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Tripwire Reviews Star Trek: Section 31
To Badly Go Where No One Has Gone Before
Tripwire’s contributing writer Paul N Neal reviews Paramount’s latest Star Trek offering, Section 31…
Section 31
Director: Olatunde Osunsanmi
Stars: Michelle Yeoh, Omari Hardwick, Sam Richardson
Section 31 (as it is known in some quarters, minus the franchise title) finally landed on the streaming service Paramount Plus in the early hours of Friday 24th of January 2025. Remember this date as it may be of note for future generation of Star Trek fans
This spin off from Star Trek: Discovery arrived after a truly turbulent period of development. Once mooted back in 2019 as a full-blown series in its own right, Section 31 was eventually brought crashing back down to earth as simply a ninety odd minute long “Event Movie” by the spring of 2023. The reasons for this are numerous but, apart from the COVID pandemic, two are quite compelling and inevitably linked to the star of the project, Michelle Yeoh.
After her departure from Discovery in the two-part episode Terra Firma in late 2020, and such a long period of development fandom’s interest in Yeoh’s character Phillippa Georgiou, may have waned somewhat. Yet at the same time given Yeoh’s incredible Oscar winning performance in 2022’s Everything Everywhere All At Once the actress’ availability became more limited, and so Section 31 became what is today.
Tripwire shared the trailer for the production last December.
For the uninitiated a little background may be pertinent.
Phillippa Georgiou was introduced in the first season of Discovery as the bloodthirsty leader of the Terran Empire of the Mirror Universe. This has been a storytelling device that has popped up in almost every iteration of Star Trek to date. Her character travelled to the Prime Universe and joined Starfleet, before being deposited elsewhere in time and space only to be rediscovered in 2025’s event movie.
Furthermore, Section 31 as a concept made its debut during the sixth season of Deep Space Nine. It is best described as the CIA with phasers on the final frontier, and it has featured numerous times in Trek lore including various novels and comics. It is a colourful and versatile concept for the scriptwriters to play with, offering ethical dilemmas for characters, and drama for a universe often considered too sterile or perfect for characters to disagree or even raise their voice.
The question is simple. Is this a worthy entry in the annuls of Gene Roddenberry’s legendary and much-loved vision of a better future for humanity?
Let’s look at some modern Trek. The Kelvin Universe began with J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek in 2009 and was followed by two sequels, Star Trek: Into The Darkness in 2013 and Star Trek: Beyond in 2016. The trilogy has its detractors. Much was made of recasting the likes of Kirk and Spock and Abrams’ penchant for the use of the lens flare effect. Nonetheless, the films have found their place in the hearts of many passionate Trekkies.
Discovery too, whilst not universally adored, boasts a passionate following, despite many that say it pandered to political correctness, it is credited with supreme production values and some compelling characters. This series alongside Strange New Worlds has nurtured a new generation of fans for the elaborate galaxy of stories that originated back in early September 1966.
So, again, is Section 31 a worthy entry in the annals of Gene Roddenberry’s legendary and much-loved vision of a better future for humanity? Can it hope for a warm reception?
This seems very unlikely.A simple glance at the trailer makes it clear to even the most casual of fans, that this is not a production that even remotely returns to the thoughtful or philosophical Trek that Jean Luc Picard might respect. This is a demented thrash metal approach to exploring those strange new worlds. Here the phasers are not so much set to stun as set to disintegrate your hopes and dreams. This is Star Trek Michael Bay style, except that the much-derided director may have made a better fist of this risible mess.Director Olatunde Osunsanmi came to the project after helming multiple episodes of Discovery and Sleepy Hollow beforehand, so what on earth went wrong? Barely thirty second passes without a confusing and incredibly distracting explosion. The fight scenes are badly choreographed and tremendously hard to follow. The editing is reminiscent of some of the worst music videos that You Tube has to offer.One suspects the script process involved cherry picking the best bits from the two Suicide Squad movies while simultaneously endeavouring to siphon off some of the charm from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. It fails on both counts.
There is scarcely a line of dialogue that is uttered with any conviction, and any attempt at humour would even feel out of place in a poor episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? The storyline was presumably put together by committee with a healthy supply of post it notes, a white board, and a studio-driven checklist.
The plot such as it is, involves a MacGuffin called the Godsend, a mysterious and deadly weapon that threatens to unleash a virus capable of wiping out an entire quadrant of the galaxy. It is a retread of an idea used to much greater effect in the aforementioned Star Trek: Beyond. The pacing is also wildly inconsistent, and the conclusion when it rears its ugly head is a jumbled recipe of loose ideas that never come together to form an even remotely satisfying final act.
There is a tragic (and I do mean tragically badly written) story of two star crossed (or universe crossed) lovers, one of whom one is inevitably doomed to die because they didn’t win an Oscar. Ultimately the less said about these events the better.
Can we say anything positive about the rest of the cast? No not really. There is a remarkably brief and baffling cameo from Jamie Lee Curtis that feels incredibly out of place and cannot be reasonably explained.
For fans of EastEnders, Robert Kazinsky (Sean Slater in the BBC soap opera) appears as a less than convincing gung-ho marine of some description in a mechanical exoskeleton, the design of which must surely have been found in a waste paper bin after an early pitch meeting for Paramount’s far superior Halo TV series. The remainder of the cast are tired avatars or concepts stolen from better shows such as Doctor Who.
Additionally, some of the accents deployed by a couple of characters throughout are merely borderline offensive. While this element is unintentionally rather funny, many would find it constantly grating. It is truly difficult to unearth a positive when even the sound editing is overwhelming. Combine all these sins with the fact the costume department must have taken a great deal of inspiration from Luc Besson’s Fifth Element but bypassed any of the wit or bravado that made the costumes in Besson’s film so iconic.
Surprisingly the special effects also seem somehow unconvincing and hollow. It all feels rather like a teenager’s acid-fuelled night terror, gone is any hint of sophistication or the elegantly designed starships one may expect. Aesthetically every element looks like it has been lifted from other better movies and then misunderstood to the point of being just an annoying hotchpotch of styles.
Sadly, the final scenes indicate there made be more of this tiresome drivel in the pipeline. Fans can only hope the usually talent Michelle Yeoh has second thoughts after seeing this finished product and finds other outlets for her talents. Mercifully at 95 minutes, the credits roll on Section 31 without too much delay, although it is a painfully long 95 minutes indeed. Tripwire has watched this “film”, so you don’t have to.
As ever, Tripwire values any and all comments and feedback.
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