Spoilers STAR TREK: SECTION 31 - Grading & Discussion

[ananta]

@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” …

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.

Just reading your comments made me feel like I’d eaten a pot cake too

 

[StarMan]

Just reading your comments made me feel like I’d eaten a pot cake too

Glad to be of service. If you watch along in real-time, it will make perfect sense (promise).

This is when we start demanding the Director's Cut, yes?

 

[Trekker4747]

Please no. I don't want Rich to go through that.

I kinda do but ...

At least get a full check-up beforehand.

Their Patreon page already had them in front of the Re:View curtains with Mike holding a ST commemorative plate.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Regarding San's age, it wouldn't be the first time, nor even the second time, that we've seen time discrepancies in traveling inbetween the prime and mirror universes.

Enterprise depicted the Prime Defiant traveling backwards in time to the Mirror Universe, and when Discovery returned from the mirror universe, they had jumped ahead 9 months.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

If anyone's curious, I went through some of the old episode polls on the forum and I've come up with a bottom 10 for the Kurtzman era so far (not counting Short Treks):

• SNW 2x04 Among the Lotus Eaters 7.0
• Disco 2x03 Point of Light 7.0
• Disco 4x11 Rosetta - 6.9
• Disco 5x08 Labyrinths - 6.9
• Disco 5x05 Mirrors - 6.8
• Disco 1x01 The Vulcan Hello - 6.6
• Disco 5x03 Jinaal - 6.6
• Disco 5x06 Whistlespeak - 6.5
• Picard 2x07 Monsters - 6.4
• Section 31 - 4.2

(If you're wondering where the cartoons ended up, the top 10 is 70% Prodigy, 30% Lower Decks.)


Also as a bonus here are IMDb's user ratings for the bottom 10 of the Kurtzman era:

• Disco 5x06 Whistlespeak - 5.7
• Picard 2x09 Hide and Seek - 5.7
• Disco 4x08 All In - 5.6
• Disco 4x02 Anomaly - 5.5
• Disco 4x03 Choose to Live - 5.5
• Disco 4x06 Stormy Weather - 5.5
• Disco 4x11 Rosetta - 5.5
• Picard 2x07 Monsters - 5.4
• Disco 4x04 All is Possible - 5.2
• Section 31 - 4.1

People really had it in for Discovery season 4 I guess. But Section 31 is still way lower.

 

[The Wormhole]

My one suggestion? If they were going to go the route they went, they could have made it so much better replacing the big villain reveal with Lorca.

He survived his stabbing from Georgiou through plot magic and falling into the mycelial core because the blah blah Charon was passing through an blah blah ion storm that spore drived' his body to the Section 31 era where he.. blah blah blah.

Wouldn't have been possible. Jason Isaacs has said he's not coming back to Star Trek unless he'll be playing Prime Lorca. And indeed, he already refused to return for Terra Firma in Disco S3 because they wanted him to play Mirror Lorca again, which is why the episode was rewritten so that it's actually one of Lorca's lackeys who gets captured towards the end.

 

[aquova]

If anyone's curious, I went through some of the old episode polls and I've come up with a bottom 10 for the Kurtzman era so far (not counting Short Treks):

• SNW 2x08 Among the Lotus Eaters 7.0
• Disco 2x03 Point of Light 7.0
• Disco 4x11 Rosetta - 6.9
• Disco 5x08 Labyrinths - 6.9
• Disco 5x05 Mirrors - 6.8
• Disco 1x01 The Vulcan Hello - 6.6
• Disco 5x03 Jinaal - 6.6
• Disco 5x06 Whistlespeak - 6.5
• Picard 2x07 Monsters - 6.4
• Section 31 - 4.2

(If you're wondering where the cartoons ended up, the top 10 is 70% Prodigy, 30% Lower Decks.)

Among the Lotus Eaters was the 2x04, not 2x08, unless you mean a different episode. I'm surprised to see it in the bottom 10 though, I thought it was fairly middling.

 

[wayoung]

That wasn't a movie. That was a two hour pilot for a TV series that everyone in charge knew was terrible and they decided to spin as a movie to try and salvage something, because it starred a recent Oscar Winner.

 

[The Wormhole]

That was a two hour pilot for a TV series

Honestly, it felt more to me like a ten-episode season condensed into 95 minutes.

 

[Mudd]

I have never seen a TrekBBS poll with more than half the results ranking a Trek project overall nearly so low. Even the most divisive series and movies.

 

[Markonian]

Watched in two halves. I kept my expectations low but actually enjoyed it. And that's despite my position that Star Trek should be about Starfleet, people in uniform flying beautiful starships.

2324 Garrett works with 2327 Garrett from the TLE novels, so I'm satisfied with that.

That Zeph was a big dumbie surprised me - I had gotten the impression he would be 'the heart' of the motley crew.

The Terran ship in the beginning could be Charon class, the Styx class or a precursor to either. San's ship was hard to make sense of because of the blade-like hull. Did it have moveable parts?

I gave it 8 points - one point less because in one scene Fuzz's dialog includes an Imperial measurement.

I hope once the dust settles we can start speculating how each element would've worked in the envisioned TV series.

 

[Commander Richard]

Kurtzman’s pet project, seven years in the making. And the best he could come up with is Suicide Squad/Mission Impossible in space. With a pinch of Hunger Games, a dash of generic sci-fi, and Star Trek in the title.

Not even.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Among the Lotus Eaters was the 2x04, not 2x08, unless you mean a different episode. I'm surprised to see it in the bottom 10 though, I thought it was fairly middling.

If that's actually the only mistake in that list then I can live with that!

Also yeah, the list is a bit strange. Disco season 5 got absolutely destroyed (relatively speaking), and I'm not entirely sure why. Whistlespeak was one of my favourite episodes!

 

[Turtletrekker]

There's an old Bloom County strip where Opus is reviewing the latest Benji movie, "Benji Saves the Universe", and slams the whole thing. "Bad acting, bad story, brings new definition to the word 'bad', oozes badness out of every pour", and so on and so forth for two panels. Then, he pauses and writes something like, "well, maybe not as bad as that, but Lord it wasn't good."

That's kind of how I feel reading the reviews for Section 31.

 

[TheFlutteringHorde]

I don't think this would have worked any better as a TV series, mostly because of Georgiou.

Not because she's irredeemable evil or anything like that, but because there's too much story already there. Even cutting out everything that happened with Discovery like they did there's still a ton you have to keep explaining about who she is and why she's there. And once you've done that she has to be the center of gravity for what happens otherwise there would be no point in including her. Part of why I think this movie falls flat is that there's not even a lot about Section 31 in it, it's mostly the Georgiou show, which is inevitable since everything about the production is so wrapped in Michelle Yeoh, but also comprises the foundation in my opinion.

Aside from Irish Joker, there was a chance to do some really interesting things with the other characters! Alok Sahar could've been great! Garrett could've had lines that didn't feel like rejected quips from the bad Suicide Squad movie! I'm being a bit flippant but genuinely if you want to do this kind of idea I don't think you can include characters like Georgiou or even Picard in Season 1 of Picard. You're not really building out the franchise in a non-Starfleet direction if you're just mining celebrity status and relegating everyone else to the corners.

 

[darfnoogie1976]

I gave it a 5. I didn't like it as a Star Trek movie, but it would've been an OK waste of 90 minutes as an original movie...on par with something like Rebel Moon IMO.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

I have never seen a TrekBBS poll with more than half the results ranking a Trek project overall nearly so low. Even the most divisive series and movies.

Would love to hear the thoughts of the 10 voter

 

[Tuskin38]

Kurtzman’s pet project

It actually wasn't his.
Yes, he wanted it done, but as far as we know, he wasn't creatively involved. No writing or story credit.

To do things the Feddies/Starfleet can’t be seen doing.

Which is what S31 were doing in this movie... Practically spelled out to the audience at the start.

 

[Tuskin38]

It’s a tragedy, we could have gotten the long requested HD remasters of Deep Space Nine and Voyager and probably at least 1 streaming season of some other show for this films budget.

That's not how that works.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I had very low expectations going into the Section 31 movie, especially after seeing interviews saying "Oh, we know what you're worried about!" that then proceeded to prove they have no clue what I was worried about.

My primary concern since the project was initially announced (originally as a spin-off series that thankfully simply became a streaming film): The continued, fundamental misunderstanding of Section 31 that stemmed from the early seasons of Discovery.

Instead of a covert shadow organization that quietly pulled the strings from behind the scenes under the guise of "protecting the Federation," Section 31 is now instead a flashy black ops in plain sight, complete with eye-rolling black Starfleet insignia.

The only point of hope for me was at least enjoying Michelle Yeoh doing what she does best: Kicking ass with smirks and quips aplenty. Unfortunately, that's all we got (that and one cool character concept).

The film is instead full of exposition dumps, kitschy cringeworthy dialogue, brick-heavy subtlety, action sequences on the level of the awful Abrams films, and breaking the basic writing rule of showing not telling. But the worst sin of all? There's nothing remotely Star Trek about this film.

Yes, Rachel Garrett is in the film but this she does not align with the character who we met in "Yesterday's Enterprise." Even if you put aside the absurdity of a Starfleet officer overseeing a Section 31 operation (again, misunderstanding the concept), her characterization is all over the place.

I welcome the exploration of the darker sides of the Star Trek universe (one of the many reasons why I'm a Niner and why that show remains my favorite of the franchise) but that's simply not what this film did.

The film does some nice character exploration for Mirror Georgiou. But the problem for me is that I never liked Mirror Georgiou. That's a me problem, I know, but it's hard to move past that and instead feels like a waste of Yeoh's talents.

The Final Frontier had the campfire scene, McCoy facing his pain, and the wasted potential of David Warner.

Nemesis had the Riker/Troi wedding and the wasted potential of Tom Hardy and Ron Perlman.

Section 31 had a microscopic alien that piloted a robot and the wasted potential of Michelle Yeoh.

When your best attributes are a cool idea that was wasted on an asshole character and a solid character arc for genocidal monster that's inexplicably on the path of redemption, all of which are outshined by singular scenes of Star Trek's worst films, something has gone terribly, horribly wrong.