How Michael Dorn made Worf stand out in Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology

When “Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology” debuted in 1987, it gave Trekkies a brand new character that went towards the whole lot they knew. Within the unique “Star Trek,” the dastardly Klingons have been ceaselessly offered as aggressive antagonists, often presenting themselves because the sworn enemy of the Federation. In “Subsequent Technology,” a Klingon – Worf, performed by Michael Dorn – was a part of the employees of the USS Enterprise-D. Within the second season of the collection, Worf even grew to become the ship’s head of safety. Any animosity towards the Klingons, Trekkies have been to be taught, was old school and even misguided. Peace was declared and the Klingons have been now allies.

After all, Worf wasn’t the sunniest, most peaceable character. He was typically fast to recommend violent programs of motion to his captain and infrequently considered all alien guests with suspicion. After all, as head of safety, that was his job. Sometimes he got angry. Worf was additionally, for lack of a greater time period, an enormous nerd. He was raised on Earth, particularly in Russia, by human dad and mom, and needed to uncover his Klingon heritage by books and research. As such, he grew to become a humorless honor nerd, decided to have as little enjoyable as potential. Even in comparison with different Klingons, Worf was taciturn and rigid.

The character was so standard that it was finally carried into “Star Trek: Deep Area 9,” giving Worf 4 further seasons to the seven he had already skilled in “Subsequent Technology.” Michael Dorn has appeared in additional episodes of “Star Trek” than some other actor.

Dorn, after all, was pleased with the work and adopted the position wherever it took him. Even at first of “Subsequent Technology,” he knew he was there merely to play Worf to the very best of his skills. He did not care in any respect about his character’s likability or private historical past. In a 2012 interview with StarTrek.comDorn admitted he was simply there to do a job and do it properly. That was all.

Dorn was pragmatic when it got here to taking part in Worf. When requested if he anxious that taking part in in a big ensemble would possibly diminish his character, Dorn mentioned he wasn’t anxious. In any case, Dorn acknowledged that he was not a author on the present and that each one of Worf’s life selections could be out of his management. He didn’t even do any stunts. “I mainly took it in the future at a time,” he mentioned. “My important purpose was to play the position properly and be nearly as good as potential. I simply did not take into consideration the long run that manner.”

Two issues: get the suitable half and do a very good job. A wholesome outlook for any job, actually.

Dorn recollects that a few of his co-stars did not share his views. A few of them, he mentioned, needed to play characters that audiences would understand as pleasant. The thought was that if an actor performs a likeable character, a author would need to write extra scenes for him. This was very true within the present’s early years when, Dorn recollects, everybody was nonetheless discovering their place. Dorn had no such considerations about Worf’s future, nevertheless. He mentioned:

“Everybody was operating round. They have been doing their job, however you can inform they have been making an attempt to protect their future, mainly. You need to be pals with Information. You need to be pals with Geordi. You need to be pals with Picard. You need to align with all of those folks as a result of their feeling is: writers write relationships and, if in case you have a relationship, they will write extra relationships for you. Personally, I simply thought, “No matter, it is okay. be so unusual, imply man and irritated.'”

Plainly Dorn’s dedication to being imply and indignant was finally helpful.

Dorn, by merely studying his traces and doing a very good job, allowed Worf to kind as a personality. Dorn introduced his violent mood, in addition to his nerdy devotion to honor, to Worf, and the writers of “Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology” latched onto what he was stating. Dorn was comfortable to simply accept the Worf tales supplied to him, realizing that the writers in all probability knew what to do with Worf in the long term. Dorn mentioned:

“Fortunately, the writers obtained away with it. The entire thing they wrote about Worf being an orphan and raised by Russian dad and mom, that is all of the writers’ stuff. I did not do something about it. I informed them simply given what the character needed to say it was, and that was it.”

After all, that did not cease Dorn from operating round with Worf for a bit. After “Deep Area 9” led to 1999, Dorn felt that Worf might simply proceed his personal collection. On the finish of his tenure on DS9, Worf grew to become the Federation’s ambassador to the Klingon homeworld of Qo’noS. Dorn wrote a full pilot for a Worf-centered TV series about how Qo’noS needed to rebuild itself after a battle and the way the Klingons needed to reluctantly settle for the Federation as a large galactic energy.

This collection by no means got here to fruition, however Worf finally returned. Within the third season of “Star Trek: Picard” in 2023, Dorn performed a gray-haired Worf, now working as an spy for Starfleet, rooting out non-Federal criminals. “Star Trek”, it appears, can not do with out Worf for lengthy.