Data's memory ... sucks?

[Vympel]

In the episode "Night Terrors", Data is scrolling through explosives that can be used to get the Enterprise-D out of its predicament- three per screen, and scrolling through screens at the expected fast android rate. We start off looking at the screen, Data scrolls through some, it cuts back to Data talking to Troi, and then back to the screen. Problem is, the screen is stock footage, saying the exact same thing it said when we first saw it. What, did he not remember?

[this is just an amusing observation]

[B5B7]

Another amusing thing about this incident is that he had to explain to Deanna Troi what a Hydrogen atom was.

[NecronLord]

Another amusing thing about this incident is that he had to explain to Deanna Troi what a Hydrogen atom was.

God, what an airhead. But then, she is a good little commissar.

[KeVinK]

Another amusing thing about this incident is that he had to explain to Deanna Troi what a Hydrogen atom was.

God, what an airhead. But then, she is a good little commissar.

Actually, that has more to do with the producers' assumptions about the intelligence and scientific savvy of the audience.
OR MAYBE
Still smarting over the embarassment of making the main offensive weapon of a Klingon Battle Cruiser a sonic disruptor, they wanted to show that occasionally they do get a science fact right.

[Uraniun235]

Err... I thought the "sonic disruptor" bit was back in TOS A Piece of Armageddon.

[KeVinK]

^ Quite true.
But I view all of Trek as a gestalt and assume infinite cross refernces in infinite combination. (Whether anyone else sees them or not.)

[NecronLord]

Actually, that has more to do with the producers' assumptions about the intelligence and scientific savvy of the audience.

Their off-screen motives don't change the fact that they made an in-universe character who's supposed to come from a very academic civilisation lack such knowledge.

In much the same way, the producers and screenwriters seem to think that the bat'leth is a really good sword, and klingons charging at their enemies with them while roaring barbarically, scarily formidable. We of course, know they aren't, and that the idea that they could conceivably take a Wemacht machine gun nest using such weapons and tactics is completely ludicrous.

Intent rarely matters to what is actually displayed on screen. I seriously doubt First Contact was intended to make starfleet doctrine idiotic, by showing that physical impactors can put borg drones down easily, indicating that if they doled out slugthrowers, they'd win the boarding operations, but that's what it does.


Oddly enough, making a space-weapon a sonic disruptor isn't that painful an abuse of science. In fact, one of the dictionary meanings of 'sonic' is 'close to the speed of sound in air [at one atmosphere]' - about twenty kilometers per second - about the rate at which space-combat beams seem to propagate on-screen.

[KeVinK]

Oddly enough, making a space-weapon a sonic disruptor isn't that painful an abuse of science. In fact, one of the dictionary meanings of 'sonic' is 'close to the speed of sound in air [at one atmosphere]' - about twenty kilometers per second - about the rate at which space-combat beams seem to propagate on-screen.

Of course, the fact that we can see the beams at all is another off-screen decision to bypass science in order to protect the viewer from thought. Like space ships that rumble at low speeds and swish (sound effect, not hip action) at high speeds and bank to turn in a vacuum, visible beams from energy weapons exist only because the producers think audiences wouldn't be able to figure out what happened unless they draw a line for them to follow.

B5 tried to be a bit more authentic. Assuming a laser's beam would superheat the air along its path -- in itself doubtful -- they illustrated weapons fire by rippling the scene to indicate convection currents. Everyone holding still for two seconds while the image undulates looks about as intelligent as everyone holding still for two seconds while the molasses beam or phosphor ping-pong ball crawls to its target.

[brianeyci]

You can kind of look at Star Trek through a different lens, like by seeing Klingons as representative of aggression and Romulans as representative of cunning, but the execution leaves something to be desired and I think audiences are beyond simplistic one-dimensional views.

Using different intepretative techniques author's intent does matter, for example if you're discussing the legacy of Roddenberry or Star Trek. Watching film is the same as reading literature, depending on which strategy you bring to the film you can alter your own perception of it. The intent to make Star Trek technobabble heavy to make it "sound good" is an example of author's intent affecting Trek's legacy. But not for versus debating or determining capabilities.

Brian

[Kenoshi]

In the episode "Night Terrors", Data is scrolling through explosives that can be used to get the Enterprise-D out of its predicament- three per screen, and scrolling through screens at the expected fast android rate. We start off looking at the screen, Data scrolls through some, it cuts back to Data talking to Troi, and then back to the screen. Problem is, the screen is stock footage, saying the exact same thing it said when we first saw it. What, did he not remember?

[this is just an amusing observation]

What really struck me odd is why he didn't have a more direct form of interfacing with the ship's computer. Of course the one time he does try it he ends up making the computer go berzerk.