The first-look trailer for Paramount+‘s all-original movie “Star Trek: Section 31” beamed into Paramount’s “Star Trek” panel in the crowded Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend and it’s an electrifying flight into Starfleet’s clandestine black ops organization.
Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi (“The Fourth Kind,” “Falling Skies,” “Star Trek: Discovery”) from a screenplay by Craig Sweeney and eventually landing on the popular platform sometime in 2025, the “Section 31” cast includes Omari Hardwick, Kacey Rohl, Sam Richardson, Sven Ruygrok, Robert Kazinsky, Humberly Gonzalez, and James Hiroyuki Liao. The teaser trailer, released Saturday (July 27), is our best look yet at the new Trek feature, but if you need a refresher, check out our guide on everything to know about Star Trek: Section 31. Our Star Trek streaming guide can help you catch up on all the other Trek shows leading up to the new film.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“‘Star Trek: Section 31,’ a Paramount+ Original Movie, stars Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh as Emperor Philippa Georgiou who joins a secret division of Starfleet. Tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets, she also must face the sins of her past.”
In keeping with the classified super spy theme, this edgy SDCC offering’s pale-yellow title card reads, “This Preview Contains Misfit Content As Determined By Starfleet Common Media Division: Colorful Metaphors, Disintegration, Deltan Fraternizing, Reference To Unauthorized The Jumps.”
Here in this two-minute taste matched musically with Beyoncé’s “Formation,” we get our initial peek at a series of flashbacks revealing the atrocities committed by a young Phillipa Georgiou (Miku Martineau) as she rose through the ranks of the Mirror Universe’s Terran Empire to be feared and hailed as Emperor.
From the tone and style of this initial teaser, the “Discovery” spinoff endeavor known as “Section 31” has a rollicking, raw sensibility that takes fans into the shadowy world of “Star Trek” secret agents. Yeoh seems to be relishing her role as the crafty despot with a violent history now stuck in the Prime Universe and recruited into the fold of this covert intelligence team operating with very few rules.
“Section 31” is certainly striving to develop its own distinctive look and feel, which might seem a bit jarring at first. But with a competent cast, tonal consistency, and veteran directorial leadership featuring Osunsanmi at the helm, this “Suicide Squad”-like project sneaking around in the “Star Trek” universe could be a surprisingly fresh addition to Paramount+’s content unfolding in the final frontier.
Executive produced by Alex Kurtzman, Craig Sweeny, Aaron Baiers, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Frank Siracusa, John Weber, Trevor Roth, Rod Roddenberry, and Michelle Yeoh, “Star Trek: Section 31” touches down on Paramount+ in early 2025.
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