Last April, Paramount+ announced plans to move forward with a new Star Trek TV movie, Star Trek: Section 31, starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings).
It will see Yeoh reprise her role as Emperor Philippa Georgiou, a character she first played in Star Trek: Discovery season 1, and picks up with the character after she joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets and facing the sins of her past.
Variety (via SFFGazette.com) has shared some new intel on what fans can expect, including an intriguing description from Yeoh which sees her characterise it as, "'Mission: Impossible' in space."
The trade explains that the plan had been for Section 31 to be a TV series, only for the actor's busy schedule following the success of Everything Everywhere All at Once to put an end to that notion. Yeoh, however, was undaunted and agreed to sign up for a movie.
"We’d never let go of her," she explains. "I was just blown away by all the different things I could do with her. Honestly, it was like, ‘Let’s just get it done, because I believe in this."
This report also includes a pretty sizeable reveal as, in a scene the site's reporter got to watch being shot, Georgiou meets with a young Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl), a character Star Trek fans will remember first meeting in The Next Generation as the older fearless Captain of the USS Enterprise-C.
Screenwriter Craig Sweeny says, "It was always my goal to deliver an entertaining experience that is true to the universe but appeals to newcomers. I wanted a low barrier of entry so that anybody could enjoy it."
"Famously, there’s a spot for everybody in Roddenberry’s utopia, so I was like, 'Well, who would be the people who don’t quite fit in?'" he says of the often-divisive Section 31 concept. "I didn’t want to make the John le Carré version, where you’re in the headquarters and it’s backbiting and shades of gray."
"I wanted to do the people who were at the edges, out in the field. These are not people who necessarily work together the way you would see on a 'Star Trek' bridge."
"Is it putting good into the world?" he asks. "Are these characters ultimately putting good into the world? And, taking a step back, are we putting good into the world? Are we inspiring humans watching this to be good? That’s for me what I’ve always admired about 'Star Trek.'"
Take a look at a new still from Section 31 in the X post below.