Michelle Yeoh Addresses Star Trek Movie Flop Section 31: ‘It’s Very Hard to Please All of Your Audience All of the Time’

Michelle Yeoh has spoken for the first time about the universally negative reception to Star Trek movie Section 31, admitting “there were some things that we could have done better.”

Section 31 sees the Oscar-winning actress reprise her role as Emperor Phillipa Georgiou from Star Trek Discovery. Discovery saw Yeoh portray both Starfleet Captain Philippa Georgiou and her alternate reality persona, Terran Empress Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius, the brutal, cunning emperor of the Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe.

Section 31 was meant to be a TV show spinoff, but it was repurposed into a Paramount+ movie after Yeoh won a Best Actress Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Unfortunately, fans and critics hated it. IGN’s Star Trek: Section 31 review returned a 2/10. We said: “If you were to scrub the tricorder sound effects from the mix, brush out an occasional Delta shield, and cut out its titular black-ops organization’s connection to Starfleet, you’d just think, gee, this chintzy Syfy movie sure knows to copy from The Hunger Games and Guardians of the Galaxy (and X-Men and The Fifth Element) but doesn’t know a damn thing about being original. Or engaging.”

Now, seven months after launch, and while promoting Ne Zha 2’s western release in theaters, Yeoh spoke with Collider about the reaction to Section 31.

“Well, as all things go, you do your best for what you believe in,” she began. “I think there were some things that we could have done better, but on the whole, I thought, Olatunde [Osunsanmi], our director, our showrunner, our writer… Because we are walking a very fine balance between the Star Trek and Section 31, because we wanted to push the boundaries of what Star Trek: Section 31 is about, but really being so respectful to the Star Trek world. So, I think we treaded carefully.

“But I think visually, the characters that we built and the rapport that we had with each other was amazing. Every time I finish a movie or something, I always think, ‘I could have done better,’ so it’s nothing new. That’s how you always have to think to improve yourself and to hopefully be better the next time. But it’s very hard to please all of your audience all of the time.”

Yeoh is of course being diplomatic here, which you’d expect, but it’s hard to see her returning to Star Trek any time soon. Thankfully, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, currently in the middle of Season 3, is going down much better with fans (and will come to an end with Season 5). Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, set in the 32nd century, is due out early 2026. There’s talk of a new Star Trek movie, too.

Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.