4 Ups & 4 Downs For Star Trek: Section 31

Nearly 60 years of history, and a little more than that from the beginnings of The Cage. Well over 900 episodes, and 13 films. That's a tough act to follow, to balance the old with the necessary of something new. That is the challenge, and no doubt the burden, too, of any contemporary Star Trek. For what is, in essence, film number 14 in that run, history weighed even heavier than usual. In all the novelty, we lost out on some much anticipated lore of the Lost Era.

In March last year, screenwriter Craig Sweeny told Variety, "I wanted a low barrier of entry so that anybody could enjoy it". Director Olatunde Osunsanmi also told CinemaBlend's Mick Joest at San Diego Comic-Con that Star Trek: Section 31 required "exactly zero" foreknowledge. Zero is also, pretty much, what we had beforehand about this particular time period from 2293-2363. Unfortunately, on that balance of things, and even with Rachel Garrett right there in it, there's not a great deal to link to prior canon that we now know after.

There were no Starfleet ships, no Enterprise-B, no USS Crazy Horse, no captains, no monster maroons, no pips, no Tomed Incident, no Treaty of Algeron. If Garrett weren't there, it would have been difficult to narrow down the year. A stardate at the beginning is all well and good, but we know how notoriously mismatching they have been. Even Georgiou's time of arrival via Carl/The Guardian of Forever wasn't specified in the precipitation to get to the action.