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Spoilers STAR TREK: SECTION 31 - Grading & Discussion

Rate the movie...

  • 10 - Excellent!

    Votes: 4 1.7%

  • 9

    Votes: 6 2.5%

  • 8

    Votes: 11 4.7%

  • 7

    Votes: 20 8.5%

  • 6

    Votes: 31 13.1%

  • 5

    Votes: 36 15.3%

  • 4

    Votes: 16 6.8%

  • 3

    Votes: 26 11.0%

  • 2

    Votes: 27 11.4%

  • 1 - Terrible!

    Votes: 59 25.0%
  • Total voters
    236
Yistaan said:
If you still can't see that
Click to expand...
I understand that you were annoyed by someone 'speaking disrespectfully'. That they didn't ask nicely, never mind the fact that they didn't ask at all. They merely lamented that it could have happened but didn't.

You said they demanded a remaster, I asked when they demanded it, you avoided admitting that they never demanded it. :shrug:

Yistaan said:
I'm done with this back and forth with you.
Click to expand...
Fair enough.
 
Rahul said:
Best example for me was the introduction of that Deltan woman, and her death two minutes later, and everyone making sad faces.
That was clearly intended to be a big twist after a whole episode.
Click to expand...

Another Deltan bites the dust. :(

(See: PIC S3)
 
This was just a mess. I see some saying you need to take risks, but that wasn't this.

First off it was actually attempting to avoid risk. It was pretty obviously intended to go after non-Trek fans or not-hardcore ones while believing attaching it to the Trek IP would make sure everyone currently watching Trek shows would also show up. So win/win right? You get all Trek watchers plus some new non-Trek watchers.

But the story is poorly developed, the amount of actual Trek Easter eggs and lore actually seems like it would turn off a non-fan, while at the same time being so different from Trek shows that it also turns off regular or casual Trek-fans.

The production value is pretty hit and miss. The stuff on the surface with trees looked like it could have been a Stargate episode filming 20 years ago.

It also suffers from some of Discovery's foibles of "Wait this tech looks really advanced and then just disappears for centuries/never again"
 
This was like modern Trek plays the hits:
  1. Galaxy ending threat that conveniently ignores the fact the galaxy is REALLY FUCKING BIG.
  2. Overly-contrived origin story that doesn't hold-up under any logical scrutiny.
  3. Any of the following: Soong, Singh, or a combination of the two.
  4. A random character plucked from lore who has no narrative or thematic reason for being there but is undefined enough to plop whatever generic personality necessary to fit the script. It's the name-drop that's important. You know, for the fans.
 
They should learn from Mission: Impossible 1, Ethan Hunt, when develop this movie. So they can make a better spy betrayal plot with Section 31.

To be honest, even Picard season 3 has a better spy plot than this one.
 
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I never expected this one to be a "spy movie". Spy movies always take place either in the present, or in the past, because gadgets, plot points, twists etc must be believable.

That's really, really hard in a universe where everything is possible. E.g. this little quantum guy - if you think about it, there is no possibility to actually stop him.

DS9 was a bit an exception with their S31 stories (as well as the few TOS/TNG/... spy stories), because they kept very well within the limitations of the Star Trek rules. They didn't pull a quantum twist out of nowhere, hell, they might be some of the most technologically quaint Star Trek episodes.

Because a good spy twist works only, off you could have had the chance to predict it yourself. Otherwise it's just an ass-pull.
 
@Lord Garth giving this the smackdown was enough to register the Omega symbol on my laptop.

Anyway let’s do this.

The goal: Watch at least half an hour of Star Trek: Section 31.

Supplements: 150ml Vodka; pot cake.

Notes taken as watching (unedited):

What an ugly ship in the intro credits.

Fate.

Anvil (slow down).

Killed the Fam. Please let the expositional dialogue ease up.

Duh, Daaaah, DUH (!) Borg … oh.

Oh Sun.

Duh, Daaaah, DUH … now I just want to watch the Battle of Sector 001 from Star Trek: First Contact.

<11:40 so far>

Mission Impossible / Oceans vibe … eyeball?!

I wouldn’t mind whatever they’re knocking back right now.

Aussie mech. Yet another missed opportunity for Trek to introduce the Kiwi accent (considering almost every other modern Sci-Fi has).

“I’m giving you a chance to get back in” … :lol:

It’s quip time. We have zero investment in these characters. Stop. Oh hi … Fuzz.

Don’t know if it’s the supplements but I’m not really following this quippy expositional orgy. Also sound mix is muffling a lot of the dialogue.

“You’ve murdered so many people” – LOL.

LCARS sound OMG.

Bet the Irish really appreciate Mr. Got Me Lucky Charms.

Whatever they were talking about I completely checked out. I’ve had a change of heart; Section 31 on DS9 was so fucking BORING compared to this dumb but edgy funfest. It’s fun, you see. Dumb fun. Unlike that dry original version that dealt with think-about stuff.

Bar fight! Oh damn. Maybe she’ll come back as a probe.

Camera 360 ° – settle down OO.

Camera 720 ° – calm the fuck down OO!

The Borg aga ... ah FFS. Screw it:

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Wait we’ve gone … Anvil.

Stopped at 36 minutes (just after the abrupt flip to the scene between Georgiou and Sun). Whatever that was meant to evoke, it was completely unearned.

I have a better understanding of the criticism now. Had this been some straight-to-streaming B or C tier Netflix production, I might tolerate it for ... I guess as long as I watched it. But as a Star Trek movie? Where is the Star Trek? Even the Trek I've been ambivalent on and / or disliked has carried at least some trace of that core DNA.
 
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It's pretty obvious that the script was hacked together from a load of longer TV series scripts, and in the "segment titles" it even signposted the names of those episodes.

It was essentially an adaptation of a summary of what the whole Section 31 series would be like, and so that's why it was the way it was. Doubt they'll do too much more with it as Yeoh is probably beyond TV budgets now and is more interested in bigger films.
 
FlyingLemons said:
It's pretty obvious that the script was hacked together from a load of longer TV series scripts, and in the "segment titles" it even signposted the names of those episodes.

It was essentially an adaptation of a summary of what the whole Section 31 series would be like, and so that's why it was the way it was. Doubt they'll do too much more with it as Yeoh is probably beyond TV budgets now and is more interested in bigger films.
Click to expand...
I think you’re right. But I also don’t think this would have worked better as a 10 episode series. I could see an argument for how it would have been worse.

The middle section of the movie, where they’re stuck on the planet, and people are trying to figure out who’s the mole. I could just in my head see how that was originally intended to be 2 or 3 episodes of the characters running around in circles that would have been frustrating as hell.
 
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