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Star Trek: Section 31 with TV critic Diana Keng
183 Plays1 month ago
YEOHING FOR IT. The long-gestating Section 31 TV series finally premieres on Paramount+ as a standalone movie -- or is it? Bryan and TV critic Diana Keng try to figure out just what this actually is and how the wonderful, resplendent, and popular Michelle Yeoh's contributions go insofar as making this a TREK, MARRY, or KILL.
The grades begin at (33:09).
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Transcript
Introduction and Teasers
00:00:00
Speaker
Next on Trek Mary Kill. Kicking, punching, Michelle Yeoh. All hail the Emperor.
Arrival at the Space Station
00:00:13
Speaker
There's a customer. Hoping for a word with you. Bring him. What are you doing in my space station? I'm giving you a chance to get back in on the action on a galactic scale.
00:00:30
Speaker
What a cute idea.
00:00:34
Speaker
The only way this works is if I know exactly what I'm dealing with.
Starfleet's New Threat
00:00:39
Speaker
We're facing a threat unlike anything Starfleet's ever seen. Billions of lives are at stake. Gather your people. We're gonna need every one of them.
Section 31's Role and Introduction
00:00:52
Speaker
31 is a Black Ops division. Spy work. It's just a place for people to bend their rules. Starfleet is here to make sure no one commits murder.
00:01:02
Speaker
Whatever you believed your mission was is worse than you thought.
00:01:10
Speaker
How do we stop it? We work together. And don't get dead. I'll try my hardest. You ready? Let's get messy. You don't answer her questions directly. She will punch you in your face. What?
00:01:29
Speaker
You said that she was going to be doing the face punching. I lied.
Countdown to Disaster
00:01:34
Speaker
You have no idea what you've started.
00:01:40
Speaker
This is going to be bad. Five, four, three, two, one. We survived together.
Earth's Fate and Section 31's Mission
00:02:08
Speaker
Kill. We're a special division of Star Trek fandom that gets sent in whenever fans hesitate to make a critical judgment of a show or movie. This week a fascist gets a second chance at affecting the fate of all life on Earth.
00:02:20
Speaker
Of course, I'm talking about Star Trek Section 31, starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh. What did you think I was talking about, listener? And joining me to discuss this movie slash glorified TV pilot is a returning guest. She's a TV critic for Geek Girl Authority, Tella Vixen, and Women at Warp. Diana Kang, Diana, welcome back. Thank you so much for asking me back.
00:02:40
Speaker
had a great time last time around and and after emergence, definitely feel like I owed you one to at least get you back. But I'm happy to report listeners that Diana is going to appear again after this, um the special episode that we're doing for a special set of circumstances where ah Star Trek needed some content for the calendar year 2025. The strikes kind of impacted their their stock, their inventory.
00:03:10
Speaker
And they're like, what have we got on the books? And instead of doing a tax write-off, they release the Section 31 movie that we're going to discuss
Current Events and Guest Discussions
00:03:18
Speaker
this week. um So how have you been, though, getting through everything? I know you're not in California. I'm in California, Los Angeles. So the fires have been a bit of a difficulty. We're recording this right after the episode dropped. But it's been a while since I talked to you. So what have you been up to?
00:03:31
Speaker
um I've continued working with Geek Girl Authority, which has been a lot of fun, and I did recently do a podcast with um ah women at warp regarding romantic relationships of protagonists in the streaming era. I believe they titled it Love in the Time of Streaming.
00:03:48
Speaker
And I also did a podcast with a ah husband-wife, Trekkie couple, um Deep Space Love. And yeah, we discussed Riker and Minuet in ah Next Gen.
Star Trek Relationships and Influences
00:04:04
Speaker
You know what? It's always been a relationship but where you can fall in love with the idea of a person, even if they aren't a person.
00:04:10
Speaker
that's right and It's kind of really a neat idea. and you know and It was Riker. there is It was the fact that t he developed those deep attachments when all he was, he was meant to be the playboy of the- Riker was the first person ever to fall in love with an e-girl. Yeah, basically. It made such a strong impression that it fooled the Romulans, and an amazing ah development there. right um I've been not only just getting through the fires but ah the death of director David Lynch that's been kind of weighing on me ah just because you I've worked in Hollywood you know it's kind of like a low status high status thing at all times there's a blue collar element which I think a lot of television could sort of be considered and then there is that artistic thing where people who paint with moving images and all that and I think Lynch was definitely part of the latter so I have never finished his filmography before and so I've been
00:05:04
Speaker
kind of watching things I haven't seen before, ah mixing that all in. So I've been kind of in a high-minded mode, with and also it's Oscar season, so we've got the screeners that we're watching and and and all that. So it's just like I'm in a different headspace. So if someone drops something called a movie into my lap, I go into it with a completely different set of circumstances than then loading up Paramount Plus to watch the latest Star Trek content.
Movie Release and Character Development
00:05:32
Speaker
So that's that was a tricky thing in my mind, um but we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about Star Trek Section 31, which premiered on Paramount Plus on Friday, January 25th, 2025, written by Craig Sweeney from a story by Bo Young Kim and Erica Lippold.
00:05:49
Speaker
directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, and Paramount Plus sent a press release back out in December and described it. The 2023 Academy Award winner for Best Actress, Michelle Yeoh, reprises her fan favorite role as Emperor Philippa Georgiou, a character she played in Star Trek Discovery, who joins the secret division of Starfleet. Tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets, she must also face the sins of her past.
00:06:13
Speaker
Fan favorite, if you say so, Paramount Plus marketing department. I think people like Michelle Yeoh. And so I guess whatever role she's playing, people automatically like. But Emperor Philippa Georgiou, I would not say is people's favorite character. I think Georgiou was very intriguing. I think because she was outside Starfleet, because she had that weird connection with Burnham,
00:06:42
Speaker
Um, and because prime universe, Georgia was, was kind of held up as a martyr or a victim to the Klingon war. But honestly, I think prime universe, Georgia had as much potential to be like emperor, Georgia.
00:07:04
Speaker
if she'd been given time. i mean she before she Before she died in Discovery, which was very early on, but before she died, she actually committed a war crime with no concern.
00:07:17
Speaker
like no no with no second thoughts on it at all. She ceded weaponry inside the bodies of the of the the dead. That's right. right and that i was just like i As soon as she did that, I was like what <unk> like, what is that? And then when Emperor Georgia was revealed, I'm like, oh yeah, no, that tracks. That cedar's always in there.
00:07:38
Speaker
yeah So just to what Paramount Plus' is press release back in December doesn't tell us and that we now know that since the movies come out, the pilot has come out, the TV movie has come out. I'm gonna get into that in a second. It's still messing with my mind. Anyway, Section 31 is ah mission sent on a mission to stop a weapons deal of a weapon of unknown anything. They don't know what it's called. They don't know what it does. They just know that there's some sort of a weapons deal going on at a nightclub in space which is run by Georgiou who has changed her name and is running this nightclub. But it turns out that the weapon they're after is a weapon from the Terran Empire, the Mirror Universe, ah where basically every every person every Star Trek character's evil twin exists. And I'm going to explain this in a second some more about
00:08:26
Speaker
the levels of understanding that's needed to even understand the setup to this, really. But basically, they're trying to get, stop a weapons deal. They enlist the nightclub owner, Michelle Yeoh, to help them. ah And they find out that the weapon is something she created in her past life.
Complex Missions and Character Dynamics
00:08:44
Speaker
um And it turns out that the person who's really after it is her lover, the love of her life, who she thought had died. And nope, he's out for revenge.
00:08:54
Speaker
Stick up into that. And on their way to stopping this weapon from falling into his hands, they discover there's a mole in their ranks. And that's right, they're ranks because they're a team. It's Guardians of the Galaxy. So.
00:09:08
Speaker
Did it start as Guardians of the Galaxy? That's an interesting question, which I don't really care to answer because the Section 31 development is rather intense. I sent Diana the notes here, but this was originally announced in in January 2019 as a spin-off series of Star Trek Discovery. So this is the first thing everyone needs to know. If you don't know what this movie the context of the movie movie is,
00:09:31
Speaker
it is ostensibly a Star Trek movie. Now, Section 31 was established in the Star Trek show, Deep Space Nine in the sixth season as a part of the original Starfleet charter. So when basically if you need to understand, Star Trek is a utopia, that's the universe that it's in, and Starfleet is basically like the military legal scientific arm, it's kind of a catch-all.
00:09:58
Speaker
within that, they're like, you know, we're kind of in a utopia, but in order to maintain that, basically need to have like a CIA organization that does a bunch of stuff. I think Section 31 was more of a black ops than like it was it was off the books. It was meant to be. Yes. It was more than like the the the Secret Service or the sorry, the CIA branch. It was um it was meant to be deniable by Starfleet officials.
00:10:25
Speaker
If anything they did was discovered, it wasn't Starfleet. So not even it's not even the IMF, which also this buy borrows on because they're way too. I mean, nothing they do is clandestine. Let's we'll be clear on that in this movie. But that's the intention of Section 31. Then we have this Mirror Universe idea, which was introduced the original series in Mirror Mirror and has been used repeatedly and including the second half of the first season of Star Trek Discovery, which is where we meet Emperor Philip of Georgiou.
00:10:59
Speaker
And she then gets brought into the main Star Trek reality. And then she travels with that crew when the show changes concepts from being a prequel to the original series to a show that takes place in the 32nd century. I'm not making this up.
00:11:15
Speaker
When last we saw Emperor Georgiou though, she was in Star Trek Discovery in the 32nd century and her molecules were being scrambled because it turns out jumping universes going from mirror mirror mirror universe into the Star Trek universe and then traveling into the future is not a good thing.
00:11:32
Speaker
And so she gets sent back in time, we don't know where. But I'm here to tell you, she does not get sent back to the point at which she left.
Series Development and Production Challenges
00:11:39
Speaker
She gets sent at some point between the original, the end of the original series and the start of Star Trek The Next Generation. Somewhere in that range is where she gets dropped into for reasons we don't know. We don't know why an emperor then decides to become a nightclub owner and change her name. We don't know.
00:11:55
Speaker
But that's the setup. I'm just saying that's the context for understanding this because ah the the movie does a ah decent job of setting up who Georgiou is, like what her steel is, I would say. Not how she gets to the nightclub, but just like what her backs or previous life was. And honestly, she they give us more than we got in Discovery.
00:12:15
Speaker
Sure. Yes. they yeah they Yeah. So in Discovery, it was, we met Georgiou, we established who she is in that moment, not who she was when she came to that moment. And Section 31 is not reintroduced for the audiences or for new audiences. No, now everything's accepted. And so it's kind of like they're basically saying if we give them the Mission Impossible opening, people will understand that Section 31 is associated with that. I guess fair enough.
00:12:45
Speaker
But it's just an interesting when you put Star Trek on top of that, it then I think this is the proper use of it, it begs questions. like and and And so it's just interesting that they didn't do that. Part of me wonders if there it was meant to be a hook to bring in new audiences, everyone comes flocks to the show to watch Michelle Yeoh, and then they have those questions. And then people and they ask around and they're like, Oh, you'll need to watch five seasons of discovery, or at least for. I think that I think that's a wild notion. Like, I think you're probably right. I think that is a strange thing for people to have in their mind. And I really do think the way that this was marketed, that there was an intention of we're going to catch the casual Michelle Yeoh fans. And so then why wouldn't you get farther into this has nothing to do with start like don't even put Star Trek in it and just see if you can trick people into watching Star Trek. But it's also we'll get into that some more. ah This doesn't really have a lot to do with Star Trek. It's much more about the Section 31 idea, which was actually Michelle's idea. According to Alex Kurtzman, he came to her in season one because, you know, she dies pretty early in Star Trek Discovery, her prime character. And so knowing that she was going to come back, she was like, Alex, wouldn't it be interesting if we did more with this character? And so they they were kind of waiting to see, let's see how Star Trek Discovery goes. They got two writers from Discovery to start developing the show. Again, in 2019, Erica Lippold and Bo Young Kim. And they worked with Craig Sweeney. They basically broke a whole season of the show. they ah so And I think they wrote all the scripts, or at at least half the scripts. They started pre-production. Now,
00:14:31
Speaker
Listeners, when and certain terms are stated,
Contracts, Costs, and Unpredictable Characters
00:14:34
Speaker
pre-production, these are like official terms. These are not things that just get thrown around lightly. So pre-production is very official. People are being hired, sets are being built, things are being designed. There is work being done on the show. Guess what? All that started in 2020. So the pandemic happens.
00:14:51
Speaker
And it shuts it all down. And they have definitely started the work, but they have not gotten far enough along where they have to keep going, where it's like a sunk cost of, well, now we're pot committed. So they pull up stakes there because they don't know when things are going to be in production and get everything going. They have other shows to finish. The cost of everything because of COVID goes up. So it's like, let's just shift our resources to cover the new costs of shooting in these pandemic times.
00:15:20
Speaker
In 2023, April 18, 2023, five weeks after YO1 or Oscar, it's announced that this would become a TV movie. And it started shooting at the beginning of 2024, and it shot for about six weeks. and we And so that's how we get here. And at somewhere along the way, this is why I'm unclear on.
00:15:44
Speaker
They really did force this Guardians of the Galaxy notion on onto this project. Now, the thing is, that was an idea that's been coming out in Junkets since Star Trek Beyond. I think it was Simon Pegg. That's my recollection. But it could have been Justin Lin. Paramount saw what Guardians of the Galaxy did, which is basically no one knew what that was. No one knew what those characters were. It takes place in space. They have spaceships.
00:16:10
Speaker
Why can't we make Star Trek like that? Was Paramount's edict when they were doing Star Trek Beyond? And I don't think they've left that idea behind subsequently. And it's trying to come out in various different ways. They're doing like a relaunch of Star Trek as a concept, as a movie that might come out next year. um And they've basically been trying to make all the new shows, the secret hideout era of shows, some version of turn your brain off and just have fun.
00:16:38
Speaker
And I think this is the culmination of all those ideas colliding into this contract that they had to fulfill. Don't talk about some more. yeah ah So we go from series to, we go from 10 episode season series to an hour and 43 minute movie is how we get here. Let's to talk about the characters real quick. Emperor Philip Pejorju, alias Madame Veronique du Franc. I already explained when when last we saw her.
00:17:09
Speaker
But apparently she's bored in her new life. Oh, big time. Oh, but I mean, and that's predictable. That's so predictable. Like that was she was always like switching gears and just messing with people like she she spent her entire time on Discovery, punking the crew.
00:17:24
Speaker
Like every every time they turned around and be like, oh yeah, and we're going to do this now. And you know ah you had a plan, I didn't. so and and And for Georgia to come back and us to expect her just to settle in to section 31 in the 24th century and be happy with that, I don't think would have been realistic.
00:17:45
Speaker
That's fair enough. yeah ah She is approached by the head of this Section 31 team, Alok Sahar, who is an augmented person who served under a woman con, basically, named Geary the Marked. He's the team leader, kind of humorless. ah The Trek movie people, they when previewing this and looking at one of the trailers, not their review, they brought up a really good point. They're like, if this is Guardians of the Galaxy,
00:18:12
Speaker
ah Quill was funny and like energetic and and so he's very serious and Michelle Yeoh is like you said she's kind of a bit of an agent of chaos she's pretty hammy but you know she's not quite the Quill character that they're really going for so anyway he's serious more or less. and And then you've got Lieutenant Rachel Garrett, who will later become Captain Rachel Garrett of the USS Enterprise C, which is the Enterprise before Picard's Enterprise.
Legacy Characters and Comedic Roles
00:18:43
Speaker
And she is um
00:18:46
Speaker
I guess she's a buy the books person, ah but also some something about her, something she's done, something they've seen in her in Starfleet. They're like, you're kind of a chaos agent too. They assign her to the Section 31 team ah to observe their actions and prevent them from breaking the law, even though they're that's their job. So it's, why is she there? I don't know. Well, Garrett's there as a legacy character to lend legitimacy to Trek as being the Starfleet representative.
00:19:13
Speaker
I have a really big question. Well, just, yeah, like she's, she's memorable as the character from a yesterday's enterprise. And that's, that's, that's a huge thing because there's also part of the Tasha Yarb arc and then the, the Romulans and so on. But then she out, she's brought back as a icon ah in Picard because they have a basically a Rachel Garrett day. Yeah. Right. A celebration of her. And so it's, yeah, it's,
00:19:46
Speaker
Georgia is not Starfleet. As as ah I've said repeatedly, she's not Starfleet. So Garrett really is. She's she's meant to be the stick in the mud, but she's she's there. And I think Georgia has a line. It's like Starfleet, where fun goes to die. And and kind of cracking Garrett's Starfleet training to make her be a better Section 31 operative.
00:20:10
Speaker
was part of the arc and might have fleshed out nicely if we had 10 episodes versus 100 minutes. Yeah. So by sticking Star Trek in the title, which what this character actually serves for the purpose of the story is pretty significant, I think. And I can't say it's a missed opportunity, but I also am like, if you switch gears so completely,
00:20:39
Speaker
from a TV series to a movie. And you know this is one and done. I would think the radical, and but you're insisting because there's a very good possibility there are too many cooks in the kitchen here. And so you have a lot of masters being like, well, it should have some Star Trek ties to it. you know So you're putting a legacy character in there. But then you're also naming it Star Trek Section 31. I think the tension that ought to exist is how can this idea exist alongside Captain Picard, you know, how can they exist beyond like, we try to be good people, we try to do that. Rachel Garrett is the is the ah pivot point for that. And they don't use that tension in the story, because all they're really doing is compressing their 10 episode season arc into this
00:21:25
Speaker
100-minute movie. And so that's where it gets tricky because, like you said, she doesn't have an arc if we hadn't fleshed out. Yes, in a 10-episode season, we would. But if you were just doing this as a movie, because again, I'm screwed up right now. What's a movie? what's it This is very much a pilot. So it does suggest like what's the next episode. But if this is just a movie, you've got it right there. you know We meet Georgie and scene one. We get her backstory. The next scene is it Rachel Garrett meeting Alok.
00:21:55
Speaker
And she's like, I've been assigned to you as your observer. And that's now Garrett's like stating, I'm here to make sure you don't kill people or you do these. And he's and he's then explaining what section 31 actually is and saying in relation to what you're used to, this is not that. And it is setting up for the audience. We get the same kind of intro that we got for Georgia. Then we mix the two together. That's what a movie would do. Again, I've been watching movies lately. so and yeah You're trying to create the dramatic conflict and there is two things going on here and that is Georgie's story which ties into this idea of there's no benevolent dictators is the line that she says but also how do you have a good world when there are bad people out there and what are you prepared to do
00:22:44
Speaker
to secure that good world, the the the or at least the promise for aent like good people and a good future and making things better if there are people intent on destroying it and conquering. And I think that's what's missing from this very clear idea that's laid out right here. And the character of Rachel Garrett is kind of like just drawing attention to that, plus putting Star Trek in the title.
00:23:07
Speaker
and she looks ah just And Garrett looks cute in wigs. We that throughout the the movie. is that she looks cute wig that was She's played by she played ah Abigail Hobbs in the Hannibal TV show. Honours the Rachel Garrett we saw in Yesterday's Enterprise. She doesn't like totally remind you of her, but it's also like, okay, yeah, I can see this is the younger version of her. That's fine. It's proto Garrett.
00:23:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it work it makes sense. ah So Quasi, an indecisive cameloid. It's another reference to Legacy, in this case, Star Trek VI. The singer Chardet was what played the species ah famously made out with William Shatner in the movie, Captain Kirk. Here played by hilarious comedian Sam Richardson. Love him. He's great. Have you seen After Party?
00:24:00
Speaker
Have not seen After Party, have you seen Detroiters? I have not. We'll we have to... this Our notes eventually on this. A Sam Richardson swap. Okay. yeah ah Fuzz, this is a Vulcan robot or android that is controlled by a microscopic alien ah that is a species called the nanokin. And it's also an Irish voice, the actor of South African. ah Now,
00:24:29
Speaker
Come to think of it on, cause again, I watch these three times at least. So come to think of it when you have your Irish character, sorry, when you have your Irish voiced character, also say that they have thousands of kids. It's just a, it's a mean stereotype. The Irish rambunctiously reproducing. The accent was unnecessary. I'm going to say that right off. They, they didn't need it. And it was, it was there for a very cheap laugh.
00:24:59
Speaker
I saw a letter of box review or some review maybe on Blue Sky or something where it's like, I'm not even Irish and I'm kind of offended by this accent. Yeah. Again, Fuzz was the Nana-ken, not the machine, right? But both the machine and the Nana-ken had an Irish accent.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. ah And then there's Zeph, a mechanized man. That's basically it. He just has ah a suit of, he he is a mecha guy, basically. Yeah. there was Wasn't there a term for some sort sort sort of dysmorphia? He was mecha dysphoria, mecha dysphoria, where he doesn't distinguish between his body and his mechanical augmentations. That's right. So at this point, we've got two augments because of but So both Alok and- Yes, we have a biological augment and we have a mechanical augment for sure. But we also have another, the weapons dealer, Dada No, is also a modified a person as well. And then the last, but he, this, that person's on the team. And then the last person on the team is Mel, a Delton, and who plays the honeypot, I bet, I get. And that's all we get.
00:26:12
Speaker
Yeah, it was. Yeah. And dispatched quickly. She dies. This is full spoilers. We can just go. So problematic. and the mouth The whole male thing was like. She gets shot. She shouldn't be fighting anyway, but she gets shot. They that kill the woman. Interesting turn there. That's really interesting. But the last woman. Yeah.
00:26:30
Speaker
Sure. but and And I'm fine with Delta and sexuality being a thing, but I'm going to talk about it a little bit later in one of the grades. But the thing is, is again, because it's a movie, there is no cause and effect. So if she dies, they've actually lost their best interrogator and that's not mentioned. So like her point in the team is completely just put the hot person at at the top and then get rid of them. She's basically the um the mantis of the team. Like we could match all these to Guardians of the Galaxy like galaxy characters basically. I mean ah Fuzz is basically Rocket. All right so that's the crew who thought we lay it all out there. um I guess I should ask you like but how'd you feel once they put them all together and they all told you who they were?
00:27:18
Speaker
They do tell us who they are. I'll be on i'll be honest, I didn't connect it to Guardians of the Galaxy. I saw it more of because it felt like a heist movie. um i and I kind of connected more to the oceans format where you're you're bringing in the people with their different skills or like or Mission Impossible, whatever you you know whatever you want with the team aspect of it. and um ah the On paper, I think the team looked better than when you, but you put that this is supposed to be an alpha force, right? This was, they were like called alpha, alpha team. And that's right. They get a little digital readout and it tells us the different teams. they were yeah and And I was trying to figure out if they just called them back to try to boost their confidence because they didn't feel gelled as a team going in. Yeah. And, and, and the fact that,
00:28:09
Speaker
you know, Giorgio was able to pick apart all of their covers in her nightclub. um Besides Giorgio just being Giorgio and hyper observant. Um, it was the fact that, you know, as she pointed out, camaloids are immune to Deltan, uh, sexy times. So, so why would you have those two flirting? And, and if you're, if your machine odor looks like a Vulcan, why are you laughing? It's like, you know, that it just set felt like the team felt very young, very green.
00:28:41
Speaker
Well, that's where the Guardians came in. It's like these they're kind of fuck ups and that's kind of the point. Also screaming what the shit at people. I mean, that's just literally ripping but the tone and tenor of of Guardians off. So oh totally, totally. Yeah. ah Let's see some production notes for getting the grades here
Production Timeline and Budget Analysis
00:29:00
Speaker
real quick. Like I said, the movie was shot ah over six and a half weeks, starting at the end of January twenty twenty four.
00:29:05
Speaker
ah The original TV series entered pre-production in January 2020. So again, just to show, so it started pre-production in January 2020, and they didn't start shooting what it was until 2024. But it had the working title of Wind Cleaver, and it was supposed to start actually shooting for the TV show in May 2020. Timing with everything. Yes, yeah.
00:29:28
Speaker
And it was supposed to conclude in November 2020. So they were going to go six months to shoot 10 episodes. you know ah So this that actually leads me to my final thought because I've seen this floating around out there. Like I said, when when there's a press release or something that says pre-production has started, these are all official terms. There might even be ah legal language tied up in and union collective bargaining agreements, that kind of thing.
00:29:53
Speaker
contract but another but Yeah, exactly. So I just want to point this out because I saw this as a rumor and of course the YouTube stinky boys, they like to like say, I can't believe they wasted blah, blah, blah. But Michelle Yeoh was allegedly paid $12 million dollars for this. The production costs might've been anywhere from 80 million to 150 million. And I just want to say all those numbers could be correct. I think people are like for a hundred minute movie, they spent basically a feature film on this and Michelle Yeoh got paid 12 million.
00:30:22
Speaker
I just want to introduce some people out there to the idea of, and you've heard it, if you're a child who watched the Animaniacs, a pay or play contract, which means you get paid whether it gets made or not. So Michelle Yeoh was set to be paid $12 million dollars to shoot a 10 episode season. And if you break that down, that's $1.2 million dollars an episode. That is completely normal amount of money for a headliner on a TV show. So with that in mind,
00:30:51
Speaker
80 million to 150 million as a number that's thrown out there of what this would have cost, meaning section 31, the movie, is probably a little misleading. I think we've seen from Strange New Worlds and Discovery that Paramount Plus is basically two buckets or two avenues of making a show. Discovery was made for about 15 million an episode. And Strange New Worlds looks like it's around 8 million an episode. I think that's how it breaks down.
00:31:20
Speaker
Well, guess what? Over 10 episodes, it's either 80 billion or it's 115 million. it's It's right there. So whatever bucket they were going to drop this into, they might have been willing to create a third bucket for another show, or it was going to take the production cycle slot of one of those other shows um and fill in there. And that's all this is. So I just want to point this out because people like to pull numbers and make a big deal out of that, but Michelio,
00:31:47
Speaker
was going to get paid $12 million, dollars whether they made this or not. So they made it. And how much of the $80 to $150 million was actually in this? I'm not sure. But pre-production, that money was spent. They spent money on the scripts. They had contracts for the rest of the cast. Those are most likely most for the main cast, pay or play. So you know there's a lot of sunk costs already built into it. I just want to point that out because, again, people like to be hysterical about the wrong thing.
Promotion and Cinematography
00:32:16
Speaker
and but And looking at it from the perspective of someone who follows all the tracks that come out right now, they pushed Section 31, they advertised it, they promoted it way more than Prodigy and Picard put together.
00:32:34
Speaker
Like it was, it's, you, everywhere I turned, every stream where I turned on had Michelle's face on it and it was, there was the promotion was there and then seeing how many reactions have come out since Friday. They got the streaming numbers they wanted on the initial push. Yeah. This is the first Star Trek to be led by an Academy award winner. So, so, you know, say what you will about the product, what the product itself, but the promotion of it was done right.
00:33:03
Speaker
um Oh, we're about to talk about the production. Diana, diana I give you the honor of breaking out some great scenes for us here. i I love the visuals in the nightclub. I think that they did a great job with the cinematography and ah I loved having the the singer in the middle. i i' just there' was a There was a vibe to it that worked for me. um I thought those were great scenes. ah Then the initial, um i and again, because I am a fan of Giorgio as well as Michelle Yo, her first ah
00:33:39
Speaker
Interaction with a lock with where she's like tearing his team apart. It's like you yeah, you guys need to work on this um i like I like it. So those I'll go with those ones. Oh Sorry, sorry one more in the flashbacks the the scenes of young Georgia though i'm I'm going to have to give it to those scenes as well. Those are the the only scenes that I put as great scenes. yeah I am not into Georgiou.
00:34:09
Speaker
this I've been against Donald Trump my ah entire life as a child. so you know when he starts running for president and all that stuff, and my family's getting mad at me, I'm like, I never liked the guy. Why do I have to suddenly like someone I don't like? Because they're running for president. So it's like, why do I have to like a character now because she's the lead of the show? I never liked the character. Like, I never bought, I was against it. I was never into the section 31 concept. You know, there are a lot of Star Trek fans and when the Deep Space Nine, when that happened, they were like, no, this is not a good, don't do this. And nope, they keep doing it. but
00:34:46
Speaker
I think that that darkness the darkness sells on a lot of fronts.
Themes and Universe Characteristics
00:34:50
Speaker
where thes you know It sells where it's most important, the people who have the money. yeah and Utopian Star Trek, as much as that's our aspirational vision for for the future, um we identify more with the messy bits.
00:35:04
Speaker
Yeah. um ah so this you know So basically what we're talking about is the scene where she kills her family. Or the scene where she scars son. Like, oh my god. In between those two beats is a cartoonish appearance of her troops. You can skip that part. Yeah. Yeah. It was i mean it was very Silly. there was ah the they were They were going for gravitas. They were going for grandiose and yeah. The problem is is that Discovery never seemed to want, they always, they went for the Game of Thrones seriousness, but in almost Batman, Adam West level of camp and how they executed it. And that's all the mirror universe stuff ever comes off as for me is just high camp.
00:35:53
Speaker
her ascendance to Emperor pinged for me the same feeling of when she actually what had the reveal in Discovery where Georgiou turned around on that little dais and yes we realized it was it was mirror universe it was that same level of, you know, hold your breath, here it comes. Wow. yeah Right? Wow. Any more?
00:36:19
Speaker
ah For great scenes? um I don't have any more. Yeah, the yeah the the flashback scenes were the best in the in the film, honestly. i um My brain almost separates them as a different show. Well, at least it's all on story and it's on concept. or It has some sort of resonance. I think we're still a big... You have to watch... Basically, it's a three-beat arc where this movie introduces beat one. Hey, in order to get to the top, she has to kill everyone she cares about. No connections.
00:36:53
Speaker
Beat Two is multiple seasons of Star Trek Discovery to see how she so she ah softens. And then Beat Three is basically the last half of this movie where she finds out that son, her competitor who becomes her love, ah the the closest person she has in her life while she's Emperor, that now he's the villain who's meaning to destroy this new life she's created. um But it's just funny that it's like, it's a movie that's like, but you've got to watch 30 episodes of another show to get the rest of this movie. It is a very weird tradition of the Terran Empire to have the second last, like the first runner-up serve the winner. Sure. Because they've killed everybody else. why yes why Why do they keep this one? Who was their prime competitor? ah Is it just to keep the Emperor sharp? is that like Because typically, probably the last two aren't actually friends.
00:37:49
Speaker
right you know they would be like arch nemeses so to have that person as the closest person to the throne for the rest of your reign seems like a very odd choice so what's the what's the more interesting idea that is this is a tradition or when she's granted when she wins rather than kill him she spares him and enslaves him and it's her choice because she's the vice emperor. What I'm saying is what's the more interesting idea? i see That it's tradition and that no one has agency and we're all just victims in this careless world and these heartless organizations and traditions. Or she's an emperor and her first act is saying to hell with tradition, ah this person's going to be, he lost and now he's going to know he lost every day of his life. And then she's secretly whispering, because I love you.
00:38:40
Speaker
let's go along with it Like that is more interesting to me than than like, and now the traditional, now this person has to serve you. Keep in me in mind that one of Georgia's lines throughout the, or early in this movie is where she's like, everyone's always, it's constant coups.
00:38:56
Speaker
They're constantly trying to overthrow the government. So why would you put your top competitor right at your side all the time? It's it's exactly what you said. But this movie has so like a lot of the secret hideout stuff. There's just a lot of ah reaction. You just get thrust stuff thrust upon you and there are no choices. And it's very strange. Yeah. And and honestly, but like framing it that way, I the more merciful thing would have been to kill him.
00:39:24
Speaker
That's right. and so she could have But the thing is, she could have said that. She's like, you you demand my first act you demanded me as an act of mercy if I were to kill this person. like that That's what I'm saying. like When is she the emperor? like She's meekly the emperor. you know she Oh, i don't I'm just a small bean. I just i just beat 18 other people or so you know to get to the top here. And I killed all of you, but i oh I was put in a tough spot. I kind of had to do it. No, she's she's ambitious. She's ambitious for the Terran Empire. She's not ambitious for herself. like Well, that's that that's an interesting thing he could have explored because he's Alok's appealing to her personally that she is bored. you know so Oh, she's still bored. Best trek tropes.
00:40:17
Speaker
um aliens, I would say. just Okay, mine was calling an alien species by their most descriptive trait. So I always think about the saurians and they look like dinosaurs. And so here the microscopic species is called the nanokins. I'm like, great. five yeah That was very men in black, too, though. Oh, for sure. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. um Yeah, just they threw a lot of aliens at us. It felt like it felt like Mortal Kombat episode or two or something. It just felt like everyone was something new or or like or tied to something. Yeah. um What was the the black and white?
00:41:03
Speaker
Virtual. I have the worst truck trope, yes, but yes. The the Sharon, it's they're from the planet Sharon, so I don't know if they're Sharonians or just the Sharon native. Yeah. But yes, I have that that in a minute. Okay, yeah, go for it. it's so but Again, for me, like best truck trope can be the worst truck
Criticism on Star Trek Tropes and Continuity
00:41:22
Speaker
trope. Is there use of aliens?
00:41:24
Speaker
ah Yeah, that was great. I also put ah an observer, a Starfleet observer. It's a great trek trope. yeah It's always nice when they have remember Tom Paris famously was an observer. ah So it's just it's a it's a good tool. The original series had a lot of observers that would interfere with whatever's going on. And Kirk would try to explain like, these people will kill you. And they're like, let's wait and see about that. Kirk, you're always firing from the hip there. And then getting them into worse trouble like it's it's a good trope. I miss it. Yeah. All right. any the um
00:41:57
Speaker
Blowing up the ship. it It was like it was you you you never get you never never get to leave on the ship that you came on.
00:42:07
Speaker
that It was a nice hook that there their their mission ship, they lose that. Yeah, I did not. I liked the idea of then they get this garbage cow, this garbage scout, and that sort of becomes their new home.
00:42:21
Speaker
I just hated that, which, by the way, again, it looks just like the Milano on Guardians of the Galaxy. set up The bridge is set up, but I didn't like the design of the ship. I thought that the design stunk, which is ah another problem with the new era of shows is that very, I can't think of any new ship designs.
00:42:41
Speaker
that have made me go, wow, that's great. I think in Star Trek Picard, they had one interesting new starship design, the one that Ensign Rho, or Commander Rho flies into. right I think that was the all like the most interesting ship design I could think of. I like HQ in Discovery in the 32nd century. I like the the Federation's hidden headquarters. I like the design of that. But it's not a ship, it's a base. Yeah. Anyways. Worse trek tropes. I have a couple.
00:43:10
Speaker
um the accent, who like giving giving anyone an accent in the future. was just' like there Everyone's using a universal universal translators. Why do you have an accent through the universal translator? like It didn't make sense to me. ah We have the Irish Romulan, Alaris, in Star Trek Picard. We've got the Irish Vulcan here in section 31. So again, he is a father to thousands of children, and the angry wife who comes looking for him has a hillbilly southern accent.
00:43:42
Speaker
It's just the accents all the accents. It's just it's just hack shit. That's just hack shit. Sorry. um Again, so many drafts. And at the end of the day, they're like, what's it's interesting, you just spin it out. And ultimately, you're left with some real hacky cliches. yeah Any others? ah The um um I must say the mask. So son before he's revealed this on um his what i What the hell was he wearing? He's wearing a helmet. I think that's a great ah secret hideout trope. And I guess we can call right back into Star Trek Picard, where it's like, we can't see people in helmets because it will give away exactly who they are. you know We couldn't see who the board queen really was in ah Star Trek Picard season two, because then it would be revealed that it was Jurati. And it's just like, wow. oh yeah
00:44:32
Speaker
So that's a great one. Yeah. That's a good secret hideout trope. Do you have any more? Because I just have two. No, you go ahead. The Mirror Universe. Oh, OK. Basically, after after two, ah maybe two or three episodes of Deep Space Nine doing it, I was like, I'm good.
00:44:52
Speaker
but We don't need to do this anymore. Like by the end of it, for Deep Space Nine, they were even like, this is tired shit. We shouldn't do this anymore. So connected to that bad Trek trope was the anomaly. It's supposed to be unpredictable and random when prime universe and mirror universe crossover. And for them to, it was like, Oh, by the way, there was this ion storm and it creates a regular anomaly that we have on a timer. And we know exactly when we can pass back. I was like, no, that that's not a thing.
00:45:22
Speaker
just Yeah, and I think that's a great point. I think my recollection of discovery is when Kovac is explaining it to her. It's a it's pretty like.
00:45:33
Speaker
general in a way that's like doesn't invite too many questions and it's basically like the universes were close and then they so drift apart and in the time that you came from they were closer and now that they've drifted apart your your molecules are being ripped apart and i'm like that makes sense to me that's all i needed to know and you're totally right having it on in time right now again because this i'm told this is a movie but Instead of cramming 10 episodes of plot together, you could have had a mid-act where it's, we have to create the conditions for the kind of ion storm that would create a rift. like there Someone might have been able to theorize a way to create the kind of ion storm to what you said. So then like, well, we have to stop the ah we have to stop the ion storm. And then they don't. And then they're like, how do we deal with this?
00:46:26
Speaker
uh that could have been another way to deal with it as well but and so we get anomalies yeah but that falls into my other worst trek trip which is careless discontinuity yeah or careless continuity so you just brought up the main one But the other one I have that Jamie Lee Curtis talks over at the beginning, spoiler alert. i My initial thought while listening to this, when the movie started and then it gets into the Section 31 mission, I'm like, this voice does not sound authoritative enough for what they're trying to do. And then at the end, they reveal it's Jamie Lee Curtis. I should have recognized her voice right away, but I didn't. um and And so I was like, OK, well, anyway.
00:47:05
Speaker
She's talking over this map at the beginning. It shows like an overla a bird's eye view of basically the Federation or the Star Trek Star Chart. And it looks like they pulled it from Strange New World or something.
00:47:18
Speaker
And they kind of thoughtlessly, carelessly added this border onto it, and they kept flashing it, highlighting it, saying, we can't cross the border, meaning you can't cross this line. And I don't know how to feel about this, because i I understand that corporate interests don't give a crap about fan's intelligence, and no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
00:47:41
Speaker
I understand that people who run Paramount Plus today don't have the same appreciation for Star Trek fans that people at the end in the late 1900s did let's say because the idea isn't that crazy to frame it that way but that's exactly what it is it's just funny to say that now I'm just trying to get used to it. mean yeah Because my point is, they had to know, someone at some point in Paramount history knew, that fans will pause the image that's on the screen. So if you pause the image, the flashing light of you can't cross the border, there's like three star bases and a bunch of Federation member worlds on the other side of the border. So it's just like, an it's so careless and thoughtless that it's like, you think so little of us, fine. But what do you want me to think that you put a lot of thought into this? Like no one sets out to make a bad movie. No one, no one making this. But I also am like to what extent did they care? And it's like not enough. If in the first five minutes, you have something that directly contradicts Star Trek.
00:48:42
Speaker
The people are just coming to it clean. Maybe someone just has really good vision and they're not even they're like, I've never watched Star Trek before. And then they see something and they see a flashing light. You can't cross that border. And they see Starbase on one side, Starbase 11 on one side and Starbase 10 on the other side. They'd be like, did they mess it up? Like that would that would be the first question.
00:49:02
Speaker
On top of that, I think that Sharon, that you point out, the half black, half white person, the real catty one, I actually like their catty performance. as that per like I would believe that would be a good servant or adjutant for Georgiou in this universe, in this identity that she's taken. That was fine.
00:49:21
Speaker
However, they're all dead. It completely undermines the episode. And again, it's like, do you care about Star Trek? You're putting Star Trek in the name for that. So for some people, that means something. yeah there's ah There's a history there. And you're saying you're honoring the history with the aesthetics.
00:49:37
Speaker
ah But it's like Darmock you you know the vocabulary but not the grammar or you don't know the context for any of this stuff For anyone who doesn't know that halfway black half-white was featured in the episode let that be your last battlefield at the end of that episode Because their planet is so far away from the Federation from Federation space. It's so distant They modify the enterprise with thoughts to go work ten like that's what's going on the episode But when they get to their home planet the two people fighting on the ship they find out that Basically, racism had killed them all. They're all dead. yeah That is the moral of the story. And here it's like, no, it's not. So yeah again, going back to the what ifs, if they had gone to a 10 episode season and had a ah room of writers, and to be fair, I feel like ah Secret Hideaway's writers, for the most part, have been very Trek interested.
00:50:34
Speaker
ah they they they they bring in things mostly thoughtfully. So my thought is that there could have been an explanation provided. It would have undermined the episode, yes.
00:50:50
Speaker
That's my point. Is the juice worth the squeeze? yeah right and I don't think it is. I don't think the point of it ... He could have been any species. It could have been any species. There's no reason for him to be Sharon. That's right. yeah He could have been any species and been as catty and snarky as he he was, you know but yeah.
00:51:12
Speaker
so and Again, not this is not a 10 episode. like I understand what you're saying, but it's like you don't get the credit extra credit of like what could have been. It's what we have. Someone was really committed to having him on screen though. Then my last one is, you said they're very thoughtful about bringing things in. and i I respect you, so I'm not going to say I disagree, but I'm going to be like, to what extent are we talking about here? So the Delton honeypot situation, this is careless kind of discontinuity. So all we really have is Star Trek, the motion picture in Gene Roddenberry being a massive horn dog and some deleted scenes, whatever. But basically I, Leah.
00:51:50
Speaker
Like, for example, we don't know that all Deltans are bald. They don't have to be. She could have shaved her head because what she says, I've taken a vow of celibacy or an oath of celibacy because Humanoid beings for the most part are too immature. They cannot handle it, but we're clearly seeing people on the enterprise handling her. They're just intimidated by her presence or pheromones or whatever. She's not like putting a vampire glamour on them to like make them do whatever. They are a simply in the horny pervy Gene Rambre world and evolved sexual race like that. And that's it. But here it gets
00:52:30
Speaker
brought down to its least interesting version, but like following the Sharon Alien, it's like, here is someone half remembering and and a quarter understanding some an idea and a character and just putting it in because it kind of fits.
00:52:47
Speaker
But to that point, if you're going to change the rules or say that this Deltan is fine with weaponizing her sexual sexuality, like I said, you drop it when she's not the chief interrogator. She'd be the best interrogator yeah if if she can make people do or say whatever she wants. But anyway. Yeah. ah Stephanie Tchaikovsky's character when she was on track was but supposed to be, she was Vulcan with a, she was T'Vin on Picard.
00:53:16
Speaker
and Um, they also went with a shaved head of all, um, and, uh, in interviews, she stated that the backstory on Taveen was she had a Deltan ancestor. Yeah. Interesting that also get that character also was vaporized. Sure.
00:53:34
Speaker
but it's just until nearly the end of the season series though. Well, what I'm saying is there's just like a lot of matchy matchy that stuff that that repeats and that's kind of what happens when you have one executive producer deep elbow deep in every project, it gets very samey, I think. So, I don't know. Most cosplayable character or moment, a lot of options here. I mean, if if there's one thing people, the consensus is like great costumes and makeup in this yeah movie. Yeah, I mean, I i would love most of Georgiou's costumes. I want, ah especially the fact that she can like fight with her. It was very it was very Asian martial arts, where she was like basically fighting with her dress.
00:54:17
Speaker
yeah there's a lot i My thing for these cosplays sometimes are the mashups. So you could do kind of gendery mashups too. And I like that Alok is kind of suggesting he's queer a little bit. He has very ornate earrings that he's wearing at the end. But I put, so listeners, you're free to tag us and respond what your choice would be here because I Yeah. really do think there are so many options. Even that Sharon looked great. There's Like the lounge a lot of. singer, whoever you wanted. The torch singer shoes, amazing.
00:54:49
Speaker
um I'm sure someone's gonna try to do fuzz like you could make a little Attachment to your Vulcan body and have it and like kind of fly out of your ear or something That might be whatever but I'm going with Georgia's final look the silver dress the blue hair I thought that one was kind of like the most straight, her initial look is so complicated.
Costume Potential and Memorable Lines
00:55:12
Speaker
The hair, the dress, the fingernail, the nails, like that's, it's like you said. Shoulder pads. Yeah, shoulder pads, very functional because we see her moving it and she's swishing around. But I think that silver look is one that a lot more people could actually do. So that's why I picked that one. All right, now it's time for the line must be going. Great lines.
00:55:35
Speaker
chaos is my friends with benefits. I'm going to get a t-shirt made with that one. that that Honestly, it was the standout. As soon as we saw it, I was like i turned to my head, so I was like, I'm telling Brian that's my fault.
00:55:50
Speaker
ah Good, Rachel Garrett line. yeah ah I have two of three grade lines from Quasi. Okay. Oh, you're going to blow us up, aren't you? like that when Garrett's putting together a plan which is basically melting down a battery which will cause a big big explosion. ah Quasi's other line. Now these last two lines actually. One's a Quasi line, one's a Giorgio line. These are ironically great lines and I'll explain in a minute. Quasi's line.
00:56:18
Speaker
You see that, like, we're all suspects. We're not, all right? Fuzz, me, and her were in the scow when all this happened. Everyone inside of everyone else, and nobody went anywhere, right? For some reason, Fuzz, me, and her were in the scow when all this happened. It's such a funny line pulled out of context, and I'm like, that's great. I don't know, like... First of all, it is another kind of hacky. We need to make something cool. We need to make something punchy and memorable and different from the stodgy old thing. All of them have these monosyllabic names. And so hearing a bunch of middle-aged older people put together a list of cool names,
00:56:56
Speaker
sounds like this and it's just funny and they're not in a ship they're in a garbage scow you know it's just like so it all it's like it's trying so hard and Sam Richardson's to delivering it with the appropriate level of like what the fuck am I saying but he's saying like he's delivering it in a goofy way that holds together i I respected the heck out of how campy and stupid that line is and then the other one This could also go on a t-shirt, but for a different reason.
Star Trek's Direction and Ideals
00:57:23
Speaker
Georgiou to Sam, after she's after he's taken the poison and the flashback and seems to have died. Aha, but he wasn't. She goes, I forbid you to die! I think that's a great line because you could just superimpose Alex Kurtzman's face over that, and you could have Son lying there with Star Trek on him. and and it just
00:57:45
Speaker
You know, you get to this point and it's like, what are we doing, folks? What is going on? What are we doing? What is the point of this? That's why I brought up the Rachel Garrett idea, the Starfleet idea as a movie. If you made a movie that's like, OK, we've done the.
00:58:01
Speaker
Pollyanna, high-minded Star Trek. That's the late 1900s. We banished that to last century. That no longer applies. How are we going to get there? You have to challenge it, not just with postmodern dribble, which is a lot of this deconstructive stuff, which is like what Discovery and Strange New Worlds and Picard spend all their time doing is deconstructing Star Trek.
00:58:23
Speaker
Putting a character that's in the moment, Garrett, against the concept itself of, this is bullshit, you can't have a utopia, that is the tension that this movie could have explored to justify its existence beyond. We have Michelle Yeoh under contract. What are we gonna do? She just won an Academy Award.
00:58:42
Speaker
And I think the line so then is, the execution winds up being, I forbid you to die. is like It doesn't matter if we didn't pull off that idea, we still have Star Trek on life support. We're going to build this baby. Taking that a step further, who is taking their poison?
00:59:03
Speaker
but and yeah who is it and on and and And then again, taking another step, San built up immunity to the poison, like the Dread Pirate Roberts in Princess Bride. he he built up So have we built up enough immunity to the poison that we just come back as San?
00:59:26
Speaker
It'd be nice if somebody came back and said Terry Mattel has tried and he got he got stabbed in the neck. He didn't make it. um But I think just to not make it so like such a hateful sounding fan situation here, I think it's just.
00:59:39
Speaker
We know, you know, when someone tells us what Star Trek is and then they go on interviews and they say, like, we like the ideals of Star Trek. And then at no point do you ever uphold it. You're constantly undermining it and recontextualizing it. Yeah, I think that's why Lord X and Prodigy are so popular and from a certain subset of fans, because if nothing else, it doesn't deny the good of Star Trek. Now, it doesn't always like live up to them, although Prodigy, I think, pretty,
01:00:07
Speaker
no at the end of the day lower decks I have my issues with because they're willing to do kind of the same with the Sharon and undercutting the message of some episodes but prodigy I don't know those are my those are my kids those Anyway, but the just if you're trying to capture the spirit, that's what I'm trying to say. So if you're trying to make a movie that's anti, not anti as in against the spirit of Star Trek, but it's not the spirit of Star Trek, but you put Star Trek on it, you need to have that battle happen. And even if you dispatch of it immediately, which is what Garrett showing up is going to do, then I think you earn all of this stuff.
01:00:43
Speaker
is it says like, yes, instead of saying that's where fun goes to die, that's wiping away. It's a fun line to say, right? But it just ignores the actual weight of why Garrett's there. It trivializes it all. fair um The interesting thing is that if you look at Prodigy, Starfleet is decentralized from the core storyline. All of the main characters are from outside Starfleet. They didn't even know what Starfleet was until they find their ship. And so they're bringing that idealism in with them. So it isn't that Starfleet is the source of the utopia. It has to be it has to be the members. It has to be the the team. And Starfleet, to a point at this stage, at least in when you look up a card and some of the more
01:01:32
Speaker
cynical um approaches is it you die the hero or you lived to become the villain, right? And Starfleet's become nuanced in the streaming era, in the Kurtzman era, and is both the savior and the villain of the piece. That's a good point. And they the they're the only ones who can save themselves, but only by maybe burning down a lot of what they are.
01:01:59
Speaker
I think that is a lot of that sort of postmodern sensibility, you know, like Star Trek has to do a land acknowledgement before, you know, it can tell a story. but Even though it's set far in the future, understanding that a lot of Star Trek, especially in the 60s, they're like, we figured that all out. And they kind of skip over. Okay, well, how did you figure? out How did you solve racism checkup?
01:02:20
Speaker
yeah Yeah, yeah. You know, that I understand that. But here we're kind of like getting the opposite of that. Like, no, we never solve those problems. But we have fancy technology that makes us think everything's good. Yeah. All right. Most logical save point. So when we did Star Trek Discovery season five recently with Charisse, it was something I had been so excited to do. And then for some reason, I forgot to include it. But my perception of Star Trek Discovery was that is the it is the most video game version of Star Trek.
01:02:50
Speaker
Like that episode, those that show frequently has the logic of a video game, the plot structure, the execution. This is not me condemning the show. I'm saying it's it's contextualized within our modern sensibilities, which video games and storytelling, there's a lot of mash up there. And there's in fact, even writers who write for TV, who also write in video games. So it makes a lot of sense to me.
01:03:13
Speaker
So I wanted to have a grade that kind of captured that, especially with the the shooty, kicky, punchy-ness of Discovery sometimes, um of the most logical save point. Where, if you could pick one point in the episode, in this case the movie, to save, if you only had one save, because you weren't sure what was going to happen next, where would it be? It would either be the point at which Georgiou sees the weapon,
01:03:41
Speaker
and realizes it's the God's head and God's end, God's end. I hear it now, God's end, yes. Yeah, the God's end. Or it would be at the reveal point of fuzz.
01:04:04
Speaker
Okay, that is that's probably better. I just had the moment where Fuzz takes off on that conveyance fight. Okay. Once he shoots out, I'm like, okay, same point, because I don't know, what's down that that hallway or down that chute would be the most logical, but we're we're basically saying the same point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That reveal ah always important. to Yeah, and it was like, okay, here, here. Okay.
01:04:31
Speaker
I can't change the laws of physics award or best Scotty moment. So I'm unveiling a new question grade for the Section 31 movie. ah So basically best Scotty moment, best Star Trek ah engineering fit ah feet.
Plans and Performances
01:04:47
Speaker
was was That would have to be Garrett like planning to blow them up, right?
01:04:52
Speaker
So Garret, either Garret melting the battery, that's a good one, but it's so happenstance, like she just randomly finds this doll in the trash compactor, which is completely pulling the Star Trek visualization of it. Anyway, but I also considered Quasi's idea of what they could do with the garbage scowl shields, that they could just power it up and drag the ship.
01:05:14
Speaker
into the field. And it's like, well, how are we going to do that? And like, well, we can just superpower the shield. So um that was kind of my two thoughts. um Yours is probably the the best one. I just it was like half a thought still, because it seems like what was happening was you would need to throw it at the ship. You would use you like use the tractor beam one more step. So I'm not I actually agree with you. We'll go with yours. it's all blowing you The doll blowing up. But I mean, like, you need to put it in a and a force. So it seems like you drop it out of the chute, you catch it in the tractor beam, and then you throw it at the ship. You'd, like, punch the ship with the ball of this tractor material, and you would time it at the exact moment of the explosion. And because Rachel Garrett called herself
01:06:02
Speaker
as no one does in real life, a top tier science officer. Have you ever called yourself a top tier TV critic? No, I'm a top tier podcaster. I'm a top tier dude. No one does that, but she did. So anyway, I'm just saying the time, like she could have become ah excited by the timing of it. She's like, Oh my gosh, I get to, she's like, it'll time out perfectly. And he's like, what are you saying?
01:06:29
Speaker
ah so i I don't know. I think that's the best one for sure. um but the Because is she had to share it with an indecisive person, you know what I mean? It gets kind of diluted. Also, the fact that it's a Section 31 operation, so she can't call it the Garrett maneuver. That's right. That's right. i'm so A part of me you just may realize was wondering, like if you're Section 31, you have more resources at your disposal, not less.
01:06:55
Speaker
Like, so that was a little surprising to me. But I mean, you could have story reasoned it, they showed that there are multiple teams. And, and they could have been like, a lot like we're not calling the other teams. You know what I mean? Like that could it could have just been a source of pride. ah That that was always an option that Garrett could have presented. She's like, what happened to working together?
01:07:19
Speaker
They're like, go back to the Starfleet. That's not what we do here. Which would have been more Guardians of the Galaxy tone. Anyway, I just want to put that up. All right. The Anton Curtin Award for Best Performance. I'm very biased towards Yo. She chews up the scenery in every scene she's in. The young Georgiou was also really good. Let me ask you this. The young Georgiou, the scene where San approaches and says, the godsend's done. Should that have been in a scene with the younger versions of them? I understand why it wasn't, but I guess what I'm saying is, do we ever really get to see her being the emperor as the young version? No, and I i think that's purposeful. I think that she loses her youth. She loses all of that when she she takes on the mantle. Fair enough. Yeah, I think they they created, a like I said, when she ascended, they created the same
01:08:17
Speaker
feeling of Georgiou being revealed in Discovery fully formed as the Emperor of the Terran Empire and with all of her titles. Fair enough. I think what I wanted was a little bit more of the young Georgiou because I liked her. And you would have had it if we had a series. I think we anything, it was designed to have a little clip of Georgiou, young Georgiou, across 10 episodes. I think we would have seen a development. But I agree with you. It's Michelle Yeoh. She's the Academy Award winner. it's It makes perfect sense. She has Not that much to do, but she really gives a 10 out of 10 with everything she's given. And she enjoys herself. You can see she loves being in that role and she loves it. The um critique on the camera work for the fight scenes, it was so shaky and so cut close. And part of me wondered because we know that Yo is able to do all that stunt work and make it look real and look it make it look good.
01:09:14
Speaker
um Why are you cutting so close? Why are you like playing with the speeds and stuff like that? And and I have have to figure it had to be like the rest of the the the team just wasn't as as um adept. and that was the home sorry That was going to be my no, that was going to be my ah Shatner was going to be the home production.
01:09:40
Speaker
Oh, the whole production was really good for it. Yeah. So to your point about the fight choreography, that is being covered. But I also think we they learned a very important lesson that day on using the VR wall as an action, as a moving action background, because I don't think that was green
Technical Challenges and Scene Enhancements
01:09:59
Speaker
screened. But I also think they the the VR wall is not perfect, everybody. In fact, it's quite flawed and it requires extensive planning and us having half a thought of, oh, you could just do that. is That's always the start of a bad voyage towards using the technology. But that conveyance fight, I think, especially looked like they they thought they would be covered by shooting it on the VR wall and could maybe do that. And it doesn't look good when it moves quickly. It's not really designed for that. I don't think it was green screen, but maybe it was in any case.
01:10:34
Speaker
The other fighting, I don't think discovery, and this is effectively, let's be clear, and an episode of discovery. I don't think its choreography was ever... It's strength, it's fight choreography. So I don't think, I get why that wouldn't have changed. And it once again draws us into this argument of, not argument, this comparison point of, it's called a movie, but it is a TV pilot. And and I totally agree with you. I mean, that was one of the things I remember ah Jackie Chan when he did Rush Hour. One of the biggest complaints was, why would you shoot him close when his action needs the the whole canvas? yeah
01:11:13
Speaker
ah i mean Again, it was the I'm not going to take anything away from the stunt work that was done because I think those people work really hard and they're all very skilled. But yeah, I think it's it was a missed opportunity to to shoot that close.
01:11:31
Speaker
cut so so if I mean, i hopefully I've earned some trust here. Whenever there is a comment about human beings on in front of the screen and it comes up short or leaves you wanting, however you want to phrase it, or you think it's just bad, whatever.
01:11:46
Speaker
i always blame that on the people behind the camera. Because a director and a producer are most are the only ones responsible for what goes on screen yeah and what makes it into your eyeballs and your ears. So that is not, ah can I don't mean to condemn a stunt team at all. You know what you know what helps a stunt team? Time and money. There is no, that's just not built into their production model. But to get to the Shatner point,
01:12:15
Speaker
you mentioned all the zoom ins and all that stuff. The just, I think what it really was, it really was ah punins the The punch ins just like to give it a sense of life and movement. So you have all these digital zoom ins, which are called punch ins and those are producers. That's a producer watching who's bored, like punch in on that, punch in on that, ah like just keep it alive. ah The music I thought was was probably fine, it was probably good, but it was also trying to like really sell this as really big and important, the costumes, the makeup, everything was very ah big, very big and broad and going for it. And as a movie, you you have to expect, I know that it ran on Paramount Plus, it ran on people's televisions, but 100 minutes of that on a big screen, I'd pay 20 bucks to see it, like just because there was so much to look at.
01:13:09
Speaker
Yeah. um But i you know what, you just made me realize, because with the stunt team not having enough time and money, they either designed that set too big or they ran out of money because I think that was underpopulated. And when we see the the barram at the beginning, the nightclub, the space station,
01:13:26
Speaker
I don't know what its sense of size is. I'm a little offended that in it's surrounded by thousands of little tiny spaceships to imply that it's got a parking lot in front of it, which is, again, just anti ah space. This is just like space fantasy. Like, that's what that is. It's just it like the Jets guns.
01:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's the Jetsons. Thank you, Diana. So all that kind of like conspires to be like, you know, if it would have cost, if you took some of the money out of putting up a space parking lot and hired 10 more extras, and they were just random Canadians that humans,
01:14:07
Speaker
like that would have filled the nightclub up some more, it would have like populated out some more, gave us a sense of reality. And so every moment is not screaming for attention to draw from some other point. But okay if we have to pick one performance.
01:14:23
Speaker
Did you have one? Sorry, one of the actors. Just one performance, because the Caridian and the Shatner are performance awards. like Usually our actors, I'm kind of being a little cheeky bastard by saying the whole production. But if there was an acting performance, because I do have an honorable mention, oh was like going for it. Maybe a little too hard, or just like, no, they had to sell it because they had such little material. I'd go with fuzz. um the vulcan The Vulcan outside of fuzz, not the nano-kin.
01:14:50
Speaker
Fair. I'm going to go with James Hiroyuki Lau as San. Okay. ah okay um so The funny thing with that is I knew him from, he was the big bad in Orphan Black Echoes, ah which I recapped and reviewed for Geek Girl. and so Seeing him again on screen, I i had echoes pun um of his character from the other one.
01:15:18
Speaker
And so I think I probably just stepped it aside and and just let his, perform because yeah, his he had he had a death scene. He had ah a screaming scene. He had a, you made me do this. You could have, we could have made a better universe scene, which is actually what his character Anakos was trying to do is make a better world by basically imposing his image on it. And I thought it was a populating world with more Tatiana Maslany's and I'm like, and he lost. There's there's there's zero Tatiana Maslany's.
01:15:46
Speaker
And in oh, but no, that's not true. Girl with the dreads. That one was there. But um, but yeah, no, he hit the yeah, so the the the actor, I think the my for the my previous knowledge of the actor affected my ah my reaction to his character here. But you're absolutely right. That that that actually fits the category much better. I go with yours. I go with yours on that. All right, shoot to thrill most exciting image or sequence.
01:16:15
Speaker
I think probably that phase out, ah as despite the shaky cam and the close shots, the fight over the the box using the... The godsend. The fight over the godsend using that phase out device so they had to keep switching in order to avoid their opponent. Got it. And being and her foot getting caught in the wall. that was I was like, ow. But not falling through the floor when she's out of phase. That's what my husband said.
01:16:46
Speaker
i I blame that on space station gravity. There's got to be plot armor to protect that sort of thing. We'll go with that. Sure. That's good. Then that's an early sequence too. It is. yeah and and Then after that, it felt like they ran out of money.
01:17:03
Speaker
but
01:17:05
Speaker
it but Because it was it was pretty spectacular. it was it was you know and I think that's the one where Zef gets to like punch through a wall. I think so. Yes, that doesn't really get a lot to do for that suit. It's kind of a bummer. And then he dies. Yep. And I would say that the characters who died, if you were to stretch that out over 10 episodes, to be perfectly fair, I wouldn't trust those characters to get more interesting
Character Relationships and Show Themes
01:17:29
Speaker
anyway. So it was probably for the best. I feel like it give I trust writers to be able to fill up space in.
01:17:38
Speaker
Well, filling up space and being interesting are two different things. But with a character development. like Honestly, I think, I'm not sure about Zeph, but with Mel at least, I feel like there was she was meant to be you know the the the heart or you know empathic. I don't know, like the counselor Troy aspect, like the kick the puppy character. um and she i think I think her death, if it had come later in the season, might have been very effective.
01:18:07
Speaker
I wonder if she was even original an original concept character, if she would or if she was a late ad just for the movie version. We'll never know. Yeah, we'll never know. Could this episode have been hornier, or could this movie have been hornier, and would that have made it better? Yes and no. like yeah i mean we could have seen There were very tender moments between Yang, Georgiou, and San.
01:18:30
Speaker
There's always tender moments on these Star Trek shows. I mean, book is hot and Burnham's like, I have fond of feelings for you. See you later. I have my shift now. like Come on.
01:18:42
Speaker
You should go listen to my Women at War podcast. There's a whole section on OCam and MyCam. We don't need to have sex scenes. It's not about that. It's just like recognizing that sexuality is more than something to be weaponized as part of a team, which is effectively all it really is now.
01:19:02
Speaker
um I have a joke, or there's a 30 Rock joke that I really like where Liz is approaching Jack and she's, you know, he's telling her what he's gonna do that night. And then she's like, and then you two are gonna, and she slaps the back of her hands together and slides them like that. And and Jack goes, is that sex lemon? She goes, it is the way I do it. But there's so much like awkwardness on in the new Star Trek. And you know what, to be fair in the Berman era too, where it's just like, is that sex to you, someone?
01:19:30
Speaker
It gave you a book? Like, it's just, come on, it's just silly. Green candles? I think what was, to if you're again, I don't know what they were trying to do with this TV show or a movie. I really don't, because if you put Star Trek on it, then you people are going to expect Star Trek.
01:19:47
Speaker
And if you put Section 31 in it, people don't know what the fuck that is. So I don't know what they were expecting. And I think if you're trying to also and if it's not about the tension between how do you actually maintain a utopia when there's so many elements trying to stop, destroy it, that that's not the central question.
01:20:06
Speaker
but you're stylistically not differentiating it from your new stoves, but you kind of are. They are kind of a little bit. What else could you do to make it different? I think some infusion of sexuality would have been important here. Two other people on the team could have had a thing for each other. There was hints Alok and Giorgio were into each other. A tiny hint. And that was okay. They had appreciation for each other's aesthetic and abilities. That's right. Yeah, I wouldn't, I don't know. It was a spark.
01:20:36
Speaker
But I think kid they could have shared a kiss when they're they thought that they're the ending is so bad, but they look like they're going to they look like they're going to die. She could have just planted one on him. She's like, just in case or she's already know like the the movie is like, what am I supposed to be taking seriously anyway? I don't know. I'm just I don't think Georgie is someone who kisses on the lips. Like i I honestly think she's just no kissing on the mouth. Yeah, I think she's very much a Yeah. like even Fair enough. i like She could have just ran her fingers over his chest or something being like but exactly how I thought they'd feel. i whatever I actually see her hitting on Garrett first. fair
Themes of Redemption and Revenge
01:21:20
Speaker
Whatever. i just yeah yeah i think I think it could have made it better just because so much of this is is stock and boilerplate, the characterizations, the description of the characterizations, you know like what they are. like It could have just used a little spice in that regard.
01:21:35
Speaker
fair it I wouldn't introduce a whole new relationship in there though, because I know 100 minutes that there was already a lot of yeah stuff Jammed in there. I think horniness is yeah horniness doesn't have to be a plot point. It can't be there Okay, so I'm i'm tricking you at the last minute Diana. Is this a movie or a TV pilot? It was a TV pilot yeah I Yeah. As a critic, if i was yeah I didn't have to do the review for this. for I watched it for for you, actually. I reached it. Oh, so the thing for grateful. um Because in Canada, I don't know if it's available.
01:22:07
Speaker
um so but um ah it it was definitely ah It ended as a pilot. like It was set up, and then where are we going next? and ever you know and Anyone who knows anything is like, you're done. this yeah so This is my thought about the way that Secret Hideout, as led by Alex Kurtzman, who produced the Star Trek reboot movies, this is the way that it's kind of broken out. All of the movies are about revenge.
01:22:35
Speaker
And all of the shows are about redemption. Like, Discovery's about redemption, Strange New Worlds, Picard. These are all about redemption. Lower Decks, Mariner, it's about Mariner's sort of redeeming herself. How about pride Prodigy? Prodigy? Jay, maybe not that one, which is why they were like, sell it!
Critics' Reviews and Adaptation Challenges
01:22:52
Speaker
It doesn't fit the format, but it is kind of about redemption because they are trying to make the universe better, trying to, ah she's trying to correct ah for her father. Yeah, no like yeah the diviners are deemed. Yeah, so there's redemption in the shows and it's about characters, like it's only one lane and then the movies are always about revenge. This movie is not quite about revenge, it's about redemption much more. So I would say that that makes it a TV show using their own formula.
01:23:23
Speaker
You were a very clever man, Ryan. So Trek, Marry, or Kill, but before we answer, Jordan Hoffman, film critic of and host of the original official Star Trek podcast, Engage, said in his comments posted to Blue Sky that Section 31 is the absolute nadir of the franchise, the worst thing in the galaxy. ah Rolling Stone TV critic Alan Sempimol ranked it the 11th best Star Trek movie ahead of Nemesis, Into Darkness, and Star Trek V.
01:23:52
Speaker
okay A previous guest of this podcast, Clint Worthington, wrote for RogerEbert.com, Star Trek fans have been waiting nearly a decade to see a proper film in the franchise since 2016's sorely underappreciated Kelvin First Century Star Trek Beyond. Section 31, a cynical wisp whimper of a Trek adventure isn't likely to scratch that itch. It evokes nothing less than last year's execrable Borderlands. Both have Oscar winners slimming it up for a paycheck, a suspicious cheapness to the special effects despite its budget,
01:24:19
Speaker
and the ranses stink of milking a franchise long past its sell-by date. I included this one for two reasons. Clint Worthington, previous guest, and I thought it was very interesting that the Borderlands comp was put in there, because if you recall the Michelle Yeoh Oscar win, her number one contender was Cate Blanchett. So I just want to mention that. Jeanette Katsoulis for the New York Times, and a review ah in her review, the headline was, Set phasers to shun.
01:24:46
Speaker
Some positives though, the LA Times liked it calling it diverting, if sometimes frustrating. Tessa Swela for The Wrap said despite all of the steep philosophical exploration of character, Giorgio and the movie are are also just plain fun. It's a spy thriller, a genre not often utilized by Star Trek,
01:25:04
Speaker
And then Slash Films' Jacob Hall probably had the most positive review. Metacritic tagged it with the 70. He wrote, standing on its own section thirty one certainly delivers a specific set of goods this is an extremely entertaining slice of bemovie action trash one that has the distinct odor of gerard butler in january And it's certainly unlike anything else we've ever seen bear the Trek name. It's goofy and silly and sometimes very ridiculous, but there's no denying the simple pleasure of the whole thing. But what do we say, Diana? I give it a problematic Trek. A problematic Trek? I'm not going to kill it because you know what? If we don't let Trek make Trek, we don't get more Trek.
01:25:50
Speaker
We are approaching 1,000 hours of Star Trek. I think we can say they've been able to make Star Trek. Yeah, but this was, as we've already outlined you, and you wrote up very su succinctly, it was ah it was problematic through pre-production. It was problematic through production. And we we see where the problems come out on screen, and we can blame that for people behind the camera, but also, I think, in the pre-production planning and people who insisted on certain elements being included in 100 minutes.
01:26:20
Speaker
yeah um so you you need to You need to be a cleaner surgeon, if that makes sense. If you're going to take 10 episodes and turn it into 100 minutes. If you're going to turn a TV series into a movie, you need to rethink you you have to rethink it. You can't just take all the pieces you had before and try to put them in in an abbreviated form. it It's problematic. but And we're also looking at a film version in a Trek gen in a track franchise that is anchored by someone who's not Starfleet working with an organization that Starfleet disavows. So yeah, I'm giving a problematic Trek just because um with along with the more positive reviewers that you read out there, it was fun, if frustrating.
01:27:12
Speaker
I'm going to give it a kill so that it's going to go to the listeners to break the tie. Your choices are Trek or Kill, okay? And there's no Marys. When we give it to the listeners to vote, it's to break the deadlock here. sure So those those are the choices ah for you there. We'll keep the poll open for... for about 30 days or so. um I think because it pitches a movie and it pitches a Star Trek movie, but it comes off like a TV pilot and it doesn't wrestle it. I shouldn't say wrestle like I don't want the whole movie to be about that because it doesn't like
01:27:48
Speaker
ru go like, yes, and, yes, there's Star Trek, and here's this. And it gets into a plot that requires you to know, to really understand what's going on, you really have to know a lot of backstory. And so I think as a pilot even, it's tricky. Is this a show I would have enjoyed? I don't know, but I think something you said reminded me that I think this show, unlike Discovery, unlike Strange New Worlds,
01:28:18
Speaker
ah It's kind of like Picard, in that it could have gone in a lot of different directions. And I actually think, I would hope, if they kept if they made another movie of this, which they might,
01:28:29
Speaker
um that you just remember that you don't have to tie everything to the bigger story. And I think that's what has frustrated me so much about these Discovery and Picard's is like, no, Star Trek is when it's on TV standalone, that's your friend. And and I think that was what ah Brandon Braga and and and the people on Voyager discovered late in the run is that they could do super-sized Voyager episodes. and And so this wasn't that. This was a whole season crammed into a Franken movie. It but it was it was. And that it's that's the problem I have with it. if you if we We paired away a few of the bits and just gave it a cleaner gave it a cleaner direction um with
01:29:18
Speaker
even fewer team members. like it just there was There was a lot. and i just I think about two great TV movies that were Star Trek. ah The Best of Both Worlds. You can put one and two together.
01:29:33
Speaker
and And Emissary, Deep Space Nine's pilot. Yeah. Those are two movies that tell a complete story um that you understand and you can bring whatever to it. And so that's another reason why it's kind of i I hold it to once I decided this is a TV movie, then I get to look at, you know, is this even better than
Conclusion and Future Content
01:29:54
Speaker
Caretaker? Is it better than Broken Bow? You know, we have many examples of two hour Star Trek episodes that are designed to be two hours or, you know, 100 minutes like this one is.
01:30:04
Speaker
And so just looking at that, I'm like, it's not it's not as hard as they made it to be. And that's why. You know what franchise does films really well? but Dr. Who. Dr. Who. Dr. Who does a film event. Yeah, like that that's going to have to be my high watermark. um they They really they they stay true to the character, they stay true to the canon and they give you something new.
01:30:29
Speaker
Yeah. Diana, it's been a pleasure having you back. I love it. Where can people find you in the meantime? I am still reviewing and recapping for Geek Girl Authority. I, as I said, guessed it on a couple of other podcasts, which has been, these are delightful, right? Thank you so much. You were my first. I do enjoy just talking and discussing and disagreeing. I love the fact that we disagree in a respectful manner and just allow for all the ideas.
01:31:00
Speaker
Well, I like talking to someone who I know, you know more about Star Trek than I do. So it just feels very comfortable to be like, okay, I'm in good hands here. And if we disagree, we're operating on similar information. So it's great. And I learned a lot. Definitely check it out. What about social media? Where can people want to follow you? Oh, I'm on Blue Sky, DJ, K, E, and G, and threads, I believe. I don't actually know. I think DJ, K, E, and G as well there.
01:31:29
Speaker
um Diana writes for tv at gmail dot.com if you want to drop me a line. All right. ah Check your Spotify app for the poll, and I'll also post on i think Blue Sky and our website, if I can remember to do that, to select Trek or Kill. For this one, ah we're TrekmaryKpod on social media, trekmarykillpod.com on the web.
01:31:53
Speaker
This has been a special edition of Trek Mary Kill. You are a break in history, Diana. I really appreciate it. ah We're going to continue our Voyager or conclude our Voyager season one 30 year anniversary revisitation on Tuesday with the season finale learning curve. And on February 1st, we're going to have another of our animated spotlights for Lower Decks. And then next month, we'll kick off a new theme month. So check in for that. Until next time, Tam Kay out.
01:32:22
Speaker
Thank you! Bye!