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Star Trek: Section 31 Movie Starring Michelle Yeoh Announced:

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Section 31 Movie Starring Michelle Yeoh Announced
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    • Tank man

    Tank man

    Well, here's something I never expected/thought had been secretly canned a long while ago.

    Article:
    After teasing the project for years, Paramount+ has finally announced they will be producing Star Trek: Section 31, a TV movie starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh, reprising her role as (Mirror) Emperor Philippa Georgiou from Star Trek: Discovery.

    …

    Star Trek: Section 31 is written by Craig Sweeny who was a writer and consulting producer for the first season of Discovery and more recently was the creator of the CBS drama The Code and executive producer of the CW's 4400 reboot series. The film will be directed by Discovery producer/director Olatunde Osunsanmi. It is executive produced by Alex Kurtzman, Craig Sweeny, Aaron Baiers, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Frank Siracusa, John Weber, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth and Michelle Yeoh.

    …

    There is currently no release date for Star Trek: Section 31, nor are there any details on who beyond Michelle Yeoh will be appearing in the film. Production is set to start later this year.


    Article:
    Paramount+ is officially moving forward on a "Star Trek: Section 31" project starring Michelle Yeoh, but it will now be an event film instead of a series, Variety has learned.

    ...

    Per the official logline, "Emperor Philippa Georgiou joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets and faces the sins of her past." Rumors of a Yeoh-led Section 31 project began upon the conclusion of Season 1 of "Discovery," after a deleted scene revealed Georgiou being approached by a member of the shadowy intelligence organization on the Klingon homeworld.

    "I'm beyond thrilled to return to my 'Star Trek' family and to the role I've loved for so long," said Yeoh. "Section 31 has been near and dear to my heart since I began the journey of playing Philippa all the way back when this new golden age of 'Star Trek' launched. To see her finally get her moment is a dream come true in a year that's shown me the incredible power of never giving up on your dreams. We can't wait to share what's in store for you, and until then: live long and prosper (unless Emperor Georgiou decrees otherwise)!"
     
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    • I didn't expect them to be able to get her back now but great, looking forward to it she was one of the best parts of Discovery
     
    I'm very iffy on the Section 31 part, but I don't mind having Georgiou back. She had one of the more interesting character arcs on Discovery, and and a very hopeful and Trek-like one at that.
     
    Seeing as this could happen at literally any point in the timeline... i'm REALLY hoping it doesn't go back to Discovery era. Put it literally anywhere else.

    I've lamented this from the announcement. I REALLY don't want to be rooting for Space Hitler running around with Evil Genocidal Organization. I can't imagine anything fruther away from what Star Trek is.

    The only potentially acceptable version is Space Hitler regrets being Space Hitler and brings down Evil Genocidal Organization to repent.
     
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    I support women's wrongs.

    Gimme more Empress on the path to redemption (and just more Michelle Yeoh in general).

    She's just a little guy and it's her birthday. A poor little meow meow. A scrunglo, even.
     
    So, we just had another series (Picard) remind us that Section 31 are horrible monsters in every way, they never do anything right, and in fact make every situation worse simply by existing.

    So let's give them a movie!
     
    Matrix Dragon said:
    So, we just had another series (Picard) remind us that Section 31 are horrible monsters in every way, they never do anything right, and in fact make every situation worse simply by existing.

    So let's give them a movie!
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    Look, if Star Wars can redeem horrible parties like the Mandalorians and the Clone Troopers with audiences through stuff like "The Mandalorian" and "The Bad Batch," surely Star Trek can do the same with...uh...

    Uh, look, Michelle Yeoh is undeniably talented, but why is her character back?
     
    silentorphan said:
    Look, if Star Wars can redeem horrible parties like the Mandalorians and the Clone Troopers with audiences through stuff like "The Mandalorian" and "The Bad Batch," surely Star Trek can do the same with...uh...

    Uh, look, Michelle Yeoh is undeniably talented, but why is her character back?
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    Honestly feels like they cast world renowned actress Michelle Yeoh for a high profile cameo (big star shockingly killed in the pilot, then back as her Evil Twin for the finale), then were like "Oh shit we cast world renowned actress Michelle Yeoh in a high profile cameo, maybe we should keep her around?" and have just grasping at reasons ever since
     
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    silentorphan said:
    Look, if Star Wars can redeem horrible parties like the Mandalorians and the Clone Troopers with audiences through stuff like "The Mandalorian" and "The Bad Batch," surely Star Trek can do the same with...uh...

    Uh, look, Michelle Yeoh is undeniably talented, but why is her character back?
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    Compared to what the Mandalorians have done in Star Trek, S31 is incredibly tame in comparison.
     
    Variety - Paramount+ Starts Production on ‘Star Trek: Section 31’ Movie Starring Michelle Yeoh, Seven Added to Cast
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    • variety.com

    Paramount+ Starts Production on ‘Star Trek: Section 31’ Movie Starring Michelle Yeoh, Seven Added to Cast

    Production has begun on "Star Trek: Section 31," the Paramount+ movie starring Michelle Yeoh.
    variety.com variety.com
    "And we're off to the races! Thrilled to report principal photography has started on 'Star Trek: Section 31'," said executive producer Alex Kurtzman. "We welcome our incredible cast of new characters as they join our beloved Michelle Yeoh on her next wild adventure across the 'Trek' universe."

    Craig Sweeny serves as writer and executive producer on "Star Trek: Section 31." Olatunde Osunsanmi will direct and executive produce. Yeoh will executive produce in addition to starring. Alex Kurtzman and Aaron Baiers executive produce via Secret Hideout. Rod Rodenberry and Trevor Roth of Rodenberry Entertainment also executive produce along with Frank Siracusa and John Weber. CBS Studios will produce.
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    • silentorphan said:
    variety.com

    Paramount+ Starts Production on ‘Star Trek: Section 31’ Movie Starring Michelle Yeoh, Seven Added to Cast

    Production has begun on "Star Trek: Section 31," the Paramount+ movie starring Michelle Yeoh.
    variety.com variety.com
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    Huh, I'd honestly thought they'd have cancelled it by now.
    Kinda curious to see how it's gonna turn out, a bit of a shame the first in continuity Trek movie since Nemesis is gonna be starting Section 31.

    -
    Would you mind reposting this in the thread for this move on SB? Or if you don't have an account, me reposting it?
     
    I love Section 31 in DS9, but I have been forced to confront the fact that it was the worst thing the show could have done for Star Trek. Later writers just could not be trusted to have the restraint required to handle them.
     
    Tylonius said:
    I love Section 31 in DS9, but I have been forced to confront the fact that it was the worst thing the show could have done for Star Trek. Later writers just could not be trusted to have the restraint required to handle them.
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    I'd go as far as to say that subsequent writers not only got S31 wrong, they pretty much completely inverted the message DS9 was telling.
     
    Tylonius said:
    I love Section 31 in DS9, but I have been forced to confront the fact that it was the worst thing the show could have done for Star Trek. Later writers just could not be trusted to have the restraint required to handle them.
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    I wasn't particularly fond of it in DS9 either.

    Sloan and his buddies were edgy Mary Sue super spies dressed in black leather, answerable to no one, who were so awesome that none of the other established spy agencies had ever even heard of them.

    The hole they were supposedly there to fill in the world building, the Federation's answer to the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order was already occupied by Starfleet Intelligence.

    And their "hard men making hard decisions" idiocy flies in the face of shit we'd already seen that the Federation has zero issue ordering itself. They already sent Picard to Kardasia as a deniable black ops agent and then burned him when he was captured, leading to an excellent episode involving the importance of good interior lighting. They already explicitly ordered the genocide of one hostile hive mind, and we even see the higher ups expressing confusion that Picard hadn't done so on his own initiative and they had to spell out that was what he was supposed to do. So it's not like they're so squeamish that they wouldn't have been perfectly happy developing and deploying the Founder Plague themselves too.

    This idea that good people aren't capable of doing what's necessary, and you need bad people to do them is corrosive as fuck, and that's at the root of what Section 31 was always about. Good people are perfectly capable of pulling the trigger to put down a rabid dog. The difference is good people will check if the dog's actually rabid before they shoot it.

    Watching characters faced with difficult moral choices and seeing them actually stop and think about what the right thing to do is, considering even options that seem horrific on their face to make sure they aren't letting their knee jerk reactions rule their behavior is consistently where the best Star Trek happened. And Section 31 was poison to having those kinds of discussions, because they exist as the scapegoats and sin eaters, doing all the obviously bad stuff that may or may not need doing so the heroes don't ever have to trouble themselves considering whether this situation might actually call for doing something distasteful. And because they never have to consider it, they never have to come up with an answer. "Was Section 31 right to deploy the Founder Plague?" is a question they can leave open ended and unresolved. Whereas if our heroes had to actually make the decision, they would have had to actually lay out the pros and cons, and actually explore the questions that Section 31's existence lets them hand wave, make a decision, and own the full consequences of that decision.

    As with every attempt I've ever seen to try to make something more adult, the result was creating something more juvenile.
     
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    Nerevar said:
    I wasn't particularly fond of it in DS9 either.

    Sloan and his buddies were edgy Mary Sue super spies dressed in black leather, answerable to no one, who were so awesome that none of the other established spy agencies had ever even heard of them.

    The hole they were supposedly there to fill in the world building, the Federation's answer to the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order was already occupied by Starfleet Intelligence.

    And their "hard men making hard decisions" idiocy flies in the face of shit we'd already seen that the Federation has zero issue ordering itself. They already sent Picard to Kardasia as a deniable black ops agent and then burned him when he was captured, leading to an excellent episode involving the importance of good interior lighting. They already explicitly ordered the genocide of one hostile hive mind, and we even see the higher ups expressing confusion that Picard hadn't done so on his own initiative and they had to spell out that was what he was supposed to do. So it's not like they're so squeamish that they wouldn't have been perfectly happy developing and deploying the Founder Plague themselves too.

    This idea that good people aren't capable of doing what's necessary, and you need bad people to do them is corrosive as fuck, and that's at the root of what Section 31 was always about. Good people are perfectly capable of pulling the trigger to put down a rabid dog. The difference is good people will check if the dog's actually rabid before they shoot it.

    Watching characters faced with difficult moral choices and seeing them actually stop and think about what the right thing to do is, considering even options that seem horrific on their face to make sure they aren't letting their knee jerk reactions rule their behavior is consistently where the best Star Trek happened. And Section 31 was poison to having those kinds of discussions, because they exist as the scapegoats and sin eaters, doing all the obviously bad stuff that may or may not need doing so the heroes don't ever have to trouble themselves considering whether this situation might actually call for doing something distasteful. And because they never have to consider it, they never have to come up with an answer. "Was Section 31 right to deploy the Founder Plague?" is a question they can leave open ended and unresolved. Whereas if our heroes had to actually make the decision, they would have had to actually lay out the pros and cons, and actually explore the questions that Section 31's existence lets them hand wave, make a decision, and own the full consequences of that decision.

    As with every attempt I've ever seen to try to make something more adult, the result was creating something more juvenile.
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    I really can't agree with that at all. I don't think DS9 depicted S31 like that. In fact, I'd say they showed them as the exact opposite. S31 certainly thinks that's there role in DS9 but I'd argue the central message of the arc is that they're wrong. That they're not 'hard men making hard decisions'. But weak men making easy decisions. That people who stand up for the Federation should say no to S31 and that is the proper thing for Starfleet to do. Arguably DS9 showed the Federation as failing in this. Certainly parts of Starfleet do tolerate S31. But, at least as I interpret it, DS9's message is that they shouldn't do so and would be strong for rejecting S31 because S31 is a false security, false power that doesn't really work.

    You bring up the plague but you might ask yourself how did the Dominion War end? Really end I mean, not the military part. How did the Federation win the peace? They undid the sin of the plague. Odo cured them, not as blackmail but because it was the right thing.
     
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    Glimmervoid said:
    I really can't agree with that at all. I don't think DS9 depicted S31 like that. In fact, I'd say they showed them as the exact opposite. S31 certainly thinks that's there role in DS9 but I'd argue the central message of the arc is that they're wrong. That they're not 'hard men making hard decisions'. But weak men making easy decisions. That people who stand up for the Federation should say no to S31 and that is the proper thing for Starfleet to do. Arguably DS9 showed the Federation as failing in this. Certainly parts of Starfleet do tolerate S31. But, at least as I interpret it, DS9's message is that they shouldn't do so and would be strong for rejecting S31 because S31 is a false security, false power that doesn't really work.

    You bring up the plague but you might ask yourself how did the Dominion War end? Really end I mean, not the military part. How did the Federation win the peace? They undid the sin of the plague. Odo cured them, not as blackmail but because it was the right thing.
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    This isn't about Section 31's methods or how effective they may or may not be.

    Look at In The Pale Moonlight for the opposite of Section 31. Sisco does shady shit, people die, and they maybe save the quadrant. It's done with regular reports to and check ins with Starfleet Command, who approve every step except Garaks final act of sabotage. The ethical questions of whether the ends justify the means are front and center, and we see all the factors that are being considered.

    Section 31 means we don't get to see that moral struggle. We have a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain to thwart, then save the day by doing the right thing. The question of if Section 31 is right about any given action is nonsense. They are mustache twirling villains in black who commit war crimes that our heroes have to stop. The things they do aren't meant to be real options. They're supposed to be obviously wrong. But the lack of examination, relying on "obviously war crimes are bad" means the audience doesn't get the why.

    When Section 31 is going to commit genocide against an intractable enemy hive mind in an effort to stop the genocide said enemy hive mind is going to commit on everyone else, the narrative doesn't spend any time discussing the pros and cons because all the guys who even considered the pros are in Section 31, and no one needs to discuss why they're all agreed genocide is bad.
     
    Glimmervoid said:
    I really can't agree with that at all. I don't think DS9 depicted S31 like that. In fact, I'd say they showed them as the exact opposite. S31 certainly thinks that's there role in DS9 but I'd argue the central message of the arc is that they're wrong. That they're not 'hard men making hard decisions'. But weak men making easy decisions. That people who stand up for the Federation should say no to S31 and that is the proper thing for Starfleet to do. Arguably DS9 showed the Federation as failing in this. Certainly parts of Starfleet do tolerate S31. But, at least as I interpret it, DS9's message is that they shouldn't do so and would be strong for rejecting S31 because S31 is a false security, false power that doesn't really work.

    You bring up the plague but you might ask yourself how did the Dominion War end? Really end I mean, not the military part. How did the Federation win the peace? They undid the sin of the plague. Odo cured them, not as blackmail but because it was the right thing.
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    You mean the federation undid the plague that the federation was responsible for. Things might have ended very differently had the founders known that beforehand.

    S31 in DS9 was created to be a foil to Bashir, yes guys like Sisko and Picard might not have any issue with performing deniable operations but DS9 made it pretty clear that Bashir did.
     
    Glimmervoid said:
    I really can't agree with that at all. I don't think DS9 depicted S31 like that. In fact, I'd say they showed them as the exact opposite. S31 certainly thinks that's there role in DS9 but I'd argue the central message of the arc is that they're wrong. That they're not 'hard men making hard decisions'. But weak men making easy decisions. That people who stand up for the Federation should say no to S31 and that is the proper thing for Starfleet to do. Arguably DS9 showed the Federation as failing in this. Certainly parts of Starfleet do tolerate S31. But, at least as I interpret it, DS9's message is that they shouldn't do so and would be strong for rejecting S31 because S31 is a false security, false power that doesn't really work.

    You bring up the plague but you might ask yourself how did the Dominion War end? Really end I mean, not the military part. How did the Federation win the peace? They undid the sin of the plague. Odo cured them, not as blackmail but because it was the right thing.
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    Yeah like, Sloan/Section 31's last episode on DS9 ends with him basically conceding that Bashir is the better man and that he was wrong, and then Bashir rejects his "last temptation" of all of Section 31's dirty secrets and yeets out of there as Sloan's consciousness implodes. As you say, their Changeling Virus is very much framed as a Bad Thing that even the occasionally ruthless heroes acknowledge as a Bad Thing, and the war ends with Odo sacrificing himself to correct that wrong.

    The message is very much "these dudes suck and are wrong, Bashir is a Good Guy Hero because he defies them and proves their entire POV sucky and wrong via his Good Guy Heroics". Like Sloan presents himself as this slick leather clad badass and in the end he literally gets defeated by the power of friendship (Miles pulling Bashir out of Sloan's dying mind).
     
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    Arthur Frayn said:
    Yeah like, Sloan/Secrion 31's last episode on DS9 ends with him basically conceding that Bashir is the better man and that he was wrong, and then Bashir rejects his "last temptation" of all of Section 31's dirty secrets and yeets out of their as Sloan's consciousness implodes. As you say, their Changeling Virus is very much framed as a Bad Thing that even the occasionally ruthless heroes acknowledge as a Bad Thing, and the war ends with Odo sacrificing himself to correct that wrong.

    The message is very much "these dudes suck and are wrong, Bashir is a Good Guy Hero because he defies them and proves their entire POV sucky and wrong via his Good Guy Heroics". Like Sloan presents himself as this slick leather clad badass and in the end he literally gets defeated by the power of friendship (Miles pulling Bashir out of Sloan's dying mind).
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    If that's the message they were trying to send, they didn't do a very good job at it.

    Given that it's very much framed that the federation needed the Romulan's help to win the war, and he very much used S31 tactics to get that help.

    We can say Garak acted alone all we wanted, but at the end of the day, Sisko knew exactly what Garak was when he went to him for help.
     
    Parth said:
    If that's the message they were trying to send, they didn't do a very good job at it.

    Given that it's very much framed that the federation needed the Romulan's help to win the war, and he very much used S31 tactics to get that help.

    We can say Garak acted alone all we wanted, but at the end of the day, Sisko knew exactly what Garak was when he went to him for help.
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    The criticism of S31 is not that the Federation should never do spy stuff. Starfleet Intelligence long predated S31 in the franchise. It's that the particular flavour of of S31 (tacticool 'ard men making 'ard decisions unconstrained by those know nothing politicians and pinks in Starfleet command) is something DS9 set out to speak out against. DS9 tells us that S31 are weak men, making taking easy decision - which is something that was rather lost in subsequent S31 appearances in the franchise.

    On A Pale Moonlight is very very different from how S31 is portrayed in DS9. It's contemplative and philosophical, and that kind of in-depth examination of action is anathema to how S31 seems themselves in their internal myth.
     
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