, and so it’s actually a great opportunity, and now that streaming film can exist as separate from theatrical releases, I think it only opens the possibility to more.

We’ve had the Roddenberry era, the Berman era, and this is the Kurtzman era. So what do you feel now that you’ve seen a bunch of Star Trek live-action and animated shows—what do you what are your takeaways in terms of what works and what doesn’t in terms of creating and sustaining new Trek?

You know, I feel like what’s most important is to try new things. You have to do this really weird thing with Star Trek, which is you have to please the core fans first and foremost, but you also have to bring in new fans. And a lot of the time, the new fans don’t necessarily respond to the things that are 50 years old or more. And you have to find that balance. So you have to do something that’s both entirely familiar and totally fresh at the same time. And any story that falls into that, I think, is what we’re aiming for.

Alex Kurtzman talking to TrekMovie at the NYC premiere of Star Trek: Section 31

Alex Kurtzman at the 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

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Perhaps the next new thing for him to try is selling used cars to the blind.

> I think that first and foremost, as a fan, and as many fans that I’ve spoken to, I think you you tend to find Star Trek because you feel somehow like you don’t fit in, right? And Star Trek becomes a safe place that tells you it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to be a misfit. And this is a movie about misfits, right? And so in a way, it’s, I think, reinforcing one of the things that is elemental about Star Trek.

You just improvised that nonsense on the spot, didn’t you Alex.

Ok, I just have to pick this apart, too.. it’s Baloney. I mean.. I get that’s what S31 is about… but not Star Trek. Trek was aspirational. I believed in those characters they put on the screen. They weren’t misfits, they were exceptional, living in a future where humankind has become exceptional. That whole statement just tells just how he has no clue about what Star Trek is about.

I’m not going to say I don’t sometimes look at myself and see a misfit, especially when I was a kid. I certainly understand some people seeing themselves in coded characters like Data or Seven. But Star Trek’s insight into humanity to me doesn’t feel right to just boil down to, “You’re a misfit. These people are also misfits. That’s Star Trek now.” And that’s setting aside the aspirational aspect, which isn’t -always- there in Roddenberry and Berman Trek, but usually.

It’s kinda the same issue I have with their creating Adira and Gray and not doing more than just casting a groundbreaking couple without affording them depth. I don’t like how surface the franchise has gotten.

yeah….he was talking about Suicide Squad – not Star Trek.

I am a Space Hitler who killed billions of people and no one understands me! If only I could find a place to fit in–some redemption!!! Woe is me!!!

Okay, that is my daily dose of sarcasm for the day, and in a nutshell, why I can’t see this as Star Trek. Sorry, I’m old.

Trying to make Adolf ‘cool’ when she is responsible for killing billions of people while we learn in this movie they are trying to stop some genocide device SHE CREATED after learning she killed her own family just shows how tone deaf these people are.

Just because some people like Yeoh as an actress doesn’t mean most accept her character as a lead in Star Trek. She’s disgusting and vile. Many people hate everything she represents and thinks she can NEVER be redeemed.

It’s crazy, but I read an article a few months ago that when they were creating Voyager they wanted Nick Locarno as part of the cast but some of the producers pushed back on it because they thought he couldn’t be redeemed for what he did at the Academy. And even if they tried they thought fans themselves would reject it.

This is a guy who just made a mistake that got someone killed but then tried to cover it up. Even though he accpted responsibility in the end the very fact that a Starfleet cadet tried to cover up another cadet’s death, even just being an accident showed how much honor and integrity these characters were meant to have in StarTrek. And he wasn’t even supposed to be the lead.

But that was the old guard. They got Star Trek on a profound level.

What we have today are very different people who are OK with making mutineers captains and giving someone like Adolf her own show when she literally bragged how she wiped the Talosians away in an episode and tried to help Starfleet blow up Qronos. Now we found out she murdered her own family just to be the Emperor.

Someone this disgusting should’ve never been allowed to lead a Star Trek movie. I don’t care how many Oscars Yeoh wins, it’s a still a stain on the franchise this character has so much clout in it.

She can never be redeemed IMO and after the huge backlash this movie has gotten at least there won’t be anymore Georgiou led projects anymore which most people never wanted in the first place.

What we have today are very different people who are OK with making mutineers captains and giving someone like Adolf her own show…

Don’t forget:

– Spock, as a LTJG, disobeying direct orders given to him by a senior admiral, in person, face-to-face, moments before. (There’s not “changed circumstances” or insanity defense here.)

– An ensign reporting to her mother, who reports to the mother’s husband. Said mother unilaterally promotes her daughter. Not quite genocide level transgressions, to be sure, but still horrible management.

– Cadet-to-captain Kirk overnight.

This is a guy who just made a mistake that got someone killed but then tried to cover it up. Even though he accpted responsibility in the end the very fact that a Starfleet cadet tried to cover up another cadet’s death, even just being an accident showed how much honor and integrity these characters were meant to have in StarTrek. And he wasn’t even supposed to be the lead.

Great point! (And I kind of disagreed with that call.)

#FireKurtzman

Well, it does make sense. Why is Discovery so contemptible, for example? It’s all whining and crying and poor-me, like that’s what Star Trek is all about, and like that’s enough for a TV show of any kind.

I stopped reading when I read that. #1 going further was likely to make my head explode in rage. #2 it does explain a lot.

It does make sense in a way. Trek shows a humanity has almost completely moved beyond the hate and discrimination that plagues us and accepts people for who they, their differences and gives them the opportunity to improve themselves.

That’s both very appealing and aspirational to both those that don’t fit in and to those that do.

This film isn’t that. It’s a bog standard misfit action comedy where none of the characters care that the people on their team were horrifically killed on the mission as they needed to make another joke.

It also doesn’t really work having a redemption based story that’s a comedy for someone who has committed genocide on a galactic scale, killed her own parents, kept slaves, personally murdered countless people without batting an eye lid and actively been a cannibal of intelligent sentient species.

I’m going to go back to something my Mama used to say… if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all. Now.. I should qualify, I’d bet Alex Kurtzman is a lovely person, but I don’t know him. The only things I would have to say about him would be in a professional sense, and I don’t have anything nice to say about his professional endeavors. So I’ll leave it at that.

Yup. [And that’s all nice I have to say.]

ditto

I saw him in line at a cafe in Santa Monica on Montana Blvd once.

I’m sure this must be deeply embarrassing for him. It’s all so cringe.

I don’t remember Michael Cimino being embarrassed by the heaven’s gate reception. Or Ed Wood cringing over his films.

Though Phil Tucker did have to go into therapy after Robot Monster debuted. Maybe that is a more apt comparison?

“You know, the fact that we had worked for so long on the on the show… We built a world, we built characters, we built an idea, we built an arc for her, and it’s the same story. The difference is, we would have told it in 10 hours. Now we’re telling it in two. “

I suspect those missing eight hours is where all the heart and depth went. We got the cliff notes version of a mini series. You have a streaming service in a bad financial situation desperate to make up some of its investment when the series fell through, and this is what you get. I actually like Kurtzman, but he’s really slipped on a banana peel.

Alternately, this might just be a bad story, minus the usual padding. I mean, are you suggesting they cut out the richness and complexity in favor of what remains?

Do you just want me to repeat what I already said? I’m suggesting what I obviously suggested. That’s what I began with “I suspect”, meaning what I personally believe to be probable.

And you’re arguing you believe otherwise. Which is fine. You do you. I don’t think there’s much point in having a stupid argument over something we’ll never see anyway. Why argue just to argue?

It’s not arguing just to argue. An awful lot of my takeaways with streaming series over the last decade or so have to do with the way shows like BOSCH sometimes stretched a single novel into 10 hours, often to the detriment of things. When BOSCH started combining two novels to get their 10 hours — plus doing it very adroitly — the show was much improved.

I think that the ticking clock to wrap up a show in an hour in the episodic era was a very good discipline, even if it did sometimes shortchange things. It’s also why I really though that the best way to explore a complex notion or culture was in miniseries form, because you could spent more time getting to the meat of the thing and seeing the fallout/impact from getting there. But not at the expense of telling a story properly. Since the KurtzBunch don’t seem to know how to tell a story properly at any length, it seems going longer is only going to prolong the misery.

It’s a conundrum, because these writers do this all the time. They bend long form stories into short form, and vice versa because of studio decisions.. but they really don’t know how to do it. And no, it’s not easy to just shorten or elongate effectively. I’d argue most series could be condensed. Kenobi is a GREAT example. It was a film, became a series, and you can really see that it would have been better as a film. When you add filler and it’s not interesting or illuminating, you get mediocrity at best. When you condense a series down, you lose nuance. I contend any series that is not following an episodic format with stand alone episodes, is probably too long, unless the writers really know what they’re doing. The best way to do it, is to tell three or so mini stories (or just smaller arcs) within a larger arc (in all honesty THAT was the fundamental thing about Picard S3 that made it great). I’d rather get a compelling 6 hour series than a 10 hour series that’s just meeting the studio’s quota.

Ok. I don’t agree with your conclusion but that’s at least a reply that I could respond to if I wanted to.

That was my take from it as well. I don’t know if it would have been a lot better if it had been a series as originally intended. At the very least maybe there would have been more character development and they might have realised early on how annoying the character of Fuzz was.

Fuzz was thoroughly unappealing as a character. Not fun to listen to or look at. The others, given an actual arc and maybe a flashback episode, could have worked. You can almost see the original plan for this if you squint.

No.
No.
In January 2019, I met Alex Kurtzman at the premiere of Star Trek Discovery season 2 in Manhattan. I presented him with a Manila envelope with a treatment for a prospective future season of Discovery. He didn’t have to agree to look at it, especially since I was a 17 year old boy at the time, but he agreed to. He was a generous man, who went so far as to have lawyers from CBS reach out to me with a submission release form so he would be able to look at it. And in November of that year, he sent me a Secret Hideout memo with his thoughts on what I had written, outlining what he liked and what he thought I could improved.

Alex was good to me, and I thank him.

But how dare he.

This was a project by degenerates, for degenerates. Where once Star Trek brought hope and solace for a future that would reward our effort and dignity, this brought fear and terror for a future that is not worth surviving for. And it could not have happened without him. In 1979, the Star Trek motto was “The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning.” In 2025, the Star Trek motto is, “Humanity is a stupid species, and they should hurry up and die off already.”

How dare he.

Brave people once imagined a bold future where we could all get along. Gene Roddenberry, Michael Piller, Dorothy Fontana. Nicholas Meyer, Ron Moore and countless others stood on the soldiers of the greatest generation and fought to cement their gains for human dignity. They fought to set humanity on a better course, where loyalty and duty mattered. A future where the human race could be proud of itself.

How dare he.

Alex, you have stood on the shoulders of giants and crushed their throats. You were good to me, but I cannot forgive what you have done to this vision of humanity that I love.

Alex, leave.

I will not be watching Starfleet Academy, even if it is good. The quality is not the issue so much as your involvement. There is a reason that every time you try to get Star Trek right, every season falls apart somewhere down the line. There’s a reason that you couldn’t get Star Trek right for 5 years and Terry Matalas could get it right in a single season. That is because, I truly believe, Section 31 is where you are most comfortable.

You cannot solve Star Trek when you are the problem.

I don’t care what it takes. Get Terry to take your job. And fire yourself.

And when you do, remember this: I defended you on online forms like this one for the last 7 years.

Glad to see a young person who enjoys Star Trek!

Sorry to hear about the rest!

Wow. It was really nice of him to look at your treatment.

It was. Genuinely.

I definitely commend and respect Alex’s actions in your story, that’s very nice, decent and honourable. It was also brave of you to put yourself out there like that.

But yes, regardless of how nice he is, Section 31 is an incredibly bad movie on every level.

It just dawned on me: Alex just called us all misfits. Honestly, he’s right. Many of us are misfits. Worf was a misfit. Data was a misfit. Odo was a misfit. Spock was a misfit.
The characters in this project are degenerates. They are only misfits in the 24th century, but they would feel right at home in 2025.
Alex has a lot of nerve to lump Star Trek fans, Worf, and “Fuzz” into the same boat. He thinks we’re all the same?
He cannot leave soon enough.

In January 2019, I met Alex Kurtzman at the premiere of Star Trek Discovery season 2 in Manhattan. I presented him with a Manila envelope with a treatment for a prospective future season of Discovery. He didn’t have to agree to look at it, especially since I was a 17 year old boy at the time, but he agreed to. He was a generous man, who went so far as to have lawyers from CBS reach out to me with a submission release form so he would be able to look at it. And in November of that year, he sent me a Secret Hideout memo with his thoughts on what I had written, outlining what he liked and what he thought I could improved.

That was very nice of him. Are you able to share your idea?

I think Star Trek would be well-served by openly accepting fan spec scripts again. I’m sure they got a lot of dreck that was thoroughly unproduceable, but we also got several excellent TNG episodes, like “Tin Man.” I doubt Tawny Newsome has done anything approaching that.

Yeah, sure. I don’t suppose it matters at this point, now that Discovery is gone.
Here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17HTFaFUmMhIYO0dTR4ED-ziXw6CvGUmPM-R5uRB3GR8/edit?usp=sharing

Bye, Felicia. You don’t get to decide what Star Trek is and is not.

WELL SAID!

Hmm.

Sorry, I’m calling “bovine feces”. These answers make little-to-no sense. I like to think of myself as being overall very supportive of NuTrek, flaws and all, because I remember when we didn’t have ANY new Trek. I’m a professional creative myself, so I understand the need for the work to to be reflective of the times and audience, but Section 31 so completely missed the mark for what makes something Trek. I was insulted, as a fan. Which is sad, because I love Trek no matter what. But holy crap, what a mistake.

You seem to be like me, willing to take the highs and lows of this era in stride, just like we look at the Roddenberry and Berman eras. I’ve enjoyed the majority of it. I think it says a lot that this movie lost people like us.

Exactly

Paramount makes the Mission Impossible movies, and they couldn’t make Section 31 a proper spy movie?

I just want to know how Section 31 went from an intelligent organization run by Luther Sloan to a barely capable group of one-liner quipping misfits.

Section 31 under Sloan attempted to win the Dominion war by trying to commit genocide. Remind anyone of someone?

It would have been interesting to find out that Sloan’s mentor was none other than the former emperor herself, but I guess they never thought that deep since they were more interested in making a big joke out of it all like everything else they are doing with Star Trek. There was nothing dark or gritty about it at all.

cruise, mcQ and even JJ nowhere near this s31 movie

“… you tend to find Star Trek because you feel somehow like you don’t fit in, right? And Star Trek becomes a safe place that tells you it’s okay to be different…”

What? This is absolute manure. I fit in fine thank you. My safe place is my own life, beautiful wife, dog and cat and I don’t need Star Trek or anything else to tell me it’s OK to be different. I already know this. I’ll decide what I want to be and no one but myself when I look in the mirror is qualified to tell me otherwise.

The underlying message he’s trying to convey here is glaringly obvious and offensive.

Star Trek was built on outsider characters, like Spock. I see what he’s trying to say here, and it’s not offensive. I get people are disappointed with the movie, and they should be, but let’s keep our heads. I’m not going to dump on the guy for saying it’s okay to be different….

He’s not telling us it’s ok to be different. He’s saying we’re drawn to Star Trek because we need to be told it’s ok to be different. And that’s not ok.

Dude…. Chill

If you need to be coddled that’s on you. I’m not a child.

Nobody said you were a child.

I was saying you are, but I didn’t know I had to spell it out…

We’re just talking about Star Trek here. You’re way over the top.
As someone who has benefited from seeing a therapist, I sincerely suggest you look into it. It helps. Really.

Are you okay?

I known you’re not. Ashoka isn’t coming back. Deal with it.

????

This makes no sense — some people do need to hear the message that its ok to be different – good for you that you don’t, but there are some out there that need to hear that.

Yes, and that’s a very small percentage of the Star Trek viewership, yet he’s implying it’s everyone. Are you getting it now?

Respectfully, Mr. Kurtzman, step away with grace and humility.

You’re expecting too much from him

To be fair he’s probably legally obligated to be supportive of the movie right now.

Given time, he might open up a little about what went wrong. Star Trek writers and producers have actually had a long history of being open about their failures in the franchise. I’ve often admired them for that.

Many of the more successful creatives have been, I’ll grant you that. But overall, Paramount has maintained a fanatical focus on spin at least since the late 70s, and they rarely let the cat out of the bag. They wouldn’t even approve images for the very truthful RETURN TO TOMORROW book, which was about a movie that was at that time 36 years old!

I helped another writer do a couple of FILMFAX stories about that phase 2 to TMP era about 20 years back, and again, Paramount was total control freak mode on it. They demanded to see the articles before approving any images, then still refused to approve any images (the mag wound up using stuff they had in their own library, since they owned the images from the old wonderful FANTASTIC FILMS magazine.)

And they kept the Piller INSURRECTION book from going to press as well. PR controls for the newer series have been rather stringent … nearly all interviews have to have a PR person on the line with the interviewer and interviewee, even though there’s never been a spoiler to be found in over 400 production articles I’ve done.

I don’t know about all those examples, but I was thinking about how Berman and Braga have commented about how the thought These Are the Voyages was a good idea, and how they misjudged that. Or Braga and Moore talking about all the things they wish they had done differently with Generations. Good intentions go astray. In the end, all we have is hindsight.

It’s ironic that my biggest takeaway is that Alex Kurtzman has in fact learning absolutely NOTHING running Star Trek. It’s actually almost impressive.

Yeah, I am sadly seeing the same thing. There is always a lot of lip service that never adds up to what shows up on screen. A few years ago he had a very inspirational interview where he said something to the effect that his outlook had changed and that he wanted to make meaningful content. I wanted to believe it, I really did but in my heart I knew it was just saying what the fans wanted to hear. I guess the key thing is that all he is making…IS content.

Everything he says just makes me super angry. Alex, for the love of science, please step down and let someone who understands Star Trek take over!
You made me hate Star Trek, once the best thing I’ve seen on TV. Shame on you.

please please please

Typical lip service. Not a fan of his.

Who do we have to be in order to protect our freedoms? Who do we have and what has to be done in order to protect our freedoms? And where is that gray area?: Because it’s always easy to talk in black and white, but it’s very difficult to talk about the gray area, right? And that’s an active debate about the nature of Section 31 that’s existed since DS9, and we’re taking that to a new place. “

gosh – I wish they had made that movie instead of whatever this was…because NONE of what he said was in this film. At all.

Never understood why Section 31 existed in the first place – what is Starfleet Intelligence? – my confusion comes from it being compared to the Obsidian Order and the Tal’Shar – both ruthless intelligence agencies but both not secret no-body knows about organizations …. like basically they are the same as Starfleet Intelligence, just (more?) ruthless? But Section 31 is something different? I never understood.

*Minor spoilers towards rhe end*

That was a lot of word salad, wasn’t it? I appreciate them trying new things and trying to push what the franchise can do, but this was a swing and a miss for me. I’ve heard some people describe Section 31 as Star Trek’s Acolyte, however I’m in the minority who actually enjoyed The Acolyte.

I know I wasn’t the target audience for this (all the promotional materials seemed to be geared towards what they think teenage boys are interested in), but I wasn’t the target audience for Skeleton Crew either. I didn’t think I’d enjoy Skeleton Crew going in (largely because of the difference in tone from the rest of Star Wars – what’s this planet small town America?), but it showed what can be done with a limited series within an existing franchise and taking inspiration from older works (Treasure Island, The Goonies, ‘80s Amblin).

And using inspiration from other works for Section 31 would be fine – if they hadn’t chosen Suicide Squad (a divisive property in its own right) as one of them. I’ll add Guardians of the Galaxy to that as well, as likewise I am not a fan.

I do think this would have been better served as a short-form limited series of 6-8 episodes so the characters could have been explored more deeply (why did Garrett have to be there? What is the significance of Alok being an augment?) and ideas given more time to gestate.

i hope that this is not the last experiment with streaming films, and that the producers will actually learn something from this. And I hope that this is the last we’ve seen of both Section 31 and the Mirror Universe for a very long time, but they keep going back to those wells.

And I hope that this is the last we’ve seen of both Section 31 and the Mirror Universe for a very long time, but they keep going back to those wells.”

Yeah. Section 31 was originally a nefarious organization and not intended to be glorified as something hip and cool to base stories off of. The whole mirror universe thing is just played out and really didn’t need any more stories beyond “Mirror, Mirror”. It’s time to close the book on both.

Agreed about the dry wells, and they’ve been dry for some time now. As for this being a series, there is no way I would have watched anything past episode one.

“And a lot of the time, the new fans don’t necessarily respond to the things that are 50 years old or more.”

Wrong. A franchise gets to be 50 years old because the things that came before still resonate and draws new fans.

Star Wars comes to mind.

This is a difficult one. I respect the effort it takes to make something like this, and don’t like to attack people involved because it’s their livelihood and careers that get affected.

But this project was just plain wrong. It was wrong at its very foundation and I’m just stunned at the lack of awareness. Okay, Yeoh won the Oscar and you have a limited window to get something out before the next Oscars to take advantage. Okay, you only have a 2ish hour streaming movie (and budget) to work with. Okay, you need to do something different to attract new fans, but familiar enough to satisfy the fanbase. None of these are easy or straightforward to achieve. So one has to have some empathy here.

But if you’re going to make a S31 movie (which was NOT necessary in the first place) then you should at least get what S31 is. S31 is NOT the CIA. S31 is not some intelligence agency that does conscious-challenging secretive missions ‘out there’ so we can be safe ‘here’. DS9 established S31 as an agency that will genocide any race that legitimately threatens the existence of the Federation years before that war even started (Odo was infected in S4). S31 will plan the next war before the current one has ended. S31 is not acknowledged as existing officially even by Starfleet Command. It does not answer to anyone. It can do whatever it wants and get away with it. It could have ‘disappeared’ Bashir if he failed his test and no one would have ever find out the truth.

That is terrifying.

That is why Bashir and Sisko (and Dax/O’Brien) wanted to take it down. It wasn’t the Federation equivalent of the Obsidian Order or Tal Shiar. That’s what Starfleet Intelligence is. The OO/TS tried to genocide the Dominion like a blunt instrument and got out-played. S31 had the Founders number before that first Dominion shot was fired at DS9. S31 was different. Ruthless, Efficient. Ominous. It was unaccountable. It had existed since the founding of the Federation centuries ago and successfully stayed hidden in the shadows, even from the Federation itself. Who knows what evil things it had done in that time, including to Federation citizens. It went against everything the Federation and Starfleet was supposed to represent – Paradise. Utopia. Peaceful Co-existence.

So did this film ruin S31? No. That took place in ENT, ST:ID and DIS. They removed S31 from the shadows and made it official and well known. ENT made it look incompetent. ST:ID made it look corrupt. DIS made it look ‘fancy’. It was already ruined before now.

But this MI/GotG ripoff didn’t help. It is not the way to go for the franchise. You’re not going to out-Tom Cruise Tom Cruise or out-James Gunn James Gunn. You have to be uniquely Star Trek to attract new fans, not put ‘Star Trek’ in the smallest font possible on posters (Beyond also did this) and make trailers that try to distance itself from looking like Star Trek.

And the comments on ‘reflecting current times’ and ‘needing agencies like S31’ to protect our freedom are starting to sound cringe. I remember hearing similar things regarding WMDs in Iraq. Let me know when those show up.

Star Trek means defeating evil while retaining what makes us good and worthy of winning. Not throwing good out the window and doing evil things because ‘it’s needed’ (and looks cool on screen).

Excellent riposte.

They would have been better off making the ragtag team misfits a part of Starfleet Intelligence, and not Section 31, who had to work with the emperor for that mission, and who Starfleet could easily throw under the bus if things went south with the mission.

They said they wanted to show the dark underbelly of the Federation. I guess for Kurtzman, the dark underbelly is a nightclub.

The under belly is Dark … dark but shiny. (to be read while imagining how Martin Scorsese speaks, “Thin and angry.”)

Well said!

Most fans didn’t want this. Hardly anyone was begging for a Section 31 anything and starring a genocidal dictator who eats her slaves and should be locked up somewhere for all her inhumane war crimes, not given her her own platform.

And they knew this. They saw all the moans and eye rolls on every Star Trek site and social media page every time this thing was brought up. Sure some people wanted it but they were clearly in the minority. Most people wanted, I don’t know, actual Star Trek that was inspirational and good even if flawed people trying to do the right thing. To boldly go and seek out new life and civilizations. That’s exactly why fans fell in love with shows Lower Decks, Prodigy and of course SNW from the start. Those shows gave people that and they all felt very different from each other.

But OK, let’s go with what Kurtzman is saying here, he wants to try new things blah, blah, blah, but no one is saying he can’t. And I give him credit for creating something like LDS which could’ve easily fallen flat on its face. But even that show is inherently Star Trek through and through and fans picked up on that. It looks exactly like Star Trek that many of us grew up with. And he picked someone to run it who understands the franchise and what makes it special in the first place. I get not everyone liked it either but its values nd ideals are the same as all the others, just told differently.

The problem with Section 31 is that it’s not Star Trek. It’s a part of Star Trek obviously but it doesn’t share those values and ideals at all. And then you put in Adolf, one of the most antithetical characters to lead it. There is different, which is fine and then there is making something the total opposition to why people consider the property special for nearly 60 years

Kurtzman knew this, they all did. They knew how much people was against this idea from the very start. So he knew he already had a mountain to climb to convince the millions of fans that even though everything about this felt wrong on so many levels by a lot of people his job was to convince the people who felt that way why our thinking was wrong and that something like this could actually sit alongside TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, SNW, PRO and etc as a proper extension to all of those.

And he failed miserably. 🙄

He failed on a level that I don’t think Star Trek really has before. As said he knew this was already going to be a major challenge and even if it was GOOD that many fans would still reject it. Buy it’s like he basically took everyone’s worst fears of why they hated this idea and put it all in this movie. Not only did it not represent Star Trek it doesn’t even LOOK like Star Trek. Instead of making the lead character more sympathetic they just made her more repugnant by her killing her family at the top of the movie.

They doubled down on all the complaints people keep making about sper villains wanting to destroy the galaxy for revenge. Stock characters and cringe dialog that makes everyone siund like they are in the 21st century and not the 24th. They threw in a freaking Your Mama joke.

This movie felt like it went out of its way to remind people all the things they hate about NuTrek.

I have (kind of) warmed up to Kurtzman lately but this movie exemplifies everything I hated about him and NuTrek since 2009. Just sad on every level.

100%

And now to boldly go… into the Matalas era.

Make it so.

I’m one of the few who, whilst I might have enjoyed PIC S3 in the moment, felt later that it was too much like expensive fan fiction. Way too much fan service (wouldn’t it be cool…?). I’d be very wary about having Matalas back.

If we’re talking about ‘Legacy’, I’m not convinced, either, that any of the newer characters introduced would be enough to carry a series. Seven of Nine can hardly do it on her own, and arguably her story has been told. Her taking the captain’s chair on the Enterprise is a good place to leave off. What more is there to say? Sometimes it’s best to let characters ride off into the sunset.

And I’ve seen more than enough of Jack Crusher to last a lifetime.

I know that in the end it comes down to personal taste, but I’d like to see Jack Crusher again, as long as they don’t make him a 7of9 simp. At any rate, the actor Speleers is great. I’ve always been a fan of Michelle Hurd, and I think her character Musiker has ways to go… and her being in the show might also mean we’d get some cameos from Worf as well.) As for Seven, her fragmented history could make her a brilliant but unorthodox captain, maybe even a little callback to Kirk, but way nerdier. As long as they come up with good stories they can throw the crew into, it could be a lot of fun, good old Trek again. As for Matalas, while I would welcome him show-running Legacy, as long as they dial back the memberberries, I was rather thinking of him becoming the MC of all future Trek. He started under Berman, did an awesome job on 12 Monkeys, and with Picard s03 showed us that he knows how to propel the old & *true* Star Trek into the modern era, fan service or not, against all odds in Kurtzman’s hot mess of a franchise.

I had issues with Picard season 3 but overall I still think it was a great season of Trek. And I think Matalas gets so much praise for it even with its flaws because it was a season that was done with both a limited budget and time and yet still created something solid to a lot of fans. I know others hate it and that’s valid too but Matalas made a season that felt like a mature Trek show again and did right by all the characters. Even if you hated the story. the TNG characters themselves all felt like their old selves, just, well, older.

But yes, there was a lot of nostalgia and memberberries, but people have to remember this was done as TNGs swan song. That was the point. It was meant to bring in everything we remembered and loved about that era of Trek.

I’m sure if a Legacy ever happens, I don’t think it’s going to just be a ton of Easter eggs and nostalgia moments every episode. Again, what has to be said time and time again the show isn’t about the TNG characters, it’s what comes after them and I suspect that will be mostly new stories and characters.

I hope you’re right. Legacy should “boldly go” beyond TNG, but it’s still in that era, so it’s a good arena to add some legacy character cameos, but other than that, it should go where TNG & DS9 didn’t. That would be the hard part. Having that familiar TNG era feel, but creating new stories. Voyager tried to circumvent the problem by sending the ship to the Delta quadrant, but in the end many of their episodes were rehashes & transpositions of what had already come before. Yes, some of these were very refined and therefore even better than the original, but the best episodes were those where the plot was new & fresh.

Alex Kurtzman seems be totally tone deaf. He just doesn’t get it . The optimistic flair of Star Trek is not just the end result. It’s meant to exist and be the overall tone within its universe. Yes it can have some immoral characters and dark spots, but the overall vibe given is not one of dystopiaon negativity. Even on DS9, I didn’t get that vibe. DS9 to me was never “dark”. It was many levels of grey perhaps and most of its protagonist characters were likeable.

What infuriates me to no end is when he says stuff like ” you need to have the dark to eventually get to the light” Thing is most dystopiaon stories are like that. Even the darkest of dystopiaon shows usually involve some level of a happy ending. That’s pretty universal in all tv shows or movies. Just because the protagonists prevail at the end , that doesn’t make the case at all of ” you see this was never a dystopian/dark story to begin with, it ended optimistic! ” The postive end of Section 31, doesn’t make this feel like Star Trek at that point. He totally misses the mark with his take.

And with Section 31 even as a standalone movie Star Trek or otherwise, it’s a just plainly and simply a horrible movie that is not fun IMO and filed with shallow characters.

There’s a level of vitriol around Section 31 that I haven’t seen since the vitriol directed towards Berman/Braga around the Enterprise finale. And while it’s deserved, it’s really part of a larger problem in the industry around franchises to be conservative with story ideas and focus on building out what happened between other shows and movies or returning to favorite characters instead of doing something truly new (Star Wars is also very guilty of this). In that regard, Secret Hideout’s real failure isn’t Section 31, which is more of the same, but the failed promise of Discovery, which had an interesting premise but never should have tried to fill in a gap that really didn’t need to be filled in (the decade before TOS), relied too much on questionable touchpoints with TOS (Spock has another sibling we never knew about, hey, remember the Mirror Universe), and seemed to learn all the wrong lessons of prestige TV (over-serialization, season-long mysteries that ultimately go nowhere, the need to pad out the season because there isn’t enough material for even 10 hyper-serialized episodes). Even Picard S3, which many loved (and I liked), wasn’t immune from this, but instead was just more competently made with a cast of better actors and characters with whom we’re all familiar.

Given the pullback around dumping money into streaming, I’m skeptical that we’ll see more Star Trek streaming original movies. But nothing will change until Paramount and whoever ends up owning it can get their minds around the fact that Star Trek is not the MCU or Star Wars, it never will be, and is much closer to the dedicated niche community of readers of Marvel comics than it is to the mass/casual fan phenomenon of viewers of the MCU.

Preach brother preach! 👍

Everything you said is exactly why so many of us had issues with Discovery from the start. But it seemed like they were finally learning their lessons and turning things around if still not perfect but you saw they were trying.

And then we get movies like this. 🙄

And the MCU and Star Wars are dealing with their own problems of franchise fatigue and being stretched thin.

Other than Andor being an allegory for the fight against fascism, Star Wars has nothing new to say. It’s a well ran dry long ago. Lucas sold Disney a dead franchise he got the better deal.

They had one chance to make sequels to the so-called holy trilogy, they messed up. They didn’t reunite Mark, Carrie and Harrison.

Star Wars is now so far away from what the general public perceives it as (Empire v Rebels) as to be basically a different franchise. Now I’ve watched all the animated series and Disney+ live action series (I’ve not read the books or played many of the games), and I feel it’s now become too dense and lore-driven to be more than a niche thing – and this used to be arguably the most popular franchise with general audiences!

And a lot of the more recent content, as with Trek and Doctor Who, is simply that: content. Thinly written, with plot holes like Swiss cheese, and very little narrative reason to exist. What was once thoughtful and deep quality TV for Star Trek and event movies for Star Wars has become nothing more than junk food. It might taste great while you’re eating it, or watching it, but it won’t leave you satisfied.

Sadly, these issues seem to be endemic in the current streaming landscape.

I didn’t hate this movie as much as so many did but I agree with the points you are trying to make. They just spend so much money making these shows they almost have to have mass market appeal to justify the cost of making them. Yet, mass market appeal doesn’t work with most of these niche fanbases. There is a happy medium but I am sad to report that this movie just didn’t make that happen for enough people.

Also the hatred directed at Kurtzman is quite troubling from some parts of the fandom. I get being upset etc….but some of the stuff people are saying is just awful! I think it’s important to censor some of this stuff and keep it constructive and polite. I could definitely see where the writers were going with this story but I just don’t think they quite made it with the morality arguments. They would have definitely needed more time to flesh that part out.

It would be great for you to do a follow up interview and get his take on the audience response, both the very negative and the few positives that are out there (and there are – read the LA Times for one). As for the negatives, pick one of many – the Rotten Tomatoes score is very bad.

I have not even seen it yet, but I hope to do so in the next week or two.

I agree. When things settle I would love to hear the cast and crew’s thoughts on this, what a learning experience it was, and what it was like working on a production that was likely more troubled than they can let on right now. Realistically, that may be a while.

I remember when the Justice League cast eventually came out and admitted… actually no, it was not a good experience making this film at all.

Isn’t the PR spin for negative feedback to legacy IP projects that it is ONLY fake news cooked up by angry, weird fanboys? He’ll just stick to the positives and dismiss the negatives, same as he’s always done.

I’m not sure about the “misfits” thing — Trek fans can’t be completely stereotyped. I’ve met people who are the absolute antithesis of a Trek fan stereotype, and they’ll make comments about how they like series Kirk over STIV Kirk because he was a “serious” person — pretty insightful for a “non fan”. Lots of Trek fans collect figures and wear ears, but lots don’t.

I watched TNG with near religious zeal during its original run and I grew up on the Star Wars films and TOS films for Star Trek. And Christopher Reeve Superman and so on. I did read the Star Trek novels and comics, but I never had the idea it was holy scripture like other Star Trek fans do when it comes to canon. I still hated Kirk’s death in Generations. I thought Insurrection was awful and Nemesis sucked. Nearly all of the TNG movies were not good.

If not for Star Wars I probably would not have been introduced to Star Trek by my father, Star Wars was the gen x craze, Star Trek was a boomer thing and philosophy that grew out of the hippie movement. Make love not war, I grok Spock. People were doing drugs, listening to rock and roll, and science fiction and fantasy in a strange way were a part of psychedelic culture. Because they were all about expanding minds. It’s also when the Tolkien craze really hit its stride.

Star Wars was the gen x craze, Star Trek was a boomer thing

I don’t see a lot of evidence for that. Indeed, TNG was more mainstream than TOS.

My advice to AK (for what it’s worth) post s31 fiasco.

a) Cancel SFA after one season. Bring back Terry for Star Trek Legacy (either series or P+ film(s).

b) Scrap the Trek Origins movie. Do ST4 with the Kelvin cast. Directed by Quentin Tarantino (enough to attract fans and average movie goers)

c) do a fun multiverse P+ movie for the 60 anniversary – a Star Trek Endgame/Bring Back Kirk deal with various cast members from each series.(Shatner, Stewart/Spiner, Brooks/Meany, Mulgrew/Ryan, Bakula/Blalock, Mount/Peck )

This ^

Agree with A and C. Don’t see any of it happening but would be better ideas for sure. The problem with B is they probably think it will bomb and Tarantino idea just sounded bonkers that would be more of a niche thing for old TOS fans and not for a mass audience that the movies really need and why everyone probably moved on.

I’m not saying not to make another JJ verse movie (even though I”m not a fan of them personally) but the fact they decided to not even try to make another one to celebrate the 60th anniversary and ten years since the last one tells you everything. They simply don’t have enough faith in that franchise anymore even though they keep trolling fans over it. Weird.

And let’s be honest, the Starfleet origin movie could also be scrapped by now. Someone mentioned in another thread they announced it over a year ago already and it was supposed to start shooting last year. Haven’t heard a peep about that or the next Kelvin in ages. Just feels like more trolling.

Wasn’t Beyond jointly funded with other participants why haven’t they done similar for a 4th movie.

All of the JJ movies were co-financed. The reason why they haven’t done that for a 4th movie yet is because the investors have 3 movies’ worth of evidence that they’re not going to get the return they want and Paramount doesn’t know how to make Star Trek movies at a lower cost.

So you actually think Tarantino could do Trek, if you don’t like S31? Wow.

Certainly do not allow Secret Hideout to make any new content other than that already on the slate (SNW, SFA) and let their contact run down. And do not renew it! It’s likely far to expensive for Paramount in its current state to simply cancel the contract or buy it out. Admittedly, I do not know an awful lot about how the entertainment industry works.

A. I don’t know why they would have to cancel SFA just to make Legacy though? My feeling is (and speculation only) that they won’t make another show until SNW is done which will probably end in seasons 4 or 5 anyway. My guess is if the Tawny Newsome show gets approved that will be the next show after SNW. But if that isn’t approved it would make sense to do Legacy then, assuming it ever happens.

But sure if SFA is bad and not bringing in enough viewers, that would be the other way to go too.

B. I get just as much as fans are saying Legacy isn’t a thing and it’s time to move on, that this needs to be said about this Tarantino movie. Guys it’s not happening because the guy you want to make the movie, Quentin Tarantino, has said he doesn’t want to make it anymore and that was literally over 5 years ago. And he reiterated it again last year on some podcast that he had completely moved on and have no interest to do it. At least the Legacy idea persists because the people pitching it still wants to do it, it’s just a matter if Paramount does. But it’s the very opposite with the Tarantino movie. In fact I just saw an article stating he’s in no rush to even make his final film until his son is a little older so he may be out of the game a few more years anyway. But I have a feeling we will see Tarantino’s last movie before we ever see the next Trek movie regardless.

C. This would certainly excite a lot of fans but I don’t know how realistic it is because that is a lot of money they have to pour out. Sure it’s not at the levels of a theatrical movie but my guess Yeoh was the only legacy Star Trek actor in Section 31 for a reason. And if you are trying to bring back Shatner who has now become infamous for asking for a gob of money to play Kirk again then that’s probably a non-starter and why the guy hasn’t been asked back in over 30 years.

But sure, it would be fun to see Kirk, Janeway, Picard, Archer and the rest to mix it up and be a great way to honor the 60th anniversary.. But I see little to no chance of it happening sadly.

Oh, boy… I have a feeling the comments section is going to be brutal. Diving in now…

KURTZMAN: “Section 31 asks this really interesting question”

NARRATOR: “It doesn’t.

It doesn’t ask any questions, much less interesting ones, does it? It’s an unmitigated disaster.

Look at the merchandise that sells.
TOS, TNG.

What does not sell? All the new stuff. The DSC line of starships ? They couldn’t give them away.

Lego are making their first Star Trek set. The Enterprise D. Nothing in the new shows is iconic. Nothing in them will last the test of time.

The Section31 movie is deeply damaging to the Star Trek brand. Star Trek never has you rooting for the bad guys. It started to happen on DS9 and the writers dealt with it by making Waltz. This film has the protagonist slaying people, eating eyeballs and glorifying fighting. And modern wise cracks that are tonally out of place.

You want to know how to expand your audience for Star Trek? Make Star Trek. Hire decent writers, preferably with a proven track record in SF. Forget magic mushrooms, tiny boxes that can blow up the universe and nonsense like the red flying suit or whatever it was.

Star Trek needs to go away for ten years. Maybe more. Then it can be reborn again with a better creative team.

Maybe you should get on that.

Get on what fella? I’m a 50 year old land surveyor in Blighty.

Section 31 shouldn’t be hauling garbage. It should be hauled away AS GARBAGE!!!

haha nice

So should your comment.

Brilliant.

“you tend to find Star Trek because you feel somehow like you don’t fit in, right? 

This is where I stopped reading. He thinks he’s making TV for nerdy outcasts, which is why it all seems so adolescent and whiny and frankly contemptable.

Go back to the original series. Was that being made for nerdy outcasts? No, it was made for an intelligent audience and reflected Roddenberry’s values of liberal humanism.

Roddenberry wasn’t pandering to a certain audience. He was making a show that told stories he wanted to tell. Does Kurtzman have any stories he wants to tell? Does he have any core values or ideas at all?

The problem with Star Trek and with a lot of media now is that it’s in the hands of empty headed people with nothing to say.

He obviously has a very low, and very outdated, opinion of his viewership. His attitude, therefore, seems to be that we will watch anything so long as it has Star Trek branding. Well, I think he’s going to discover that is simply not true. Holding your loyal customers in such disregard would mean being asked to have a serious chat with senior management, at the very least, in most industries.

I’m horrified at the rumors that Elon Musk might end up buying Paramount and then I read this muck interview and am mollified by the thought that at least Musk would fire Kurtzman on day one.

An interview on another site has him distancing himself from S31 saying Paramount took over production of this because he has no control over the films part.

link?

I don’t think we’re allowed to directly link to it, but it’s in his interview on CinemaBlend.

With all due respect, the comment you originally posted summarizing Kurtzman’s comment(s) is a misunderstanding of the actual quote(s) in the post you cited. The question was why isn’t S31 in movie theaters and Kurtzman answers that he has no say in what Paramount puts in movie theaters — that was the extent of it.

That’s a highly inaccurate characterization of what he said. He didn’t distance himself at all. All he said is that it was Paramount’s decision not to put it in theaters, not his.

Oddly the original article had more block quotes than this one. It’s possible it was edited; however, I’m looking to see if there may be a different article in my history.

Is there a review from TrekMovie coming?

It’s in “development hell”.

Man, I miss Star Trek.

Funny that it says the stuff that is “old” doesn’t get new fans and yet the most celebrated Trek stuff in recent years (along with Lower Decks) has been the third series of Picard and Strange New Worlds, which largely deals with characters created more than 50 years ago. I’m fine with newer Trek series. I remember when DS9 was brand new and everyone hated. I loved it.
But it also seems to me that with Trek, it’s most successful building on what’s come before. Not forgetting it or blasting so far into the past or future that it’s irrelevant.
These are faults V’ger made initially, getting it away from everything they knew. Small wonder species like the Kazon and Vidians quickly vanished in favor of the Borg. Enterprise went so far back in time it came before most of what we knew. DISCO started off in the past and then jumped WAY into the future, trying to do both in one show. DISCO’s best episodes were those featuring Pike, Spock, and Number 1.
This is why Legacy seems the best choice to me. It builds on what we know but isn’t trapped by another series set ten years down the road. There are new characters, but lots of characters from previous shows that can still come and go.
Yet Kurtzman wants to throw all the creative juices at stuff like Section 31 and Starfleet Academy? Poor choices.

Do you hear that uncomfortable hissing noise in the distance?

That’s Gene Roddenberry, revolving in his grave like a rotisserie chicken.

I think you tend to find Star Trek because you feel somehow like you don’t fit in, right?

That’s not really why I like Star Trek, but setting that aside:

And Star Trek becomes a safe place that tells you it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to be a misfit. And this is a movie about misfits, right? 

Star Trek tells you that it’s OK to be different *in certain contexts*. (For instance, TOS and the TNG-era series were about the military, which does try to build unit cohesion and does not emphasize individuality at all costs, unlike civilian life.) Participating in Federation death squads is not one of those contexts.

#KurtzmanOut

Someone forgot to tell Kurtzman that Section 31 are the villains and not the misunderstood misfits the audience should be cheering for.

Reginald Barclay was a misfit. The maquis crew that Tuvok had to put through academy training on Voyager were misfits. The crew members that Janeway had to take under her wing on a mission were misfits.

Section 31 is evil.

But a necessary evil, at least in their own view. That was the beauty of Berman’s Section 31: they threw all the morals of the Federation overboard in order to save & protect it, did the nasty & evil things that no enlightened Starfleet officer would ever do, not even the official Starfleet Intelligence, clinical, ruthless, unknown to the world, on their own, deep in the shadows, highly intelligent, utterly dedicated. Absolutely fascinating concept. It was all destroyed under Abrams and Kurtzman, where Section 31 became something like a normal/official intelligence agency in Starfleet, in plain sight, which (it seemed) everyone had heard of, with oversight & lots of regular funding etc., instead of being this silent demonic force that DS9 portrayed them as. The original Section 31 would have made for a great and serious TV series. But Kurtzman & Co. don’t understand Section 31, they rarely understand Trek even.

Yes, when has Star Trek ever been about misfits? Was Kirk a misfit? Spock? Yes, Picard may have been a little straight laced and introverted at times, but was he a misfit? I’d say no on all counts.

Indeed, for me at least, Star Trek has always been about hyper-competent people, experts in their field. And what stands out is how well they can work together as part of a team, setting ego aside, to reach a common goal and to make the world just that little bit better.

When did that stop being something to aspire to?

Is it 2026 yet?

So I only have Paramount because of Star Trek. Nevertheless, I have seen all of Landman, The Agency, and several other dramatic series on the network – even Matlock – and they are all better than any Trek. And I don’t think it’s because they are much cheaper. It’s the writing.

This universe doesn’t have to be so complicated. All that has to happen is: not every story has to “break it” or defy or let down our expectations. It’s like the producers have some kind of serial Oedipal pathology.

Star Trek is supposed to do a few things, and when they are trying to do those things, the only criteria anyone watching cares about is: did they do it well?

I don’t believe they are hiring many writers who actually get a chance to write “Star Trek.”

It’s embarrassing overall, that as fans we have nothing to point to which would get our friends hooked into this.

I mean, yes I like SNW best of the live action- much better than any Picard or DSC. I do not yet admire it. The animation – I admire all of it.

I have so many friends who are adult Trek fans and have almost no reason at all to get involved – at all. They won’t watch it! That should scare Paramount, unless Academy somehow saves the day. Here’s to hoping!

I will ad: Star Trek was not about being inspirational per se. It was about being ambitious. Have we simply had one story that was really about trying to make the world a better place?

It’s time for the changing of the guards.
I am not looking forward to an Star Trek Acadamy series, a Star Trek comedy series, or another Star Trek cartoonish series.
No more Kurtzman regurgitation Trek.

No one is forcing you to keep watching something you don’t like.

“I ain’t learned shit.”

Blah blah blah. Another whole comment section filled mostly with folks determined to hate the film before it debuted. Next.

No one is forcing you to read the comments.

“…folks determined to hate the film before it debuted.” Nope. I was hopeful and excited about the film. I love Disco, et al. This was just a horrible film on every level. Watched it at the stroke of midnight when it went up. Deeply bothered that it was so amateur, clumsy and… tacky cheap looking. No Trek spark. Zero spirit. Just trying-and-missing and cringey to the core. A series of unfortunate choices. Embarrassing.

Before it debuted? It streamed this past weekend.

I can only speak for myself, but I was hoping I’d be proven wrong. I’ve never — NEVER — one time gone into an episode of Star Trek determined to hate it. I take what they give me and go from there. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it, often I’m not moved to strong emotion of any kind. Sometimes all of that simultaneously.

“Section 31” is dreck. Some people will enjoy it, sure, but I don’t personally feel obliged to accept just any old thing Paramount vomits up simply because it has “Star Trek” in the title. Maybe that makes me a gatekeeper, but if it does, I’m proud to be one and will continue to be. It won’t do one single bit of good, but I’ll at least be able to feel like I voted against monstrosities like this movie.

I guess they didn’t bother to ask Ira Steven Behr and RDM to write this…??

Ron Moore is juggling “For All Mankind”, “Outlander” and “Swiss Family Robinson” so his plate is full.

He does For All Mankind? Ha No wonder I got hooked on that show.

It’s a work of genius, far better than any Star Trek produced since I don’t know when.

Paramount should give them whatever the Hell they want to get them back into Star Trek ASAP. They are needed to literally save the franchise. Immediately cut ties with Secret Hideout and make all the Discoverse productions an alternate universe or just ambiguous within the timeline. Honestly, if they do not take these severe, yet necessary steps, they will degrade the franchise beyond all Salvageability.

I think after SNW and this Academy show, Star Trek should lay fallow for a few years. Let it rest and then someone else take it over, it is due for a reset. Kurtzman and company had a long run, but it is time.

Totally agree with you.

I think you you tend to find Star Trek because you feel somehow like you don’t fit in, right

Oh…. wow. That is not a good quote.

He’s peddling a stereotypical view of Trek fans, and genre fans more widely, that was outdated and cliched decades ago. I find it quite insulting TBH. If this is how he thinks of his fan base, then perhaps he is in the wrong job. It’s a bit of a Gerald Ratner moment, if you’re familiar with British business.

I was 4 years old. I found Star Trek because it set my imagination alight! It made me curious, it made me wonder. It has never in my lifetime had ANYTHING to do with not fitting in, nor has it for anyone else I know who grew up watching it. I really don’t know where he’s getting this idea.

from the same people that think the “nerds” in Big Bang Theory are indicative of all smart people that like science

Kurtzman would have been more suited to writing for the Big Bad Theory show, to be honest.

Anyone else wondering about the delay in posting the review?

They are still debating whether they should gaslight the fandom.

Flogging a dead equine with a Ferengi laser whip seems to be superfluous at this point?

I posted earlier in this thread that like some film production we could mention, it’s in development hell.

I’m wondering that as well. I really want to know what Anthony and the admins think about Section 31. No matter what, discussion about it will be spirited.

In the spoiler-free review they did say the full review would be posted Friday — very curious why it hasn’t been posted.

We need a new showrunner. I died trying to watch this garbage in order to give it a chance.

“You know, I feel like what’s most important is to try new things. You have to do this really weird thing with Star Trek, which is you have to please the core fans first and foremost, but you also have to bring in new fans.”

Try New things… What is he talking about?
There is zero originality in his productions.

tend to find Star Trek because you feel somehow like you don’t fit in”
W
T
F

Wow, this guy seriously doesn’t get it at all, does he?

Typo in “ruining” in the title there.

“I mean, we would have considered it, but you’re in a very different timeframe, so you would have had to deal with time travel”

Huh. How does that not apply to San?