As the wait continues for Star Trek to return to the big screen, the franchise did deliver its first streaming-exclusive movie back in January. Unfortunately, the 2025 movie release Star Trek: Section 31, which brought back Michelle Yeoh’s Philippa Georgiou from Star Trek: Discovery, was met with primarily negative critical reception. More than half a year later, Yeoh has shared her thoughts on the Paramount+ subscription-exclusive Section 31 being so poorly received, which included her pointing out how hard it is to please all audiences who are checking out a project.
With a 22% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 16% Popcornmeter, it’s safe to say that Star Trek: Section 31 will go down as one of this franchise’s biggest misses, though hardly the first. Michelle Yeoh was asked about the movie’s underwhelming performance by Collider, and here’s what she had to say:
Well, as all things go, you do your best for what you believe in. I think there were some things that we could have done better, but on the whole, I thought, Olatunde, our director, our showrunner, our writer… Because we are walking a very fine balance between the Star Trek and Section 31, because we wanted to push the boundaries of what Star Trek: Section 31 is about, but really being so respectful to the Star Trek world. So, I think we treaded carefully.
Originally Star Trek: Section 31 was going to be a TV spinoff following Philippa Georgiou, a Mirror Universe tyrant who came to the Prime Universe not long after her Prime doppelgänger died, after she exited Discovery during Season 3. Eventually though, it was decided to turn Section 31 into a movie instead, with Olatunde Osunsanmi directing and Craig Sweeny writing the script. The story saw Georgiou now operating in the time period between The Original Series and The Next Generation, and teaming up with characters like Omari Hardwick’s Alok, Sam Richardson’s Quasi and Kacey Rohl’s Rachel Garrett, future captain of the USS Enterprise-C.
While Michelle Yeoh acknowledged that Star Trek: Section 31 could have been improved in some areas, she also acknowledged how the cast and crew were treading a very fine line with this production. Not only did this exploration of the organization that carries out covert operations for the United Federation of Planets need to feel like it belonged in the Star Trek franchise, but it also had to bring a unique energy to make it accessible to newcomers and stand out from the other movies and TV shows. The actress continued:
But I think visually, the characters that we built and the rapport that we had with each other was amazing. Every time I finish a movie or something, I always think, 'I could have done better,' so it’s nothing new. That’s how you always have to think to improve yourself and to hopefully be better the next time. But it’s very hard to please all of your audience all of the time.
It’s true, making movies and TV shows are hard, and even the critically-acclaimed ones will have detractors. Still, given all those negative reactions to Star Trek: Section 31, something tells me there won’t be a next time for this corner of the franchise. Maybe Michelle Yeoh could reprise Philippa Georgiou elsewhere, but I don’t see a Section 31 sequel being greenlighted given the first movie fared.
So then what does the future of Star Trek on film look like? Well, Star Trek 4, i.e. the next installment in the Kelvin timeline, remains in development, and an origins movie was also announced in April 2024. The latter was once expected to be released in 2025, but obviously that won’t happen, nor does it look like it’ll be ready in time for the 2026 movies calendar.
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