Star Trek 6: How Worf Appeared In The Final TOS Movie
Worf (Michael Dorn) made a surprise appearance in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but it wasn't the same Klingon from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Directed by Nicholas Meyer, Star Trek VI was the final film starring the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series, and it helped celebrate the 25th anniversary of the franchise in December 1991. The inclusion of a version of Worf in Star Trek VI also works as a cinematic bridge between TNG and the TOS movies, following Leonard Nimoy's appearance as Spock in the TNG two-parter "Unification" a month prior.
In the fall of 1991, Star Trek: The Next Generation was in its fifth season and hit its stride both creatively and with audiences as a blockbuster in syndication. Meanwhile, the Star Trek movies, which centered around Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the original Starship Enterprise, were trying to recover from the failure of the William Shatner-directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Paramount shot down a prequel movie idea called Star Trek: The Academy Years in favor of reuniting the original cast for one last hurrah. The resulting film, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, was a delightful final adventure for Kirk and his crew, but it also contained several Easter eggs for TNG fans. For instance, TNG's sets were repurposed for the movie as a cost-saving measure, but it was also decided that a TNG character would (sort of) cross over. Since Star Trek VI dealt with the end of the Cold War between the Klingons and the United Federation of Planets, Worf was the best candidate.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view. Start nowOf course, Star Trek VI took place 7 decades before TNG, but the filmmakers cleverly got around that technicality by introducing Worf's ancestor - who was also named Worf. Although he is listed in the film's closing credits as "Klingon Defense Attorney," Michael Dorn portrayed Colonel Worf in Star Trek VI. This version of Worf represented Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) during their trial on Qo'noS, the Klingon homeworld, after they were framed for the assassination of High Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner). To Colonel Worf's frustration, the trial was merely for show and the Starfleet officers were always going to be sentenced to life in hard labor at the penal planet Rura Penthe - where they would then be murdered away from prying eyes. Despite losing the trial (which was fait accompli), Colonel Worf was also part of the Klingon delegation at the Khitomer peace conference where Kirk and the Enterprise crew uncovered the real assassins and saved the life of the new Chancellor, Gorkon's daughter Azetbur (Rosanna DeSoto).
Although it wasn't confirmed on-screen, Colonel Worf was meant to be Worf's grandfather and the father of Mogh, according to publicity materials for Star Trek VI. Initially, the character of "Klingon Defense Attorney" wasn't conceived with any specific actor in mind. According to Captain's Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, as the drafts of Star Trek VI's screenplay progressed, director Nicholas Meyer suggested, "How about if we get Michael Dorn to play the part of Worf?" When Meyer was reminded that The Next Generation is set 75 years after the events of the film, Meyer quickly solved this dilemma by deciding, "Okay, we'll make [him] his grandfather."
The role of Colonel Worf was then specifically written for Michael Dorn, something the actor pleasantly found out when he was approached by Nicholas Meyer. As Dorn recalled (according to William Shatner's memoir Star Trek Movie Memories), the director simply introduced himself while visiting the TNG set and told the actor, "I wrote a part for you [in Star Trek VI]." To which Dorn replied, "Thank you very much." It was that easy, and soon, Dorn was clad in modified Klingon prosthetics and playing Worf's ancestor opposite Shatner and DeForrest Kelley in a fun cameo.
Only three years later, Star Trek Generations brought the TNG crew to the big screen, and the main draw was the feature film team-up between Captain Kirk and Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). However, Michael Dorn gets the distinction of being the first TNG actor to appear in a Star Trek movie, linking the franchise's histories together as Worf, grandfather of Worf.
Source: screenrant.com