Spoilers STAR TREK: SECTION 31 - Grading & Discussion

[Sakonna]

You cannot spin those Neilson numbers as positive. 170m minutes is less than 2 million viewers across a 90min movie. So an average of 1.889m viewers. If you go to the Nielsen site and filter by “Overall”, it’s not even on the list!

That's it for Star Trek streaming movies.

Of course it's not on the overall list. We're talking minutes viewed, so the only things that end up there are series with lots of episodes, or Netflix juggernauts because of the vast reach of that streamer. Even the most optimistic projections for Section 31 would never have imagined it cracking the overall streaming top 10.

I have long thought this was it for Trek streaming movies, but mostly because the business has realized direct-to-streaming movies aren't the great idea execs thought they were. They thought they could get the same audience interest and save on marketing costs by sending it straight to streaming, but it now turns out you generally need a theatrical release to make people interested in streaming a movie at all.

What's good about these results is that: 1. It's the only P+ movie to chart at all, 2. Aside from the Netflix juggernaut at the top of the list, it's the only straight-to-streaming movie on there.

It is a good result when a project that's in an unsuccessful format, on a streamer with no market share, is still somehow competitive with huge theatrical hits from larger competitors.

Maybe a comparison to stand-up specials is apt here. Stand-up specials can command enormous fees from streamers, and the reason they are so valuable is because people subscribe, or stay subscribed, for them. But you will see clueless analysis that proclaims "Netflix overpays for their stand-up!" because their minutes viewed tallies aren't as high as those for long-running series, which completely misses the fact that they never could be, when we're comparing a 5,000 minute series to a single 60 minute special, and a raw tally of minutes viewed isn't the question that ultimately determines value anyway. It's just one data point that might help give us insight into the black box of streamer data.

So, we have no direct insight into the question that really matters: do the P+ internal metrics conclude that Section 31 drove sign-ups, or kept people subscribed?

If I had to put money on it, I'd guess: not enough to justify the cost of another streaming Trek film. But I also wouldn't have guessed Section 31 would get streams that are competitive with theatrical releases, so who knows, maybe! That's what you're looking to do on a little streamer, put out content that reaches the same level as the bigger players.

 

[The Wormhole]

You cannot spin those Neilson numbers as positive. 170m minutes is less than 2 million viewers across a 90min movie. So an average of 1.889m viewers. If you go to the Nielsen site and filter by “Overall”, it’s not even on the list!

That's it for Star Trek streaming movies.

Wow, hot take. No one's trying to put a positive spin on these numbers, and no one's under any illusions about future streaming movies. However, this is also not the death knell of the Star Trek franchise, nor is Kurtzman going to be cleaning out his office anytime soon. This is but a misstep for the Trek franchise, one which it will recover from.

 

[Yistaan]

You cannot spin those Neilson numbers as positive. 170m minutes is less than 2 million viewers across a 90min movie. So an average of 1.889m viewers. If you go to the Nielsen site and filter by “Overall”, it’s not even on the list!

That's it for Star Trek streaming movies.

The only time I've seen low viewing numbers spun as positive is during the insane hype over Andor Season 1, except when you crunch the numbers not that many people actually watched that either.

Kurtzman going to be cleaning out his office anytime soon.

Actually, considering at Star Wars today there's news that the gazillionth rumor of Kathleen Kennedy resigning/forced out MIGHT actually be true this time around (a lot of sites including Hollywood Reporter are reporting it), I would wait before saying anything about Kurtzman.

 

[fireproof78]

With Skydance merger trying to occur I'm not predicting anything with Trek.

 

[Tiran O'Saurus]

Actually, considering at Star Wars today there's news that the gazillionth rumor of Kathleen Kennedy resigning/forced out MIGHT actually be true this time around (a lot of sites including Hollywood Reporter are reporting it), I would wait before saying anything about Kurtzman.

Just because a broken clock (using military time) is right once a day, doesn't mean we should assume every minute is 11:16.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Actually, considering at Star Wars today there's news that the gazillionth rumor of Kathleen Kennedy resigning/forced out MIGHT actually be true this time around (a lot of sites including Hollywood Reporter are reporting it), I would wait before saying anything about Kurtzman.

Kathleen Kennedy is not being "forced out", despite what the internet trogladites are trying to claim. She is leaving of her own accord, by her own choice, at a time of her own choosing and over a year later than she originally intended to. Anything else is the manufactured triumph of the hate brigade, desperately trying to justify their existence.

 

[Yistaan]

Kathleen Kennedy is not being "forced out", despite what the internet trogladites are trying to claim. She is leaving of her own accord, by her own choice, at a time of her own choosing and over a year later than she originally intended to. Anything else is the manufactured triumph of the hate brigade, desperately trying to justify their existence.

You might be right in this instance, but rarely in the corporate world are you blatantly fired but are instead said to have resigned/retired willingly and even given a massive payout. There's a reason 'golden parachute' became a household term.

So again, while you may be right in this instance, unless you're actually Bob Iger and/or Kennedy you actually have no foolproof way of knowing.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

Good on these poor corporations theyve been trying to sack Kurtzman and Kennedy every week for the better part of a decade but they are just tiny companies with no real power against these mean individual holding them hostage.

 

[Turtletrekker]

You might be right in this instance, but rarely in the corporate world are you blatantly fired but are instead said to have resigned/retired willingly and even given a massive payout. There's a reason 'golden parachute' became a household term.

So again, while you may be right in this instance, unless you're actually Bob Iger and/or Kennedy you actually have no foolproof way of knowing.

That she extended her contract for a year beyond her originally intended retirement date is public record.

 

[Yistaan]

Apparently a Mirror Georgiou S31 tie-in comic is coming out this week. Seems redundant even for people who liked the movie. What we really need is an Alok comic explaining how he went into stasis and whether he was with Khan's group (preferably with offscreen scenes of Space Seed and WoK featuring Alok saying stuff like "Khan, remember this guy Chekov, don't ever forget his face" and "Man, we are putting worms in people's ears now? Even Giri the Marked never would've done that, I am sitting out this Reliant takeover thing".)

 

[Turtletrekker]

Apparently a Mirror Georgiou S31 tie-in comic is coming out this week. Seems redundant even for people who liked the movie. What we really need is an Alok comic explaining how he went into stasis and whether he was with Khan's group (preferably with offscreen scenes of Space Seed and WoK featuring Alok saying stuff like "Khan, remember this guy Chekov, don't ever forget his face" and "Man, we are putting worms in people's ears now? Even Giri the Marked never would've done that, I am sitting out this Reliant takeover thing".)

I decided to express my disappointment with the Section 31 movie creatively through fanfiction, but I didn't have any real opportunity to focus on Sahar, even though I put a lot of thought into him. I would actually like to see a comic that focuses on him.

 

[The Wormhole]

So again, while you may be right in this instance, unless you're actually Bob Iger and/or Kennedy you actually have no foolproof way of knowing.

That doesn't meant it's right to automatically assume she's been fired or "persuaded" to step down. Sometime a cigar is just a cigar and taking statements at face value doesn't make you gullible or lazy.

Besides, someone who is 71 voluntary retiring of their own accord isn't the most outrageous idea out there. My dad's also 71 and he's been retired for over a decade now.

 

[BillJ]

That's it for Star Trek streaming movies.

I imagine it isn’t. They’ll bring down the cost and do another one, though it won’t be Section 31.

 

[RPOW0614]

I'm late to the reviews but I concur with almost everyone, it was awful.

Love Michelle, Georgiou and the Empress. She is a great actress and up until this, the Empress was a great character.

This was knock-off trash of several other better movies. This was a shitty heist movie that no one wanted. 20 years ago this would have been a low grade "straight to cable" production on Syfy.

I think there are interesting stories for Section 31, but this wasn't it.

 

[oktay]

I imagine it isn’t. They’ll bring down the cost and do another one, though it won’t be Section 31.

Once the Skydance agreement is completed, it seems to me that they will expand the Alex Kurtzman agreement by including Paramount Pictures films.

 

[cooleddie74]

I was just watching the latest ENT episode review video by Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating and at one point Connor mentions having spoken with one of the production team of S31. He mentions that he was told that Enterprise gets several Easter Eggs in the movie.

I....must have missed those. The movie's so bad I don't want to sit through it again to catch any of those Easter Eggs, so does anyone here remember them? We get the TOS and other series references but....any ENT nods must have gone right over my head or I've since forgotten them thanks to how disappointed I was in the film.

 

[NCC-73515]

They're saving an hour of deleted scenes full of everything we wanted for the special edition

 

[Tiran O'Saurus]

I was just watching the latest ENT episode review video by Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating and at one point Connor mentions having spoken with one of the production team of S31. He mentions that he was told that Enterprise gets several Easter Eggs in the movie.

I....must have missed those. The movie's so bad I don't want to sit through it again to catch any of those Easter Eggs, so does anyone here remember them? We get the TOS and other series references but....any ENT nods must have gone right over my head or I've since forgotten them thanks to how disappointed I was in the film.

I can't think of anything other than the old, and I mean DIS-old, fact that the "Iaponus" in Gerogieu's regal name is meant to be a reference to Hoshi.

 

[Macintosh]

They're saving an hour of deleted scenes full of everything we wanted for the special edition

Oh fuck no! Have we not suffered enough...

 

[oktay]

They're saving an hour of deleted scenes full of everything we wanted for the special edition

source?