If you get enough Star Trek fans in a room, the conversation will inevitably turn to which of the series' cinematic outings is the worst. The consensus opinion is The last frontier, the insurrection and Justice They are fighting for the unwanted trophy. Each film has a small legion of fans who will defend the campy excesses, audacity, and tone of each entry. (I am in favor of looking The last frontier every five years or so, mainly to delight in Jerry Goldsmith's score). Fortunately, any and all such discussions will cease once and for all on January 24, 2024, when Star Trek: Section 31 debuts on Paramount+.
It's the worst thing we can remember having the Star Trek name.
Spoilers for Star Trek: Section 31 follow.
Star Trek: Section 31 It is a fact for TV Streaming movie focusing on Philipa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) after her departure from Star Trek: Discovery. It was originally greenlit in 2019 as a series but, for a wide variety of reasons, languished in development hell until 2022. Meanwhile, showrunners Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt, along with credited screenwriter Craig Sweeny, sweated the idea. Director Olatunde Osunsanmi said SFX Magazine (through ) that Sweeny would eventually write (and rewrite) the project seven different times, first as a television series and then as a film. was eager to start production to build on Yeoh's 2022 Academy Award win for Everything everywhere and at the same time.
The result is a film that, even if you don't know the pre-production backstory, sure feels like a series hastily reduced to a feature film. It's not inconsistent, but it suffers from the same problem that ruined Discoverywhere you're watching a dramatized synopsis instead of a script. There are thematic and plot beats that rhyme with each other, but the meat that binds them all together isn't there. it's just things that happen.
It doesn't help that the plot (credited to Kim and Lippoldt) is largely of the “and then this happens” type they warn you about in Film School 202. Many important moments in the film are completely unearned, asking you to care about the characters who he just met and he doesn't like them very much. There's a laughable scene at the end where two people who haven't really given you the impression that they're in love have to hold hands and stare at their impending doom. The couple in question have shared their backstories, but there is no suggestion that they are anything more than people who work together on a job, let alone friends.
Weak material is less of a problem if you have a cast that can improve on what they've been given but, and it pains me to say this, that's not Michelle Yeoh. Yeoh is a phenomenal performer who has delivered a litany of underrated performances throughout her long and distinguished career. But she made her name playing characters with deep interiority, not high-profile, scenery-chewing villains. Even in her redemptive phase, it's impossible to believe that Yeoh is the kind of monster Star Trek needs Georgiou to be. Instead of narrowing the scene and the stakes to suit his talents, the film expands the canvas and expects Yeoh to fill a space he never needed.
The rest of the group is also neglected by the material and the sheer volume of clutter that the film has little time to overcome. Making the Section 31 team six people long before meeting Georgiou means that every character beyond her is a thumbnail sketch at best. There is the melancholic one, the “funny one”, the uptight one, the robot one, the attractive one and the one with a bad Irish accent.
Yeah Section 31 was a series, you'd forgive the terse introductions, knowing that you could fill out these characters over the next few weeks, maybe even grow fond of them. In the space of one movie, it doesn't work, as shocking twists, like an early death of a character to raise the stakes or a sudden change in a moment of crisis, don't work. Worse, the dialogue is often an indecipherable crosstalk that feels more like regrettable improvisation than useful characterization. That, or they're just characters reminding the audience of the basic points of the story over and over again, like the fact that Georgiou used to be a bad guy.
Olatunde Osunsanmi's direction has always strived to attract attention, with eye-catching turns, tilts, movements and Dutch angles. Surprisingly, all of his talent abandons him when he needs to simply photograph people in a room talking; those scenes are invariably used by default in the standard television medium. Even worse is its action direction, which loses the sense of the space we are seeing or the story being told. There is a final fight that requires the audience to be aware of who has the macguffin at several points. But it's all so incoherent that you'll have a hard time locating what's going on where, so why bother getting involved with it?
And that's before we get to the fact that Osunanmi chose to photograph all of Michelle Yeoh's films. Michelle Yeoh — close-up fight scenes. When Yeoh moves, you want to capture all of her talent and allow her and her teammates a chance to shine as well. And yet, it's in these moments that the camera zooms in hard, with what looks like a digital crop with a dose of digital motion blur. All of which serves to obscure Yeoh's talents and sap any energy from the action.
before looking Section 31I saw the relevant stories again Deep space nine and tried to question his ethics. That series asked, several times, how far someone would, could, or should go to defend their ideals and worldview. The Federation was often described as a kind of paradise, but does paradise need its own extrajudicial assassination squad? it was not a great and wicked plotbut a thought experiment to interrogate what Starfleet and its personnel stand for when their very existence is in danger. If there's one thing Section 31 isn't, it's great, and if you think it is, then your values are at least halfway in conflict with the founding spirit of Star Trek.
Unfortunately for us, Trek boss Alex Kurtzman thinks Starfleet having its own space assassination squad is cool given their repeated appearances under his watch. Kurtzman has never hidden his love for War on Terror-era narratives, which remain as unpalatable here as they were in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Unfortunately, Section 31 It's Star Trek at its best. Basically, it's not fun to sit through and watch, regardless of its numerous shortcomings as a piece of cinema.
the greatest says that Section 31 wasn't going to be a winner was when Rob Kasinsky, who plays Section 31's Zeph, started making his excuses early. He said (via ) worried that the film would be poorly received since all fans want is “just 1,000 more episodes of CNG.” I admit, there is a part of the fandom that just wants to be fed a conveyor belt of 'memberberries'. These are the people who thought that the third season of Picard It was good and they are clamoring for Star Trek: Legacy. I, and many other people, just want something that's halfway thoughtful, entertaining, and well-made, and this is none of those things.
I keep reviewing my notes looking for something positive and the best I can come up with is that the costumes, co-created with Balenciaga, are quite pretty. are a little too much star warsbut I like the focus on texture and construction in a way that's better than Trek's current athleisure trend. Oh, and the CGI is competent and does not descend from the standards set by Strange new worlds. There you have it, two good things. Section 31.
Basically, I don't know who this is for. It's too stupid for people who want Star Trek on any kind of thoughtful record. It is not riddled with the fan-service onanism that please please him Star Trek: Legacy crew. It's not blatantly brutal enough for the gang that wants Star Trek to become 24. And it's not quite a high enough camp for people who would like to coo over Michelle Yeoh in a variety of gorgeous costumes. Remember how Warner Bros. If only Paramount's accountants had been as ruthless here.
