‘Star Trek: Section 31’ Trailer Reaction
The trailer for ‘Star Trek: Section 31’ has dropped and shows that the franchise will be boldly going in a completely new direction.
The new television film is due to debut on Paramount+ next year, and stars Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou, the leader of the Terran Empire from the Mirror Universe who first showed up in ‘Star Trek: Discovery’, and is now the owner of a nightclub, who’s recruited into the covert organization.
Section 31 is a secret division of Starfleet that’s been around since ‘DS9’, and engages in covert and black ops ops missions. While they have usually worked in the shadows as a shady organization that’s not officially acknowledged, it looks like in this movie they will be working more in the open, as they tackle a threat facing the Federation, though what exactly it is isn’t clear from the trailer.
The very idea of Section 31 has always been a contentious issue for Star Trek fans. While some think it offers a more realistic counterpart to Starfleet and shows the dark side of what maintaining a utopian society would be like, for others it’s completely antithetical to everything the Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the franchise stands for, with its message of hope for the future, where these kinds of dark and sinister organizations no longer operating.
For certain, from this trailer it looks like it’s going to be leaning into the darker side of things, as there are scenes of violence and torture, with it being depicted as a necessary part of keeping the Federation safe.
There’s certainly going to be plenty of action in it, as the film leads into the black ops aspect, with infiltration and espionage, and lots of explosions, ship to ship combat, fights, shoot outs, and the like.
It’s rather different to what the franchise has done before, which has almost always focussed on a crew exploring the galaxy, or at least attempting to uphold the values of the Federation. Even in J.J. Abrams movies, which had a focus on action, they still followed the crew of the Enterprise on various missions. We’ll have to wait and see how well this new approach is handled.
‘Star Trek: Section 31’ will be released on Paramount+ on January 24, 2025.