Star Trek & RoboCop's Strange Behind-The-Scenes Connection Explained
As far as the best sci-fi franchises go, "Star Trek" and "RoboCop" aren't often mentioned in the same breath. In many respects, the two couldn't be more different, with the former emphasizing spacefaring adventure and discovery compared to the gritty dystopian action focus of the latter. That's what makes it so surprising that, behind the scenes, these distinct properties share a strange connection that places them closer together than one might think: Many cast members from the original "RoboCop" movies have also had roles in various "Star Trek" works.
Kurtwood Smith, who portrayed "RoboCop" antagonist Clarence Boddicker, has played a number of "Star Trek" characters, including the Federation President in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country." Ray Wise, who appeared as Leon Nash in the first entry of the action movie franchise, later popped up on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Trek: Voyager." The list goes on, with "RoboCop" stars Ronny Cox, Gabriel Damon, Robert DoQui, Miguel Ferrer, and Stephen Lee all showing up somewhere across Gene Roddenberry's historic franchise.
Even the original RoboCop joined the Star Trek cast
"RoboCop" and "Star Trek" already have quite the behind-the-scenes crossover going on, as evidenced by their bizarrely high number of shared actors, but the cherry on top of this strange connection is that even the man behind the original RoboCop himself, Peter Weller, has since jumped into the realm of "Star Trek" — not just once, but twice.
Weller's first foray came with "Star Trek: Enterprise," on which he guest starred in two Season 4 episodes as the xenophobic Terra Prime leader John Frederick Paxton. Less than a decade later, he returned to the final frontier to play the corrupt Starfleet admiral Alexander Marcus in the 2013 flick "Star Trek Into Darkness."
Between Weller and the many other actors who have landed credits in both "RoboCop" and "Star Trek," it's clear that the two franchises share a closer connection than one might expect. Of course, "RoboCop" isn't the only franchise that "Star Trek" shares so much of its cast with. There are also plenty of actors who were in both "Star Trek" and "Star Wars."