Could Section 31’s Ending Lead to More Star Trek Spycraft? Maybe
Producer Alex Kurtzman and director Olatunde Osunsanmi talk about the past, present, and future of the darker side of Starfleet.
Although Star Trek: Section 31 is billed as a standalone streaming movie, fans of the various new Star Trek series will notice that the ending of the film feels very much like the beginning of a new TV series. And way back in 2018, when the Michelle Yeoh-focused project was first announced, that was very much the plan. So could Section 31 continue with sequels? What does the ending tell us about the future of this squad of secret Starfleet spies? And, what do the people in charge have to say?
Inverse caught up with Section 31 director Olatunde Osunsanmi and Star Trek’s overall producer, Alex Kurtzman, to chat about how we got here, why Section 31 was made to be accessible, and whether or not there could be sequels.
Spoilers ahead.
Section 31 ending explained
Michelle Yeoh, behind-the-scenes on Section 31.
After Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) and the surviving Section 31 members stop Georgiou’s old ally San from allowing the Terran Empire to invade the Prime Universe, things seem to settle down. Alok (Omari Hardwick), Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl), Quasi (Sam Richardson), and a new Vulcan conveyance (Sven Ruygrok) are all back in Georgiou’s club, deciding on their next move. Here, we learn that the Starfleet mastermind in charge of Section 31 has decided to keep this team together, and that person is played by none other than Jamie Lee Curtis. After telling the team that they’re going to get to work, Georgiou’s space station seems to become mobile, warping away to another adventure.
But, will there be more? Is this specifically setting up a sequel? The short answer is no. There is not currently a sequel or continuing series planned. But that could change.
“I mean, we would all love to do more,” Alex Kurtzman tells Inverse. “Michelle would also love to do more. I think anything's possible and if the fans are vocal enough that they want more, that will obviously help.”
It should be noted that when asked a similar question about the possibility of a Picard spinoff, Star Trek: Legacy, Alex Kurtzman told Den of Geek last year that, with Paramount’s ownership in flux, greenlighting new series and films are “beyond my pay grade.” So, even though 2024 saw two Trek series end — Discovery and Lower Decks — Starfleet Academy is underway, and Strange New Worlds is greenlit at least through Season 4. Could a sequel to Section 31 be in the mix, too? Could Georgiou reappear on the other shows?
Kurtzman says there are no plans for that right now, but never say never, telling Inverse that Michelle Yeoh returning again to Trek is right now “anybody’s guess.”
Why Section 31 is a standalone adventure
Olatunde Osunsanmi, director of Section 31 has a lot of experience with directing various different kinds of Star Trek stories.
Because Section 31 takes place in the early part of the 24th century, decades before The Next Generation, there’s plenty of chronological room to maneuver within the canon. Other than the presence of a younger Rachel Garrett, and some of the sound effects intentionally matching up with TNG-era tech, almost nothing about Section 31 feels tied to any Trek that comes before or after.
The director of the film, Olatunde Osunsanmi, tells Inverse that this was all done intentionally, and even though he’d directed several episodes of Discovery, he crafted a new visual style for this film, to set it apart, aesthetically, from that continuity. “Having done several years of Discovery, it was all about finding a new visual imprint,” he tells Inverse. “It ended up just being an extension of Georgiou’s character. We're going to have bolder colors. The camera’s going to move a little bit faster when it moves, it’s going to stop abruptly. When it stops, it’s going to zoom on you, which we hadn't really done in this era of Star Trek.”
Osunsanmi worked with director of photography Glen Keenan, who also worked on Discovery and Strange New Worlds. Osunsanmi credits the very specific visual style of Section 31 to their “collaboration.” Ultimately, he and Keenan both decided that the camera work on the film would be “unpredictable — just the way she [Georgiou] is.”
For Kurtzman, the bigger hope is that even if you’ve not seen Discovery, you’ll still be able to follow Section 31 from beginning to end. “The goal was if you're a fan of Discovery and you've watched everything, it’ll be a richer experience for it,” he says. “But the movie was very much designed around the idea that you haven't necessarily watched any of it and that you could drop into it.”
Kurtzman also indicates that this strategy isn’t only limited to Section 31. Moving forward, he’s aware that a balance between hardcore Trek continuity and new, looser storytelling is what will keep the franchise going beyond the current moment. “I would say that the key for us in general in building Star Trek of all kinds now is that we have to please first and foremost our core fans,” he says, “but we also have to make room for people who are not fans to become fans. Because that's the way that the franchise continues to grow and that's the way we can pass it on generation after generation.”
