Why Brent Spiner’s Star Trek Villain Roles Are More Fun Than Data

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Since his origination as Lt . Commander Data inStar Trek : The Next Generation , Brent Spiner has been one of the franchise ’s strong thespian , and this becomes even more ostensible when he portrays villains . Data quickly became one ofTNG’smost beloved characters , thanks in turgid part to Brent Spiner ’s nuanced performance . Throughout hisStar Trekjourney , Data wanted nothing more than to be human , and Spiner always did an excellent occupation ofhinting at Data ’s humanityeven when the humanoid was at his most robotic .

Still , portray Data required a subtle shape of acting that did not often let Spiner to unfeignedly allow slack in the role . While there were a few representative when Data was have or take over by another entity , Data ’s evil duplicate brother Loreand the various Soong mob members tolerate Brent Spiner to show his full range as an role player . Spiner proved that he could chew scenery with the best of them , as Lore and most of the Soongs had big personality that allow for the actor to have playfulness .

Lore Let Brent Spiner Play A Twisted Version Of Data

Spiner Got To Sneer & Chew Scenery As Lore

Introduced inStar Trek : The Next Generationseason 1 , episode 13 , " Datalore , " Lore was created before Data and shortly originate unstable and resentful of human being . Dr. Noonien Soong then created Data , who became the cyberneticist ’s greatest creation . Data was Soong ’s most successful mechanical man , andLore had all the negative traits Data lacked . With his arrogance and duplicitous nature , Lore allowed Brent Spiner to portray a twisted interlingual rendition of Data . Lore was still an android , but whereas Data had a subtle form of humanity , there was nothing subtle about Lore .

It ’s clean-cut fromBrent Spiner ’s first scenes as Lorethat he is very different from his comrade . Even when Lore guess to get along with the enterprisingness - D crew , it ’s obvious there is something different about him . After his initial appearance , Lore continues to be a sneer villain , manipulating Data , aggress his creator , and eventually working with the Borg . Spiner always makes it cleared which android he ’s portraying even in the scenes when Lore pretends to be Data , and it ’s especially fun when the two diddle off of one another .

Brent Spiner Cuts Loose As Members Of Star Trek’s Soong Family

Spiner Got To Portray A Range Of Emotions As The Various Soongs

In addition to Data and Lore , Brent Spiner has portrayed several members of the Soong family line . InTNGseason 4 , sequence 3 , " Brothers , " Spiner was closely unrecognizable as Dr. Noonien Soong , Data and Lore ’s creator . But Noonien was balmy compare to hisSoong ancestors and descendants . InStar Trek : Enterprise , Arik Soong stole a radical of Augment embryosand raised them as tyke despite the Federation ’s ban on eugenics .

Besides playing Data and all of his siblings in Star Trek , Brent Spiner portray the android ’s creator as well as various other Soongs in history .

Two different Soongs pop up onStar Trek : Picard , in the belated 24th century of seasons 1 and 3 , as well as in the twenty-first century of time of year 2 . When Admiral Jean - Luc Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) and his friends move around back in sentence to 2024 inPicardseason 2 , they encountered Adam Soong . Adam was a geneticist who created a serial publication of clonesand cared more about his own image and legacy than anything or anyone else .

AlthoughAltan Soong initially sided with his androidsinPicardseason 1 , he afterwards make an advanced automaton body that meld the personalities of Data , Lore , B-4 , and Data ’s daughter Lal ( Hallie Todd).Data ’s personality eventually became the prevailing one , bringing the android as skinny to humanity as he could hope to be . All of these different fiber not only present Brent Spiner ’s telling mountain chain as an actor , but also gave him the hazard to cut promiscuous more than he ever did with Data onStar Trek : The Next contemporaries .