Star Trek: Section 31 may end up being a movie not made for Star Trek fans

Star Trek: Section 31 may not be the film for all Star Trek fans. The film, which was once a show concept until the change, will focus on Michelle Yeoh's Philippa Georgiou as she deals with the highly controversial Section 31 portion of Starfleet. The concept has not been wholly embraced by the fandom since its creation as it taints Starfleets reputation, something series creator Gene Roddenberry was never on board with.

Section 31 acts as a clandestine operation who aren't above things like murder and torture, an idea that Roddenberry was never fond of allowing Starfleet to be seen as endorsing. Still, the concept has its supporters and fans and so we have an entire film where we'll see this group in action, lead partially by Georgiou.

The concept alone may turn fans away, but so may the fact that the writer of the movie's script, Craig Sweeny doesn't seem to get Star Trek. In an interview with Variety, Sweeny spoke about Roddenberry's concept. It seems like he understands what the creator of the series was looking to do, but then instantly contradicts himself, saying to Variety;

" “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?’ 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.”"

How do you get Roddenberry's concept and then in the same breath ignore it? There is no one who doesn't fit in, that's the point of Star Trek. There's a place for all, so why would there be people who don't fit in?

What makes it worse is that Sweeny even knows that this isn't an idea fans like, going further to say;

""The concept is almost antagonistic to some of the values of ‘Star Trek...""

So why make it? This is where older and long-tenured fans get mad about the state of the franchise. This isn't a Star Trek concept, it's a sci-fi concept with Star Trek slapped on its face. Star Trek has a brand, it has an ethos, and when you step away from that ethos, you lose what Star Trek is. This isn't some morality issue, the idea of a black ops space organization doing a (as described in the Variety piece) Mission Impossible in space seems awesome.

So make a new IP. Make that the backbone of that new IP. Don't further dilute what Star Trek was meant to be just to force a half-baked concept into a franchise that wholly rejects, at its core values, what you're trying to do.

This truly is a Trek film not made for Star Trek fans.