Warning: minor spoilers ahead!
Star Trek: Section 31, Paramount Plus’ first-ever Star Trek streaming film, just launched on the streaming service and while it seems it’s been ambushed by a critical cloud of polarizing opinions on what actually constitutes true Star Trek and whether or not the risky project respectfully represents it.
Despite the critical wave of reviews, this rowdy space opera directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi (Star Trek: Discovery, Falling Skies) is a harmlessly entertaining romp into the more foreign corners of Gene Roddenberry’s final frontier.
Academy Award-winning actress Michelle Yeoh looms over this pricey production playing Emperor Philippa Georgiou, who was last seen in the debut season of Star Trek: Discovery commanding a starship as Captain Georgiou and who later emerges in the far future’s Mirror Universe as the heartless ruler of the Terran Empire.
Now stuck back in the Discovery timeline, she’s recruited to join Starfleet’s hush-hush black ops division, the clandestine spy organization known as Section 31 that protects the United Federation of Planets from the shadows.
When Section 31’s Alpha Team leader Alok (Omari Hardwick) is dispatched to hunt down a black market weapon called The Godsend, he and his motley crew of bickering commandos lures Georgiou back into the fold from the glitzy space station nightclub that she’s been running.
The ensuing heist to defend the Federation against Multi-universal threats results in a plot that will be compared to a low rent Guardians of the Galaxy or The Suicide Squad, so won’t be one of the best Paramount Plus movies but it’s still good fun!
Meet Section 31’s lively Vulcan operative, Fuzz
One of the breakout characters that makes up this merry band of Section 31 mercenaries secretly working under the auspices of Starfleet is a lively Vulcan operative named Fuzz. He’s portrayed by mercurial British actor Sven Ruygrok in a riveting performance delivered with reckless abandon. Fuzz appears to be a stoic Vulcan agent with one key difference in that he is actually just a mechanized android shell piloted by a crazy nano-sized alien creature inside!
“All names were shrouded in mystery, but I initially got the sense off the page that there was this tiny microscopic being driving a Vulcan conveyance,” Ruygrok tells TechRadar regarding his first reading for the mysterious Nanokin role. “And that’s as much knowledge as I had going in. When I discussed it a little bit further with Olatunde we had a whole backstory.”
Because initially this was a series and there was an entire episode dedicated to the Nanokin species, which we don’t get to explore. It was really up to me and Craig [screenwriter Craig Sweeny] and what was going on in his head to flesh out what we see now in the film. Fuzz is a wildcard and completely unhinged but there’s a lot of joy and you don’t quite know what you’re going to get.”
All names were shrouded in mystery, but I initially got the sense off the page that there was this tiny microscopic being driving a Vulcan conveyance
Sven Ruygrok, actor in Star Trek: Section 31
Providing the character with a thick Irish accent, Ruygrok layers Fuzz with a playful dimension unlike any Vulcan ever seen in the Star Trek realm. We’re so conditioned to seeing Vulcans as controlled emotionless persons (unless under some spell or on special occasions), that seeing the familiar pointy-eared exterior exhibiting wild swings of witty emotion is enjoyably jarring.
“While I was auditioning for Section 31 I was doing a stage production of a Martin McDonagh play, which was The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” he explains. “He’s done In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin. So I’m doing this play and the accent that was required was that they were from Galway, so it’s Ireland. Having Colin Farrell’s voice in the back of my mind helped. Saoirse Ronan was another strong contender, in terms of hearing the liltingness of the accent. I drew a lot from that. In terms of Fuzz himself, I think there’s a humanness to him and he speaks a lot about his hatchlings. So many hatchlings. And the reality is that in my life I’ve also got hatchlings. I’ve got five kids and they were there with me and present in the scenes. I knew that was something that had to ground him. He’s this outlandish person/thing/entity/species in space.”
Working with director Olatunde Osunsanmi, executive producer Alex Kurtzman, and the entire cast including Kacey Rohl (Rachel Garrett), Sam Richardson (Quasi), Robert Kazinsky (Zeph), and Humberly Gonzalez (Melle) resulted in ample ad-libbing, something he recalls fondly from his time on set while filming in Toronto, Canada.
“There was so much improvising,” he recalls. “What you see is not really what we shot. There was so much more. What was so beautiful and the gifting of Olatunde as a director is that we had what we needed on page and he made sure you got that. Then he would come individually and just whisper something and we’d all get super excited. This would mean something was about to happen. Small things like, ‘go crazy,’ or, ‘now do something you’ve never done before.’ So that gave you the license and the freedom to play. And then having the cast and crew being able to play with you was such a gift. I was so helped by family and that for me is Star Trek.”
Star Trek: Section 31 is available now to stream exclusively on Paramount Plus, and once you’ve finished there why not go back and watch all the Star Trek movies and shows in order.
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