beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2010-11-08 05:13 pm
beccaelizabeth) wrote2010-11-08 05:13 pm
Entry tags:
Star Trek Generations
I have started watching the film Star Trek Generations, the one that hands over from original to next gen characters. It got to the bit where Data decides to put the emotion chip in and I got all grouchy with it.
First there's the incident that prompts him to decide he's never going to be any good at figuring people out the way he is. There's the silly ceremony for Worf's promotion where Worf is dunked in the water, and Data asks Dr Crusher why that's funny, and she says it just is funny and he should be more spontaneous, so he pushes her in the water. And everyone is all shocked and annoyed at him. Data concludes he's never going to figure out something as basic as 'funny' so he needs to change his brain.
But it is funny pushing her in. It's not funny dunking people in the water in general, but when someone is all laughing at someone being dunked in the water, the 'see how you like it' approach is funny, especially with a straight line set up like that. Data is right and everyone else is wrong.
(They think it's not funny because Worf accepted the possibility of getting dunked and Dr Crusher didn't that day. But Worf accepted it if he failed, so Riker was just cheating and it's not funny at all. They were being mean. Unfunny. That would make Data wrong the other way around because he takes Dr Crusher's word for it that it is funny at all.)
So anyway, he thinks everyone else is right and he is built wrong, that after 34 years of trying to be more human he's a failure who needs a new brain.
And the story then goes with that?
*glares at story*
Neurodiversity! Keep perfectly worky brain! Be yourself!
But no, we get the other sort with the 'cure' idea. The one where he concludes he's deficient and needs the missing piece to fix him. Given the iconography of autism awareness lately it's just a bit much.
I know it's going to work in to the themes in different ways as the story grows but it's really making me grumpy just sitting there.
First there's the incident that prompts him to decide he's never going to be any good at figuring people out the way he is. There's the silly ceremony for Worf's promotion where Worf is dunked in the water, and Data asks Dr Crusher why that's funny, and she says it just is funny and he should be more spontaneous, so he pushes her in the water. And everyone is all shocked and annoyed at him. Data concludes he's never going to figure out something as basic as 'funny' so he needs to change his brain.
But it is funny pushing her in. It's not funny dunking people in the water in general, but when someone is all laughing at someone being dunked in the water, the 'see how you like it' approach is funny, especially with a straight line set up like that. Data is right and everyone else is wrong.
(They think it's not funny because Worf accepted the possibility of getting dunked and Dr Crusher didn't that day. But Worf accepted it if he failed, so Riker was just cheating and it's not funny at all. They were being mean. Unfunny. That would make Data wrong the other way around because he takes Dr Crusher's word for it that it is funny at all.)
So anyway, he thinks everyone else is right and he is built wrong, that after 34 years of trying to be more human he's a failure who needs a new brain.
And the story then goes with that?
*glares at story*
Neurodiversity! Keep perfectly worky brain! Be yourself!
But no, we get the other sort with the 'cure' idea. The one where he concludes he's deficient and needs the missing piece to fix him. Given the iconography of autism awareness lately it's just a bit much.
I know it's going to work in to the themes in different ways as the story grows but it's really making me grumpy just sitting there.