As a long-time “trekker” — the definition of a loyal, serious Star Trek fan — the first minutes of Star Trek: Section 31 force you to ask a question that is borderline blasphemous: is this really Star Trek, or am I watching something out of Star Wars?
The latter is, of course, the once gold-standard, now universally panned, space-fantasy created by George Lucas that has been abused to no end by the Disney regime. The very utterance of naming these two franchises in a single sentence runs chills down my spine.
While Star Wars had long lost its plot since Episode VII and subsequent movies and series (with few minor saving graces), Star Trek has been doing slightly better when it comes to braving the change of the times.
The J.J. Abrams-led 2009 reboot had long cast a shadow on the spotty film continuations since the Robert (Sound of Music) Wise-directed Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 to the better-done Nemesis (2002), the tenth film of the lot. But then again, if you thought some of those movies were a step down from any of the series, then you haven’t — and shouldn’t — watch Section 31.
There is no spoonful of sugar that would help Star Trek: Section 31 be palatable
Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, with its screenplay written by Craig Sweeny, this okay-in-thought-bad-in-everything-else pill is hard to swallow; there is no spoonful of sugar that would help this dose of toxicant go down.
This film is a spin-off from the show Star Trek: Discovery, but you don’t need to watch it to understand what’s happening here. Its generic-ish plot sees a young Philippa Georgiou of a parallel universe rising as the tyrannical queen (Miku Martineau doing a better job than Michelle Yeoh, when the character gets older), who somehow is running a posh-but-dubious establishment at the very fringes of the Federation (the good guys) jurisdiction.
Section 31, a Mission: Impossible-esque taskforce — complete with a bland and unimaginative introduction lifted from the spy franchise — is sent to capture Georgiou and use her alias to thwart an illegal trade of a galaxy-scale weapon of mass destruction.
The film then launches on the usual set-up of cascading events: Georgiou, smart as she is thought to be, is wise to the Federation’s actions and, after the obligatory skirmish, allies with the taskforce to get the device that seems to have come from her own mirror-universe.
Section 31, with her inclusion, is made up of a semi-leader (Omari Hardwick), a remnant from the Eugenics wars (the last of the great human wars before future humans became “civilised”), a perpetually unnerved Chameloid who can shapeshift (Sam Richardson), a gung-ho man-of-action whose robotic exo-skeleton gives him immense strength (Robert Kazinsky), a future spaceship captain-in-training of Captain Kirk’s Enterprise (Kacey Rohl), a Vulcan who laughs and who turns out to be a robot piloted by a very angry micro-alien (Sven Ruygrok), and a sultry bubblegum-popping Deltan (Humberly González), the bald-headed alien species known for their celibate state.
As one would expect — and woe be to how the scenes follow (not that they were written to be good) — we find out that there is a villain double-crosser in their midst. How original!
This film tumbles and falls flat on its face time and again. The direction carries the predictable TV-like flow and blocking. The actors — although one sees the potential at display here — are relegated to perform to the least of their abilities (Yeoh, principally, is wooden and uninteresting to watch).
The sets are few and, irrespective of the production giving the VFX team all the budget they want to make the film look expensive, Section 31 only comes out looking like a slightly higher budgeted made-for-TV-movie. With little of actual Star Trek going for it, the film prides itself in upending norms for the sake of ‘innovating’, or sprinkling trivia that would get trekkers go “Oh yeah!”
Everything one sees, from the tonality and visuals, is but a weak-imitation of a franchise that used to thrive on its intelligent television content — the root of which the makers should have respected. What we see on display here is new Hollywood’s attempt to bring a prominent franchise down to the level of another one (Star Wars) that also used to be great.
No one, in their right mind, should badly go where everyone has gone before.
Streaming online, Star Trek: Section 31 is rated PG-13. Technically there is nothing sexual, gory or atrocious here… unless one counts the bad writing, direction and the overall intelligence
Published in Dawn, ICON, February 9th, 2025
