Had they allowed Data to grow emotionally through FC and INS, as you would have assumed would have happened after the events of GEN, then his self-sacrifice at the end of NEM could have had much more of an impact...
Any mention of Data in post-Nemesis novels?
- Thread starter Danoz
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"Saddle up, lock and load", "Oh shit", "Yeah!", "To hell with our orders", that's all stuff he only said because of his emotion chip. Unless you want to argue that his behavior in Generations was also just the type of imitations that he always did throughout the show. His emotion chip was also a nice subplot in First Contact. I like the fact that the chip was integrated in his behavior in Insurrection, but not as part of the plot anymore. A third movie dealing with Data's emotion chip? It was rather nice to see him learning things from a kid, stuff that he still had to learn despite finally having emotions.
But I agree that in Nemesis, it was totally ignored, if not forgotten about. But then again, Nemesis ignored a lot of stuff, from Worf's job as ambassador to Picard having an artificial heart.
That doesn't follow at all. There's no reason why he couldn't use vernacular expressions either with or without the emotion chip, so it's illogical to assume that all such uses must have only a single explanation. The impact of the chip isn't anything as superficial as whether he uses slang, for Pete's sake.
And again, the whole discussion is missing the point that the life-changing consequences that were hinted at in GEN were abandoned in later movies. Even if you do interpret his behavior in INS as being influenced by his emotion chip -- an interpretation that is far from universally accepted -- the fact remains that aside from superficial gestures, the story is not portraying Data as fundamentally transformed from the character he was before. Indeed, overall he seems far more naive about humanoid behavior in INS than he did in the past, what with his interaction with Artim and his cluelessness about play. He's being written the same way he was written in the early seasons of the show, as a naive man-child lacking understanding of even the most basic human behaviors. That's not character growth. That's the triumph of the status quo.
How was Picard's artificial heart ignored? You mean where he says to Shinzon "Your heart, your hands, your eyes are the same as mine?" Come on, you've never heard "heart" used in a metaphorical sense? I mean, earlier Picard says his toast was from the heart. Here he's saying to Shinzon that they have the same origins and the same essence -- the same "heart." He's not going to spoil a perfectly good metaphor by throwing in a totally irrelevant factoid about his medical history.
Picard's artificial heart is the result of a life changing event that made him the person he is. With such an experience in mind, all that talk by Shinzon about how similar they are wouldn't have impressed him a bit. In my opinion. And since Picard is a person who uses to listen very carefully to what other people say, and a person that is very well aware of himself, he would have definately reacted to the "Your heart, your hands, your eyes are the same as mine?" line or the various similar attempts by Shinzon to invoke sympathy.
In the movie, Data had to tell him why Shinzon was different compared to him. I always felt that was unneccessary because of Picard's history and self-awareness. But either they forgot about his heart or ignored it. Same way they chose to ignore or forgot about Lore (which for example leads to the crew being totally ignorant about a possible threat coming from another Soong-type android, so they just download all of Data's memories into B-4, something they would have never done had they remembered Lore).
Speaking of Lore... since Lore's positronic brain is very well designed, and not flawed like B-4's, they could attempt to download B-4 into Lore and see what happens. But that would kill Lore. Hm.
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It would eliminate the impact of his self-sacrifice to bring him back as much as Star Trek III eliminated Spock's self-sacrifice.
Frankly, I miss Data. You feel his absence in the TNG books. He added a great deal of humor to the show and the movies. I never understood killing him off as that was the last TNG movie. I also don't understand not bringing him back (in one form or another) for the books. Spiner was great. He really made Data a gentle soul. And he, like Spock had no pretense. He was also so full of good intentions and that was a great source of humor. So I miss that unique combination.
Frankly, I miss Data. You feel his absence in the TNG books. He added a great deal of humor to the show and the movies. I never understood killing him off as that was the last TNG movie. I also don't understand not bringing him back (in one form or another) for the books. Spiner was great. He really made Data a gentle soul. And he, like Spock had no pretense. He was also so full of good intentions and that was a great source of humor. So I miss that unique combination.
I wholeheartedly agree that Data is much missed...I've enjoyed all the post-Nemesis TNG books, but I keep coming back to wondering when they encounter a situation how Data's presence would change things...I think that in one of the books, maybe somewhere in the Destiny trilogy, that Geordi actually vocalizes (or thinks) such a thing.
It would have been truly interesting indeed to see how First Officer Data would have dealt with Picard in the Destiny books...
Actually, I support the idea of bringing Data back exactly because of the reasons Christopher outlined in his blog post. Data spent all of the movies after Generations regressing as a character, and ultimately pointlessly sacrificing his life. There are many other ways that Picard could have been rescued, or the Scimitar destroyed - not the least of which is any number of the shuttle transporters aboard Enterprise being used retrieve them. (I don't mind that he died. I mind that he died stupidly in a badly written film.)
I think a story involving B4 'developing' into Data would be absolutely fascinating to read, and possibly just as progressive for the character as TMP was for Spock. I really, truly hope the Pocket folks decide to go the Countdown route and bring him back as soon as possible. With Riker and Troi gone from the TNG books, I'd very much love to have Data back.
I think a story involving B4 'developing' into Data would be absolutely fascinating to read, and possibly just as progressive for the character as TMP was for Spock. I really, truly hope the Pocket folks decide to go the Countdown route and bring him back as soon as possible. With Riker and Troi gone from the TNG books, I'd very much love to have Data back.
You're getting it backwards. That wasn't Shinzon's line, it was Picard's.
http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie10.html
And as I said, the meaning of "heart" was clearly symbolic there.
Okay, first, just because Picard found it useful to talk the ideas over with Data doesn't mean he had no clue of them himself -- it just means that it can be helpful to go over issues with a friend and put them into words. Second, that's a total non sequitur where the issue of Picard's artificial heart is concerned, because the heart is irrelevant to the psychological differences that Picard and Data were discussing.
That's illogical, because Starfleet doesn't practice that kind of kneejerk prejudice, judging an entire species (in this case Soong-type androids) as dangerous just because one member of that species went bad. Besides, B-4 was clearly a much cruder prototype than Lore. It's absurd to conclude that Lore's existence was forgotten or retconned away; it simply wasn't relevant to this particular story.
No, it would just give B-4's memories to Lore. The kind of download seen in NEM and "The Offspring" was established in both cases to be a transfer of memory and knowledge, not identity or consciousness. Which is one of the core problems with the idea of B-4 becoming Data.
I'm not going to nitpick Brent Spiner's facial expressions or dispute Data's ability to colloquialize, with or without his emotion chip. No, I just want to thank Christopher for pointing out the utter reversal of any real character progression for Data in the movies. It's something that has bothered me since I first saw them each in their theatrical releases, and I haven't heard too many other people be bothered by it. I've always felt that the lack of character growth for Data was a real shame, especially since the growth of Spock was such a major part of the original series films for me. (Then again, I don't think Data's development was handled particularly well in the series, either, once they decided he was utterly emotionless...but that's a whole other rant.)
I thought Brent Spiner was deliberately suggesting that Data had seemingly begun learning how to have emotions without the emotion chip in place.
Great post on your blog, Christopher - even though I don't quite agree that nuSpock's already achieved that serenity that Spock Prime's displayed since the end of TMP.
I never got that backward development of Data's. Data was established as second lead character after Picard - but why was he treated so very poorly? Why not simply show him as a well-rounded personality, instead of always focusing on his troubles figuring out humans and human emotions? He stopped doing that quite early in the series, after all, and if he didn't understand things later on, he just asked Geordi and/or Picard... no big deal. But reducing him back to that level especially in INS (and BTW, the only mention of the emotion chip was that he left it on the Enterprise - there was no hint that he put it back in once he got back, therefore it's my understanding that he spent the whole movie without it.) and NEM really hurt in an almost physical way, especially since he used to be my favourite character. But I didn't really feel anything at his death...
Having said that, I'd really love to read more of Data - but not necessarily a resurrection story. I'd simply enjoy another good old TNG-novel set during the series or even before INS, every now and then. Resurrecting him through B4... no, I don't think that'd work. But once they get over the problems of B4's inferior technology I'd love to see *B4* interacting with the crew, given that he has Data's memories... But I guess that won't happen either, too Trill-like for the authors, I'd say. *g*
I never got that backward development of Data's. Data was established as second lead character after Picard - but why was he treated so very poorly? Why not simply show him as a well-rounded personality, instead of always focusing on his troubles figuring out humans and human emotions? He stopped doing that quite early in the series, after all, and if he didn't understand things later on, he just asked Geordi and/or Picard... no big deal. But reducing him back to that level especially in INS (and BTW, the only mention of the emotion chip was that he left it on the Enterprise - there was no hint that he put it back in once he got back, therefore it's my understanding that he spent the whole movie without it.) and NEM really hurt in an almost physical way, especially since he used to be my favourite character. But I didn't really feel anything at his death...
Having said that, I'd really love to read more of Data - but not necessarily a resurrection story. I'd simply enjoy another good old TNG-novel set during the series or even before INS, every now and then. Resurrecting him through B4... no, I don't think that'd work. But once they get over the problems of B4's inferior technology I'd love to see *B4* interacting with the crew, given that he has Data's memories... But I guess that won't happen either, too Trill-like for the authors, I'd say. *g*
No he wasn't. Jonathan Frakes was second lead. Any of the other characters could have turned out to be the breakout character, but audience response was for Data.
Spiner's agent held out for him to get second billing on the movies, due to his proven popularity in the series.
Ditto, but I blame the director for that. I think there was sufficient power in the script and the acting, but Baird failed to bring out the necessary... gravitas?
No, you're right about that, but by the end of the movie he does seem to have come to terms with his emotions somewhat more than Spock Prime would for years to come.
That's the storyline that Star Trek: Online is following (Data resurrected in B-4 and Captain of the Enterprise).
^Well, it's a story that the ST:O people alluded to in their "Path to 2409" online material, which has borrowed from all sorts of sources, including Countdown. I'm not convinced that the "Path" material will have any direct relevance to the game, which as far as I'm aware will be built around the characters and ships the players create for themselves rather than characters and ships from TV and film. It strikes me more as a promotional device to hold people's interest prior to the game's premiere.
Although I imagine it's possible that the upcoming ST:O tie-in novel that's been announced could allude to some of that material.
Although I imagine it's possible that the upcoming ST:O tie-in novel that's been announced could allude to some of that material.
^Maybe. But a lot of the "Path" material has such a hodgepodge quality, patching together bits of continuity from the novels, the comics, and the new movie, that those portions give me the impression of just being filler, not something that was really essential to the game designers but was just plugged in to occupy the intervals. I expect any parts of the "Path" material that are really important to ST:O will be original material rather than material borrowed from other sources, such as B-4 becoming Data. Looking over the material to date, there's only one passing reference to Data in anything taking place later than Countdown, so that tells me he's probably not an important part of the ST:O backstory.
I never had that impression - granted, Riker had his moments but Data's actions were meant to have more of an impact on the audience IMO... being captured and "tortured" by the Borg Queen compared to being comic relief with Cochrane; the only real Riker moment in INS was during that nebula-sequence when he got Enterprise to safety; and in NEM he just got married and later on that fight sequence with Shinzon's second in command... I thought all those moments were just to sort of justify his still being on the Enterprise, but the main focus in all movies was on Picard and Data.
I definitely agree with that - although I'm happy that Quinto's Spock is the only character really different to the original ones (so far) - I didn't want him to become just a copy of Nimoy's Spock, and so far they've avoided that. OTOH, it was Spock's struggle between Vulcan and human side that appealed to me so much, so I hope he won't get too bland in the future.
I mean nuKirk has lived through quite a different childhood than Kirk Prime, and he has issues, of course, but at the end of the movie when he walked on the bridge and settled down in the captain's chair I thought that's Kirk, a younger Kirk, quite a bit more impulsive, but still *Kirk*.
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