What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explain...

[TiberiusMaximus]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

I don't know how much it really applies to the "dumbing down" part, but I've always found Sisko's explanation of linear time to the Prophets incredibly painful.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

Data was often played "dumb," especially when it came to The Moral of Tonight's Episode, where they focused on him, usually. Data would be used to explain it to us kiddies through conversations with Picard, usually, but not always. "Captain?" "Yes, Data." "I do not understand. The aliens knew the facts and yet they were stubborn. Why would a people behave in this manner?" I mean ... sometimes it was OK, depending on how it was written, usually. Like Tasha's death. Data was used to voice what the crew were feeling about it, after the funeral and it was a nice closure.

But having it come from Data, either way, was sometimes hard because he should've been a quick study on certain Human behaviors, but because those running the show found it useful, or amusing, or whatever, they give him a brain the size of a planet and yet he's too stupid to imitate a sneeze after 7 years, already. I liked Data, when he was serious, or when he was at his job, usually. His extracurricular studies into and observations of Humanity were just hard to take, sometimes.

 

[Tyberius]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

...With the ubiquitousness of translator technology in Starfleet, would there really even be that much of a demand for people who could actually speak other languages?...

In Statistical Probabilities the Augments listen to raw Cardassian rather than the translated Cardassian to get nuance.

 

[wulfio]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

Data was often played "dumb," especially when it came to The Moral of Tonight's Episode, where they focused on him, usually. Data would be used to explain it to us kiddies through conversations with Picard, usually, but not always. "Captain?" "Yes, Data." "I do not understand. The aliens knew the facts and yet they were stubborn. Why would a people behave in this manner?" I mean ... sometimes it was OK, depending on how it was written, usually. Like Tasha's death. Data was used to voice what the crew were feeling about it, after the funeral and it was a nice closure.

But having it come from Data, either way, was sometimes hard because he should've been a quick study on certain Human behaviors, but because those running the show found it useful, or amusing, or whatever, they give him a brain the size of a planet and yet he's too stupid to imitate a sneeze after 7 years, already. I liked Data, when he was serious, or when he was at his job, usually. His extracurricular studies into and observations of Humanity were just hard to take, sometimes.

I found data to be more social commentary

 

[BigJake]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

Data is written as being not human and not relating to human emotion, or emotion generally, which has nothing at all to do with being stupid.

Data did not trouble to imitate human behaviours because imitating emotion without understanding it is something sociopaths do and Data was programmed to be fundamentally honest.

 

[Timo]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

Data was perfectly capable and willing when it came to emoting for benefit. He did good emotions in "In Theory", even if he blew it by being a bit too honest - a common fault in humans, too. He did plenty of emotions when confronting adversaries who needed to be frightened, goaded or misled - and there he never let "honesty programming" get in his way.

Like humans, Data could pick and choose, both the way he acted and the way he justified his actions to himself and/or the people around him. That he didn't "play human" more often could rather be attributed to him being a scholar of humanity: going native would be useful and fun at times, but not something he'd strive to do 24/7. Everything points to him having absurdly high standards on pretty much everything he ever engaged in, so while he could become human any time he chose, he chose to do so only after having become 110% perfect in the art.

That probably was the bit of programming that kept Data eternally on the search... The belief that he wasn't good enough. Understandable in a prototype machine that was to demonstrate the perfection of its creator! Indeed, Soong seems to have had the same personality deep down. Otherwise he would have gone public with Data a long time ago, instead of continuing his hiding and fiddling.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Wormhole]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

I think it would have been better and certainly less predictable with Saavik. Does anyone know - did they plan to have Saavik and then just do a last-minute re-write? It sure seems that way. I'm sure many fans would have been up in arms about Saavik becoming a traitor though. .

Yes, the original intent was to use Saavik, but Roddenberry threw a fit stating Saavik can't be a traitor because she's a "beloved favourite." Meyer tried to argue that since he created Saavik he should be allowed to do what he wants with the character but in the end he lost the argument and was forced to change Saavik into a new character.

 

[The Lensman]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

Data was often played "dumb," especially when it came to The Moral of Tonight's Episode, where they focused on him, usually. Data would be used to explain it to us kiddies through conversations with Picard, usually, but not always. "Captain?" "Yes, Data." "I do not understand. The aliens knew the facts and yet they were stubborn. Why would a people behave in this manner?" I mean ... sometimes it was OK, depending on how it was written, usually. Like Tasha's death. Data was used to voice what the crew were feeling about it, after the funeral and it was a nice closure.

But having it come from Data, either way, was sometimes hard because he should've been a quick study on certain Human behaviors, but because those running the show found it useful, or amusing, or whatever, they give him a brain the size of a planet and yet he's too stupid to imitate a sneeze after 7 years, already. I liked Data, when he was serious, or when he was at his job, usually. His extracurricular studies into and observations of Humanity were just hard to take, sometimes.

In the first season of TNG, the impression was that Data was newly built or found, so I didn't have a problem with him not being able to whistle, understand humor or the "I don't understand Captain" moments.

But in the "Redemption" two parter, while making the case for getting command of a ship, Data makes the case to Picard that he's been in Starfleet for something like twenty years and I'm like "What?! Then why is he having any of these "I don't understand Captain" moments with Picard when he should have already had them with other captains and authority figures in the intervening twenty some odd years. We've already seen how inhumanly quick he can learn things.

As for dumbing down characters......the transporter operator in "Dagger Of The Mind". Kirk is explaining transporter procedures to the guy who's job it is to transport things.

 

[Mjolnir2000]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

I think it would have been better and certainly less predictable with Saavik. Does anyone know - did they plan to have Saavik and then just do a last-minute re-write? It sure seems that way. I'm sure many fans would have been up in arms about Saavik becoming a traitor though. .

Yes, the original intent was to use Saavik, but Roddenberry threw a fit stating Saavik can't be a traitor because she's a "beloved favourite." Meyer tried to argue that since he created Saavik he should be allowed to do what he wants with the character but in the end he lost the argument and was forced to change Saavik into a new character.

I thought I'd heard somewhere that it was because they couldn't get either actress back, and having a third Saavik would be kind of silly.

 

[Lance]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

Yes, the original intent was to use Saavik, but Roddenberry threw a fit stating Saavik can't be a traitor because she's a "beloved favourite." Meyer tried to argue that since he created Saavik he should be allowed to do what he wants with the character but in the end he lost the argument and was forced to change Saavik into a new character.

I thought I'd heard somewhere that it was because they couldn't get either actress back, and having a third Saavik would be kind of silly.

It's sort of both. The Wormhole's version has come out as being the correct sequence of events for why the script was revised to change the name, but your version is emphemerically true as well: Alley was asked to come back but was unavailable, Curtis was never asked to come back at all, and Catrall expressed an interest in having a new character to build from the ground up anyway, rather than simply rehashing Saavik again. Combined with Roddenberry's kvetching about Saavik being 'sacred ground' as a character and whatnot, the only viable solution left to Meyer was to rename the character, and he chose Valeris. But they didn't exactly disguise her origins that much...

The biggest irony is that Kim Catrall was actually Meyer's original choice for Saavik in The Wrath of Khan nine years earlier... but she'd proven unavailable, so Alley was cast instead. So it's a case of ever decreasing circles!

 

[at Quark's]

Re: What'sthe worst example of a character being"dumbed down"to explai

Really? From what I've see on the show and in various films, the universal translator is damned near flawless!

Translating from language A to language B and translating from language B to language A is not necessarily equally difficult. I could imagine that a machine translation going one direction could yield better results than in the other direction. (just playing around with google translate can give some nice indications in that area, though I'm sure the UT would be very much superior to that ).

That being said, our side of the translator seems to be working 'damned near flawless' indeed. And I almost cannot imagine the UT doing a worse job than uhura did there