Get enough Star Trek fans in a room and the conversation will inevitably turn to which of the series' worst cinematic manifestations is. Consensus opinion is The Last Stand, Uprising And Nemesis fighting for an unnecessary trophy. Every film has a small legion of fans who will defend the campy excesses, boldness and tone of each song. (I'm partial to watching The Last Frontier every five years or so, mostly to enjoy Jerry Goldsmith's score.) Fortunately, any such debate will cease once and for all on January 24, 2024, when Star Trek: Section 31 debuts on Paramount+.
This is the worst way to keep the name “Star Trek” in living memory.
Spoilers for Star Trek: Section 31 follow.
Star Trek: Section 31 created for TV streaming film about Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) after her departure from Star Trek: Discovery. The series was originally greenlit in 2019, but for a variety of reasons it languished in development hell until 2022. Meanwhile, showrunners Bo Young Kim and Erica Lippoldt, as well as acclaimed screenwriter Craig Sweeney, hatched the idea. Director Olatunde Osunsanmi spoke about this. SFX Magazine (by using ) that Sweeney would eventually write (and rewrite) the project seven times: first as a series, then as a film. was eager to start production to take advantage of Yeoh's 2022 Academy Award win for Everything everywhere and at once.
The result is a film that, even if you don't know the pre-production backstory, definitely feels like a TV series hastily cut down to a feature-length film. This is not incoherent, but suffers from the same problem as Openingwhere you're looking at a theatrical synopsis rather than a script. There are thematic and plot points that rhyme with each other, but there is no cohesive thread that brings them together. It's simple things that happen.
It doesn't help that the plot (credited to Kim and Lippoldt) is a lot like the “and then it happens” variety that they warn you about in Film School 202. Many of the big moments in the film are completely unearned and you're questioned. care about characters you just met and don't really like. There's a funny scene at the end where two people who haven't really given you the impression that they're in love with each other are forced to hold hands and watch their impending doom. The couple in question have shared their backstories with each other, but there is no suggestion that they are anything more than just people working together at work, let alone friends.
Weak material isn't a problem if you have a cast that can improve on what they've been given, but, and it pains me to say this, this is no Michelle Yeoh. Yeoh is a phenomenal performer who has given a number of underrated performances over her long and distinguished career. But she's made a name for herself by playing characters with deep inner lives rather than high-camp, scenery-chewing villains. Even at the redemption stage, it's impossible to believe that Yeo is the monster Georgiou is supposed to be in Star Trek. Instead of compressing the scene and stakes to fit her talent, the film expands the canvas and expects Yeoh to fill spaces she never needed.
The rest of the gang is also under-resourced, and there's a lot of clutter that the film has little time to deal with. Creating a six-person Section 31 team before they meet Georgiou means that every character other than her is a miniature sketch at best. There's the brooding one, the “funny one”, the intense one, the robotic one, the hot one, and the one with a bad Irish accent.
If Section 31 This was a show you'd forgive the pithy introductions knowing you'd have to fill out these characters in the coming weeks, maybe even grow attached to them. In the space of a film, this doesn't work because shocking twists—like a character's early death that raises the stakes, or a sudden turn in a moment of crisis—don't work. To make matters worse, the dialogue is often incomprehensible crosstalk that feels more like sad improvisation than useful characterization. Or are they simply characters reminding the audience over and over again of major story points, such as the fact that Georgiou was the villain.
Director Olatunde Osunsanmi always tried to attract attention with striking panoramas, tilts, movements and Dutch angles. Oddly enough, all his instincts desert him when he has to simply film people talking in a room – these scenes invariably default to the standard TV format. What's worse is that the direction he takes loses any sense of the space we're seeing or the story being told. There is a final fight that requires viewers to know who has the MacGuffin at various points. But it's all so disjointed that you'll have a hard time figuring out what's going on where, so why even bother?
And that's before we even get to the fact that Osunanmi decided to shoot all of Michelle Yeoh… Michelle Yeoh — Close-up action scenes. When Yeo moves, you want to fully explore her talents and give her and her fellow performers a chance to shine. And yet, it's in these moments that the camera tightens up – something akin to digital framing with an added dose of digital motion blur. All this serves to hide Yeo's talents and drain all energy from the action.
Before watching Section 31I reviewed the relevant stories from Deep space nine and tried to question their ethics. The question was asked several times in this episode how far someone would, could, or should go to defend their ideals and their worldview. The Federation has often been described as a kind of paradise, but does paradise need its own squad of extrajudicial assassins? It wasn't damn cool storybut a thought experiment designed to explore what Starfleet and its personnel stand for when its very existence is threatened. If there's something Section 31 doesn't have, then that's cool, and if you think that, then your values are at least half antithetical to the core of Star Trek.
Unfortunately for us, Trek chief Alex Kurtzman actually believes that Starfleet has its own squad of space assassins – which is pretty darn cool considering their repeated appearances under his watch. Kurtzman has never hidden his love of War on Terror-era narratives, which remain as unwelcome here as they were in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Sad, Section 31 it's Star Trek at its best . In fact, it's not the most enjoyable experience to sit and watch, apart from its many shortcomings as a cinematic work.
The biggest thing to say is that Section 31 wasn't going to be a winner when Rob Kasinsky, who plays Section 31's Zeph, started apologizing prematurely. He said (via ) he was worried that the film would be poorly received, given that all fans want is “1,000 more episodes TNG” I admit that there is a part of the fandom that just wants to be fed a conveyor belt of dickberries. These are the people who were thinking about a third season Picard it was good and required Star Trek: Legacy. I and a lot of other people just want something half-thought out, interesting and well-made, and that's just not it.
I'm constantly checking my posts for anything positive, and the best I can say is that the Balenciaga collaboration suits are pretty good. They're a little too Star warsbut I like the emphasis on texture and tailoring, which is better than Trek's current sporty trend. Yes, and the CGI is competent and keeps up with the standards set Strange New Worlds. Here are two good things Section 31.
Basically, I don't know who this is for. It's too stupid for people who want Star Trek in any thoughtful way. It is not riddled with fan-service masturbation, which indulge Please Star Trek: Legacy crowd. It's not so shamelessly cruel for a gang that wants Star Trek to become 24. And it's not high enough camp for people who would want to coo at Michelle Yeoh in a variety of gorgeous costumes. Remember how Warner Bros. I wish Paramount's accountants were as ruthless here.