Why did Data never change his appearance?

[JarodRussell]

Was it ever explained why Data never altered his skin and eyes to look like a human? He grew a beard once, put a grey strain in his hair, and in First Contact he partially got human skin (and even a human looking eye). And he met his "mother" in form of the perfect Soong android looking exactly like a human. So I'm wondering if there was a reason why he (the character, and the actor) never decided to ditch the white skin color.

By the 5th season or so it wouldn't have been necessary for him to be the "in your face" type of android that he was in the first episode.

 

[John Picard]

He most likely grew to accept the fact that like humans, we're all different and unique.

 

[Christopher]

Probably because he didn't just want to look human if he didn't truly embody humanity on the inside. It would've just been a superficial lie, and he would've fallen short of people's expectations if they assumed he was human. Better to be honest about what he was.

Besides, in the 24th century, nobody would define humanity on the basis of skin or eye color, so it's possible that changing them never even occurred to Data as something that would affect how close to humanity he was.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yet he built Laal to look like a human woman with human skin color and eyes.

 

[Christopher]

^No, he built Lal to look like a weird neuter thing. Lal chose the appearance of a human female, after considering other forms including a human male, a Klingon male, and an Andorian female.

 

[Wes-Cutting]

^Very true.

I agree with both of your posts here Christopher. The idea of Data wanting to change would have made little to no sense to me. He wanted to be more human and in my mind that meant he was trying not to be a human but represent what humanity is. In the 24th century and even now that means being unique as you are.

 

[USS Excelsior]

It also avoids confusion, especially if there were to be a race of androids

 

[Smiley]

Why did Soong give Data the white/gold complexion in the first place?

 

[Christopher]

Why did Soong give Data the white/gold complexion in the first place?

Probably so that people could tell the difference between Soong and Data. Or maybe he wanted his androids to be ethnically neutral.

 

[Finn]

^ethnically neurtal? Data still looks like someone of western European ancestry....

But I'd go with the idea that the colonists could tell him apart from Dr. Soong.

 

[Red Ranger]

Well, I'm sure some of you know that Gedde Watanabe (Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles) auditioned for the role of Data. -- RR

 

[Christopher]

^The original Writers' Bible described Data as being Asian or Pacific Islander in appearance. But they probably figured Spiner was the best actor they auditioned and chose talent over ethnicity.

Keye Luke was originally going to play Noonien Soong in "Brothers," but he died just before filming, so they put Spiner in old-age makeup instead. Which introduced an immense continuity problem, because in "Datalore" nobody knew that Soong was Data's creator until they found his lab at Data's "birthplace" on Omicron Theta. Which would've made sense if Keye Luke or someone else had played the role. But if Soong was Earth's most famous roboticist, and if his dream was to perfect a positronic brain, then why is it that when Starfleet found a positronic android wearing the face of Noonien Soong, nobody was able to figure out that Soong had created him????

 

[Gil T.Azell]

He did,
In the last film Nemesis he changed into Billions and Billions on tiny particles of dust!

 

[T'Girl]

From "Encounter at Farpoint" through "Nemesis" Data did make the decision to slowly age his appearance.

 

[timothy1701]

Have you ever thought about how Data says "I will never age. I may out live you all..." or something to that effect. Damn you Brent Spinner!! You and your human aging has proven Data wrong!!

 

[timothy1701]

Data might not have chosen to drastically alter his appearance due to the fact that he viewed himself as his own "race." In several episodes he made this comment. Plus, Data didn't seem to put a very high premium on appearance anyway.

 

[Tom]

I wonder if Brent Spiner really started to bitch about he make-up in the later seasons if they would have made that change? Especially, after 'The Offspring" were it was proven they his type of android can be made to look human.

I remember a similar thing happing in Babylon-5 when they made Delenn look more human because the actress bitched about the make-up

 

[Kegg]

I wonder if Brent Spiner really started to bitch about he make-up in the later seasons if they would have made that change?

Probably. I suspect he'd still have some sort of makeup that would distinguish him as an android, though.

I remember a similar thing happing in Babylob-5 when they made Delenn look more human because the actress bitched about the make-up

A Trek example would be Kes. Lien had a problem with the ear make-up, so she was allowed to wear her hair over her ears for much of S3.

 

[Moriarty]

I wouldn't be too quick to attribute any consideration of this issue to Data himself. I'd say it was more likely a decision about continuation and viewer recognition.

Also I wouldn't say that actors bitching about having to wear make up would have been such a big issue. What if Michael Dorn had wanted the same? Imagine some ridiculous episode where Worf got plastic surgery to remove the ripples from his head.

 

[Christopher]

^Some actors have genuine difficulty enduring the makeup process, due to skin sensitivity or allergies. This is why Virginia Hey left Farscape and Brent Stait left Andromeda. Hey's scalp was suffering from her constant need to shave her head, and Stait developed an allergic reaction to his heavy prosthetics (or the adhesive or the solvents for removing them or something like that). In later seasons (after scientific plausibility had been thrown into a black hole), they contrived a way to transform Stait's character into something relatively more humanlike so the makeup wouldn't be as extensive, allowing him to return two or three times.