Star Trek

[Sparky Prime]

Section 31

The first solo tv movie Star Trek is now streaming on Paramount+. To be honest, I haven't watched it, nor do I plan on it. The reviews I've seen all say it's terrible.

Spoiler

I've seen several reviewers compare it movies like Guardians of the Galaxy or Suicide Squad in that the Section 31 team are a band of dysfunctional misfits, only this film doesn't pull off that dynamic very well.

The film is set in the early 24th century. Dedicated fans have figured out the exact year is 2324, putting it in the era between TOS and TNG. The film doesn't address anything about Georgiou's time travels, but apparently it doesn't matter that she's still about 70 years in her relative future. Similarly, the film doesn't fix any of the problems with Section 31 that the ending of Discovery season 2 implied. Everyone knows what Section 31 is, Control apparently still exists, is still in command of Section 31, and has possessed Jamie Lee Curtis. Rachel Garrett, the future captain of the Enterprise C is in the film. I gather they don't really do anything with her character so she just as easily could have been anyone.

The story, basically the team has to track down a MacGuffin capable of destroying everything in a whole quadrant of the galaxy. Turns out to be from the Mirror universe, brought by Georgiou's ex, who wants the resources of this universe... Not sure how any of that makes sense. They end up throwing it into a portal to the mirror universe and blowing it up. I guess the portal somehow contains the blast, but a lot of reviewers seem to be confused on the implications of that scene.

So the consensus I've been seeing, this is a bad generic sci-fi film that really doesn't have any tie to Star Trek save for some names.

[andersonh1]

I've been rewatching the original series for the first time in a number of years. I've seen every episode 15 times, I'm sure, because when I was growing up it was the only Star Trek and they would re-run it over and over. Having not seen most of the episodes in a long time, they're both familiar and fresh at the same time. I know the plot and how things will turn out, but I appreciate performances and the characters more than I used to. I have the DVD sets with the updated CGI effects, possibly the first release of the series after the effects were updated, and they really do make things more enjoyable. I don't mind the original effects, watched them for years, but I appreciate the upgrade.

I've been watching in order, and just finished "This Side of Paradise". One of the things that stands out in the first season is how good William Shatner is. He doesn't overplay Kirk, he's dead serious and acts like the authority figure that the Captain is supposed to be. He has the character almost from the first episode. Nimoy takes a bit longer, you still see Spock smiling and being more emotional than he should be, or ogling the women in "Mudd's Women" once or twice. McCoy isn't the third lead yet, but you can see why he'd be promoted. His relationship with Kirk and Spock makes him more important and prominent than any of the other secondary characters already. Scotty is a tier below McCoy, and then poor Sulu and Uhura have moments where their characters get to shine, but not too often. I had never noticed before how many recurring background characters there are. We get a lot of one time only crew members, but there are some security guys that show up over and over, and there are several characters that appear in multiple episodes. All of this went over my head as a kid watching this show, but I pay more attention to the world building these days, and recurring characters, even in the background, help a lot.

I'm really enjoying this re-visitation of the original Star Trek. They'll never do better than Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

[andersonh1]

Section 31

The first solo tv movie Star Trek is now streaming on Paramount+. To be honest, I haven't watched it, nor do I plan on it. The reviews I've seen all say it's terrible.

Same here. I think Section 31 as portrayed in DS9 is as much as we need to see of the organization. It's more effective when we don't know much about it. Once they start exploring it and showing more of it, it loses the mystique and just becomes a bunch of immoral people doing horrible things to keep the Federation alive. I think if it's going to be a clandestine organization, they should leave it largely unknown and unseen.

[Sparky Prime]

Same here. I think Section 31 as portrayed in DS9 is as much as we need to see of the organization. It's more effective when we don't know much about it. Once they start exploring it and showing more of it, it loses the mystique and just becomes a bunch of immoral people doing horrible things to keep the Federation alive. I think if it's going to be a clandestine organization, they should leave it largely unknown and unseen.

I fully agree. I've seen some fans say they didn't even like that DS9 introduced Section 31 in the first place; arguing the idea of a shadow organization that'd go to any lengths to protect the Federation goes against the ideals of Star Trek - that humanity has evolved beyond such immoral behavior. But I think how DS9 used Section 31 worked. They were treated as a rogue organization that our heroes actively fought against, to maintain the Federations ideals. And as you say, they kept Section 31 largely unknown and unseen, as they should be. Alex Kurtzman I think fundamentally misunderstands everything about Section 31. He's essentially just made them exactly the same as Starfleet Intelligence, albeit without Section 31 adhering to any laws.

[Shockwave]

I have no interest in seeing Section 31 and I didn't even really care for it in DS9. Although, I think that's more my lack of interest in the spy genre in general rather than a fault of the writing on DS9. But also, conceptually, the idea of Star Trek is to show a future where things like war, and by extension, things like Section 31 or the KGB, or the CIA were no longer needed. So yeah, easy skip for me.

[andersonh1]

For Christmas I got the animated Star Trek series from the early 70s on blu-ray. I've never seen most of it. It's that limited Filmation animation that I remember from so many shows growing up, but that aside, it's a pretty faithful attempt to continue the live-action series in a different format. It helps that almost all the cast are voicing their characters (except Chekov, he's not part of the show) and it looks like several of the same writers from TOS were back for the animated version. I've been pleasantly surprised by how well the writing lines up with the original series, even in half-hour animated form. I'm five episodes in, and it looks like there are only about 22 episodes total, so I'm not rushing to finish. I'm going to take my time and enjoy the show.

Highlights in the first five episodes so far include a great design for an alien ship in "Beyond the Farthest Star", the entire episode "Yesteryear" which deals with Spock's childhood, Uhura taking command of the Enterprise in "The Lorelei Signal", and in "One of Our Planets is Missing" there's a plot that reminded me of a Voyager episode, the Enterprise is swallowed up by a giant space creature that's eating planets, but unlike Voyager, the Enterprise crew manage to communicate with it and make it aware of what it's doing.

[andersonh1]

I've been impressed by how authentic the animated Star Trek is. Within the limitations of the format, they did a nice job making a show that feels like the live action version from a few years earlier. It certainly helps to have the same cast voicing their characters and a lot of the same writers on board. I'm glad I finally got around to watching this. I'll also say that the picture on the blu-ray is excellent. I have the "More Tribbles, More Troubles" episode as an extra on my Star Trek DVD set, and the blu-rays are an upgrade from that version.

[Sparky Prime]

Paramount finally released a trailer for season 3 of Strange New Worlds.

I'm disappointed in what they show.

I'm annoyed that they keep having James T. Kirk show up in this series. It was neat for an appearance in season 2 (although how they handled it felt like a wasted use of the canon reference of Kirk having only met Pike once), and a time travel episode (which they did twice)... And he keeps showing up, just without interacting with Pike (which is pretty lazy writing to me). They're overutilizing the character. I think he may have more appearances than Sam Kirk at this point. They shouldn't be setting up for Kirk and the TOS crew to take over the Enterprise as they appear to be doing because it feels forced.

Looks like they're doing a holodeck episode, complete with a TNG style grid. I don't mind the idea of holodecks already existing in this era.... A lot of fans tend to misinterpret Riker's line in "Encounter at Farpoint" as holodeck technology not existing prior, when it's actually that he'd never seen a holodeck so realistic before. But the problem is that whenever they show holographic technology in these prequels, they make it exactly like the 24th century level technology.

There's speculation Rhys Darby's appearance in the trailer suggests he'll be playing Tralane, given his costume and altered reality setting of some scenes. Which... sigh. Sure, he's the type of character that could easily erase their memories or whatever, but his first (and only) appearance is supposed to be years later, and I hate lazy retcons where characters just don't remember they'd met already.

Looks like they'll have the first ever live action appearance of an Edosian from TAS. So, that's one cool thing.

[andersonh1]

I'm annoyed that they keep having James T. Kirk show up in this series. It was neat for an appearance in season 2 (although how they handled it felt like a wasted use of the canon reference of Kirk having only met Pike once), and a time travel episode (which they did twice)... And he keeps showing up, just without interacting with Pike (which is pretty lazy writing to me). They're overutilizing the character. I think he may have more appearances than Sam Kirk at this point. They shouldn't be setting up for Kirk and the TOS crew to take over the Enterprise as they appear to be doing because it feels forced.

This was supposed to be Pike's show. I didn't watch much beyond the first season before I cancelled Paramount +, but in watching reports about upcoming episodes it's annoying how many of the original series characters they keep introducing rather than simply exploring the prior crew. I'd like to have seen the characters from The Cage as the crew rather than all the new characters they created.

[Sparky Prime]

I'd like to have seen the characters from The Cage as the crew rather than all the new characters they created.

Yeah, and the writing team seems to struggle with the new characters they've invented for Strange New Worlds...

La'an Noonien-Singh - Why did the writers think they had to have a character related to Khan in this series? I'm tired of Khan (or Augments in general) and Section 31 coming up all the time in nuTrek, they've been over played. I don't understand how she's even related when Khan and all of his followers got shipped off Earth in 1996, or rather, retconned to 2056 in this series. On top of that, she survived a Xeno... I mean Gorn "hatchery". I don't think all of that needs to be piled on one character.
Erica Ortegas - On the flip side, this character has no background. She's a veteran (presumably from the recent Klingon war, but most of Starfleet would be, so I'm not sure why they specifically point it out for her) and the ships pilot. And all they've focused on is that she's the pilot. They almost go out of their way not to give her any sort of characterization. In "A Quality of Mercy", they stole Lt. Stiles role from "Balance of Terror", giving his lines Ortegas. Except, where as Lt. Stiles explains his prejudice towards the Romulans, which bleeds over to Spock, being the result of his family having fought in the Earth/Romulan War, they skip that for Ortegas, leaving her attitude in that episode unexplained. Her character also seems a bit redundant, in that Number One doubled as the helm officer under Pike.
Hemmer - I actually have no faults with this character, I really liked how he was written. Unfortunately, they killed him off at the end of the first season because they felt it would increase the stakes.
Joseph M'Benga - Technically not a new character, but his appearances in TOS were so fleeting, they virtually are making him a new character. I liked the story they set up for him in the first season, forgetting for a moment the fact the transporter cannot hold a pattern for more than a few minutes, outside some fancy jerry-rigging by Scotty that one time.... But despite having a few episodes showing him making some progress, they ruined that story by having an alien entity show up out of the blue to cure her and take her with it. In effect, they reset the character in season 2.