Question regarding Data

[Trent Roman]

^ I don't think that Data's death in Nemesis was meaningless.

Data sacrificed a potentially centuries- if not millenia-long existence as an android in exchange for a man two-thirds done with his life. I like Picard and I'm sure Data was plenty happy to do so, but the arithmetic of NEM's end has always bugged me. And I can't help but feel that either Picard should have gotten his act together sooner instead of staring at Shinzon's corpse, or that a mind like Data's ought to have come up with something a little less suicidal. What's wrong with setting the phaser to overload, tossing it into the matrix, and running like hell? There were enough hull breaches in the Scimitar that Data could have at least gotten into position to ride out the explosion, though not without considerable singing. If the problem truly was Spiner's age, then having his outer flesh burned off would allow another actor to step into the role should there have been another film.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[William Leisner]

There were enough hull breaches in the Scimitar that Data could have at least gotten into position to ride out the explosion, though not without considerable singing.

EXT. SPACE - SCIMITAR - BREACHED HULL

through which we see a long corridor... the bright orange bloom of an expanding explosion at the far end... backlighting a silhouetted figure running toward the camera... and as both he and the explosion grow closer... we see it's DATA... and just before he reaches the breach and leaps into open space, centimeters ahead of the fire... we hear him screaming:

DATA
BLUE SKIIIIIIIIESSS!!!
SMILING AT MEEEEEEE!!
NOTHING BUT BLUUUUEEEEE SKIIIIEEEEES!!!!
DOOOO IIIIIII SEEEEEEEEE!!!!​

 

[Herbert1]

Data sacrificed himself to not only save Captain Picard, but also his shipmates on the Enterprise who would have been killed by the thalaron weapon. So he also sacrificed himself for La Forge, Riker, Troi, Spot, and the rest of the Enterprise crew. It was meant to be heroic and tragic.

Unfortunately, I sort of shrugged my soldiers and said so what since they had the B4 character and Data had already downloaded his essense. It would have been fairly easy for them to resurrect Data if the will was there to make a TNG movie after Nemesis. Maybe I would have cared more if they hadn't made it clear that Nemesis was the last TNG movie in the advertising campaign

 

[ireactions]

I'm not sure I'd want to see anyone other than Brent Spiner play Data at this stage. Wil Wheaton was writing a review of "Datalore", where he happily rubbished it. However, he shared a memory of Spiner's agitation when working with a photodouble for the Data/Lore scenes. He commented that one might fail to appreciate the skill, subtlety and detail of Spiner's work until seeing a less-talented photodouble mimicking Spiners body language and mannerisms -- and doing a terribly exaggerated and clumsy job of it.

- Ibrahim Ng

 

[Trent Roman]

Data sacrificed himself to not only save Captain Picard, but also his shipmates on the Enterprise who would have been killed by the thalaron weapon. So he also sacrificed himself for La Forge, Riker, Troi, Spot, and the rest of the Enterprise crew. It was meant to be heroic and tragic.

That's why Picard was there. Assuming he snapped out of his fugue, Picard would have destroyed the thalaron matrix - ship and crew saved. Where Shinzon was already dead, the only practical effect of Data's intervention was that he died instead of Picard.

Unfortunately, I sort of shrugged my soldiers and said so what since they had the B4 character and Data had already downloaded his essense.

Shrugging soldiers is a bad idea. They get peeved.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Claudia]

I don't think that Data's death was meaningless, even if his actions weren't fully thought through. He did sacrifice himself for Picard and the ship... perhaps he could have found another way, but then again, he did what he perceived to be the surest way to destroy the weapon.

I never quite understood why Picard reacted so strongly to Shinzon. Granted, they shared the same DNA - but that's what being human is all about: DNA isn't everything. Even identical twins don't necessarily share the same personality, even though they have the same DNA. I could understand Picard's feeling sympathy for Shinzon's upbringing, but never the horror or shock that brought him to that kind of fugue...

 

[Cicero]

I don't think that Data's death was meaningless, even if his actions weren't fully thought through. He did sacrifice himself for Picard and the ship... perhaps he could have found another way, but then again, he did what he perceived to be the surest way to destroy the weapon.

I never quite understood why Picard reacted so strongly to Shinzon. Granted, they shared the same DNA - but that's what being human is all about: DNA isn't everything. Even identical twins don't necessarily share the same personality, even though they have the same DNA. I could understand Picard's feeling sympathy for Shinzon's upbringing, but never the horror or shock that brought him to that kind of fugue...

I think it was the idea that he could've just as easily been the monster that Shinzon was, had he not been reared where and by whom he was. For all that they were different, their blueprint was the same.

 

[Christopher]

Data sacrificed a potentially centuries- if not millenia-long existence as an android in exchange for a man two-thirds done with his life. I like Picard and I'm sure Data was plenty happy to do so, but the arithmetic of NEM's end has always bugged me.

Remember what Picard said to Data in "Justice" when Data asked about risking the entire ship to save one child? "I refuse to let arithmetic decide questions like that!" Obviously Data learned that lesson well. The worth of a life is not a matter of numbers.

And I can't help but feel that either Picard should have gotten his act together sooner instead of staring at Shinzon's corpse, or that a mind like Data's ought to have come up with something a little less suicidal. What's wrong with setting the phaser to overload, tossing it into the matrix, and running like hell? There were enough hull breaches in the Scimitar that Data could have at least gotten into position to ride out the explosion, though not without considerable singing.

You've been watching too many movies and TV shows that treat explosions as something you can "ride out." The energy released in that explosion was monumental -- it completely disintegrated an entire immense starship in a split-second. Data wouldn't just have been physically pushed by the blast -- he would've been completely vaporized by the immense heat. Even if he'd somehow managed to repeat his long jump into vacuum and drifted far enough away to avoid being directly engulfed in the blast, he still would've been exposed to sufficiently intense radiation to burn out every circuit of his neural net and damage his physical form beyond repair. If he hadn't been vaporized, he would've been reduced to an inert, half-melted, radioactive mannequin.

That's why Picard just stood there doing nothing, and why Data didn't try to save himself: because they both knew it was impossible to escape the blast by any means other than a transporter. They were resigned to the inevitable.

 

[Trent Roman]

Remember what Picard said to Data in "Justice" when Data asked about risking the entire ship to save one child? "I refuse to let arithmetic decide questions like that!" Obviously Data learned that lesson well. The worth of a life is not a matter of numbers.

And there's something to be said for that; but the other side has a good argument as well. In any case, I recognize that this is not an ethical argument; I just think Data could have lived longer, contributed more, which is why I would have preferred he lived, the same way if a child and an adult are passed out in a burning building and I have to chose which to rescue, I chose the child. That's my feeling on it. Data, obviously, is no child and fully capable of making his own deicison, which he did as a friend and loyal officer, for which he can't be faulted. (It's the writers I fault.)

You've been watching too many movies and TV shows that treat explosions as something you can "ride out." (...)

Pretty sure Nemesis is a movie. And if one stopped to pick apart every unlikely detail in the film, one would never be done with it.

That's why Picard just stood there doing nothing, and why Data didn't try to save himself: because they both knew it was impossible to escape the blast by any means other than a transporter. They were resigned to the inevitable.

Data, yes. Picard was is some kind of shock, because if he had continued standing there doing nothing, everybody on the Enterprise would have been killed. Not that I doubt, once he'd shaken off his fugue state and saved his crew, that Picard would have met his end with stoic dignity.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

You've been watching too many movies and TV shows that treat explosions as something you can "ride out." (...)

Pretty sure Nemesis is a movie. And if one stopped to pick apart every unlikely detail in the film, one would never be done with it.

So just because other movies depict stupid and impossible scenes, this one should too? Since when was gross wrongness a desirable precedent? And aren't there enough implausibilities in NEM as it is?

 

[LightningStorm]

Since when was gross wrongness a desirable precedent? And aren't there enough implausibilities in NEM as it is?

Might as well go for broke.

 

[Mike Farley]

That's why Picard just stood there doing nothing, and why Data didn't try to save himself: because they both knew it was impossible to escape the blast by any means other than a transporter. They were resigned to the inevitable.

Damn. If only the Enterprise had been equipped with something...some smaller auxiliary craft of some sort that carried its own personal transporter system (along with sensors, shields, propulsion, etc)...perhaps Data could have taken that instead of jumping from ship to ship.

Dunno what you might have called this shuttlecraft thingie though.

 

[Trent Roman]

And aren't there enough implausibilities in NEM as it is?

That was actually my point: there were enough such flaws in NEM that I wouldn't have minded one more were it to have been actually had a positive (to me) effect on the overall film.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[c0rnedfr0g]

That's why Picard just stood there doing nothing, and why Data didn't try to save himself: because they both knew it was impossible to escape the blast by any means other than a transporter. They were resigned to the inevitable.

yet another instance where timers would be extremely effective in the future (the other being Caretaker)

 

[Claudia]

And there's something to be said for that; but the other side has a good argument as well. In any case, I recognize that this is not an ethical argument; I just think Data could have lived longer, contributed more, which is why I would have preferred he lived, the same way if a child and an adult are passed out in a burning building and I have to chose which to rescue, I chose the child. That's my feeling on it. Data, obviously, is no child and fully capable of making his own deicison, which he did as a friend and loyal officer, for which he can't be faulted. (It's the writers I fault.)

On the other hand, isn't it a soldier's duty to protect his commanding officer? Isn't that also why the captain shouldn't lead away missions? So I guess, in this instance Data's decision wasn't necessarily a "writers' fault" but a logical consequence of what has been established especially in TNG.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

This whole 'Data can never come back' idea that some of the authors keep saying just makes no sense. Data's death was easily as ridiculous and as contrived as Trip's was. No matter how many times people say that bringing Data back would cheapen his death, we already know it has happened with Trip..it really just makes no sense.

Both of their deaths to put it bluntly, stunk up the screen. When they brought Trip back in the books it made ZERO sense and was even more contrived. Seriously, I cringed when I saw how Trip was brought back. How about actually bringing back Data in a CLASSY fashion that actually makes sense and isn't cringe worthy?

 

[Christopher]

How about actually bringing back Data in a CLASSY fashion that actually makes sense and isn't cringe worthy?

I'd ask if you had any ideas how to do that, but that would be inviting story ideas and that's a no-no on this forum. But if you ask me, "classy" and resurrection are incompatible concepts. What's classy is telling a story with sufficient maturity and honesty to acknowledge the permanence and cost of death, rather than cheapening it by giving in to lazy sentimentality. What's classy is letting the characters deal with real loss and be changed by the experience, rather than wimping out with a reset button that restores the cozy status quo. At least Trip's resurrection still allows for change and growth; we know that history believes Trip died, so we know things can never go back to the way they were, that the characters still do have to deal with the loss of what they used to have. So that makes it a worthwhile exception to the rule that resurrections are a bad idea.

 

[Marie1]

^ I agree with you 99%... except when killing someone is a jerk-ish thing to do by an immature person who isn't loyal to the series etc. I'm *not* saying that was the case with Data, but if a necessary character is killed off in fiction in some stupid attempt to garner ratings by causing "emotion" then I think they should be thwarted. >

Otherwise yes, death happens, and we need to cope, and sometimes it is necessary. Data for instance is a well loved character, but realistically, could anyone justify having even one person die to save him?

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Christopher, I would agree that you and the other modern Trek writers have made a silk purse out of a sow's ear when it comes to Data's death. I have enjoyed reading about how the other characters have dealt with his loss.

The thing is though, his death still stunk. I think most of us agree on that. I disagree with you about Trip, I still think his death and resurrection were badly handled. But the thing is, Trip DID come back to life. Trek fiction has opened the doors for re-writing badly done onscreen deaths. The genie is out of the bottle.

We now know that the Trek writers/editors are willing in certain cases to push the retcon button on badly done deaths. It isn't unthinkable at this point. That makes it a bit frustrating for those of us who would like to see Data return. It is especially frustrating when you consider that Data is far more important, beloved and 'known' character than Trip ever will be. We're sort of left with this arbitrary 'well Trip can come back, but nobody else should now' idea.. As for how he could return, I'm sure you, KRAD, David Mack, etc. could come up with an awesome and credible way for it to be done. Seriously, this is the Trekverse. Anything can happen as long as it is written well people will accept it.

 

[Herbert1]

After deciding to let Spock sacrifice his life for the good of the ship in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, they should have had the courage to say "He's dead. He is never coming back." Not only did the characters experience the loss of Spock and were in mourning, but so was the audience in 1982. I too mourned the loss of Spock in 1982 and was down and somber.

When Nimoy started to say that he had no intention of killing off the Spock character, it cheapened the death scene and Spock's sacrifice. I was also a little irritated that the film makers put me and the audience through this emotionally draining experience and then turn around and say they were only kidding.

The resurrection of Spock set a bad precedent in science fiction films of resurrecting dead characters and the audience has now been trained to look for plot threads that might be used to resurrect a beloved character or give a popular actor continued employment.

If they resurrected Spock, wrote "Yesterdy's Enterprise" and let Denise Crosby come back first as Tasha Yar for one episode and then a continuing guest spot as Sela, then it seems reasonable to think that Data is not truly dead since there are threads already in place that could be used to resurrect the character.