Spoilers STAR TREK: SECTION 31 - Grading & Discussion

[The Wormhole]

As much as Olatunde Osunsanmi and Craig Sweeny have proven to be talent for other projects, they were clearly wrong for this kind of film.

Slightly tangential here, but having watched the premiere episode of the new series Watson, a series created by Craig Sweeney, who also wrote the premiere episode. Let me tell you, the quality of writing between in and Section 31 is so vast, I actually had to double check online to make sure both were done by the same Craig Sweeney (they are).

 

[KirkusOveractus]

I might even agree with you if they’d depicted it differently, but it seemed like it was some experimental black market technology that’s prone to malfunction (which indeed it does in the movie, when Georgiou gets stuck in the wall). Plus it seems to have the limitation of only working on people, not larger ships. Taking all of that into account what we see much later (timeline-wise) in The Next Generation still feels like a new technology.

I'm still wondering why the characters that were out of phase didn't go through the floor. One of a million (or more) issues I have with the writing.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The problem was that Osunsanmi and Sweeney should have opted for a page one rewrite rather than trying to condense their 10-episode arc into 90 minutes.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm still wondering why the characters that were out of phase didn't go through the floor. One of a million (or more) issues I have with the writing.

This is a question/problem the phase cloak has always had.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I'm still wondering why the characters that were out of phase didn't go through the floor. One of a million (or more) issues I have with the writing.

Well, we've seen that before on Star Trek (TNGs "The Next Phase"), so I can't give it points off for doing something that Star Trek has already done.

 

[Michael]

I always assumed it must be because of the artificial gravity generators in the floor. Whatever kind of force field they generate seems to also affect a person when they are out of phase. Something like that.

What always irked me about “The Next Phase” is that scene where Ro touches her console on the bridge. Erm, what? Did they just miss that?

 

[Trekker4747]

I always assumed it must be because of the artificial gravity generators in the floor. Whatever kind of force field they generate seems to also affect a person when they are out of phase. Something like that.

What always irked me about “The Next Phase” is that scene where Ro touches her console on the bridge. Erm, what? Did they just miss that?

Mm. Sometimes drama wins over logic and reality.

 

[Farscape One]

Regarding a phased person not falling through the floor...

I've heard the theory that it has something to do with the gravity plating on the decks. Considering that the gravity has failed on a ship so exceedingly rarely and it was how Geordi got rid of the Romulan in "The Next Phase" (he pushed him through the outer bulkhead and into space), and Geordi being the smart guy he is, he might have concluded the same thing.

So I can accept that and be fine with it.

Besides... there are a LOT of other issues with the script and story of SECTION 31. This one is not even in the ballpark of being an issue.

 

[Michael]

Speaking of issues with the script: So what’s people preferred headcanon explanation for San’s age discrepancy? I like to assume that there was something about this in an earlier version of the script, but what could it have been? Cryo-sleep, traversing the universes also brought him forward in time, plastic surgery, good genes?

 

[Trekker4747]

Regarding a phased person not falling through the floor...

I've heard the theory that it has something to do with the gravity plating on the decks. Considering that the gravity has failed on a ship so exceedingly rarely and it was how Geordi got rid of the Romulan in "The Next Phase" (he pushed him through the outer bulkhead and into space), and Geordi being the smart guy he is, he might have concluded the same thing.

So I can accept that and be fine with it.

Besides... there are a LOT of other issues with the script and story of SECTION 31. This one is not even in the ballpark of being an issue.

Gravity plating is an easy way to kind of hand-wave it away or to scribble an explanation into the margin. For the episode? Sure. Fine.

But...... Does the phase cloak only have use in ships and stations? How do Geordi and Ro get in and out of the shuttle? I'm guessing there isn't Gravity plating in the ramp door.

Sometimes you just have to accept things don't make sense because story wins out. Fine, you came up with something of a reason why they're walking around and not falling through the floor. (Though what would be pulling them down? Wouldn't they just be floating there not impacted by any force?) Now, how are they seeing, hearing, breathing and talking?

Try and answer a question, more come up. The story and idea is flawed, but it's fine because story and character elements work and make it a good episode.

 

[eschaton]

The point of S31 was for them to be villains. You are not supposed to root for them. You're supposed to root them out.
If you actually watch DS9, it's consistently shown they do more harm than good.

If this movie showed Section 31 as "hard men who make hard choices," I might have had a bit more respect for it. I would have hated the underlying ideology (much as I hated when ENT Season 3 legitimized torture as a method of interrogation), but at least the movie would have said something.

But Section 31 fails as a movie because in part because special ops team doesn't even do anything morally questionable, despite Garrett saying she was there to keep watch on them. Surprisingly, there are only two deaths of "bad guys" across the entire movie (San and Fuzz - maybe - in the third act). Michael Burnham mowed down tons of randos in individual Discovery episodes (like the Season 3 premier, where Michael and Book kill literally dozens of random Emerald Chain guards). The Section 31 ops team doesn't lie, doesn't cheat, doesn't steal.

The only questionable thing we see is Alok helping Georgiou interrogate Dada Noe, punching him in the face once. And I guess they swear and argue. Is that supposed to make them antiheroes?

 

[Turtletrekker]

Speaking of issues with the script: So what’s people preferred headcanon explanation for San’s age discrepancy? I like to assume that there was something about this in an earlier version of the script, but what could it have been? Cryo-sleep, traversing the universes also brought him forward in time, plastic surgery, good genes?

I have mentioned that I believe that the two ends of the portals deposit in two different time periods. We have seen this kind of time discrepancy before in traveling in between the Prime and Mirror universes.

In Enterprise, Prime Defiant traveled backwards in time to the Mirror universe, while Discovery traveled nine months forward in time returning from the Mirror Universe. At this point, I just assume it's a thing that may or may not happen when traveling between the two universes.

 

[Farscape One]

Speaking of issues with the script: So what’s people preferred headcanon explanation for San’s age discrepancy? I like to assume that there was something about this in an earlier version of the script, but what could it have been? Cryo-sleep, traversing the universes also brought him forward in time, plastic surgery, good genes?

San was a big one... there's about 60 years between Georgiou being brought from the Mirror Universe and thus movie. She can be explained because of the Guardian of Forever... he can't.

There should have at least been a throwaway line as to how he's even alive all thst time. (Life-prolongation experiments or drugs, temporal displacement, etc.) Something. Anything. Throw us a stick and we'll play fetch. We didn't even get a stick.

 

[Farscape One]

I have mentioned that I believe that the two ends of the portals deposit in two different time periods. We have seen this kind of time discrepancy before in traveling in between the Prime and Mirror universes.

In Enterprise, Prime Defiant traveled backwards in time to the Mirror universe, while Discovery traveled nine months forward in time returning from the Mirror Universe. At this point, I just assume it's a thing that may or may not happen when traveling between the two universes.

I must have missed that explanation before. (There's a LOT of pages to go through at a time.)

I can see this, since the only method that doesn't involve time displacement when hopping between the universes is the transporter and going through the Prophets' wormhole.

 

[Quantum21]

That's quite the mental gymnastics you're performing there.
The point of S31 was for them to be villains. You are not supposed to root for them. You're supposed to root them out.
If you actually watch DS9, it's consistently shown they do more harm than good.
And if you still think that's not the case, Ira Behr himself is vehemently opposed to how Section 31 is being used, for exactly that reason.

There are zero mental gymnastics involved, the proof is in actual events...

Furthermore, you can look at TOS and TNG and they have stories such as "Enterprise Incident" which is an illegal covert ops that is sanctioned by Starfleet and Pegasus, where an Admiral clearly had orders from higher up, Chain of Command had its shady origins, and Insurrection, where an Admiral AND others sanctioned a mission against the Prime Directive.

Section 31 wasn't there in name, but Starfleet sure does need covert ops don't they? They are probably there in the shadows eh?

In a lot of these the argument was: oh aren't they awful? But the collective effect is we see that sometimes they decide there's a need for this. In fact Sloan says he's saved more lives than he cost.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

San was a big one... there's about 60 years between Georgiou being brought from the Mirror Universe and thus movie. She can be explained because of the Guardian of Forever... he can't.

There should have at least been a throwaway line as to how he's even alive all thst time. (Life-prolongation experiments or drugs, temporal displacement, etc.) Something. Anything. Throw us a stick and we'll play fetch. We didn't even get a stick.

But didn't San poison himself, at least in one of the flashback sequences it looks like it,

 

[The Wormhole]

I'm still wondering why the characters that were out of phase didn't go through the floor.

That trope goes all the way back to the first time the out of phase trope has ever been done in fiction. Stargate even made a meta joke about it:

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The DVD commentary for that episode really goes to town nitpicking the whole out of phase concept, like if a person out of phase is on a starship travelling at FTL speeds and that person stands still, what prevents the ship from flying on by and leaving them in that particular spot in space?

However, in the case of this movie, it actually can be easily explained as whoever developed the device took into account that the user wouldn't want to fall through the floor, and designed it to prevent that. Probably just as well we only see it being used on a space station so they wouldn't need to address the FTL issue.

 

[Tuskin38]

It looks extremely dated as well.

No it doesn't, at least not the exterior. Some of the bridge sets yes.

 

[Farscape One]

But didn't San poison himself, at least in one of the flashback sequences it looks like it,

San said he took small doses of the poison over a long time so that when he did take a big amount, it wouldn't actually kill him.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

San said he took small doses of the poison over a long time so that when he did take a big amount, it wouldn't actually kill him.

Thank you! I was concentrating more on hoping the movie would get better instead of focusing on some of the dialogue.

I don't buy it, but at least it was explained.