"Star Trek: Section 31" might not be lighting the galaxy on fire for diehard fans and critics, but one can at least appreciate the creative folks involved attempting to deliver something new and having the courage to experiment within the boundaries of the "Star Trek" universe for better and for worse.
Tonally and stylistically, "Section 31" borrows heavily from a number of genres to conjure up the immoral playground that plays host to its unsavory nest of antihero characters. The narrative follows Emperor Philippa Georgiou's (Michelle Yeoh) shaky involvement with Starfleet's secret black ops division as she seeks to rectify some of the sins from her violent past by helping to find a genocidal weapon — ominously called The Godsend — that has ties to her and the Mirror Universe's tyrannical Terran Empire.
We connected with Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman and director Olatunde Osunsanmi ("Star Trek: Discovery," "Falling Skies") to hear more about their broad vision for this "Star Trek: Discovery" spinoff and first-ever "Star Trek" made-for-streaming movie that has Trekkies chattering about and debating its merits so passionately.
"I'm very much an emotional-based director so the influence and the tone literally came from Philippa Georgiou and her character and her unpredictability and how much fun her character likes to have and the kindness she's found as you arc through her character," Osunsanmi tells Space.com. "Because of that unpredictability, you have unpredictable colors and camera movements and unpredictable humor. You have it all, and it was really nice to form that collage and create a different version of our modern-day 'Star Trek.' A different color of the rainbow as Alex likes to say sometimes."
Kurtzman fell in love with screenwriter Craig Sweeny's story for the movie, which offers a traditional redemption tale mixed with the trappings of a classic Western:
"In a funny way, her story is more of a Clint Eastwood story than anything we've ever really told on 'Star Trek,'" he notes. "The idea that you have a character who has all these deep sins and she's been running away from them, but knows that there's going to be a bill that comes due. Then the question becomes are you going to take the experiences you’ve had and try to bring some good into the world, or are you going to continue to be this person who's running away? Michelle is so good at playing that because the character is having so much fun and she's having so much fun playing the character. That's what's been fun about getting to do this as a movie because it's kind of a space western and we haven't had a chance to do that yet."
Even the movie's staunchest critics can't argue that it doesn't look striking, offering impressive sequences of dynamic visual effects, especially the utilitarian garbage scow, San's red-tinted Terran Empire starship, and Fuzz's biological micro-craft.
"I love the opportunity to give kudos to Jason Zimmerman who is the head of the visual effects department and his unbelievable department that works with him on this," notes Osunsanmi. "Special effects are a very important part of what 'Star Trek' does because it exists in the future and there's no other way to film these things except to have visual effects and embark on this journey of bringing it to life. We work very closely with him collaboratively and very closely to realize the awesome amount of storytelling that exists here."
Zimmerman, who goes by the nickname "JZ," has Kurtzman's immeasurable gratitude for the spectacular work he and his crew provided for the project.
"There's so much love that gets put into every shot," Kurtzman adds. "By the time you're seeing a shot, it's been through 40-50 iterations to get to that place. You need people who love what they do but are also paying attention to every detail. From the point in which you're shooting to the point in which you see it, there's almost a year of work on every single shot in there. Most movies have budgets that are six times what we had, so you need people who are really good and really care to be able to pull off the stuff JZ and his team pulled off. We're just so grateful."
"Star Trek: Section 31" is currently streaming exclusively on Paramount+.
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