Well, it certainly doesn't seem an arbitrary decision, but it doesn't seem a terribly convincing rationale. Clearly, a door was left open for this very thing in the final scene of the film and to deny that it's even plausible to bring Data back seems seriously odd. Were you watching the same ripoff of TWOK I was?
I don't understand your reasoning. Yes, obviously they
intended to leave the door open a crack for bringing Data back through B-4. But as we've explained in detail, their attempt to do so was immensely unconvincing, because they depicted B-4 and his limitations in a way that worked against that very possibility. Just because they
tried to set up that possibility doesn't mean they succeeded in making it plausible.
Of course, Trek movies aren't always plausible. There was nothing remotely plausible about Genesis and its magical powers. But once TWOK established that Genesis could create life, the resurrection of Spock was an acceptable extrapolation from that, and the retention of his mind in McCoy's was an acceptable extrapolation from established precedent (Vulcan telepathy in general, mind transfer from "Return to Tomorrow"). So it followed from what had been set up before. The same can't be said of turning B-4 into Data, regardless of the filmmakers' intent. Because B-4 was explicitly demonstrated in the film to be far too crude and incapable of learning or functioning at a higher level. Turning him into Data would require
ignoring everything established about B-4 throughout the movie. So it wouldn't just be implausible in absolute terms, it would be inconsistent within the story itself.
If the filmmakers had
really intended to use B-4 to bring back Data, rather than just tossing it in there halfheartedly as a back door in case there were another sequel and Spiner got paid enough to change his mind, then they should've set up the B-4 character and the nature of the download in such a way that it was believable that he could turn into Data 2.0 -- either that or made B-4 interesting enough to be worth developing as a character in his own right. They failed to do either of those things -- perhaps because they knew it was improbable that Spiner ever would play Data again.
If you ask me, the filmmakers weren't seriously trying to open the door for Data's resurrection. I think they were just trying to soften the blow of Data's demise by giving us an upbeat ending, a sign that something of Data lived on symbolically. B-4 wasn't seriously or primarily intended to be a back door for Data's return, since Spiner's clear intention was to play Data for the last time. He was just an excuse for Spiner to stretch his acting chops with a dual role and get a subplot that parallelled Picard's. Anything beyond that, anything that pointed toward possible resurrection, was just a hedged bet, not a firm intention.
Either way, though, our job as writers is to stay consistent with what's actually onscreen. Not with what the filmmakers' metatextual intentions may have been, but with the letter of the actual text. Since B-4 as seen on screen is a crude prototype incapable of growth, and since "The Offspring" provided hard proof that an android-to-android memory download does
not lead to personality transfer, that's what our approach is based on.
IMHO, the key thing that would preclude the writers from resurrected Data is that it seems like they're having fun with the post-Nemesis universe without Data, and the key thing with Trip's resurrection is that the authors seem like they're having fun with a post-Enterprise universe with Trip.
You're defining this solely in terms of intentions and desires, not facts and logic. But stories need to make internal sense, be self-consistent. You can't do any random thing you want to do in a story -- it needs to hold together logically. And in tie-in fiction, it has to be consistent with what's been established onscreen. I've explained why B-4 becoming Data is illogical and inconsistent, and why Trip's survival is quite consistent and simple to justify because we never actually saw him die at all. They're totally different situations.
But, to claim that there's something in the source material that makes it more justifiable? Oh, please -- I agree that Trip's death was ridiculously awful, but I also quite liked Sisko's end in "What You Leave Behind..." but the novels have brought him back too, I gather.
Ahh, but "What You Leave Behind..." made it explicit that Sisko
wasn't dead. He was with the Prophets, but alive, and
he explicitly promised he would return. So the books have stayed entirely consistent with the precedent set by the show, as well as the intent behind it. So that isn't a valid analogy for what you're arguing for.
And once more, it's not just that Trip's death was awful, it's that
we didn't actually see him die. We saw someone two centuries later watching a simulation of his death. That leaves the door wide open for reality being something different. Again, writing Trek fiction isn't just about preferences or wishes, it's about creating a consistent, logical narrative based on the material we're given.
Well, like I said, I haven't read that far into the DS9 relaunch, but from what I've read about it, it just seems far too... un-epic for Sisko to be returned so soon? His departure certainly didn't sound like it would just be for a few months (or however long it was before Kassidy and his baby to be born).
Sisko said his return would be "Maybe a year, maybe yesterday." There was no inconsistency in bringing him back after nine months.
I can't comment on the quality of the way he was brought back, but question whether or not it was a good idea to begin with. Especially when there seems to be some sort of inviolable policy against bringing a much more interesting, much more popular character back in Data.
That's ridiculous. It's not an "inviolable policy." I've explained to you in depth why it's simply not a plausible idea in this particular instance. But if someone came up with a really great story idea for a way to bring Data back -- and, moreover, had a
good reason for bringing Data back, something fresh and meaningful to do with the character, rather than just reverting to a familiar status quo -- then of course that story would be done. Nothing's "inviolable" here, and it certainly isn't as arbitrary as you want to pretend. As things stand, there's simply no good reason to resurrect Data. Doing it through B-4 would be implausible and too obvious to be worthwhile; doing it in general terms doesn't seem to serve much purpose beyond nostalgia. "I miss Data" isn't a good enough reason. Not if we want Trek fiction to be done with quality, sincerity, and imagination rather than just going for the obvious and cliched.
which was wasted aside from that cellular peptide frosting nightmare episode.
