Star Trek movie rewatch! Between the time I started working on this series and now, Paramount went and released a new Trek movie?!? Here’s Section 31.

Here’s what happens: Starfleet Captain Phillipa Georgiou is not who she seems. She’s really the emperor of the Terran Empire from the violent n’ twisted mirror universe. A team from Section 31 – Starfleet’s top-secret deep-cover operatives – find Georgiou in Federation-banned space and end up working with her to track down a superweapon.

The mirror has two captains: Georgiou is an over-the-top comic book villain for most of the movie, but the movie’s more interesting bits are the flashbacks to her past. We see how she rose to power and how much it cost her. This gives an emotional core to what is otherwise a very cartoony film.

Welcome aboard: Let’s see, we’ve got a big cyborg guy, a microscopic guy piloting a human-sized craft (Remember Meet Dave?), a sexy bald lady, a shape-changer of some kind, and future Enterprise-C captain Rachel Garrett. But most of the character development is reserved for team leader Alok, a time-displaced genetically engineered super-soldier. (Are you getting all this?) His story is about being an outsider and wanting a place to fit in. He and Georgiou make a connection of sorts as the story goes on.

Continuity café: For as much as Deep Space Nine is my favorite, the Section 31 episodes always confuse me. Section 31 is introduced as a conspiracy deep within Starfleet. But then it was all fiction concocted by this guy Sloan. But then there really was a Section 31. Do I have that right? After DS9, Section 31 became a popular thing in the novels and comics after that, and now this movie.

What you leave behind: Yes, they’re trying to take the “ragtag bunch” trope and apply it to Trek, in the style of Guardians of the Galaxy and/or Suicide Squad. There’s a ton of new characters to keep track of, but the plot is simple so that we can have a lot of fights and wisecracks. I feel this way about the new Paramount Plus Star Treks, I get what they’re going for, and I respect that they’re well made, but they just don’t feel like Trek to me.

And that’s a wrap on Star Trek (for now). What should I do next for this blog. Any suggestions?

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.