Even if B-4 got a hardware upgrade, who is writing the upgrade software patch? I do not recall any evidence of Geordi being able to do so. I also do not recall Data doing that.
Would B-4 turn into Data?
- Thread starter Triskelion
- Start date
It would have been interesting if they had B-4 played by a different actor. That way the character could have continued on in other iterations of Trek (presumably post-Nemesis) without having seventy year old Brent Spiner playing an ageless android. Not that Brent Spiner hasn't aged well. But hitting the reset button on appearance could have allowed for the B-4/Data character to continue on. But I guess with CGI that wont be a problem.
Again, you're thinking in IRL terms. This is fiction. If the writers wanted B4 to become Data, then that would happen. Period.
^
Did they want him to become Data? Or did Spiner and the producers think they reached the end with Data and wanted to start over as a new character? I would think if they thought Spiner was getting too old to play the same Android, they would have someone new play B4.
Did they want him to become Data? Or did Spiner and the producers think they reached the end with Data and wanted to start over as a new character? I would think if they thought Spiner was getting too old to play the same Android, they would have someone new play B4.
I'm pretty sure he would have turned into Data. Seemed obvious to me.
Not that it matters at this point, but they should have had B-4 in a slightly different design with Spiner wearing a subtle application (like Odo perhaps even less than that), but just enough so his aging isn't as obvious as the films progressed. Moot point now, but that would have been a smart reason for the whole B-4 thing.
Not that it matters at this point, but they should have had B-4 in a slightly different design with Spiner wearing a subtle application (like Odo perhaps even less than that), but just enough so his aging isn't as obvious as the films progressed. Moot point now, but that would have been a smart reason for the whole B-4 thing.
As I said, having same old Data back would have been pointless, and I don't think Spiner would have gone for it.
This reminds me of when Bela Lugosi took over the role of Frankenstein from Boris Karloff. It was not a popular move! (Didn't help that it was a terrible, terrible movie, of course.)
Maybe they would have to find the machine planet from TMP to get Data's katra inserted in a new body?
I've always liked to hope that he wouldn't just turn into Data.
Data did the memory transfer algorythm before he could've foreseen his ''jumping ship'' (literally). So the factor of Data being 'dead', but living on in B-4, obviously never entered his head.
In my view, through carefully watching the movie both the finished product and the deleted scenes, the context is that B-4 is a bit 'backwards', unable to grow and develop as Data (and Lore) did, and by performing the memory upgrade Data was hoping that it would ''kick start'' B-4's into developing into his own individual.
Nothing in the finished movie disputes this, and in fact it adds an added poignancy to the final scene: Picard knows Data is dead, and that B-4 may not even understand that, but when B-4 starts singing Blue Skies, Picard suddenly realises that Data may be gone, but B-4 has got his whole journey ahead of him. So while one person dies, another is born. A kind of circle of (positronic) life.
Nothing has disappointed me more than the way the post-Nemesis fiction writers have taken the 'lazy' approach of just saying, ''Y'know, Data's back, he erased B-4''. In my view it would've been so much better, and more appropriate, if thanks to the memory transfer B-4 starts his own journey to selfhood. Just like Data did before (buh-dum TISH!) him.
I agree with this. It doesn't feel right that B-4 has to die for Data to be reborn. Sure Data is way more awesome, but it doesn't feel like something Data would do or want to have done, not to a sibling. I wish they had just had Geordi create a new body and then download Data's data (pun intended) into it and leave B-4 alone.
I thought the whole scene in Astrometrics pretty much spelled out the theme of the movie, mirrored by Data AND Picard's "clone" story, and answers this question.
DATA
I do not agree. Although you share
the same genetic structure, the
events of your life have created
a unique individual.
[snip a bit of dialogue]
The B-9 is physically identical to me,
although his neural pathways are
not as advanced. But even if they
were, he would not be me.
Sure, it was open for a lazy writer to just say "And Data's back!" like in the comics, but I don't think this was really the intention when you look at the movie as a whole.
DATA
I do not agree. Although you share
the same genetic structure, the
events of your life have created
a unique individual.
[snip a bit of dialogue]
The B-9 is physically identical to me,
although his neural pathways are
not as advanced. But even if they
were, he would not be me.
Sure, it was open for a lazy writer to just say "And Data's back!" like in the comics, but I don't think this was really the intention when you look at the movie as a whole.
Don't know for sure if it is canon or not but the "Countdown" comic that details events that lead into Star Trek (2009) addressed this and, yes, B4 does, in fact eventually become "Data", who is seen commanding the Enterprise (Picard became a Federation Ambassador).
But that is not what happened. IDW's "Countdown" shows us a Captain Data and allows us to think he may have erased B-4's personality, but it is not spelled out. IIRC, the short story tie-ins to the "Star Trek Online" game (printed in the Star Trek magazine from Titan) then show us that B-4 lives, too. And then David Mack's novel trilogy shows us where the new Data came from.
None of the tie-in material is canonical.
Not exactly. The B-4 survives as well. See the "Star Trek Online" short stories.
I can't see either of those things coming to pass. Unless it happened through some sort of accidental override program Data would not erase B-4 willingly. Picard was never giving up that seat on the Enterprise. That much was clear when Riker finally gave up and accepted his own command on the Titan
"In 2409, Data entered a highly secure room where he activated a positronic circuit on an identical android he called 'brother'." (STO short story: "Unexpected Honor".)
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/B-4
Huh. I knew Data appeared in Countdown, but had assumed Picard was dead. I thought there was something poignant in Data serving Starfleet decades after his crewmates had died of old age.
If that's the same comic I (think) I read several years ago then the events took place a few years after Star Trek Nemesis. This is the era from which Prime Spock and the Romulan ship arrive from in Star Trek 2009. I think Picard and Worf actually appeared in that comic but I could be remembering it wrong.
I must admit, before I read this thread, the idea that Data could come back because his memories could be retrieved from B-4 another way -- and then 'downloaded' into another body, newly built to match the Soong blueprint, or maybe even another hollow 'shell' that was built by Soong himself, and thus allowing Data to be reborn and for B-4 to remain a fully functioning individual in his own right -- hadn't even occured to me before. But I like it. 
It's a brilliant way to bring Data back without all that messy (and, frankly, pretty immoral) business of erasing/replacing B-4. 
It's a brilliant way to bring Data back without all that messy (and, frankly, pretty immoral) business of erasing/replacing B-4. 
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