Perhaps it wasn’t the wisest choice of a line to feature in a baffling sort of trailer. “Let’s get messy,” Michelle Yeoh’s once-emperor Philippa Georgiou says to her new team of minions. And messy is what we get in the second Section 31 trailer to be just perplexing in its tone. Section 31 is spies, black ops, probably murders (no matter what the Starfleet representative says). This is so counter to most Star Trek action (not to mention philosophy) that giving it a wacky punchy sexy tone just seems off.
And it doesn’t help that the trailer gives its excellent cast little to do but spout cliches. “We’re facing a threat unlike anything Starfleet’s ever seen.” (Are you serous? Even after five seasons of Discovery?) “Whatever you believed your mission was, it’s worse than you thought.” “You have no idea what you’ve started.” Etc.
One can certainly hope that they’re saving all the good dialogue for the actual movie. Yeoh is always a delight (though I’m not sure about what appear to be flashback scenes; please, no?); it’s great to see the perpetually underused Kacey Rohl (Hannibal, Arrow); and we’ve also got Omari Hardwick (Power), Sam Richardson (Ted Lasso), and Robert Kazinsky, who was cheerfully annoying in Pacific Rim. And there is an unexpected appearance by a black-and-white-faced person, which hearkens back to the original series! And changelings!
What’s more, the film is directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, who is certainly on familiar ground; he was a producer and director for Star Trek: Discovery. (The screenplay comes from Craig Sweeny, with story by Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt.)
All in all it remains hard to know what to make of this. But we don’t have long to go before we can get the whole picture: Section 31 premieres January 24th on Paramount Plus.
