I'm reminded of an episode of ... I can't remember what it was now ... but the protagonists go to a fortune cookie factory and ask for the owner, who has a Chinese name. They are faced with a middle aged white man with a Russian accent who says he is the owner, and when questioned says he was adopted from a Russian orphanage by a Chinese couple. Hey, it could happen.
Well, I guess in theory it's no weirder than a Korean ensign named Harry. Or a blonde named Leila Kalomi. (Which is a bit of a muddle in itself. The name was coined for a Polynesian love interest for Sulu, before it was rewritten as a Spock episode. But Leila is a name of Semitic/Middle-Eastern origin, not a Polynesian one. Maybe they were thinking of Leilani.)
Harry Kim is an American he might have some Korean ancestry and seeing as how his parents were naned John and Mary not to mention having an uncle named Jack and a cousin named Dennis, it's not far out for him to be named Harry.
There's nothing odd about "Harry Kim" at all. I know one personally. It's quite popular for Koreans who migrate to the US to give their children Western first names.
Same way my cousin is named "Lim". His grandfather was Chinese. And his kids are even further removed from being Chinese even though they also have the name "Lim".
Okay, granted. But it's still disappointing that a character who was conceived as Asian ended up played by a white actor, something that happens far too often in Hollywood. Indeed, it happened twice where Brent Spiner was concerned, since the original conception for Data was to have him look like an Asian or Pacific Islander.
And Yar was originally concieved a Latino character based off of a similar character in Aliens who was played a Jew, you're reaching to make a point. And did these revelations destroy your enjoyment of Data or Brothers either for that matter?
The underlying issue is a valid point - about as blatant as having the heroes encounter a starship with the name Nostromo very visibly stenciled on the bows in Latin alphabet, beaming aboard, and being surprised that it's crewed by humans. As a way of rationalization, we could assume everybody already suspected Data was a Soong creation. But since Soong had disappeared in disgrace, he couldn't be interviewed on the issue - and suggesting such parentage might actually have been considered embarrassing for the poor android. Did Starfleet know Data was positronic, though? He seems willing enough to open up (quite literally!) to certain types of investigators, but had he actually done that before "Datalore"? Giving an android the face of Soong would probably be a popular thing anyway. Much like giving an android today the face of Einstein or Gibson (Mel or William, depending). Timo Saloniemi
Or meeting Apollo in space or an old earth ship holding some 72 genetically engineered criminals from the late 20th century or meeting a race of dinosaurs from earth on the other side of the galaxy. Data had been active for more than a quarter century by the time of Datalore, I'm sure Starfleet knew alot about Data, they just couldn't reproduce him.
Because of the massive amount of old age makeup on Spiner for the Soong role, I didn't even realize until "Birthright" that Data was supposed to resemble a young Soong.
Umm, what? Our heroes never were illogically surprised by these events. They did not fail to take note of early signs blatantly indicating what was to come. So these incidents have nothing in common with either the example I gave, or the case of Starfleet failing to note that Data looks like Soong. Well, Spock had been in Starfleet for a long time before we learned his fellow Starfleet officers knew next to nothing about Vulcans - no idea of mind melds, of pon farr, of the seven-year mate-finding cycle, or that Ambassador Sarek is Spock's father (and the father of Spock's half-brother)! Perhaps Starfleet knew about those things, but chose not to tell Kirk, McCoy or other Enterprise officers for reason X... And perhaps Data was kept as an enigma for the same reason X. But that sounds like a pretty ridiculous thing to do. Timo Saloniemi
Who said that Starfleet was surprised that Data looked liked Soong? Soong's appearance is on record so I cna't imagine why Starfleet might be surprised by how much Data looked like Soong. And as for the rest if the writers and prodicers don't know it, the audience won't know about it either nor will the other characters.