Star Trek Biggest Flop Ever With 16% on RT Just Blew up Paramount+ Top 1 (It Didn't Deserve It)
Better watch Discovery or Strange New Worlds again.
The first space shuttle, built in 1977, was named Enterprise. With this name, NASA paid tribute to the science fiction TV series Star Trek.
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, is considered a representative of the golden age of science fiction. He is seen as a dreamer who painted a bright future based on the ideals of humanism and the achievements of science.
Star Trek has had its ups and downs throughout its long history, but recently the franchise's biggest flop hit the screens.
Star Trek: Section 31 was released on January 24 on Paramount +, and received a shocking 18% from critics and 16% from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes.
What Is Star Trek: Section 31 About?
Section 31 is a special secret division of the United Federation of Planets that operates outside the normal legal procedures and has its agents in all major structures of the Federation.
Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) receives a tempting offer to lead a secret squad, but UFP missions will force her to confront the mistakes of the past.
Section 31 Is Essentially a B-Movie That Insults the Star Trek Legacy
Section 31 was originally planned as a series, but the plan changed and we got a 90-minute B-movie.
At the time, Star Trek: Insurrection was criticized for being a run-of-the-mill Next Generation episode hiding behind a feature-length movie. Now, Section 31 takes the crown as the worst Star Trek project ever.
And it seems that fans of the franchise unanimously agree that Section 31 is nothing but an insult to Star Trek. As Reddit user Old_Bar3078 wrote:
“This was an abysmal movie. Terrible writing, terrible direction, terrible music, entirely the wrong tone and aesthetic for Star Trek. This was a cheesy fan-film version of Suicide Squad. ”
What fans ended up with is a chaotic action flick with cheap special effects, characters dying one by one, and new alien races breaking existing canons.
Section 31 Looks Like a Bad Post-Credits Scene From Star Trek: Discovery
Section 31 doesn't feel like a standalone project, but rather a post-credits scene from Star Trek: Discovery. You have to watch at least two seasons of the show to understand what's going on in the movie. No introductions to the characters – just right into the action.
It also doesn't feel like some weird version of Suicide Squad, but rather an attempt to repeat the success of Guardians of the Galaxy by introducing diverse characters at the very beginning.
The catch is that you don't have to remember all of these characters. Imagine watching Guardians of the Galaxy and being introduced to Groot and Rocket, and a minute later... they get killed.
Even Oscar-Winning Michelle Yeoh Couldn't Save This Star Trek Flop
The biggest disappointment in Section 31 is Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. Star Trek captains have a special disease – they act very insecure in the first episodes.
Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Pike – if you watch the series, you can see that the actors feel out of place in the first episodes. The only exception was Voyager's Kathryn Janeway, who bursts onto the screen with her charisma and energy.
Michelle Yeoh suffered the same fate. Her Philippa Georgiou was also an insecure captain, but she was able to show herself as the Emperor of the Terran Empire. Why was it necessary to make an entire movie about a character who had completed her arc? It is too obvious that Yeoh is not at all enthusiastic about playing this role again.