Star Trek: Everything We Know About Section 31 (The Movie)
A film about spies? That’ll never catch on!
Given the clandestine nature of the organisation at its heart, it's a wonder we know anything about Star Trek: Section 31, the 'Special Movie Event'. Any information we do have is probably just what they want you to think. And without the benefit yet of a multitronic engrammatic interpreter to get inside the mind, we will have to rely on what's been said.
The latest in all that is the Section 31 teaser trailer, first shown at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) in July this year. Definitely "lively," it attracted criticism for not feeling all that Star Trek. Reassurance for most, more fuel for the intransigent, the Long Trek is directed/produced by Olatunde Osunsanmi and written/produced by Craig Sweeny, who both have ample previous experience on Star Trek: Discovery.
After years spent not getting off the ground, filming for Section 31 began back in January and wrapped in March. Now in post-production, Alex Kurtzman told the crowd at SDCC that they'd "almost finished editing it". The movie is planned for release in early 2025 on Paramount+. The early 24th century is likely the film’s primary setting also, because, well, it's only got a young Rachel Garrett in it!
Familiar, but ultimately a different take on Trek, "ragtag," "rogue," "messy," "dirtier," "Guardians of the Galaxy on steroids" have all been applied. Whatever the result, this is also still Section 31, the organisation. They may be a devious bunch, but they've never failed to entertain.
10. The Longest Trek
Star Trek: Section 31, the 'Long Trek,' began life a long while ago. As Alex Kurtzman told Vanity Fair, before Star Trek: Discovery had even hit screens in 2017, Michelle Yeoh had approached him about a spin-off for her character Philippa Georgiou. Kurtzman added, "With Michelle Yeoh, it's very hard to say no".
First devised as its own series, Section 31 was pretty much in the works ever since. The official announcement of Section 31's "standalone" status came in January 2019 via Variety. Scriptwriting had already begun, and in January 2020, the GWW revealed that filming was due to start in May, for release sometime after the end of Discovery's third season. Then, the end of days.
"[The schedule] got thrown completely into whack because of COVID," Kurtzman noted during a 2021 Producers Guild panel. Star Trek's boss remained optimistic about the future of the Georgiou spin-off — one foreshadowed by sending the ex-emperor back in time via Carl in the Terra Firma two-parter.
But time was the operative word. Section 31, the series, remained in perpetual "development" right until it was given movie status in April 2023. After all, with her star on a meteoric trek upwards, Yeoh couldn't be in all places at the same moment, could she now?