Trailer:
Synopsis:
In the Terran Universe, a young Philippa Georgiou returns from a series of trials in which she and many other young children were pitted against each other in order to find who would become the next emperor of the empire. In the end, only her and her friend San survived and were sent on their final quest to determine the winner. Her family rejoices that she made it this far but while they eat a dinner together, their happy reunion ends as they all painfully pass out and die, having been poisoned by Georgiou, who by the terms of the competition needs to have no connections to her former life in order to become emperor. Her friend San could not bring himself to do the same to his family and loses the competition, receiving a large disfiguring scar on his face from Georgiou, her first act as the new emperor.
Eventually Georgiou would travel across dimensions to the Prime Universe and become involved with the starship USS Discovery before traveling into the far future and discovering that her existence was unraveling there. The Guardian of Forever sends her back into the past when her existence would be less threatened due to the timelines of the two universes being closer in divergence, a time shortly after Captain James T Kirk and his crew were put on a trial for conspiring to kill Klingons and disrupt the peace talks, a crime they were eventually cleared of and exonerated and before the time Jean Luc Picard takes command of the Starship Enterprise NCC1701-D.
In that time period, Georgiou eventually sets herself up as the head of a luxury bar/resort/nightclub before being approached by Section 31, a black ops organization that operates outside of Starfleet jurisdiction. She herself was a member of Section 31 before her journey into the future and is curious as to why they need her now. They reveal their plan to capture a device from an arms dealer Dada Noe but she makes her own plan and retrieves Dada’s package using a phase inverter so that he can’t touch or shoot her to retrieve it. Unfortunately, an unknown assailant appears, also armed with a phase inverter and he and Georgiou fight for the package. The assailant eventually wins and opens the package, retrieving its contents, which Georgiou is shocked to see as it is a weapon named Godsend that she believed she had destroyed years prior to her coming to the Prime universe but instead had been filed away in a weapons facility. Section 31 takes Georgiou captive at a safe house to aid them with retrieving the device but she leverages her knowledge of the weapon to get on equal footing with the team.
Georgiou explains the Godsend’s abilities to destroy anything in its path, similar to the way a virus infects creatures from one to another. In this case, a weapon of mass destruction that would travel from planet to planet, eventually destroying anything entire quadrant. She created it so that if anyone ever assassinated her, the weapon would be deployed to insure that the ones who killed her would have nothing left to rule over. She remembers when San presented her with the weapon, he revealed that the others who created it killed themselves. He then takes his own life, using the same poison she used on her family years earlier, in defiance of what his old friend has become.
To retrieve the device, Georgio joins up with the Section 31 team, consisting of the team leader, Alok Sahar an augmented human from the 1970’s that survived in suspended animation until joining Section 31, Zeph, an exoskeleton armored soldier, Quasi, a shapeshifter, Fuzz, a tiny alien known as a Nanokin, and Rachel Garrett, a Starfleet officer who is part of the team to ensure things go as planned and not off the book with death and destruction. Melle, a Deltan with the power to influence thoughts, was part of the team but was killed during the fight for the Godsend.
Georgiou offers to interrogate Dada, reasoning he is from the Terran universe, but the team fights about why they shouldn’t allow it. Instead, Georgiou and Alok go together and after she whispers to him how she has interrogated precious captives, he gives up the information of how he got to the Prime Universe with the Godsend: an ion storm that happens regularly, enabling easy passage between the universes. He explains that the Terran universe has used up its resources and they are looking for new worlds to conquer and take over. Dada claims that whoever the masked assailant learned of its existence from one of Section 31’s team. Suddenly the wall behind them explodes as Section 31’s ship explodes and destroys the building. Alok and Georgiou reveal to the team that one of them is a mole. They all begin arguing about who could be the mole, while Garrett interrupts and explains she earlier found a garbage scow that they could take to use as transport. While Georgiou goes with Quasi and Fuzz to retrieve the scow, the rest stay behind to fix the antenna array so they can tell section 31 the danger they’re all in with Godsend.
Georgiou and company discover they need a coil to power the ship and head off to the cargo hold, while Garret and Alok stay behind at the safe house and determine the problem with the array, Zeph goes missing. Alok and Garret try to find him and split up, but meanwhile someone activates the antenna array. Georgiou, Fuzz, and Quasi SUDDENLY return to the array and they theorize that Zeph took the part missing from the array, used it to send a message and then destroyed it. They head out to try and find him with Alok and Georgiou trade barbs about doing what they’re doing for redemption for all their own previous atrocities but soon come upon Zeph, already dead.
Finding a hair on Zeph that matches Garrett’s leads them to investigate her further, finding traces of Zeph’s blood under her fingernails. They manage to retrieve footage from Zeph’s mech suit which shows him actually killing himself. Georgiou thinks back over the events and realizes that Fuzz likely set his Vulcan body on autopilot and then took over Zeph’s suit, who took control of the array and subsequently destroyed it. Having been discovered, Fuzz reactivates Zeph’s exoskeleton to attack them while he escapes with everyone except the tied up Garret chasing after him on flying platforms throughout the safe house. Alok and Quasi fight Zeph’s suit while Georgiou takes on Fuzz.
Fuzz thinks he’s tossed Georgiou over the edge of the platform but she comes up from behind and stabs him as he reveals that San is still alive, having built up an immunity to the poison, and is out for revenge. Fuzz is then transported away to safety.
San on his ship pulls the dagger from Fuzz’s back, and reveals a countdown to the next ion storm portal opening soon, his desire for Georgiou to marinate in her own defeat foremost in his mind. Alok reveals that he has a backup plan, revealing he took the coil out of the garbage scow in an attempt to stop the mole from using it. With the ship powered up, Alok, Quasi, Garret and Georgiou head off to find Fuzz and San at the portal location. San fires on them but they push through and use the scow’s tractor beams to drag San’s ship away from the portal. It starts to work, but the radiation will destroy both ships. With San’s ship’s shields down, they beam over and Georgiou faces off against San and Alok fighting Fuzz. During their battle the Godsend is knocked over and begins activation. Fuzz leaves his body on autopilot in the fight and goes to the garbage scow to attack Garret and Quasi. Luckily, Alok manages to take out Fuzz.
San monologues about the Terran Empire ruling over the Prime universe with righteous mercy. Georgiou tries to talk sense into him, recalling their past together, but he continues to fight. Garret finds a toy in the garbage scow that is powered by a dangerous fuel source. Quasi manages to open the cargo bay, sending all the contents out into space with the fuel, which when combined explodes and kills Fuzz. The fight between San and Georgiou continues but she manages to flip his weapon around on him, mortally injuring him. They share a moment of regret together as he dies and Georgiou mourns her former friend.
With the Godsend still active and ready to fire, Georgiou decides to send the device through the portal to the Terran universe, and she and Alok share a moment as they realize they can’t escape the Godsend as the ship is inching towards the portal. Luckily, Quasi managed to transport Georgiou and Alok out at the last second, and they all watch as the portal closes and collapses.
Three weeks later, Georgiou resumed her job as head of her resort. Alok meets up with her, and she reveals Section 31 made her an offer which she is considering. She reveals she knows Alok is actually Quasi pulling a joke on her before the real Alok and Garret show up to talk and celebrate their success. Suddenly Fuzz shows up but reveals that she is actually Wisp, Fuzz’s wife in the same Vulcan shell, and is looking for revenge, knowing that Fuzz likely survived. The group is then contacted by Control who gives them their next mission.
Our Favourite Trivia:
This film was originally planned as a television series, but after Michelle Yeoh won an Academy Award for Best Actress, this was redeveloped into a television movie.
The character Rachel Garrett, played by Kacey Rohl, first appeared in the season three TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise (1990) as Captain of the USS Enterprise-C.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708845/?ref_=tttrv_tr
Georgiou's assistant Virgil in the first bar scene is from the planet Cheron, which is from the TOS episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (1969). It can be inferred that he was from that planet's ruling class in that he is black on the right side which is the same as Frank Gorshin's character Commissioner Bele.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708435/?ref_=tttrv_tr
Virgil is the first appearance of an inhabitant of the planet Cheron since the TOS episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (1969). Quasi is the first Chameloid to be seen since Martia from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).
It is never stated what is used to power the Godsend, only that its destructive force was powerful enough to affect an entire quadrant. The only thing previously seen in Star Trek with that level of destructive force that could fit into such a small device, is the Omega molecule, first seen on the season four VOY episode The Omega Directive (1998). Omega is a highly unstable molecule and the most powerful substance known to exist, with each molecule containing the same amount of energy as a warp core. Federation cosmologists theorized Omega once existed in nature for an infinitesimal period of time at the instant of the Big Bang, acting as the primal source of energy for the formation of the Universe. Omega was first synthesized by a Federation scientist working at a remote research outpost in the Lantaru sector during the late 23rd century, a single molecule was synthesized but was only stable for a fraction of a second before exploding, destroying the station and killing 126 of the Federation's leading scientists. The explosion had an unexpected secondary effect of rupturing subspace throughout the entire sector, rescue ships trying to reach the Lantaru sector discovered they weren't able to create a stable warp field and could only travel at impulse. Starfleet scientists soon realized that a chain reaction of even a handful of molecules would not only destroy everything for dozens of light years it would destroy subspace across the entire Alpha Quadrant making traveling at warp speed impossible, without warp drive spacefaring civilization would essentially come to an end. After this, all knowledge of Omega was classified at the highest level, with only Starfleet captains and flag officers being made aware of its existence.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708986/?ref_=tttrv_tr
Omari Hardwick played Alok. Most recently he was in a movie called Xeno, releasing this year. He looks to be a part of Army of the Dead: Las Vegas.
Quasi was played by Sam Richardson. He has a number of upcoming roles as well, like Angry Birds 3 and John Cena’s Matchbox. He was in 22 episodes of Velma playing Norville (Shaggy). He was a main cast member in Apple TV+’s The Afterparty. Yes We Cannabis is another movie he starred in, and he even had a few roles in Star Trek: Lower Decks and was in 8 of the 10 episodes of Patton Oswalt’s MODOK.
Robert Kazinsky was Zeph. Coming up he’s a lead in a movie called Iron Ribbon. He was a main cast member in the British soap opera Eastenders playing Sean for 267 episodes, and a lead in season 9 of The Dream Team. He is also the lead in Do You Want To Die In India, and The Assent, both of which are on Tubi. He’s a bit higher on the cast list in Pacific Rim, Warcraft, and Hot Pursuit. Apparently, he was cast as Fili in The Hobbit series, but left the role during the first movie for unknown personal reasons. He was replaced by another actor, though he can apparently be seen in one scene in a background shot.
Kacey Rohl plays Rachel Garret. She was the lead in a number of movies now showing on Tubi or Hallmark like The White Lie, Killer High, The Wedding Veil Inspiration, Fortunate Son (Roku series) and Flicka Country Pride. She’s been in a number of series as recurring role like Arrow, Hannibal, and Clue.
Sven Ruygrok was Fuzz. He was the lead in a movie called Just Now Jeffrey, and Breathing In. He was also the lead in 6 episode series Pulse.
James Hiroyuki Liao played San. Most recently, he plays General Mori in the new Superman movie. He appeared in Star Trek before in Star Trek: Into Darkness. He was a main cast member in Unforgettable, and was in Orphan Black: Echoes as a main supporting cast member.
Michelle Yeoh is of course Philipa Georgiou. Previously she was the lead in Everything, Everywhere All At Once for which she became the first Asian woman to win such an accolade. She was also a lead in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Wicked, Kung Fu Panda, Crazy Rich Asians and Shang Chi, to name a few credits. She was also a Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies, and turned down The Matrix Sequels. She is a main cast member in Amazon’s series Bladerunner 2099, and will be in Avatar 4, set to debut in 2029.
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We’ll be getting to Predator: Killer of Killers, Phoenician Scheme, I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Naked Gun.
Upcoming series rewatches include:
Men Behaving Badly and Eureka
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