Star Trek veteran make-up designer James MacKinnon talks Star Trek: Picard and Worf.
The final season of Star Trek: Picard will see a whole host of names return to the franchise, most notably among them all is Michael Dorn as Worf, who will once again be shown in his Klingon glory. The character was a source of concern after Star Trek: Discovery portrayed the Klingon race as purple orc-like beings instead of the aliens we’ve known for nearly 40 years.
So when fans saw Worf looking like Worf in the Star Trek: Picard teaser, fans took a collective sigh of relief. Not only did Worf look “normal” (for a Klingon) but he looked good. He looked like Worf+. The reason for that is simple, series makeup artist James MacKinnon made sure to capture the same essence that the character had on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.
MacKinnon spoke to TrekMovie.com about working on Worf for Picard and revealed that he wanted to recreate and elevate the look that DS9’s Michael Westmore did for the character while Dorn was on that series.
"Yeah. You have already seen Worf on Picard. Just to be able to recreate and elevate Michael Westmore’s makeup from DS9 to a current-day version with Michael Dorn was a true, true pleasure."
Taking the Klingons back to their iconic look was the right call for Star Trek: Picard
Getting away from the Discovery design on the Klingons and reverting back to the design that fans loved was the right move. Had Picard done the Worf paint similar to what we saw in Discovery, fans would’ve boycotted the show on that principle alone.
Discovery tried to find its own identity by screwing with the franchise’s iconic designs and traits This was a mistake as they soon found out. Any and every show that comes out should avoid doing things as Discovery did, and instead, respect what came before.