For obvious reasons, 2020 was pretty barren when it came to new movies, but this year is gearing up to deliver plenty of content for comic book and science fiction fans. Michael Dorn (Ali, Star Trek: The Next Generation) stars in one of the first sci-fi movies to drop in 2021, Agent Revelation.
As a sequel to Agent Intelligence, the film explores the same universe 500 years later with new characters facing the same alien threat, but with a super-soldier's added presence. To promote the movie, Dorn spoke with us about why he chose to sign on to the film and what attracted him to the script and character. He also talked about the martial arts training sequences in Revelation.
He told us that his Star Trek experience helped improve the scenes and make them feel more authentic because he knew a lot less about martial arts than Derek Ting, who was portraying the character he was teaching Tai Chi and other styles to. Dorn explained that he offered to learn from him, but Derek wanted to keep that knowledge to himself so the audience could see him as the student instead of the teacher.
"Actually, the only things that I did were the kind of Tai Chi moves and teaching Derek about that. He was very much part of them; I mean, he's done martial arts. So basically, he was in charge of most of that. The only thing that I did, the only physical thing I did, was getting shot full of holes, which I thought was very cool.
Derek was very smart about something because when we started doing that particular scene and we were rehearsing because I had done a lot of that stuff in The Next Generation, I was going, "okay, this is how you do it." He's going, "Oh, that's very interesting." And then I looked at him, and I went, "do you know martial arts?" Cause I felt that he did. And he goes, "well, actually, yeah, my whole life."
So I go, "what am I doing teaching you?" But he said he wanted it to look like I was teaching him. He didn't want it to look like he knew already because that would take away from the whole scene, which is teaching him how to do this. And I thought that was very smart. He didn't try to overshadow that with his own knowledge, which is great."
You can hear our full conversation about Agent Revelation with actor and pilot Michael Dorn in the podcast player below. Be sure to stay tuned for our upcoming chats about Dorn's time on Star Trek: The Next Generation, flying with the Blue Angels, the future of Worf, and more.
*This interview has been edited for clarity.*
Jim Yung, a rejected CIA analyst, has been exposed to an ancient 'dust' that transforms him into a super soldier that can communicate with aliens. When a secret organization works with him to discover why aliens have returned to Earth, the truth comes at a price.
Agent Revelation is coming to VOD on January 22, 2021.