Star Trek Section 31 Review: A failed experiment

Disjointed, generic, and certainly not Star Trek.

The Star Trek franchise has gone through many ups and downs since Discovery brought it back from the brink in 2017. Said television show — the first to air since Enterprise finished in 2005 — was loved for its characters and hated for the way in which it played fast and loose with continuity and canon. Regardless of what you think of it, Discovery is also responsible for the experiment that is Star Trek Section 31, a made-for-streaming feature film that’s more about sci-fi action than Star Trek. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the film’s logo, above — see how tiny “Star Trek” is in comparison to the rest?

Featuring in Discovery from the very beginning, Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh was right in the centre of its controversy. Starting off as a pinnacle of Starfleet, her character of Captain Phillipa Georgiou was quickly and unceremoniously killed off thanks to the actions of an adopted sister of Spock’s that we’d never heard of. Yeoh wasn’t done yet however, quickly reappearing as Emperor Georgiou of the mirror universe’s evil Terran Empire, a genocidal maniac who took delight in killing (and eating) her enemies.

It’s this very same character with few redeeming qualities that Paramount wants us to rally behind in Star Trek Section 31, a forgettable feature film as bad, if not worse, than what you were expecting.

Picking up where Discovery left Georgiou — that is, back in the 23rd Century and not the 32nd where Captain Burnham and crew ended up to avoid most of the problems that fans had with the show — Section 31 takes place outside of Federation space and with a ragtag roster of ne’er-do-wells who’ve somehow connected with the United Federation of Planets’ most secretive covert ops organisation. Georgiou is quickly recruited to a team that includes a Deltan (think Persis Khambatta’s Ilia from The Motion Picture), a Chameloid (think Iman’s shapeshifter in The Undiscovered Country), a laughing Vulcan or Romulan (the races with the pointy ears), a meched-up soldier (I have nothing more), and — for some reason — Starfleet officer Rachel Garrett (who later becomes captain of the Enterprise-C).

For a movie that seems desperate to distance itself from Star Trek and Starfleet, there’s an immediate tonne of baggage that these characters bring with them. While audiences are very much used to the concept of the multiverse, Georgiou’s backstory itself needs a while to be digested — it’s unlikely that a quick recap at the start of the film (featuring an Easter egg of a narrator who we’ll leave a secret) will work for those new to proceedings. As for the rest of the story — and without spoilers — let’s just say that this is classic Discovery fodder: the fate of the entire galaxy is at stake, and only our (homicidal) protagonist can save the day.

That said, the setup doesn’t really matter as the galaxy is obviously intact years later in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. The lack of any real tension again proves that we don’t need prequels, but new stories told in a time we don’t already have great knowledge of.

All of Section 31‘s actors — Yeoh as Georgiou, Omari Hardwick as Alok, Kacey Rohl as Rachel Garrett, Sam Richardson as Quasi, Robert Kazinsky as Zeph, Sven Ruygrok as Fuzz, and Humberly Gonzalez as Melle — do some heavy lifting with questionable material. Garrett’s inclusion makes no sense as she clearly doesn’t fit in with the rest of the group; worse still, she repeatedly makes reference to wanting to become a captain of starship as if to say to fans, “remember ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’?” Moreover, the backstory around Fuzz seems to largely exist for either an endgame punchline or to stir up controversy.

Like the decisions behind Fuzz, Section 31 itself is unsure about what it wants to be. At times it’s a polished action thriller, and in others it attempts to be a comedy but ends up looking forced and out of place. Several jokes are continued throughout Section 31‘s 100 minute runtime, and most of those revolve around the mispronunciation of a term.

Yeoh is clearly a talent, but her character nonetheless remains cold and unlikeable. I don’t care about her, I don’t want her to succeed, and I struggled to retain interest as Section 31 delved into flashback after flashback of Georgiou’s horrific life.

As a Star Trek film, this isn’t it. Section 31 continues Discovery‘s tradition of treating the franchise’s source material with disrespect, likely the latest in a continued effort to try to win over new fans who mightn’t connect with what Star Trek truly is. Problematically, it doesn’t work as a generic sci-fi action movie either — its action is okay, its stakes ho-hum, and its characters hollow shells. Apart from worthy performances by its actors, the only other thing Section 31 has going for it is a killer soundtrack that liberally borrows from bangers like The Motion Picture‘s ‘Klingon Theme’. 

Let this be a lesson to Paramount: lean into Star Trek, not away from it. I don’t want unscrupulous bandits, I want to see humanity rising above its differences and striving to become even better. Which is to say more Lower Decks or Legacy, please.

If you’re a Trek fan and simply must watch this, I’d suggest holding off on reupping your Paramount+ subscription until Strange New Worlds Season 3 becomes available. If you’re not a Trek fan, I don’t think there’s enough here to justify a watch.

Star Trek Section 31 was reviewed using a screener, as provided by Paramount. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.