Review: ‘Star Trek: Section 31’ Is A TV Movie

Star Trek: Section 31

Original Paramount+ streaming movie, debuted Friday, January 24, 2025
Written by Craig Sweeny (Story by Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt)
Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi

Star Trek: Section 31 is an ambitious new entry as the first streaming Star Trek movie. It’s a risky endeavor that hopes to thread the needle through the treacherous waters of an aging and wary fan base on a struggling platform with aspirations to expand the idea of what is Star Trek into new realms. These are laudable goals for a franchise looking to break into its seventh decade of relevance. Did not James T. Kirk himself remind us to be open to “young minds, fresh ideas?” Unfortunately, Section 31 fails in almost every way, which could have a profound impact on Trek’s future.

For more spoiler-free analysis check out TrekMovie’s early thoughts on Section 31

SPOILERS BELOW

Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou of Star Trek: Section 31, streaming on Paramount+, 2025. Photo Credit: Sophy Holland/Paramount+

Big swing… big miss

Section 31 fails to be something new. This movie was telegraphed as a “different color” of Star Trek, with hopes to bring the energy of the likes of Mission: Impossible and Guardians of the Galaxy with fun sci-fi spy action set in the Star Trek universe. Star Trek can always use an infusion of something new; however, in this case the graft didn’t take. For sure there is lots of action, with fights and chases and even a space battle. But it is delivered in such a formulaic way, as each of the three acts starts off with a melodramatic Georgiou flashback and ends with repetitive (and sometimes confusing) Michelle Yeoh martial arts demonstrations, with groan-inducing attempts at witty banter and heist movie hijinks filling the gaps. The result is at best clichéd and at times parody of the genres it aspires to, like when the ticking McGuffin bomb rolls around the deck during the climatic fight scene.

Section 31 fails to intrigue. The plot is the standard chase after a super dangerous thingie, specifically the “godsend” doomsday weapon developed by Georgiou herself  on a paranoia bender back in her Terran Empire days. The mystery of the masked assailant who steals the device in the first act has a short suspect list, so the reveal that it’s her spurned former MU love San is no surprise, although it would have been nice to explain his apparent lack of aging when he pops up in the 24th century. There is a standard mole subplot attempting to keep things going (it was Fuzz, btw), revealing how dysfunctional this group of misfits really is while dragging down the pace of the middle act, part of a surprising amount of dull exposition for what was to be an action movie. The threat of keeping the device away from the Terrans as the first move in an invasion is convoluted and never grounded enough to make stakes feel real.

James Hiroyuki Liao as San in Star Trek: Section 31 streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

Section 31 fails Phillipa Georgiou. After the third season of Discovery devoted much time and energy into making the former Terran Emperor into a more sympathetic and nuanced character, this movie brings back some of the worst elements from her second season portrayal, presumably because playing off her more evil persona is more “fun.” To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t attempt to exonerate or redeem Georgiou of her sins, instead it simply shows that she has has regrets, which is the more acceptable level of rehabilitation. And the flashbacks do round out the character a bit with Miku Martineau’s young Georgiou mostly compelling, although her attempt to mimic Yeoh’s speaking style doesn’t always work. The biggest frustration with all of this is how the film murks up Georgiou’s motivation. Instead of making her personal connection to the McGuffin (and her hope to make amends) what draws her back into Section 31, the godsend is held back as a later reveal, making her enticement to rejoin solely because it would be entertaining for her to return to the action, even though she seems perfectly happy when we first reengage with the character ruling her space night club, The Baraam.  

Section 31 fails Michelle Yeoh. This film would have never been made it it weren’t for the perseverance of its star, who has relished being part of the franchise since being cast in the first season of Discovery almost a decade ago. The action-movie icon has shown she can also do funny as well as show amazing dramatic range (see her Oscar-winning performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once). Once you get past the impressive (for anyone, let alone an actress in her 60s) fight movies, the script gives her almost nothing worthy to work with, relegating her to delivering eye-rolling vamping dialogue (under the alias Madame Du Franc), being called out of black-ops retirement by her former Section 31 employers. Lines like “You look like a Swiss Army knife” or “I may slaughter you all at any moment, is that a deal breaker?” are simply not worthy of an actress of her caliber.

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

Section 31 fails Rachel Garrett. The big bit of connective tissue to the main body of Star Trek is the character of Rachel Garrett, future captain of the Enterprise-C (from the TNG classic “Yesterday’s Enterprise”). Here, the younger Lt. Garrett is established as the Starfleet minder for the unruly group Section 31 misfits with actress Kacey Rohl doing a commendable job making us believe this officer will someday sacrifice her ship to save the Federation solely on the word of Jean-Luc Picard. However, this true believer finds her self mostly the subject of mockery. It is she who has to bend to the chaos of Section 31 more than any influence she has in advocating the Starfleet way. While getting her to loosen up a bit is a form of character development, the point of her inclusion was to represent the core values of Star Trek, not just someone nagging the black ops team to avoid reckless murder, but she never even gets a chance to do that. We never even get to see Garrett in a Starfleet uniform to provide the clear contrast with the team and throw fans a bone with a nice new “Lost Era” monster maroon costume.

Section 31 fails its new characters. There is a lot of potential with the rest of the Section 31 team, introduced with a boilerplate heist movie briefing. A highlight is Sam Richardson’s Quasi, a scatterbrained Chameloid scientist with the funniest lines (or at least the best delivery), but as with most of the other characters, it’s never clear why he is even part of the team except to crack jokes. Rob Kazinsky also does his best to give some life to Zeph, the mech-suited warrior who just seems along for the ride. Team leader Alok Sahar (Omari Hardwick) has intriguing possibilities, haunted by his augment past in the Eugenics Wars, but his backstory takes a back seat so he can mostly attempt to humanize Georgiou—with mixed results, as the two actors’ chemistry never fully gels, especially the attempts at a romantic spark. It can be argued the character who is best served is Melle (Humberly González), a Deltan refusing to deny her true nature, and her sudden death in the opening minutes helps send the message this movie means business. As for Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok), the concept of an overly-emotional microscopic species driving a robot that looks like a Vulcan was intriguing and a bit fun, even with the over-the-top Irish accent. But as his heel turn on behalf of his Nanokin kind was pivotal, it (like all of the characters) deserved more exploration beyond banal villain monologuing and repetitive monster-movie fight sequences.

L to R Sven Ruygrok as Fuzz and Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou in Star Trek: Section 31 streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

Section 31 fails Section 31. A rogue group working on behalf of the Federation using less than savory tactics has been controversial since its introduction in Deep Space Nine, it’s sidestepped here by introducing the new (and later apparently ignored) rule that the group only operates outside the Federation. But the concept of Section 31 has been used to great effect by testing the will of some of our favorite characters. Nowhere in this film do we see anyone faced with the kind of moral dilemmas that that made Section 31 work as a dramatic device, especially in DS9, and even Enterprise. Rachel Garrett gives some lip service to providing some guardrails, but her core beliefs are never put to the test to see how far she will go to save the Federation. Instead, Section 31 is used here to give us Star Trek’s feeble answer to The Suicide Squad. And all of the same can be said of the Mirror Universe, not utilized to do what it was intended to do, present a dark reflection to reveal the true nature of the characters. Star Trek was a first mover in multiverse storytelling and yet Section 31 didn’t even try.

Section 31 fails Star Trek. There is nothing wrong with trying out new things within the franchise, and that has certainly been done well before. The franchise has been breaking its own mold since the ’70s as it jumped from The Original Series into feature films and Saturday morning cartoons. We have seen a variety of premises, genres, and appeals to broader audiences over the decades, but never before has an entry seemed so disinterested in the core values at the heart of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future. The themes of optimism, humanity bettering itself, family, and cooperation get lip service at best. Even the setting goes out of its way to eschew the trappings of Trek. With the exception of some Trek tech (photon, transporters, and the like), there is almost nothing that gives viewers the feel of Star Trek. So even if one was thoroughly entertained by Section 31, it’s hard to imagine new viewers being inspired to check out more Star Trek on Paramount+, which sort of should be the point. And if they did check out the most likely candidate, Discovery, they would find almost no connections when it comes to story and style. This last bit has to sting even more for fans of that series.

Section 31 fails this new format. Being the first streaming movie may be its most significant element. The franchise has struggled to find its way back to the big screen, so this was a golden opportunity to tell that kind of story in a new way. However, many of the issues above are the result of how this film tried to cram what was original envisioned as a season of television into a movie, making it more convoluted than it needed to be and leaving too many characters lacking the motivation or attention needed to have the audience really engage or even care. And while some elements of the production, notably the costumes, make watching feel like an event, uninspired sets and locations never provide the kind of cinematic scale seen with modern era streaming action movies on other platforms. This may be the most frustrating matter, as this could have been the template for a whole new format of Star Trek storytelling. The worry is that despite Yeoh’s star power, this film will find no audience and the powers that be (including Paramount’s incoming new management) might abandon the format entirely.

L to R Sam Richardson as Quasi, Omari Hardwick as Alok and Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou in Star Trek: Section 31 streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Michael Gibson/Paramount+

Not angry… just disappointed

Okay, so that was a lot and may even seem hyperbolic. But this view is born from seeing so much potential for what Section 31 could have been. And to be sure, it’s not all bad. Yeoh’s performance is strong, as is Sam Richardson’s. The Nanokin design and concept is pretty cool, as is Garrett’s Starfleet phaser. The phased fight scene, while clearly cribbing from Dune, was something new, as was the garbage scow ship and the way it defeated the Terran ship using tractors, garbage, and a creepy doll with a wonky power supply. Georgiou’s epiphany that there can be no benevolent dictators is on brand and a worthy (and timely) message. But many Star Trek fans are hoping for more… more character, more science, more heart, more themes, and even more technobabble. What we have here is a sci-fi B-movie akin to something that might keep you entertained as you were flipping channels back in the day. It is nowhere near the modern feature films it aspires to be, but it’s a passable TV movie, fun at times and immediately forgettable.

L to R Omari Hardwick as Alok, Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou and Sam Richardson as Quasi in Star Trek: Section 31 streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

Star Trek: Section 31 is available now Paramount+ in the U.S. and international markets where the service is available. It will debut in SkyShowtime markets in Europe on February 7.  

More Section 31

For full-spoiler analysis, listen to our All Access Star Trek podcast discussion with four of our editors.

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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Thanks for your review Anthony. It is deeply appreciated. They absolutely failed Rachel Garret. I also feel like this film was disrespectful to Ira Steven Behr and Deep Space Nine.

Rachel Garrett wasn’t any more than a name drop to get TNG fans to watch. It could have been Rachel Ray and that would have been about as important to the plot too.

Agreed!

How so?

Many thanks for your review; it was worth the wait. Also kudos for not trying to sugar coat what was IMO a disaster, and telling it the way it is with truthful and thoughtful analysis.

It is my sincere hope as a life long fan, that S31 does not do permanent damage to the brand or scupper future streaming movie opportunities.

I’m quite surprised that in an era when some movie projects (e.g. Batgirl) are prevented from being released for tax write down purposes, the same didn’t apply to S31 when it was presumably screened for the suits before release.

Like you I’m not angry, just disappointed and TBH, I’m less than convinced that those running the franchise have a clue on what to do with it.

ditto to all of this

I’m quite surprised that in an era when some movie projects (e.g. Batgirl) are prevented from being released for tax write down purposes, the same didn’t apply to S31 when it was presumably screened for the suits before release.

Maybe this movie is what the suits wanted. Paramount has tried to make the Star Trek movies more like Star Wars or more like Guardians of the Galaxy for some time.

It is my sincere hope as a life long fan, that S31 does not do permanent damage to the brand or scupper future streaming movie opportunities.

Had this been a one-off failure among a string of successes, it might not have mattered.

But make no mistake: it will do permanent damage to the Star Trek brand. it’s a spectacular failure in a long line of other (maybe slightly less spectacular) failures, and there’s a new owner in town, to boot.

Look at how long it took us to get a Superman movie after the Superman III and IV fiascos (19 years, IIRC?)

thanks for the, as always, well-reflected, thoughtful and intelligent review. after seeing the movie right away on the 24th, i thought my disappointment would subside and a detailed synopsis might explain something i missed while watching the movie.
now i read your review and can only agree with everything. S31 betrayed star trek, michelle yeoh and all the actors who shamefully took part in it.
a terribly missed opportunity, a shame for star trek.
“Not angry… just disappointed” yes. deeply disappointed.

you can’t blame working actors for this – you can say it might not have been what you wanted to see but they were doing a job, for many of them to simply stay afloat in a very difficult industry. Yes – be mad at the producers, the writers for not getting the ethos of Trek, maybe even the director, anyone but the actors

all the actors who shamefully took part in it

No. Just, no. The shame is not theirs. Actors are hired to act. It’s not their fault if the writing, directing, and music are entirely off the mark. They make their bread and butter by acting. Calling their involvement shameful is extremely unfair. To them, it’s a job, and they rightfully accepted it.

Agreed. The actors did their best with the job given to them. The people at the top of the production however…

Actors are hired to act. It’s not their fault if the writing, directing, and music are entirely off the mark. 

You’re denying actors any kind of agency here, particularly A-listers like Yeoh, who do get to pick their roles. Yes, they take direction. That doesn’t mean they surrender all artistic freedom.

A Janeway portrayed by Genvieve Bujold would have been a very different character than how she ended up interpreted by Mulgrew. A Kirk portrayed by Jack Lord would have been very different from that portrayed by Shatner.

Stargate wanted Richard Dean Anderson to play Jack O’Neill; he did so on the condition that he could tone down the braggadocious action hero characterization than Kurt Russell gave him.

All of the Star Trek captains have talked at length about how they were the leaders of their casts and helped the casts gel — Stewart and Bakula and Mulgrew especially. Yeoh doesn’t seem to have rubbed off on the S31 cast in the same way. I think she enjoys the over-the-top nature of the character.

[S31 betrayed michelle yeoh] 

Please stop trying to let Yeoh off the hook for this. She’s a powerful A-lister, one the franchise seems desperate to court, and surely had some latitude to portray the character as she wished.

She clearly relishes the hissing, over-the-top, Eurovision Song Contest-on-steroids portrayal of Georgiou, and the writers obliged her, not just here, but throughout DISCO. Her swan song on DISCO does not obviate how her acting choices in the previous two-and-a-half years.

Frakes and Sirtis, much less powerful actors, managed to keep the Riker-Troi romance arc alive when the writers wanted to ignore it.

No apologies necessary, of course. We don’t pay for the site, so you’re free to post things as slowly or quickly as you like. Plus, the end result was well worth the wait.

I think it was good to let some of the hyperbole settle down.

Has it, though? Maybe it’s just my impression but many commenters still seem to be in hyperbole mode.

Especially, if they are blaming the actors.

I did say “some”.. and I do think it settled down pretty quickly on the internet in general. This film is already well on it’s ways to being forgotten.

Thanks for the review. Sorry it didn’t meet our hopes.

Thank you for the review Anthony — it is very appreciated, and as always well written and thoughtful. We are very grateful to you and the Trekmovie team.

I agree with others thanks for the review although as you said you basically gave it in the podcast along with several others, but I know not everyone listens to it.

And I can’t recall the last time you were so harsh in a review. I remember a few Picard and Discovery episodes you were clearly not a fan of but always pretty civil.

This one made clear just how bad you thought this film was. And yeah looking at the comments you are far from alone in that. I still can’t believe after 5 years of debating this thing, will something get made or not and all the back and forth over it, this is what they put out???

Also remember this was the first spin off idea they had before anything else. Now I really wish they just left it completely alone.

Hell has frozen over! Donkeys are flying!

LOL!

Horrible move – Kurtzman should step down after this disaster.

Don’t know about Kurtzman, but they should at least retire these writers, and several others of the ‘new young talent’ we’ve gotten exposed to. Bring in some veterans I say.

Yeah, amen to that. Absolutely.

Craig Sweeny has been in the game for more than 20 years, so I wouldn’t necessarily call him “new young talent”.
Also, let’s not forget that many of the writers during the TNG era started on the shows at a young age. They may be considered veterans by now but they certainly didn’t start out like that.

Yeah, my understanding was that Sweeny was brought in to rework the S31 concept from what the would-be show writers had written, to give it broader appeal. And this is what TPTB signed off on. Don’t think we can blame this one on The Youths.

So basically he made the concept so broad, it basically appealed to no one lol.

This is proof why trying to do a Section 31 movie/show was simply a bad idea from the start. They seem to acknowledge having the original concept would’ve been too divisive in the fanbase or why not simply do that version? But then they turned it into Suicide Squad meets GOTG meets Mission Impossible and just completely lost the core of what the group was even about.

It had nothing to do with damaged or rejected people needing to find solace or just being wanted. The biggest irony is none of these people would’ve ever been accepted into the real Section 31. They wanted people like Dr. Bashir and Malcolm Reed to be part of it, very loyal, intelligent and capable Starfleet officers, not a former dictator and some guy in a cyborg suit (very covert there) and has the IQ of an ape.

Suicide Squad meets GOTG meets Mission Impossible

Maybe stop these ridiculous mashups and try something original? Or at least doing Star Trek?

At least it won’t be a series that goes on for years that is widely hated.

Yes. Thank Kahless we will not EVER get a show out of this. In fact, I wonder for all the people who did want this as a show think about the idea now?

They need to actually hire writers with a military background. Star Trek would benefit from having that life perspective once again.

Absolutely. I think Roddenberry’s military service, and his later service as a Pan Am pilot, had a lot to do with the secret sauce.

It made TOS and TNG authentic, and Berman continued that with the other series.

no need for that, just get talented writers

Agreed. By the way, am I the only person tired of the Mirror Universe retread. Enough already. I pray that SNW never does the Mirror Universe. Ever.

Oh you know that’s going to happen at some point. What with the focus on “big swings”.

They won’t have to because their universe is wacky enough as it is.

I always go into watching a show/movie with low expectations and this was no exception.

I enjoyed the movie for what it is. Is it the best Trek movie made? No but it’s not the worst Trek movie made (Final Frontier, Insurrection and Nemesis take that crown).

So while not my favourite of modern Trek i would certainly watch it again and even get it on Blu-ray or 4K if it gets a physical media release.

I do hope it does well enough that we will get more streaming movies especially since the main movies are currently stuck in limbo.

Nah, you simply cannot tar anything existing – anything even from modern era – with a brush saying its worse. This is the bottom of the barrell for the franchise.

Thx for the honest review (not that others are lying about how they feel), but another perspective is appreciated.

I too am skeptical about this movie, but in preparation I watched the two-part Terra Firma Discovery episode as CTV Sci-Fi channel conveniently aired it on Thursday. I forgot how good some of the S3 Discovery episodes were including these two and the Adira Trill backstory episode. Unfortunately, IMHO the atrocious Burn plot took over and ruined what started as a good season.

There are plenty of negative reviews to choose from (I can easily empathize with many of those posters), but if you are in the mood for a more positive review, check out the LA Times take of the movie.

As for me, I will eventually get around to watching it.

While I respect your different opinion, I can’t fathom thinking Section 31 is better than Final Frontier, Insurrection, or Nemesis. They’re worlds above this disaster, even with all their flaws.

It’s easily my worst Trek movie by far and it’s not even close. While I think those are also bad, I have watched all of them multiple times through the years and they all have entertainment value on some level. I don’t think I will ever watch this movie again and if I do it will be years from now.

I agree. Section 31 might be the worst Star Trek production to date. It has almost nothing good going for it, and I can’t imagine why I’d ever want to see this tripe again. I’m just going to forget it happened.

Rotten Tomatoes seems to agree with you.

Insurrection is an excellent philosophical story, the very heart of Star Trek. I love it.

Even INS with the awful humor still had Picard’s line about “how many people does it take before it becomes wrong, Admiral?”

S31 has…Georgiou hissing? Poisoning the soup?

Nah, Insurrection is a poor examination of a pretty straightforward philosophical question. That doesn’t mean it isn’t better than S31, but…c’mon.

My issue with the three films you mention.. I think FF and Insurrection would have made fine episodes, they only fall short because they mostly don’t take the opportunity to live up to the scale of a film. The core stories are still good. Nemesis is probably a fair challenge, because the story fails it completely, but I would argue there are still some good nuggets within the film that elevate it above Section 31, which is pretty much a disaster on every level. I am on record as saying It’s not as bad as everyone says.. I just didn’t think it was bad as some were making it out to be. I can see an avenue where some would enjoy it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I still think it’s hands down the worst Trek long form filmed entertainment we’ve gotten. It’s not exactly fair to compare it to films made for the big screen.. but even with a bigger budget, I’d feel the same. It’s just bad.

Agreed about FF and Insurrection. The biggest problem is they felt too much like high budget episodes turned into low budget looking movies. They are both certainly bad plot wise but the meat of the story for both are intriguing, the execution was just bad; especially for TFF.

I rewatched Nemesis before Picard season 3 started (since it was the last thing with all the characters again) and the first half is good IMO. But it falls apart once the dune buggy scene happens and gets worse and worse. Still it’s not even a contest if I think it’s better than Section 31. My brain checked out of that movie after ten minutes in. And Nemesis at least felt like a Trek movie. I don’t know what Section 31 even is suppose to be, but definitely not a Trek movie because no Star Trek exists in this thing.

Really wish they would of said no to Patrick Stewart demanding to be an action hero. He’s the reason we got that dune buggy BS

Picard is hardly the first person to turn to moving vehicles in a mid-life crisis. See Joe Biden.

The movie is dull as ditch water outside of the action sequences. Without a more suitable writer and director, Patrick Stewart wanting more action is one of the only things that damned movie had going for it.

my problem with NEM is it once again sidelines the romulans so they are second fiddle to shinzon and the remans

You bring up a really good point — Final Frontier and Insurrection would have been OK episodes of the series, but not as movies.

It’s not exactly fair to compare it to films made for the big screen..

TWOK started out as a made-for-TV movie. Smaller scale does not need to translate to “awful.”

Not exactly true. They turned to the TV division at Paramount in an attempt to bring costs down, but it was still made with a bigger budget than it would have on TV. They certainly didn’t skimp on visual effects. It was made with the intention to be released in theaters.

That’s right. There was some confusion about that at the time. During production, Starlog published an item to the effect that Paramount was waiting to see how the movie turned out before deciding whether to release it theatrically or consign it to TV.

It indeed started life as (in Paramount jargon of the time) a movie-of the-week (MOW), but some time prior to the start of principal photography, the studio upped it to a feature with a concomitant increase in budget (actors, craftspeople, etc. would get paid more for a feature). A memo to this effect was published on Fact Trek. I found it interesting that even in its MOW status, Nicholas Meyer was attached as director.

I love The Final Frontier! I’d would go as far as to say that it’s one of my favourite films in the franchise. There’s a certain kitsch to it that just speaks to me and I love the idea of the Enterprise being clapped out and not work properly.

TFF has a lot of excellent character work:

– The relationship between The Three
– McCoy’s decision to euthanize his father…just before they found a cure
– The nature of religious belief
– The nature of charismatic leadership

It also gave us an early glimpse of how the rapprochement with the Klingons came about.

Had the excised a lot of the corny humor (for which I blame TVH) and given us a more Cecil de Mille-worthy production (Paradise City, the grand finale with seraphim and cherubim morphing into rock monsters, etc.), and amped up the Spock-Kirk conflict a bit, I think it would have been better received. It’s flawed, but I think the good vastly outweighs the bad.

‘what does God want with a starship???’

We’ll never know why he wanted that ship. :(

I’m with you both. It gets a bad rap because of the effects, both practical and visual. Its heart is in the right place, and it does deliver on the character work.

I enjoyed the movie for what it is. Is it the best Trek movie made? No but it’s not the worst Trek movie made (Final Frontier, Insurrection and Nemesis take that crown).

I disagree strongly. I think NEM is better than it’s generally given credit for, and I think TFF is much better than it’s generally given credit for.

INSURRECTION was the real low point of the TNG films (although GEN comes close, it has some redeeming qualities).

S31 made all of them — contrarian take or not — look like works by Shakespeare, though.

I’ve always hoped for a new cut of Nemesis. Maybe one day.

Star Trek needs to get back to basics. A group of explorers exploring the universe and the human condition.

We all knew this would be a disaster to be honest. What’s not clear is whether SFA will be any good, with this creative team. The omens are not good, when lifelong fans saying they hope it won’t be too bad.

Star Trek needs Matalas!

Agreed. A major misstep not giving Matalas a role in modern Trek. That doesn’t mean you have to hand him the keys but at the very least give him a streaming movie to develop on his own. Section 31 and it’s reception has IMO damaged the brand and I would like to see a changing of the guard to people that truly understand what makes ST a great franchise.

“Star Trek needs Matalas!”
Amen!!

I’ve seen many reports of this being a crucial turning point for Kurtzman, and a monumental failure for him. I don’t agree. People will forget about this, really fast. If SFA falters in the wake of this? Then, I’d agree he’s in trouble.

Paramount may not be so agreeable to greenlight anything produced by him that isn’t dirt cheap to make and guaranteed to be an easy success after this failure.

Agreed, I just don’t think he gets fired over Section 31, is all.

The volume of Star Trek being produced has been massively reduced, because it’s simply not delivering. Paramount is for a time period contractually obliged to commission Star Trek content from Secret Hideout, but it is probably being reduced to the legal minimum.

If Paramount was confident and super happy with Kurtzman’s Star Trek they would be pumping it out like the Taylor Sheridan-verse, which actually does deliver huge ratings.

I think the reason that the amount of content being reduced is because Paramount has little to no money, not anything to do with Secret Hideout or the quality of the work. I also imagine this merger being a contributing factor as well.

It is, and unlike the Sheridan shows, it’s much more expensive to produce. After the streaming wars were over, there was no reason to continue to make as much Trek for P+.

Actually the Sheridan shows can be extremely expensive. An episode of 1923 cost $30m.

From what I read it closer to 10 Million, which is on par with Trek Shows. But the math is hard to nail down. Trek has a lot of upfront cost to amortize out over the life a series because of things like standing sets that are complicated and expensive.. it has a lot of visual effects, Sheridan invests more in expensive acting talent, which can be deferred and paid based on performance benchmarks (not that we know if they do that). So it’s really hard to say, but I Trek has a much bigger upfront costs to deal with than those Sheridan shows, for sure, and I’m sure that takes much more resource allocation and studio approval. So it would be interesting to parse those things out and see if that really holds up.

I actually enjoyed the movie. While the mystery plot felt a bit overdone, I appreciated the inclusion of elements from Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS).

I was particularly interested in learning more about Alok’s backstory, especially his experiences during the Eugenics Wars, including the events leading up to the war and the onset of World War III with Khan.

While a sequel seems unlikely, this film offered a refreshing departure from the typical Star Trek formula by featuring a unique visual style and deviating from the standard ship and uniform designs.

Yeah, I enjoyed it as well. Not my favourite, but I didn’t hate it. Will I rush to watch it again? Probably not but it was a fun 90 minutes. Into Darkness and Beyond remain my least favourite movies in the franchise. There’s former, in particular, I find offensive and insulting.

I found it very unimpressive.

I mostly enjoyed it actually. I was warned of course (by previews) so I didn’t have any real expectations and took what was presented to me at face value. Maybe that’s why it didn’t bomb so hard with me as it did with others. I gave it a 7.5/10. Just some fun. Nothing grand or great. Just some new Trek, or at least in that universe. The writing was what bothered me the most. Maybe we’re all just a bunch of old sacks, but the youngans just don’t do it for me. Bring back some veterans I say. Or have me rewrite it. LOL

Great review, Anthony. Spot on. This was a disaster, and I have indeed pretty much forgotten most of it already. What a waste.

Thank you for this, Anthony/TrekMovie. My deepest sympathies to you for having to sit through this putrid slop masquerading as Star Trek, to compile such a thorough review. I think you were being far too kind to such subpar output.

I hope this is a wake up call to Paramount/CBS to finally change direction and make much needed changes regarding who is producing such poor, costly product. Kurtzman and Secret Hideout must be giving their marching orders ASAP, for the sake of not only this legendary franchise, but Paramount as a brand. You’d think Dark Universe would have been a big red flag, but as Kevin Smith once said, in Hollywood you fail upwards.

It’s time for Paramount to understand, the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of a few… hack Hollywood execs.

Was exactly what I expected from kurtzman. If they manage to make more, I’ll watch it and if they don’t, won’t shed a tear.

The Section 31 movie is the natural conclusion of slowly chipping away at the franchise – inventing a Spock sibling, portraying 23rd century technology as more advanced than what we saw in the 24th, dumbing down the dialog, and ignoring the whole reason Trek became beloved in the first place which is offering a hopeful vision of the future.

I agree with much of this. However, I heard something on a Trek podcast recently that stated that in the LDS finale, it was inferred that Discovery and by association SNW are in a different multi-verse. If so GREAT IMO. This gets round the issues you mentioned while giving these shows and their fans the space to go and enjoy without interfering with established cannon.

I heard something on a Trek podcast recently that stated that in the LDS finale, it was inferred that Discovery and by association SNW are in a different multi-verse

That podcast lied, and those who host it are vitriolic trolls who hate everything. Nothing of the sort was implied in LD.

The podcast did not lie. You are the liar and troll, Dune.

I am neither. I’ve been a frequently contributing member here for many years.

Heres the quote from the showrunner, who knew exactly how the moment would be interpreted.

“Listen, I’m not gonna tell the fans how to respond to anything. If you watch [Fissure Quest] you can see the timelines across different realities are all messed up. Was I being a little stinker with that moment and knowing what I was doing? Yeah. I’m not dumb. It’s also not firmly [established]–another multiversal shift we saw is it turned into a Klingon sail barge. You can take that moment however you want, and talk to me about it in ten years [smiles].”

So, you get to decide!

Whichever podcast that was was willfully misinterpreting a specific Easter egg in Lower Decks wherein a probability field was causing people and things to shift into alternate versions of themselves from across time and space. In this example, a TNG-era Klingon briefly became a DIS-era Klingon. What this showed was the same as when the Cerritos became a Sovereign-class ship for the same reason: That various elements from across time and space were being factored into the probability field. That’s all. However, some sources have used that as a chance to say “Oh see, the DIS Klingons are now proven to be from another universe entirely!” but if that were the case, then so would’ve every appearance of a Sovereign-class vessel been from another universe, which clearly makes no sense.

Ergo, that Easter egg was misinterpreted and there’s still just the trusty ol’ Prime Universe.

“However, I heard something on a Trek podcast recently that stated that in the LDS finale, it was inferred that Discovery and by association SNW are in a different multi-verse.”

This is not remotely true. I don’t understand how so many so-called ‘fans’ seem to misinterpret this again and again? I saw about a dozen YT videos stating this proved Discovery was in an alternative universe or not even canon. I have no idea how these people surmise that conclusion when the episode showed multiple elements from other shows as well in other universes and oddly no one assumed those took place solely in alternative universes.

It just kills me how much some people will go out of their way to say a show or movie isn’t canon simply because they don’t like it? And basing this off another show (Lower Decks) I bet half these people never cared about or even watched until now.

It’s all canon people and takes place in the Prime universe. You don’t have to like Discovery or modern Trek in general, but get over it!

I think the thing that most fans miss is that they “softly” rebooted the Prime Timeline. They did it without initially saying it and then said it in the Khan episode from SNW. The Red Angel story and a line from Michael Burnham’s mother about how Time Travel altered technology. Not to mention the controversial move involving the Gorn.

One way to reshape Star Trek without a hard reset is time travel.

Not to mention the Klington Time Crystals, The Temporal cold war etc. I believe that they want to redo the original series. They will not necessarily erase the old series but build a world around it.

I am cool with that. There are episodes of the original series that Gene Roddenberry considered not canon.

I love Star Trek and I hope they learn from this mess. I hope they kill that idea for that Tawney Newsome show. Star Wars may never recover from the stench of the Acolyte.

I will say that I have had enough of the Bad Robot family tree wrecking pop culture. They are a menace.

Was Terry Matalas allowed to walk because he made Kurtzman look bad? Picard Season 3 should have been seasons 1, 2, and 3.

I hope that Skydance gets rid of Kurtzman and brings back Terry Matalas.

Some people are just so consumed with hatred for Discovery that they spend an inordinate amount of time talking about how much they hate the show. It’s really, really weird to me. They need to go outside and touch some grass!

I think I’ve been pretty fair to Discovery, There is some of it I like, and a lot that I don’t. But it also maddens me to the point that I HAVE to talk about it with like minded people, because I love Star Trek. In that, is catharsis. What I will promise, is to never belittle anyone that does love it. I might get into a mildly elevated discussion with the “why”, but if you like/love it, then that is 100% ok. I would NEVER want anything I say to contradict that.

The Section 31 movie is the natural conclusion of slowly chipping away at the franchise – inventing a Spock sibling, portraying 23rd century technology as more advanced than what we saw in the 24th, dumbing down the dialog, and ignoring the whole reason Trek became beloved in the first place which is offering a hopeful vision of the future.

Add to that:
– Kids shows
– Young adult melodrama
– Animated workplace comedies
– Musicals
– Endless reliance on legacy characters and inside-baseball trivia

They’re out of ideas. These are not “big swings,” they’re putting lipstick on a pig.

They’re indulging their own ideas of what they want Trek to be, not what it is. THAT is the problem.

I do think that with an aging fanbase, they *need* to start attracting new fans from somewhere as well as modernising the franchise. I’m not sure they’ve been entirely successful given most of it is stuck on a dying service and the IP’s owners have little to money, though.

Great points.. but they have a very myopic view of what attracts viewership of varying demographics, and it’s borderline insulting to think youth won’t want to view something cerebral and mature. It was youth that sparked interest in Trek back in teh ’60s.. and again in the late 80’s and 90’s.

I thought that for a truncated version of what was initially intended to be a series Star Trek: Section 31 worked fairly well.

It is a 90 minutes movie (plus) credits, in which each third can fairly easily correspond to a season premiere, a half-way point, and a season finale.

As such, the first third introduce the characters, the inciting incident, the threat, etc.

The second third introduces what Truby in his book, The Anatomy of Story, calls “the ally-opponent”, which is what it sounds like; an ally that is actually an opponent, and shows how the group deals with them.

Lastly, the final third shows the resolution, in which the hero defeats the villain and wins the day.

The overall story is very well centered around the protagonist, the former Emperor Georgiou. It shows her origin, and makes the villain someone she is intimately connected with, which is what this kind of movies/series should do.

(I do find it odd that the villain — who is also from the Mirror Universe — was catapulted into the future. That was convenient.)

The prospect of a conduit between the worlds as introduced in the third arc 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.

The quality of the writing is directly proportionate to the format of the presentation. These plots and characters were originally intended to unfold across a series, but when it became a movie their character arcs and such suffered.

For instance, in this movie one character dies within the first 15 -20 minutes. In a series they might still have died but at the end of the season, after they’ve been better developed.

As for the production values 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 here is a direct result of Mirror Spock’s policies that led to its downfall and the rise of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. I liked that.

I went into this really wanting to give it a chance and like it since it’s the only new Trek we’ll have until SNW season 3 comes our way, and it’s the franchise’s first venture into a TV movie. After watching though, it I was more disappointed than anything. I agree that it feels more like a generic undercover caper movie with a bit of Trek sprinkled in vs. a Section 31 adventure. I also think it suffered A LOT from being transformed from a full season to a 90-minute movie. You could clearly see where they were planning on doing more but couldn’t given the time constraints. The transmissions were clearly meant to be individual episodes.

One thing took me out of the moment immediately as I started watching was the stardate. I know that like starship registry numbers, stardates have a tendency to be a little inconsistent, but since we knew this was taking place at some point in the early 24th century, there were plenty of reference points to use. Setting this on stardate 1292.4 puts it before Strange New Worlds. When I saw that pop up, I thought that maybe they were going to start in the past, then jump into the future somehow, but I feel like they just blew it with the date, which was a bad way to start. A quick search on Memory Alpha (which I know Trek writers have used in the past) would have given them what they needed to get the date right:

Strange New Worlds S2E10 Hegemony: 2344.2
Enterprise-B Launch: 9715.5 (2293)
Enterprise-D Launch: 40759.5 (2363)

The date should have been somewhere between the launches of the B and the D, probably around the 15,000’s.

Not sure how or why they came up with 1292.4. Maybe someone put the decimal in the wrong place. Either way, seeing this major error in the opening moments of the movie immediately made me start wondering what else they were going to get wrong. Unfortunately it was a sign of things to come.
I think if they did this as a full season, it would have been much better. We would have gotten to learn about the characters and their backstories and understand their motivations for joining 31. They could even have done a full season with them going on adventures as a group and introduced Georgiou at the end as a setup for season 2 to accommodate Michelle Yeoh’s schedule.

Overall this was a missed opportunity to do something new and interesting and I hope it doesn’t affect the ability to bring more Trek to our screens in the future.

Regarding the stardate, the problem is that the stardate system used during the TNG era is simply inconsistent with the TOS era system. Stardates during TNG and following shows advanced by 1000 points per year. However, that means that the system starts at zero about 40 years before the start of TNG. Assuming the stardate used in Section 31 follows the TNG era system, 1292.4 would put it during the second year of that system, i.e. during the 2320’s.

I guess it’s the same thing as the warp scale changing from TOS to TNG. It’s just odd that they chose do do that when they have SNW running with higher dates. They really didn’t even have to give it a stardate if the system was too confusing. Just put the year.

I mean it seems a bit random at times which elements from previous Trek the current makers decide to keep and which they decide to ignore or even contradict. But if you want to blame anyone you can blame TNG and probably Gene Roddenberry himself for introducing the new system even though it made no sense with what they had done before.

Well, I had a feeling about this film and I know I wasn’t the only one. Not surprised at all. The filmmakers dropped the ball and resorted to cliches and formulas. It’s just a shame. I guess they all can’t be hits.

So, so far I’ve seen Discovery seasons 1-4 and Picard seasons 1 and 2. I liked the serialized story-telling, action, and production of Discovery, but I was never enamored much with the characters. My favorite was actuall Yeoh’s mirror Georgiou and then they got rid of her in Discovery Season 3. I really liked Tig Notaro’s Jett Reno far more than Stamets and Culber. I really really don’t like Adira at all and Tilly can get irritating. I love Sonequa-Green as an actress, but I think the writers have largely failed in selling her character as a captain in the company of Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Janeway. The insubordination and over emotion that could’ve led to the ship’s demise over and over again and she is rewarded for it. It just doesn’t hold together at all. I liked Saru a lot more as captain of Discovery, actually. Tyler was a cool character, being split with a Klingon, Pike and Spock were awesome, and Book was good. Due to the LGBTQ+ content, my kids aren’t allowed to watch Discovery.

I actually really loved the cast of Picard. I thought season 1 was great and I loved Q back in season 2, although I do think the story got away from the writers. I still can’t resolve those time paradoxes well at all. I think they needed to take a step back to get rid of some of those kinks.

Haven’t seen Strange New Worlds or Lower Decks yet. Saw a few episodes of season 1 of Prodigy with my kids and I liked it.

I hope you get to experience Picard S3 or as I like to call it, ST-TNG Season 8, soon! I have a feeling you will enjoy.

Maybe its time for (this version of) Star Trek…

To end ..

This version? It was a standalone movie somewhat based on DSC…

There is no collective “NuTrek” that could end. Each show and movie stands on its own.

Totally agree. Time for these showrunners to go.

And you really think new showrunners are going to please everyone or even you? As long as people place their personal taste over the actual franchise, there will always be naysayers, no matter who’s in charge.
Look at Doctor Who! Lots of DW fans hated Chibnal. They brought back the fan-favourite RTD… People are still complaining! Because most “fans” like to complain about things instead of enjoying what they are served. This is why I only love the franchise proper, not the fanbase…

If the Doctor and companions aren’t being chased through the BBC quarry by some guy in a dodgy rubber alien costume. Whats the point haha

DW has just proved that bringing back one who had success in the past is in no way a guarantee of a return to former glory. In the DW case it was much MUCH worse. Fans just want good stories.

Oh, that time was ages ago.

Hey Anthony! I’ve been reading your website since 2007, and I appreciate that this likely wasn’t the easiest piece to press Publish one. But it’s solely its integrity that makes an effective outlet that makes people come back, and I hope The Powers That Be recognize and understand this when they look at your review. Thanks for sticking with and communicating with the audience, as any creative should hope to do.

Well said! I agree completely! No doubt this review was very difficult to strike the right balance and tone and pressing ‘publish’ had to be a tough call. Thank you Anthony!

Thanks for the review Anth⁸ony.

Agreed it fails on so many levels.

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 of the story. 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 and memorable. And the characters that get redeemed, are redeemedin a way tha feels earned.

What really infuriates me 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 dark 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 it Star Trek by sole virtue of its happy ending. ……..” you see this was never a dystopian/dark story to begin with, it ended optimistic! ” It’s TOTALLY Star Trek and follows Gene’s vision !” Ummm no

The postive end of the movie doesn’t make this feel like Star Trek even at that point. He totally misses the mark with his take and his over arcing methodology of what Star Trek is. At least be honest that this is not Star Trek and have balls to say they are doing something, that even at its core, is not Star Trek. Admit he disagrees with the postive vision and that he doesn’t feel it’s realistic or sustainable or resonates with modern audiences ( than i can respect fullydisagree) . . No he doesn’t do that . He makes it fundamentally not Star Trek and then he has this big marketing campaign try to sell this as classic Star Trek at its core. It’s insulting

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. Agreed with allot if what you said.

For seemingly attempting to do something “new” with Star Trek, it’s notable (yet sadly not surprising) how derivative Section 31 is, from its knock-off Dirty Dozen/Suicide Squad/Mission Impossible plot to its Marvel-style snark.

A Section 31 movie should be more John le Carré and less James Bond; morally gray, unglamorous spy craft.

Imagine it done in the style of Slow Horses.

This review is the Final nail in the coffin. Mr Scott: Bagpipes, please.

*Points*
See that’s how you be both creative and snarky.

Scottish people don’t play bagpipes at funerals, that’s an Irish thing.

This was even worse than I feared. It was beyond horrible. Kurtzman hopefully will be toast when the new owners take hold.

David Ellison, son of Peter, whose Skydance Media financed the JJ Abrams movies, will get to make that call. I’m not holding my breath that things will improve with hard core lovers of Lord Trump overseeing all things Star Trek… but one can hope!

Come back Rick Berman and Brannon Bragga – all is forgiven. Please rescue this debacle of a franchise.

Trek needs a Jordan Peele. Not a horror/suspense auteur, but somebody with that kind of soul and talent. Talent to write and a soul with keen insight into the moral, ethical, and societal issues facing the world and the US and can craft a fantastical wrapping around a tough topic.

Back in the pre-digital era, I would have called this a waste of perfectly good film stock. An unmitigated mess on nearly every level.

In the digital era it’s a waste of bandwidth and flash memory.

By the way, this bit?

it’s sidestepped here by introducing the new (and later apparently ignored) rule that the group only operates outside the Federation.

This is because Kurtzman again misunderstood something figurative as something literal. “S31 exists outside the Federation” is a sentence that means that they themselves aren’t the Federation but instead something extra/additional that services it in their own way, but he took it to literally mean “Here’s the Federation’s borders, and Section 31 exists outside of it”. It’s not the first time he’s done this. Sometimes it feels like he misunderstood someone explaining Star Trek to him and is too afraid to course-correct because it would look like back-tracking. It’s just kind of sad.

I wonder what other misunderstandings will be codified in the future?

I’ve been a defender of his in the past, but I dunno. This was pretty far over the line. Is it too much to ask for a little regret? I’d just like to see some accountability.

I’m reminded of when I was a little kid and my cousin Justin and I were watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (bear with me). In the movie, Lord Zedd gets angry and shoots a lot of lightning up into the sky while screaming, and a moment later his henchman Mordant comedically says “I can do that, I just choose not to.” The joke is clear: Mordant can’t shoot lightning but wishes he could/wants other people to think he can despite it being clear he can’t. It’s obvious and it’s funny, and lasted all of half a second.

My cousin Justin, though, heard “I can do that, I’d just use nachos.” and went on to think that this character Mordant has a talent the movies somehow never used: using specifically nachos to shoot lightning.

Now, I don’t think Kurtzman is a Justin, but I think he’d still misunderstand the line. He’d hear “I can do that, I just choose not to.” and take it completely at face value. He’d grow up and make a TV show that involved Mordant shooting lightning. In the interview, he’d even say, “It’s in the Mordant charter that his species can shoot lightning, they just usually choose not to.” He’d hear the words, but completely misinterpret them before codifying his misunderstanding as law.

Again, I’ve been a Kurtzman defender up until now, and I still appreciate his administrative wins, but he needs to stop trusting his gut with some of these context-less interpretations of past Trek. It’s becoming quite bizarre and cartoonish and they are going to catch up with him eventually.

I actually think this comes from the bit about it being the Federation’s answer to the CIA. Still a misinterpretation, just a different one (and, to be clear, still dumb.)

Wow, you guys nailed it. That is an extremely accurate picture of the movie. I applaud you for not holding back, yet at the same time not being vitriolic. That cannot have been an easy tightrope to walk, but you did a great job. All of your criticisms are valid, and I think you were nicer about it than I would have been when it comes to Fuzz, who was ridiculous. This movie failed on every single level, and while Yeoh and Richardson gave solid performances, nothing about the movie is worth ever seeing again.

One thing I’m surprised wasn’t mentioned: the fact that San should have been a century old, but the writers seem to have completely forgotten when the movie took place. For some reason, he was the same age he was when she was still Emperor, despite decades having passed in the interim. No attempt to explain that was made, likely due to the butchering the scripts took during the transition from TV show to telefilm.

Well said Lorna! As for San.. that’s one of those things regarding the timeline that DEMANDED explanation, and they just didn’t. There are so many of those issues all over this movie.

Yeah, the movie is a narrative mess.

Yeah even I didn’t catch that until others pointed it out, but there is so much timey whimey stuff happening with Georgiou since her appearance that it looks like the writers forgot how much time has past in the MU itself. But being this movie, sadly not surprised.

I have a friend try to tell me that it’s clearly set IN the mirror universe.. in its entirety. That’s how convoluted the explanations (or lack of…) are.

I wish it did…be easier to forget it.

I’ve been wrong about my my assumptions of Trek things many times.

I though I’d like the Abrams stuff. I didn’t.
I thought I’d hate Lower Decks. I loved it.
I thought I’d like Discovery. I disliked it a lot.

But this time, we all saw this for what it was going to be. I wish I would have been wrong again.

Something that puzzles me though is how anyone at all can be in favor of Georgiou. At all. I mean, we all like a good redemption ark . . . but we’re not talking about a person who had some problems. We’re talking about Space Hitler on crack who, out of racism, ate people (or sentient aliens). Star Trek, with its obvious leaning towards progressive ideals, does not work (IMO) with making a hero out of a person of that caliber of evil.

This whole thing was just an exercise in absurdity.

The woman was literally eating an eyeball in the movie haha

I missed that (not that I’m surprised). When did this happen?

In Discovery when Michael met her. They were also eating Kelpiens.

I don’t want to be another person who compares something I don’t like to Hitler . . . but, yes, Georgiou was Space Hitler and Beyond.

Having her become a focus and a heroic figure (anti-hero, whatever) is just gross to me. I like to see a person who was bad come “back to the light” as it were. But, this message just says that genocidal racist cannibalistic dictators can turn into a star that we look up to.

No thanks.

It’s clear they wanted to do more with Yeoh. That’s fine. They should have instead found a way to bring back the dead Prime Universe Georgiou.

That’s the thing, she is worse than Hitler. I don’t remember him eating anyone or owning slaves. And on top of that we now learned she killed her own family for power. How could someone like this lead a Star Trek movie?

I been seeing lots of posts like this everywhere. She is gross and shame on these clowns for trying to make her some hero. I partly hated the movie because I was sad San didn’t kill her. But I’m happy most aren’t buying it.

You’re completely right. Georgiou is a Space Hitler. It’s crazy some people used to get upset when others said it. This woman is THE WORST. So vile on every level. Just because she crack jokes and seems to care about a few people doesn’t excuse all the disgusting things she’s done in her life and to other people.

You called it. She’s a genocidal racist cannibalistic dictator. Nothing could ever redeem someone like this. Why would you want to???

I love Dukat as a character, he still did pretty horrific things and even he can excuse it as just following orders (still doesn’t take away the things he did). And he didn’t do a quarter of the things she did and she gave all the orders on top of it.

I’m really hoping now seeing how people have reacted to both her and this movie that they just focus on the characters who doesn’t kill their families, burn their ex lovers face off or eats people.

Call me old fashioned I guess.

Right? Dukat was so brilliantly written and acted. He came just close enough to being sympathetic while keeping it obvious he was still the bad guy and could never be redeemed. And we all knew, even if he did manage to grow some empathy and lose his narcissism, he’d still never be anything other than the man who oppressed the Bajorans.

Georgiou is just terrible.

I’m not going to read into their decisions any deeper than they are — Paramount saw a money grab with an actress that people really like. But they are so dense that amid their professing of progressive ideals, they could inadvertently hide a message that even someone worse than Hitler could come to be admired. And people fell for it.

I’m hoping with all the backlash with this movie and the many fans who think it was a terrible idea for this character to be a lead in anything is finally getting through this was always a terrible idea from the start.

You can’t have a property whose ideals is all about trying to best of humanity and where diversity is considered a strength but then have Space Hitler as the star of the same property. It just doesn’t work…at all. And to try and redeem her is just more insulting given the ridiculous level of her crimes and actions. When you are killing your own parents for power, there is really nothing you can do to redeem such a sick individual. Even Darth Vader couldn’t kill his own family.

Georgiou shouldn’t be admired, she should be in prison for all her war crimes. Period.

I agree on Georgiou: she is utterly irredeemable. She is cruel, she is sadistic, and largely not for any reason other than she enjoys it. She is the definition of evil.

Compare her to probably the most famous redemptive arc in science fiction: that of Darth Vader. Yes he did some unspeakable things, including murdering ‘younglings’, however we are shown that Annakin is being groomed and manipulated from a very young age. He loses everything because of it: his wife, his friends, his children are hidden away from him. He’s as much a victim of Palpatine as anybody else. He is a tragic hero. Georgiou has none of that.

Indeed, when you bear in mind how the Sith operate, how they manipulate and groom their ‘recruits’, arguably even Palpatine himself is more redeemable than Georgiou. Whilst he can never be regarded as a sympathetic character, not all his motives are without a modicum of reason – the Republic was sclerotic and corrupt, change was needed. However, those ends did not justify his means. And we certainly never see him personally do anything that is outright sadistic or evil (he has his minions, including Vader, to do all that). Well, ok, I’ll give you his relish at using the force lightning on Luke in EpVI.

“Something that puzzles me though is how anyone at all can be in favor of Georgiou. At all. I mean, we all like a good redemption ark . . . but we’re not talking about a person who had some problems. We’re talking about Space Hitler on crack who, out of racism, ate people (or sentient aliens).”

I been asking this question since they first brought her over into the Prime universe. Adolf is the worst Trek character in the franchise and doesn’t deserved to be celebrated but condemned.

If the mirror universe and “our” Trek universe are synced timewise, that would mean San traveled forward in time from the mirror Discovery time period to the mid 24th century in “our” universe to introduce the Godsend. I guess who cares, right?

Alex Kurtzman should be ashamed of himself for producing the worst piece of Star Trek in 60 years.

Well, I can see why you waited several days to post this. I have to confess, I rather liked Section 31, although I admit you could have told this story in any scifi universe (Star Wars, Firefly…) with similar characters and not lost anything in the translation.

But I certainly can’t ignore the wave of bad reviews this has generated, and I would be very surprised if there was a sequel (which is rather a shame, all things considered). When you think about what this team has pulled off in the Trek universe over the past few years, it’s hard to understand how they could have made so many missteps.

Those were my 2 biggest issues with Section 31:

  • They’ve known that this wouldn’t be a full TV season for a while, but the end result still seemed like they took a season and edited it down to make it 90 minutes long. You didn’t get the chance to connect with any of the characters or understand them
  • It was totally generic. If it didn’t have the things that make it Star Trek like the transporter effect, tricorder sounds and minor canon references, it could have been part of any franchise. There wasn’t much that firmly planted it in the Star Trek universe, and it really suffered because of that. I loved the idea of it being outside of the Federation, but they took it too far and put it outside of Star Trek

Leaving this as open ended as they did, really screamed ‘make this into a series’, which is insanely ironic. My biggest complaint, is they should have made this into a film with a definitive ending.. not a send off and hint of adventures to come.

And what was up with that weird Jamie Lee Curtis cameo at the end?

I figure Michelle Yeoh cooked that up. It didn’t bother me… not at that point in the film. It was certainly a distraction from whatever was going on in that scene.

So even if one was thoroughly entertained by Section 31, it’s hard to imagine new viewers being inspired to check out more Star Trek on Paramount+, which sort of should be the point. And if they did check out the most likely candidate, Discovery, they would find almost no connections when it comes to story and style. “

This is, in my opinion, the most important line in any of the reviews and comments I’ve seen about the movie.

Exactly. It’s such a weird mentality. “Yeah let’s get new fans into Star Trek by stripping everything that looks, acts or feels like Star Trek. But hopefully it will convince them to try actual Star Trek that looks nothing like this movie.”

I just don’t get the argument, especially since this is a very standalone movie that has zero connections to the other shows and movies outside of two of the characters. This version of Section 31 acts like nothing of the other versions at all which is what makes it an even bigger fail.

I keep seeing the question, “Who was this made for?” and I still honestly have no idea since it was clearly not made for long time fans but then new fans won’t be drawn into the bigger Star Trek world by watching this.

Spot-on review. Nail his squarely on the head.

Best article title ever.

Wow, this is the most acerbic biting stinging negative review since Star Trek 5’s blast out of space dock’s negative reactions!
I am a lifelong lifetime loyal fan of this site, and will continue to be regardless of my dislike of this degree of negative criticism.
Granted, there are many of the things discussed in this article I do not fully disagree with. As a matter of fact, there were items I felt bad about on my own while watching the show that I didn’t read about here.
However, the point is this: I’m afraid that even a toned down watered down review of a lesser tone of negative remarks here on this site will do more damage to Star Trek than the actual movie will.
I say, let the movie soak online for a while. Let the “outsider newcomers” naysayers weigh in.
Don’t spike the punch before all the guests even get in line for their own serving.
That being said, I enjoyed the movie, was entertained to see Michelle Yeoh back in action in Trek, and still want to see more of her, and more made for TV Trek streaming properties!

Is it the responsibility of a fan site to hold back so as to prop up a franchise?

It’s the responsibility of a fan site to remain loyal to what it is a fan of. Today’s fan’s are more sophisticated than the days of letter writing campaigns. The fan’s are more self assured of their opinions and those opinions travel at the speed of light (warp 1?).
Because of that, the fans need to be careful not to exacerbate the franchise into nothingness. Once the franchise is gone, there’s nothing left to be a fan of.
I am very proud of this franchise, with all it’s impurities and imperfections. And, I respect all the fans and their diversified opinions, likes and dislikes.
Just hope it stays around for centuries, until we as a civilization actually reach out to the farthest stars.

The first duty of every Star Trek fan is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth.

In that case, the truth is that as a fan I truly enjoyed this production, will re-watch it again, and hope they get to do another one with Michelle Yeoh. Yes, in truth I am truly a huge fan of hers!

So I didn’t hate this movie. I certainly didn’t love this movie. No it does not feel very Star Trek but I did enjoy some of the Star Trek adjacent aspects of 31. I wish there was just way more of those aspects. I wish the movie was good. At the end of the day it really just feels like content filler for Paramount+.

Thanks for posting a fair and honest review for Section 31, Trekmovie.

For me the movie felt so low quality both in budget and story that TFF looked like a big budget masterpiece by comparison. At least TFF’s story, even if not great, was easy to follow and stayed within the established universe of Star Trek.

Section 31 was an epic misfire in my opinion, and I still can’t believe that Prodigy got scrubbed from Paramount+ for a tax write-off and this movie didn’t.

So, Section 31 seems to no longer be the evil and well-organized organization that will genocide entire races to save the Federation. It can’t be, because tarnishing the reputation of a future Enterprise captain by having her working with such an evil group wouldn’t be the best choice. I would have preferred to see a young Sloan in her place.

Other elements of the story that bugged me was that there was no explanation about San just conveniently time travelling to the same time that Carl spit Georgiou out. Speaking of time, what was up with that low stardate?

The first big fight scene with the phasing devices threw logic out the airlock too. They didn’t phase through the floor. Walls were no problem, but the floor was still solid. Another part of that sequence that made no sense was when the phasing device failed, and Georgiou got her foot stuck in the wall. Shouldn’t she have lost a foot or, I don’t know, screamed in agony?

So, by the end, it is discovered that Control has been resurrected. I suppose it isn’t the evil version from Discovery that wanted to wipe out all life, but in good old Discovery fashion, no explanation given.

I wished the movie would have been good, because I like good Star Trek. Unfortunately, this movie was too concerned with trying to be like all other sci-fi properties that it forgot it was supposed to be Star Trek.

Ideas derived from Hunger Games, Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad, MiB were all present in this movie, and Star Trek only had a couple sound effects and a couple mentions of Starfleet. If these are the type of one-off Star Trek movies Kurtzman had in mind, then I hope there are no more of them.

It just looked and felt too generic and cheap, even for a streaming movie. Nothing about it stood out in any way. Again if the story was stronger people would’ve overlooked those issues, but alas.

After seeing the section 31 movie, I came to this conlusion:

This movie wasn´t meant or made for us trek fans.

It´s an origin movie set in a complete new star trek universe with a complete new emperor Giorgiu,

in a new paralell universe..

This movie was made with the sole purpost to create a new fan base with new viwers .

The only way one can watch this and enjoy, is forgetting everything that we know that has happen

before, forget canon and simple put, look at it as something complete knew.

Iknow that for us trek fans this is impossible.

Aimed at young adults who are watching while scrolling on their phones.

I’m starting to consider most of this era of Trek (bar LDS and PRO) a parallel universe. Thank God for head canon.

DSC – too much meddling with canon from the get go, including too many anachronisms for the era. Got progressively more boring with each season. Some terrible narrative choices (why did The Burn have to be caused by an upset little boy? The Omega Particle was right there)
PIC – an unmitigated dumpster fire (yes including the fan service spectacular that was S3)
SNW – again too many canon and continuity issues. Too shallow and lightweight. Often too gimmicky
S31 – the less said the better

In general there’s too much what I call Doctor Who Level writing – thin, shallow, and does not stand up five minutes after the credits roll. That’s another show ostensibly aimed at those in their early teens, but people in that age group are embarrassed to watch it. A lot of the current Star Wars has been the same (the most egregious being Book of Boba Fett, Obi Wan, and Ahsoka). Even The Mandalorian has got progressively worse as the seasons have gone on, with anything remotely interesting largely happening off screen.

Talking about Doctor Who, as far as that goes I consider anything after Eleven ‘rebooted the universe’ an alternate universe. There’s no other way to reconcile the mess they’ve made of it since (especially in the Chibnall era). Wouldn’t it have made more narrative sense to make the ‘Timeless Child’ The Master? It would help explain a lot and give that character some needed depth.

Can we not get some, I dunno, science fiction writers to write our science fiction shows? Or at least sell the IP to Apple. They seem to know how to get science fiction right.

Although I enjoyed this movie, finding it more watchable than some of the feature films, but most of my enjoyment comes down to superficiality in the production (it looks and sounds nice, cast and characters are fun to watch, fast paced). I agree it’s a bad dimwitted movie and fails to point the way forward for Star Trek. But I see the germ of an interesting series in there that would have been something new and fun for the franchise. The cast and premise had promise if they toned down the camp and dialed up the Trek. It’s really hard making film and TV, and it’s a miracle if it’s any good, but given how tortured this production was I am surprised it worked at all (for me). Still, you have to give Kurtzman credit considering we got Lower Decks, Prodigy, SNW, and occasional glimpses of greatness in Picard with some middling results in Discovery. But I do think it’s time for Star Trek to get some new handlers for a fresh vision. Granted I think whoever gets it next will have a far smaller production mandate than Kurtzman had, so they will probably have a better shot at focusing on mainstream Star Trek ideas.

This movie was just bad. There is no spinning it. It’s just not a well made movie on any level and just have too many structural problems along with just a very formulaic (especially for Star Trek these days) story line and generic characters you could’ve plucked out of a straight to video 80s movie.

And you know it’s bad when more positive fan sites and podcasts like this are trashing it. I been watching a lot of YT Star Trek channels and other sites that are normally very positive or at least try to be more balanced like Trekcore, Jessie Gender, Trekculture, Trekyards, Trek Central all essentially hated it. Some of those still tried to be more balanced but ultimately concluded it was bad. And they all pointed out so many plot holes in this thing I didn’t even catch to the point it seem like they only made a first draft and never a second one.

But the second people saw the first teaser trailer it all felt so wrong. It was trying so hard to be anything but Star Trek. Many people, me included, hated it, but still told ourselves it’s just the first teaser, they are probably not showing a lot of things (all the Star Trek stuff for starters) and the next one will be better. Even though I hated it, I still tried to put on a positive spin reminding others that the first Lower Deck trailer got the same toxic reaction when it premiered to the point Paramount turned off the comments section and today that show is loved. I went in thinking that can happen with this movie even though I knew deep down I probably was going to dislike it.

So when the second trailer came and it was more of the same, I knew then this movie was going to be a huge misfire and a misfire it was. I just don’t understand how these people who have been making a lot of Star Trek the past several years, some very popular, could be this tone deaf? Even if the excuse you’re trying to make it for a ‘new’ audience just rings hollow when you’re making a bad product that doesn’t resemble the franchise you are trying to appeal them too. Enterprise was originally made for a new audience. So were the Abram movies. So was Prodigy. The fandom was mixed on all of them, especially the first two, no one doubted they were Star Trek even if they still didn’t like them. This is just generic crap of the highest order with the name Star Trek thrown on it.

If nothing else, I hope this finally marks the end of MU Georgiou. She can be back but it’s no way there will be anymore standalone projects after this and as the review said it was probably done to appease Michelle Yeoh who wanted the character to continue. After this, she is probably having second thoughts about it now.

And I’m sorry, I just think trying to have a Space Hitler type character lead a Star Trek project is a bad call, period. A lot of these bad reviews are based on how much they hated Georgiou in this movie herself just like everything else even if they liked Yeoh’s performance. I get the character has fans but it’s still a very divisive character for valid reasons and didn’t endear the character to her critics in any way. In fact, just made her more unlikable to many, me included.

I have defended Kurtzman and modern Trek way more than I have criticized it, even though I been called both a hater and an apologist for it lol. I do think there is more good than bad, but this was truly bad, like Picard season 2 bad. But unlike that show that recovered greatly with season 3, this should just be forgotten and never spoken of again.

Just a total failure.

Thanks for the review Tiger2. Not that I totally discount what others have to say, but I know you can provide an unbiased review, not tainted by preconceived likes or dislikes for NuTrek.

I will eventually take the time to watch and make up my own mind about S31, but clearly there’s no need to rush.

As always I appreciate that DeanH!

And I truly hope you like it. You know I have zero issues if someone disagrees and tells me why. Unfortunately not many people are for a reason. As I said, even when the most positive sites and channels like this one hates it then you know you have a problem.

But I hope when you eventually watch it and make up your own mind, to give me your thoughts on it. Not everyone hates it and a few people here said they liked it. Good for them! It’s not a contest, people should like what they like and hate what they hate and just respect it all as a community even when we disagree.

We shall see. It sounds like they lost a major opportunity. They could have easily kept the major plot/storyline but integrated into it legacy Trek themes, subplots or even backstory flashbacks that would have linked the movie to legacy Trek, while giving the franchise a whole new look and feel.

It’s not exactly rocket science to figure that out. For the producers, editors and writers to ignore that opportunity, seems to demonstrate a lack of competence. Oh well, too bad – at least we can look forward to SNW S3 and S4 along with SFA. I am sure I will get around to watching S31…. eventually.

So much for my (and others) prediction of monster maroons, excelsior, and the mcguffin being the Orci ST3 timeline device/kelvin crossover lol

That’s the biggest irony of all. The first official story to take place in the ‘lost era’ and everything in the movie is so vague with no elements tied to anything, it could’ve taken place in literally any century if Rachel Garret wasn’t there.

And as reviews have mentioned countless times now including this one, even Rachel Garret was a waste because they didn’t develop her at all! If the biggest thing we learn about her is she is secretly a ‘chaos goblin’ (seriously who the FCK wrote this atrocious dialogue????) then you failed the character big time.

I wrote this on another site a few days ago but what would’ve at least silenced this movie’s critics a little more if the last scene of the movie we had Rachel Garret showing up in the monster maroon uniform on a ship (and it could be the Excelsior, why not?) giving Georgiou and the others their next assignment via view screen. That would’ve been a great way to end it and to foreshadow what came next into a more traditional Star Trek story. Give us a bone for Khaless sake.

Instead….the last scene has Garret showing up in a party dress like she’s on a hot date to discuss the next mission in the middle of a night club. This is how they decided to end a ‘Star Trek’ movie. Embarrassing. I don’t know how much more proof you can have of a movie failing both a character and the property it supposedly takes place in as badly as this did.

Could’ve even had her in the maroon on the Enterprise B , a (not so) subtle foreshadow to her becoming Captain of the C. If too expensive for new FX/set then just have her in some random shuttle on her way to the Ent in spacedock (Generations opening FX steal lol)

That would require people who actually care about Star Trek that made this movie.

Don’t forget the last scene included a Yo Mama joke too, which another review pointed out was an ADR added into the scene and the actor’s mouths weren’t even moving. Someone thought the joke was SO funny, they literally added into the scene later so we can all get a good laugh and pretend like we’re still living in the 90s.

How did any of these clowns think they were making anything but an embarrassing disaster when you are tripping over yourself to include a Yo Mama joke in a Star Trek movie?

That joke was just dire. 🙄

I just can not understand all the weird choices they made in this thing. What’s even more frighting this was considered the BETTER version of what they came up with over the others.

I think they mentioned it on the review podcast.. but they said that getting Garrett in a Monster Maroon was one way that really would have helped this show feel like it was part of the ST universe.. couldn’t agree more. The lack of that was a disappointment.

Thank you for panning it. I’ve felt TrekMovie has often played it safe reviewing Trek and I don’t entirely blame you. You have great access to the cast and crew and it could get awkward.

I entirely agree that this movie let Michelle Yeoh down. What a waste of global movie star.

The script felt like a rough draft — like place holder dialogue for them to rewrite later. I just don’t know how something like this goes all the way to full production without anyone noticing how bad it is. Don’t they know by now that flashy special effects and fight scenes are worthless if the story is weak and the characters inconsequential?

It’s written as if a 13 year old wrote it.

Please.

You dis 13 year olds.

So many stories they could tell with a TV movie and this is what they chose. Want some Lost Era stories? How about something centering on the Enterprise-B or Enterprise-C? A lot of things changed in the galaxy between Generations and TNG, and there’s all sorts of possibilities with or without familiar characters, different kind of stories that could be told, but they chose this hot mess instead. Because apparently they think Trek fans won’t watch unless it has the mirror universe, the Borg, time travel, section 31, or some other overused aspect of the Trekverse in it. Less FX, more story and character – I know that’s not a very Hollywood concept, but give it a try.

E-B Era would have been ideal for a real s31 story, since there’s already a ton of political paranoia in tsfs and tuc. Crew thinks this is straight starfleet intel op and have qualms, but you only find out later that s31 has been pulling the strings and trashing the legit intel op for their own ends.

Sadly, I have to concur. I really wanted to enjoy this, but it was quite disappointing. I hope this doesn’t discourage Paramount Plus from trying other Trek streaming movies.

There’s a bomb in this film called the Godsend that looks like it was built by Hubert J. Farnsworth for his doomsday device collection and can blow up everyone and everything if activated. A significant step up from Solaranite from Plan 9.
It also has a voice and talks when activated.

Fantastic.

I really hope Ira Steven Behr never watches this movie. They took his concept, regardless if you like it or not, that was trying to make a statement about what it took to keep an idealism alive in a very harsh universe that rejected it and how far some were willing to go to keep it flourishing. But instead turned it into an embarrassing joke and run of the mill action movie.

Wasn’t the idea of making a Section 31 show was to have an honest dialogue about that? To see the good and bad of such an organization. Where was it in this movie?

Right. There was no moral dilemma or choices to even discuss. It was a paint by numbers goofy action movie where the bomb goes boom and then they all meet up for drinks after.

The entire concept was so far off the mark from the original one for Section 31.

Exactly. They turned something that was supposed to be a serious look of the Federation values and turned it into a forgetful action comedy that had absolutely nothing to say about anything.

I just don’t understand it. You had a former dictator running from her past part of an organization that was suppose to be so controversial Starfleet denied their existence. There was so much you could’ve done and brought up some interesting themes. Instead, let’s have Georgiou running a night club and facing off with her very jilted ex-boyfriend out for revenge and another save the galaxy trope done a thousand times already.

The sad thing is you didn’t even need Section 31 for this story. There was nothing controversial about this mission and would’ve been something anyone from Starfleet would’ve tried to stop.

Hmm, didn’t they say something in the beginning that the Federation wasn’t supposed to cross some sort of border and that’s why Section 31 had to do the job?

I’m pretty sure that Starfleet Intelligence would go anywhere it needed to go. But, unlike Starfleet Intelligence, Section 31 operates outside of any official oversight and is a rogue organization that doesn’t seem to answer to anyone. Well, used to be like that until Kurtzman confused it with Starfleet Intelligence.

Even if they did say that in the movie, that’s more backpeddling BS since we seen ordinary Starfleet officers do covert missions for Starfleet or the Federation outside of Federation space time and time again like Picard and Data secretly going to Romulus to find Ambassador Spock or Discovery going to Qronos ro plant a bomb to end the Klingon war. Or when Sisko and the gang pretended to be Klingons to out a Changeling who they thought was manipulating the Klingon High Council to create conflict with the Federation.

Those are just three off the top of my head. If they are using regular officers for dangerous covert missions outside Federation space and in enemy territory at that, not sure why that’s suddenly a thing that now only Section 31 does.

It’s just a really terrible movie with dumb logic and very little basis in canon.

Section 31 is enough to tarnish Deep Space Nine’s legacy and ISB’s contributions to Star Trek. His second worst idea after shoehorning his Sinatra love into the show (via Vic Fontaine), but at least that wasn’t a concept-threatening idea.

And yet those Section 31 episodes are some of the highest rated for DS9 on IMDB.

As I said, I know it’s always been controversial (and what we been debating since they announced a S 31 show lol) but it doesn’t seem to have created a wide divide over it either. But probably trying to turn it into a show would’ve gone too far for some.

So I guess tarnish is pretty subjective especially since over 20 years later they are still using this group in new shows, movies, comics and novels. The biggest irony though, I doubt Behr himself thought they would ever be used again after DS9 ended and after he inferred he killed them off for good. But the people making Trek today seems to like having them around, but the execution has been very poor in many areas IMO, this movie especially a sad example of it.

Ironically one of the best portrayals of them were in Lower Decks. That’s taking the concept and doing something much more positive with it.

I’m sorry, Tiger2, but I don’t respect IMDB ratings as evidence of anything. I’m glad you’ve had success deploying it in previous internet discussions, though, as it’s an easy data point to throw in and stymies people who are making empty arguments.

I’m not really making an argument – I am stating my opinion. You disagree, as you often do, which is fine. I still think tarnish holds as a description precisely because it has been used in new shows, movies, comics and novels. It has become a bigger part of Star Trek than the idea of Star Trek itself — which S31 was created in reaction to from the very start. It’s been a perfect vessel for postmodern deconstruction of the concept that humanity can evolve. It’s low-hanging fruit for bad writers and lazy execs and so here we are.

The unintended consequence of Ira Behr’s idea that confronts the concept of Star Trek is that it’s poisoned the well of what Star Trek can be (mainly in live action — the cartoons were shepherded by people who had more a different idea of what Star Trek is). That’s a bummer, but he opened Pandora’s box with an idea that was unpopular at the time.

OK fair enough. I just never had an issue with them personally but yeah I know others do, which is literally why I thought it was a mistake to do something like a show or movie with them given the vocal outrage over making a Section 31 project for the last 5 years.

And I’ll go farther and say after this debacle if they decide to just move on from them completely ala the Discovery Klingons and never show them again I would be fine with that too.

One movie which not that many people saw doesn’t have that kind of power.

The concept of Section 31, not the movie.

What’s very sad for me is that this streaming movies could have started a whole series of Star Trek movies made far cheaper than feature films and explore so much of Star Trek — Romulan War, Enterprise Season 5, The Lost Era barely touched upon here, events only mentioned before, SO much could be explored. Not fan service but real exploration and expanding the Trek universe.

But now — this film might kill that idea as unworkable.

If Section 31 had actually dealt with the MORALITY and the battle between doing what MUST be done and then trying to live with and process that decision — it would be SO much more interesting.

The review is perfect, spot-on, and I fear will make all TPTB question what form of Star Trek is viable going forward.

Thank you Anthony and Trekmovie team.

Morality? The characters at the end didn’t even bat an eyelid fellow team members had been horrifically slaughtered during the mission.

Right, like I said,

“If Section 31 had actually dealt with the MORALITY and the battle between doing what MUST be done and then trying to live with and process that decision — it would be SO much more interesting.”

— They didn’t deal with any of it.

My suspicion is that they turned it into a young adult orientated action comedy to try and hook new Trek fans as the people who grew up watching TOS and TNG are getting older.

The way the characters were explaining things screams talking to an audience scrolling on their phone.

I did see an audience comment on Rotten Tomatoes that said something like they knew it was a great movie because they barely looked at their phone.

So there is probably some truth to what you have suggested.

I hope SFA isn’t going to be like this too. It has the same people involved.

The problem is there is a difference between appealing to the widest possible audience and appealing to the lowest common denominator. This was the latter, and was an insult to the franchise, the fans, and the intelligence of the general viewing public.

Yep! 👍

So they made a dumb movie that had to dumb down the content to appeal to dumb people with the attention span of a goldfish? If this is the future of Star Trek to get new viewers its going to be a bleak franchise in the next few years.

For Anthony P to give it a negative review, it must truly be very, very bad. He and Laurie have tried mightily to shore up the worst of Nu Trek the past few years, so this is a surprise.

This streaming movie was one big pile of tribble poo….I mean tribbles have mouths so they must poo. But lets not forget all the newbie Trekkers clamming on about “they should make a Section 31” show.
I suppose Alex Kurtzman was reading all those Trek wishes and gave you what you wanted.Then again, he said he was reading all the comments at the old StarTrek.Com site and said everybody was hoping for a Khan story. Which if I recall no one there wanted a Khan movie. So there’s always that.Making Star Trek Into Darkness the story that didn’t need to be told. And nothing for nothing that cast of actors portraying Kirk, Spock & McCoy were perfectly cast for their parts with almost stella acting. Sadly wasted on that story that didn’t need to be told.S31 was a miss matched blob of Blob.A commplete blemish on the Acady Award winning actress Michelle Yeoh.I wonder if there’s a way for her to change her name to “Alan Smithee” in thecredits? That’s the name direcetors use when they don’t want their name on a failed project. Maybe “Angel Smittee? LOL
But really Paramount, it’s tme let Alex Kurtzman go. Give him his walking papers.And if you think this was bad, just see the total toilet flush Star Trek Star Fleet Academy will be.

Don’t mince words, Bones. What do you really think?

It’s dead, Jim.

It’s worse than dead. Its brain is gone.

😅

Georgiou’s epiphany that there can be no benevolent dictators is on brand and a worthy (and timely) message.

If so, I suggest that a Straits Chinese actress was not exactly the best tribune for this message; Lee Kwan Yew would probably differ.