It is May 31st of the year 2025 and I am following previously established mandate that requires me to inform the readers of this blog that I have NOT watched the Section 31 movie starring Academy Award Winner Michelle Yeoh.
I am aware that it is on some semblance of physical media.
I’ve got better things to do with my money.
I’m helping myself to a Baconator today.
Somewhere in an alternate reality, there’s some dude named DeForest Calloway who plays Bones, as opposed to DeForest Kelley, who plays Bones in the prime reality.
Either that, or AI is really, really stupid.
Maybe Linda McMahon is onto something when she suggests A1 Sauce.
The new teaser for the upcoming third season of Strange New Worlds… doesn’t inspire much confidence, as it continues to dive into weird genre-bending episodes that seem more the cast and crew having fun doing whatever than doing anything worthwhile and resembling good old fashioned classic Star Trek.
Yes, the Original Series had episodes that the crew visit alien worlds modeled after 1930s Chicago, Nazi Germany, and the Roman Empire, but those episodes happened because the costumes were available and thus those episodes cost less money to make. Once we got to the later spin-offs, episodes of these kinds were the rare breed to break away from the norm.
When you only have a ten-episode run and every episode is some wacky gimmick episode, it feels less like a consistent series of standalone episodes and more like an anthology series of sorts that happen to feature the same cast of characters. It’s too bad that they decided to go this route, because I thought the first season of Strange New Worlds was one of the better live-action seasons of Star Trek to come out of this uneven Kurtzman era, but once the second season decided that we’re gonna do gimmicks galore, that’s where it lost me.
It also bring pause to the casting of Paul Wesley as Jim Kirk as he’s sharing a drink with the much younger looking Scotty as played by Martin Quinn (or vice versa – since Scott is actually supposed to be OLDER than Kirk by a few years.)
I’m hoping that I’m wrong and this season turns out to be quality. For what it’s worth, my older brother – who has been into Trek almost all his life – is more excited for this direction than I am, so I’m willing to at least give this thing a shot. I just don’t want what was a promising show degrade into pointless schlock. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like schlock. But I also like Star Trek. And I can really use more Star Trek right about now.
It is March 31st of the year 2025 and I am here to tell you that I have still not watched the critically-divisive Section 31 movie starring Academy Award Winner Michelle Yeoh.
The idea occurred to me to make this a regular tradition. For every month that passes, I make a post on the 31st day of the month (should it apply) that I have not watched this film.
I do this not out of pride.
I do this not out of integrity.
I do this because it amuses me greatly.
Tomorrow, I have something special for you folks.
For those who don’t know, I have a question gimmick on the sidebar of the blog where you can write a question and I would attempt to use it as fodder for this blog. It used to be a thing that would fuel the old DTM-Cast audio program when I was still doing those, but now it just sits there… unloved and untouched.
Or so I thought.
Some time ago, I got a message from someone asking if I actually got around to sitting down to watch that Section 31 movie… and the answer would, of course, be no. In fact, I had not thought about that movie until this post came along. And so, I gave the question a little more thought and you want to know what popped up in my mind?
Leonard Part 6.
For those who don’t know, Leonard Part 6 is an old movie starring Bill Cosby as a retired CIA agent who has to save the world from an evil plot or something. It is generally considered to be one of the worst movies ever and, up until his recent indiscretions came to light, an otherwise huge blight on the career of Bill Cosby. Why I was thinking about Leonard Part 6 over a question about Section 31… I couldn’t even begin to tell you.
But then something else came to mind… a thought occurred that I didn’t think was possible, but when it did, I was both pleasantly surprised and horrified at the idea. The fact that I gave this thought consideration and didn’t immediately push it aside made this even more disturbing.
See, it just occurred to me that while I am in no hurry to watch Section 31 – which would require a subscription to Paramount+, which I do not have – I do have a mild curiosity regarding Leonard Part 6… dare I say, I’m actually curious to see how bad that movie really is. Never mind the fact that even during his beloved period – yeah, I know, such a thought is impossible to process these days – I was never the biggest Bill Cosby fan. I didn’t dislike the fellow; he just wasn’t my cup of Jello.
Jello, I’m so sorry.
So yes, what I’m trying to say here is…
I would rather watch Leonard Part 6 than Star Trek: Section 31.
Now if only I can find a cheap copy somewhere so that I don’t feel entirely dirty…
So they announced that production had concluded on the Khan audio show… this would be an audio program produced by Star Trek II director Nicholas Meyer that would focus on Khan’s time on Ceti Alpha V in between the episode Space Seed and the aforementioned Wrath of Khan. I’ll be honest; I’m unfamiliar with any of the people they’ve casted. The guy who is playing Khan apparently looks the part, so if his voice carries as much weight, we have someone who could probably play the role on TV.
In regards to this series being a thing… I’m ambivalent on another thing about Khan Noonien Singh after Into Darkness and one of the SNW people being a descendant of the character, but the idea of Star Trek venturing into full-cast audio dramas does intrigue me. They attempted something like this with No Man’s Land, which tried (and failed) to build on the (lack of) chemistry between Raffi and Seven. That, and the story itself wasn’t all that great, but it did open the door for more of those type of things to be made and I do hope that it’s a direction that the franchise explores further, even if these stories end up being relegated to B-canon material that is eventual overridden by something on TV that turns out to be even shittier.
Curious to see how this turns out… and whether more of this follows…
On the bright side… aren’t you glad we’re not talking about Section 31?
So word has gotten around that William Shatner is interested in reprising his classic role of Captain James T. Kirk. He’s expressed as much at a recent convention appearance and is supposedly in talks with a writer with a good story idea.
I’m sure some fans will be salivating at the opportunity to have Shatner come back for one last hurrah as Kirk… possibly follow up on a breadcrumb of a bad idea that was left during that last season of Picard… I, on the other hand, have no interest in seeing Shatner make one last hurrah.
I had no interest when he was making this kind of noise fifteen years ago when the first JJ Abrams Trek was making the rounds… and he was much more spry back in the day.
More than that, however, what’s the point of bringing back Shatner at this point?
“Hey, Captain Kirk. I’m Section 31 gal as played by whoever we can get. We brought you back to life because we need your help in dealing with something that could have serious ramifications throughout the Federation… um, yes, it involves a SuperWeapon of some kind… um, yes, it involves someone you may have dealt with in the past and is probably looking for revenge of some kind… yes, I’m sure there will be some emotional comprises that will be made along the way and… um, Captain? Are you still awake, Kirk? KirK?! KIRK!!!!!”
Yeah… thanks, but no thanks.
Some folks made a little fanfilm film of Kirk undergoing his last days. That was actually nice and pleasant. That’s a good note for Kirk to go out on. Go watch that, instead.
I end this post on two beeps.
Still have not watched the movie, but since people think the movie is garbage, I might as well give them some ammo for their socials. Have fun.
It’s been a week since the release of the Section 31 streaming movie starring Academy Award winning actress Michelle Yeoh, reprising her tole as former Terran emperor Georgiou as she joins a top-secret suicide squad of Section 31 to take care of some business. It’s new Star Trek… so why isn’t uncle Dave talking about the new Star Trek thing?
Because I didn’t watch it. And I don’t plan on watching it.
In case you folks haven’t been paying attention or simply are unaware, previous trailers and preview material of this thing left me uninspired over this product. It looks bad, cheap, and second-rate. I’m not going to go into whether this is “actual Star Trek” or not because that doesn’t really matter. Something that looks bad looks bad regardless of whether or not it fits into what you define as “actual Star Trek.” And this Section 31 movie looked BAD. Even so, I would have at least given it a chance had word of mouth provided a glimmer of hope that maybe – just maybe – this is not as bad as everything looks to be. Maybe this could actually turn out to be a pretty entertaining movie.
Well, it’s been a week… and all the reviews and receptions that I’ve seen of this thing has been largely negative. Some have even compared this to the recent Borderlands movie – something featuring award-winning big name actors phoning in a performance on a script written by hack amateurs. Let me tell you folks something; anything that has it described to me as “Star Trek as conceived by Randy Pitchford” is enough for me to go “Nah, I’m good.”
I don’t care if it’s got the Star Trek branding or not. I’m under no moral obligation nor do I have any civil fandom duty or whatever to watch this film. I’m not going to waste time watching something that I know I’m not going to like. The whole concept of “hate watching” that seems to be a thing on internet culture – watching something you know you’re going to hate for the expressed purpose of hating something and expressing it online – is just utterly stupid. I’ve probably fell into that trap once at most and I’ve since regretted it – the actual watching part, not the words that resulted from that viewing. Any way you slice it, I refuse to fall into that trap again. Hence, my not watching Section 31.
Besides, that would require a subscription to Paramount Plus… and that’s one more streaming subscription that I do not require at the moment, so I can easily pass on that.
Now, is that a hard ban like some other films that I’ve sworn off? Of course not. There might come a time when, if I’ve got nothing better to do and curiosity has the better of me, I might actually give it a fair shake. That’s going to be a good while, however. Right now, I feel like I’d be going in with expectations that it’s going to be an outright awful waste of time that I’m going to regret wasting and I don’t want to do that. So, yeah, if it turns out to be vaguely entertaining schlock, great. That’s not the feeling I’m getting now from this thing. That’s not the feeling I want to go into a movie. I want to find some enjoyment out of it. Even if it’s bad and I end up mocking it, that’ll at least entertain me and that’ll be enough to make me like it just a tad.
That time is not now for Section 31. It simply doesn’t appeal to me… besides, despite the bad reviews, it’s actually been doing great in terms of streaming numbers, so clearly it doesn’t need another voice dogpiling on it.
In the meantime, there’s plenty of other things for me to bitch about that I’m not going to go into wanting to hate, but end up being more disappointed than most… what’s going on over at AEW as of late?
I’d leave it to the imagination, so that people can the obvious assumptions and all… but no, the titular Corona refers to a collection of protostars that supposedly threaten the universe.
I wonder if this was where JJ Abrams got the idea for his Star Trek movie…
And I actually like the movie, you double dumbasses. Let’s set that to bed, right now…
dtm666 