Dōmo Arigatō

Up to this point in the movies I have viewed, humans have created humanistic robots for a multitude of purposes including slaves, child replacements, and trash men. Yet have we seen a robot that not only claims to be a robot, but also acts more like a robot than a human while looking uniquely human. However, in the film Star Trek: Insurrection, Data acts as the first human-looking robot with extremely robotic characteristics. Although this may seem an obvious sight, it is an even odder sight to view a film with robotic robots. Having a film revolve around a humanistic robot makes the story easier to follow and more likeable to an audience. Why then would a film choose to use a non-humanistic robot, and what makes the robot non-human in character?

Data provides facts to the other Enterprise members and the Ba’ku people, but what is it that makes him non-human but rather robotic? Physically, he has yellowish skin and eyes, which make he look different from the other humans within his troop. Also, when listening to his voice, you can definitely hear a different tune that does not sound like a human voice; it almost sounds metallic in quality. However, one specific scene stands out that ultimately points out how different Data is from others. After Data has been restored to his original settings, the Ba’ku and Enterprise members go exploring to figure out what happened to make him go rogue in the first place (rogue robots being a trope in many of the sci-fi films I have seen so far). While exploring, Data notices emissions coming from a lake and walks into the lake see what is going self, submerging himself along the way. While underwater, a Ba’ku child asks if he is able to breathe while submerged. Picard looks at the child, partly smirking, and remarks that Data doesn’t breathe. A few moments later the child asks “Won’t he rust?” Picard merely laughs and shakes his head saying “No” while the child looks completely confused. Ultimately, this shows how much different Data is from a normal human being both physically and in his mannerisms.

In all of the films I have written about thus far that involve a humanistic robot, the robot was the main character or focus of the film. However, in Star Trek: Insurrection, the humanistic robot is not the main character. Rather, he is in a troop of characters who represent a main group. Although Data does play an important and pivotal role in the film, this film definitely could not progress with one main character at its forefront. So, having a nonhuman robot was not as much of a big deal in this film because the audience could connect with all of the other characters that were human. Data was able to act as a traditional robot, providing innumerable facts and data (ha) about the environment.

Oddly enough, having Data act as a robot rather than a human made him less of an interesting character to me. I felt as if I connected better to characters in other films when robots acted as humans—not having this familiarity with Data made me feel disconnected from him. Ultimately though, this particular aspect was best for the film so as to develop other characters while also progressing the story line.