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Right? You can't put Data in a new body, but Picard, no problem.

   

Perplexing, to say the least. I'll stick to classic, proper Trek that actually makes sense.

-J.

   

Data wanted to die though. Picard didn't.

   

Data dying in Nemesis to save the lives of his friends who saved Data's life countless times throughout TNG was a fitting way to go. We all knew that Nemesis would be the last of the TNG movies, and also knew that B4 getting some of Data's memories would never fully restore him by any means.

Having Data live on inside a computer in PIC as well as having others like him referred to as 'synths' cheapened his appearance in PIC.

-J.

   

Brent Spiner probably had the authority to make the call though. Give Data one more run-through to say the goodbye he couldn't do during the moment of crisis in Nemesis and then leave for good so he doesn't become some sort of immortal trinket or curiosity. Spiner's older too and bringing Data back would be unconvincing because how would they be able to cover up that an un-aging machine that doesn't have to eat or need to sleep has a middle-age gut and wrinkles. So I don't have problems with these kind of decisions for the stories. It would have been much worse if they'd kept Data alive by putting him into a new body played by a new actor. That would have really bothered me, because it would have violated Data's rights as a person, which they went out of their way to establish for all sentient AIs like androids and holograms, throughout TNG & Voyager.

   

I'll drink to that!

-J.

   

I've felt that for almost 35 years what they did with Data wasn't just one of the greatest moments in science-fiction. It was also one of the greatest moments in all of television history. This creature is not a tool or a machine to be used then treated with no consideration. It is another living person, and it has all the same rights as the rest of us, especially the right to choose it's own destiny.

Television really can't get any better than that, not when it inspires in a way that's so rarely seen in it's medium. And it makes it that much more tragic, if not genuinely heartbreaking, when something like Star Trek ends up in the hands of hacks like JJ Abrams and Harvey Kurtzman.

   

Exactly. Shows like TOS, TNG, Babylon 5, and MASH made me stop and think, and taught me important life lessons and the like.

Nothing on TV in the last 10-20 years has been able to do that.



And that's not being kind to hacks everywhere. Star Trek deserved way better than those two, and now it's too late

-J.

   

Once done a crime can't be undone. And that's what's happening when great properties are handed over to those with little-to-no imagination and who have no real love for the material they're working with. It just takes something that was really great and devolves it into something much less. Less great. Less joyful. Less full of love. And much less fun.

   

So, you like the 'woke' and 'PC' Sci-Fi? Because that's exactly what they were about. Inclusion. Fairness. Talking about strong subjects like race, substance abuse, duty. The first black/white kiss on TV. Dealing with the subjugation of a part of society. Dealing with new life forms in a progressive and fair manner.

All of the older Trek, B5 and similar Sci-Fi shows were all about morality.



Data wanted to die because he was running in a simulation alone for the equivalent of thousands of years. He just wanted it to end. It irked me to no end that all these Soon type Androids were running around, and they left Data in that situation.

To me it was either cold, or a giant plot hole.

   

Meh, Star Trek peaked at Deep Space Nine, it's been all downhill from there...

   

All those older shows managed to do it though, to accomplish something, without making the viewer feel like they'd been tied to a chair in a dungeon being yelled at for 48 straight hours by some kind of Campus Maoist Collective For Thought-Correction. Which is what an average episode of Discovery feels like when Burnham gets her wind up and starts all a-preachin'.

Other than that I agree. I'm convinced I learned more actual morals & ethics from my preferred choices in fiction than I ever did from a religion. Or from any actual living human being. Not sure if that's cool or really sad.

   

Its both.

   

You reminded me of an old science fiction story I read a long time ago... for some reason. Don't ask me why, my mind works in weird ways sometimes.

"The World Inside" by Robert Silverberg.

   

I read a few Silverberg's back when I was young but I can't remember any of them now. I think they were good, or at least they were much better than the wildly over-rated Asimov books were.

   

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