While Paramount or Skydance or whatever is killing off Star Trek properties both good and bad, they’ve somehow managed to make good on a threat to release a new Star Trek property titled both cryptically and fearfully Star Trek: Section 31. It’s a mishmash of innumerable bad decisions made at the conceptual, story and directorial level, but it’s also a playful romp with a wonderfully talented group of actors apparently told to “just go nuts.”

Is an undercover group of ethically challenged commandos doing Star Fleet’s dirty work anathema to the very soul of Star Trek as a post scarcity utopia with some occasional interplanetary friction? Undeniably. Did the writers of Section 31 have any idea of the world in which they were working? God no. Was the key design choice to combine frenetic camera work and to light every scene with either fire-colored neon or actual fire when possible? Hell yes. Is there some deep underlying moral hidden behind the explosions and technobabble? Here’s another explosion! BOOM!

There is an enjoyable movie here among the wreckage of Star Trek continuity, absent Star Fleet’s hope of utopia through the good works of noble people. The secret to finding that movie is simple: forget Star Trek Section 31 has anything to do with Star Trek. Treat this movie like a Farscape special with less muppets, a better special effects budget, and lots of fire. Let go and have fun with a rag-tag group of over-the-top characters going nuts and exploring their past sins and future fetishes while chasing yet another universe destroying maguffin through the fire. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, baby!