Star Trek Pin-up #41 FRAMED Brent Spiner as Data

Description

Lieutenant Commander Data is a character in the Star Trek universe portrayed by actor Brent Spiner. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis.

An artificial intelligence and synthetic life form designed and built by Doctor Noonien Soong, Data is a self-aware, sapient, sentient, and anatomically fully functional android who serves as the second officer and chief operations officer aboard the Federation starships USS Enterprise-D and USS Enterprise-E. His positronic brain allows him impressive computational capabilities. Data experienced ongoing difficulties during the early years of his life with understanding various aspects of human behavior and was unable to feel emotion or understand certain human idiosyncrasies, inspiring him to strive for his own humanity. This goal eventually led to the addition of an “emotion chip”, also created by Soong, to Data’s positronic net.3 Although Data’s endeavor to increase his humanity and desire for human emotional experience is a significant plot point (and source of humor) throughout the series, he consistently shows a nuanced sense of wisdom, sensitivity, and curiosity, garnering immense respect from his peers and colleagues.

Data is in many ways a successor to the original Star Trek’s Spock (Leonard Nimoy), in that the character offers an “outsider’s” perspective on humanity.

Gene Roddenberry told Brent Spiner that over the course of the series, Data was to become “more and more like a human until the end of the show, when he would be very close, but still not quite there. That was the idea and that’s the way that the writers took it.” Spiner felt that Data exhibited the Chaplinesque characteristics of a sad, tragic clown. To get into his role as Data, Spiner used the character of Robby the Robot from the film Forbidden Planet as a role model.

Commenting on Data’s perpetual albino-like appearance, he said: “I spent more hours of the day in make-up than out of make-up”, so much so that he even called it a way of method acting. Spiner also portrayed Data’s manipulative and malignant brother Lore (a role he found much easier to play, because the character was “more like me”), and Data’s creator, Dr. Noonien Soong. Additionally, he portrayed another Soong-type android, B-4, in the film Star Trek Nemesis, and also one of Soong’s ancestors in three episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. Spiner said his favorite Data scene takes place in “Descent”, when Data plays poker on the holodeck with a re-creation of the famous physicist Stephen Hawking, played by Hawking himself.

Spiner reprised his role of Data in the Star Trek: Enterprise series finale “These Are the Voyages…” in an off-screen speaking part. Spiner felt that he had visibly aged out of the role and that Data was best presented as a youthful figure.

Data is immune to nearly all biological diseases and other weaknesses that can affect humans and other carbon-based lifeforms. This benefits the Enterprise many times, such as when Data is the only crew member unaffected by the inability to dream and the only member to be unaffected by the stun ray that knocked the crew out for a day. One exception however was in the episode “The Naked Now” where Data was also a victim of the Tsiolkovsky polywater virus. Data does not require life support to function and does not register a bio-signature. The crew of the Enterprise-D must modify their scanners to detect positronic signals in order to locate and keep track of him on away-missions. Another unique feature of Data’s construction is the ability to be dismantled and then re-assembled for later use. This is used as a plot element in the episode “Time’s Arrow” where Data’s head (an artifact excavated on Earth from the late 19th century) is reattached to his body after nearly 500 years. Another example is in the episode “Disaster”, where Data intentionally damages his body to break a high-current electrical arc, and then Riker taking his head to engineering to solve an engine problem.

Data is vulnerable to technological hazards such as computer viruses, certain levels of energy discharges, ship malfunctions (when connected to the Enterprise main computer for experiments), remote control shutdown devices, or through use of his “off switch” located in-between his shoulder blades. Data has also been “possessed” through technological means such as: Ira Graves’s transfer of consciousness into his neural net, Dr. Soong’s “calling” him, and an alien library that placed several different personalities into him. Data cannot swim unless aided by his built in flotation device, yet he is waterproof and can perform tasks underwater without the need to surface. Data is also impervious to sensory tactile emotion such as pain or pleasure. In Star Trek: First Contact the Borg Queen grafted artificial skin to his forearm. Data was then able to feel pain when a Borg drone slashed at his arm, and pleasure when the Borg Queen blew on the skin’s hair follicles. Despite being mechanical in nature, Data is treated as an equal member of the Enterprise crew. Being a mechanical construct, technicians such as Chief Engineer LaForge prove to be more appropriate to treat his mechanical or cognitive function failures than the ship’s doctor. His positronic brain becomes deactivated, and then repaired and reactivated by Geordi on several occasions.

Data is physically the strongest member of the Enterprise crew and also is, in ability to process and calculate information rapidly, the most intelligent member. He is able to survive in atmospheres that most carbon-based life forms would consider inhospitable, including the lack of an atmosphere or the vacuum of space; however, as an android, he is the most emotionally challenged and, with the addition of Dr. Soong’s emotions chip, the most emotionally unstable member of the crew. Before the emotions chip, Data was unable to grasp basic emotion and imagination, leading him to download personality subroutines into his programming when participating in holographic recreational activities (most notably during Dixon Hill and Sherlock Holmes holoprograms) and during romantic encounters (most notably with Tasha Yar and Jenna D’Sora). Yet none of those personalities are his own and are immediately put away at the conclusion of their usefulness. Also, the abilities of Data’s hearing are explained in the episodes “The Schizoid Man” and “A Matter of Time” where his hearing is more sensitive than a dog’s and that he can identify several hundred different distinct sound patterns simultaneously, but for aesthetics purposes limits it to about ten. Throughout the series, Data develops a frequently humorous affinity for theatrical acting and singing. This is most definitively demonstrated in Star Trek: Insurrection where Picard and Worf distract an erratically behaving Data by singing two parts of A British Tar, compelling Data to sing the third part.

Brent Jay Spiner (born February 2, 1949) is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of the android Lieutenant Commander Data in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and four subsequent films. His portrayal of Data in Star Trek: First Contact and of Dr. Brackish Okun in Independence Day, both in 1996, earned him a Saturn Award and Saturn Award nomination respectively.

In 1987, Spiner started his 15-year run portraying Lieutenant Commander Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, which spanned seven seasons and four feature films. As a main character, he appeared in all but one of the series’ 178 episodes; he was not in the episode “Family”. He reprised his role in the spin-off films Star Trek Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). Although billed as the final Trek movie for the TNG cast, the ambiguous ending of Star Trek: Nemesis suggested a possible avenue for the return of Data. However, Spiner has opined that he is too old to continue playing the part, as Data embodies a “childlike innocence” that Spiner can no longer credibly exhibit, as his appearance had already begun to lose that quality by the time he filmed his last Trek films. In addition to the series and films, he voiced his character in several Star Trek video games, such as Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity, Star Trek: Hidden Evil and Star Trek: Bridge Commander. After appearing in several episodes as the ancestor of Data’s creator, Dr. Soong, Spiner also recorded dialogue as Data that was heard in the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, “These Are the Voyages…”, which aired in 2005, bringing the Star Trek TV franchise Spiner had helped establish 18 years earlier to a close.

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THE PERFECT GIFT!