Get enough Star Trek fans in a room and the conversation will inevitably turn to which of the series’ cinematic outings was the worst. The consensus view is The Last Frontier, Insurrection and Nemesis duking it out for the unwanted trophy. Each film has a small legion of fans who will defend each camp’s excess, boldness and tone in each entry. (I’m partial to the view The Last Frontier every five years or so, usually to increase Jerry Goldsmith’s score.) Fortunately, any and all discussions will cease once and for all on January 24, 2024, when Star Trek: Section 31 debut at Paramount+.

It’s the worst thing to bear the name Star Trek in living memory.

Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Section 31.

Star Trek: Section 31 is made for TV streaming movie that focuses on Philipa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) after she leaves the Star Trek: Discovery. It was originally greenlit in 2019 as a series but, for a wide variety of reasons, it suffered development hell until 2022. In the interim, showrunners Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt, with credited screenwriter Craig Sweeny, sweat the idea. Director Olatunde Osunsanmi said SFX Magazine (through ) that Sweeny would eventually write (and rewrite) the project in seven different seasons, first as a TV series, then as a movie. is eager to resume production to capitalize on Yeoh’s 2022 Academy Award win Everything Everywhere All In One.

The result is a film that, even if you don’t know the pre-production backstory, certainly feels like a series that was quickly cut for length. It is not incoherent, but suffers from the same blighted issue Findingwhere you’re looking at a dramatized synopsis rather than a script. There are thematic and plot beats that match each other, but the meat that ties them all together isn’t there. This is it something that happens.

It doesn’t help that the plot (credited to Kim and Lippoldt) is very much of the “and then this happens” variety they warn you about in Film School 202. So many big moments in the film are completely missed, asking it’s up to you to care about characters you just met and don’t like very much. There is a risible scene at the end where two people who never give you the impression that they belong to each other have to hold hands and stare at their impending doom. The pair in question share their backstories with each other, but there is no suggestion that they are more than people working together on a job, let alone friends.

Weak material isn’t much of an issue when you have a cast that can elevate what they’re given but, and it pains me to say it, that’s not Michelle Yeoh. Yeoh is an exceptional performer who has delivered a litany of understated performances in his long and distinguished career. But he made his name playing characters with deep interiors, not high-camp villains who chew up the scenery. Even in his redemption episode, it’s impossible to believe that Yeoh is the kind of monster Star Trek Georgiou should be. Instead of reducing the scene, and the stakes, to fit his talents, the film makes the canvas wider and expects Yeoh to fill the space he doesn’t need.

The rest of the gang is equally underserved by the material and so much clutter that the film has little time to spend. Making the Section 31 team six people before they meet Georgiou means that every character beyond her is a thumbnail sketch at best. There’s the broody, the “funny”, the uptight, the robot, the hot and the bad Irish accent.

if Section 31 is a series, you will forgive the good introductions, knowing that you will fill these characters in the coming weeks, may even grow attached to them. In the space of a movie, it doesn’t work since surprising twists – like an early character death to raise the stakes or a sudden turn at a moment of crisis, don’t work. Worse, the dialogue is often indecipherable crosstalk that feels more like pathetic development than useful characterization. That, or it’s just characters reminding the audience of basic story points over and over again, like the fact that Georgiou used to be a baddie.

Olatunde Osunsanmi’s direction always tries to draw attention to itself, with flashy pans, tilts, moves and Dutch angles. Ironically, all his talent leaves him when he has to shoot people in a room talking – those scenes are often the default of the standard TV medium. Even worse is his direction of the action, which loses any sense of the space we see or the story being told. There is a final punchfight that requires the audience to figure out who has the macguffin at various points. But it’s all so disjointed that you’ll have a hard time putting what’s going on and where, so why bother joining it?

And that’s before we even get to the fact that Osunanmi chose to shoot all of Michelle Yeoh — said Michelle Yeoh — close-up fight scene. When Yeoh is in action, you want to capture the full extent of his talents and give him and his fellow performers a chance to show off as well. And yet it’s at these moments that the camera pulls tight — it looks like a digital crop with a dose of digital motion blur thrown in. All of this serves to obscure Yeoh’s talents and drain any energy from the act.

Before watching Section 31I revisited related stories from Deep Space Nine and tried to interrogate their behavior. That series asks, time and time again, how far a person can, or should, go to protect their values ​​and their worldview. The Federation is often portrayed as a form of paradise, but does paradise need its own extrajudicial murder squad? This is not a wicked cool plotlinebut a thought experiment to interrogate what Starfleet and its personnel stand for when its existence is at stake. If something isn’t in Section 31, it’s cool, and if you think it is, then your values ​​are at least half at odds with Star Trek’s founding ethos.

Unfortunately for us, Trek honcho Alex Kurtzman thinks Starfleet having its own space murder squad is too bad because of their repeated appearances under his watch. Kurtzman has never hidden his love of War on Terror era stories, which remain as unwelcome here as ever. Star Trek: Into Darkness. unfortunately, Section 31 is the Star Trek of his . Basically, it’s not a fun thing to sit and watch, beyond its many shortcomings as a piece of cinema.

The biggest said that Section 31 Not going to be a winner when Rob Kasinsky, who plays Zeph in Section 31, starts getting his excuses early. He said (by ) he worried that the film would be received poorly because what fans wanted was “just 1,000 more episodes of TNG.” I’ll admit, there’s a fraction of the fandom that just wants to be fed a conveyor belt of ‘memberberries. These are the people who think of the third season of Picard good and demanding Star Trek: Legacy. I, and many other people, just want something that is half thought out, fun and well made, and this is not one of those things.

I constantly check my notes for anything positive and the best I can manage is that the costumes, created with Balenciaga, are beautiful. They are quite a bit too Star Warsbut I like the focus on texture and tailoring way better than Trek’s current athleisure trend. Oh, and the CGI is competent and doesn’t fall below the standards set Brave New World. There you are, two good things Section 31.

Basically, I don’t know who this is for. It’s especially brainy for people who like Star Trek in any kind of conscious register. It’s not shot through fan-service onanism can pander to please the Star Trek: Legacy crowd of people. It’s not shamelessly brutal enough for the gang that wants to be Star Trek 24. And it’s not high camp enough for people who want to admire Michelle Yeoh in a variety of beautiful costumes. Remember how Warner Bros. I hope Paramount’s accountants are as ruthless here.