Data’s greatest moment came in Star Trek Generations

Star Trek: Picard brought back Data and reminded fans of his greatest moment in Star Trek Generations.

Star Trek: Picard has brought back every major character from Star Trek: The Next Generation in some form or facet. We’ve seen everyone from Jean-Luc Picard, all the way to Q, and just about everyone in between. We knew this would continue into season three, and we’d see more familiar faces return.

People like LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, and others would reprise their iconic roles from the series, and other actors from the series would be brought back, but in different roles. Most notably Brent Spiner, who has played various characters across several shows and movies, but he’s most known for Data.

The android that has already died twice, yet series showrunner Terry Matalas found yet another way to bring Data back. Bringing him back involved a somewhat convoluted scene where Data had to kill his brother Lore using memories. This makes more sense when you realize that both Data and Lore, despite both being killed long ago, share one body now.

So Data uses his memories to delete Lore and take over the body they shared. The one memory that seemed to do the trick was the one involving Spot, Data’s former cat, and why shouldn’t that memory carry the most significance, it was arguably the creature that gave Data what he truly wanted the most.

Data’s greatest moment came in Star Trek Generations thanks to Spot

If you haven’t seen Star Trek Generations, here’s all you need to know, it was the movie that was used to kill off the U.S.S. Enterprise-D. It wasn’t a ship model that shot well for movie theaters, so the call was made to replace it. That meant the ship had to have an epic ending and it sure did. The ship’s saucer crashed into a planet and was mangled pretty well.

So now that you know that, the scene that best exhibits what Data is striving for, happened after the ship crashed. Data, as he walked through the wreckage of the ship, finds his cat Spot, whom he thought died in the crash. Seeing the cat was ok, he starts weeping tears of joy and relief, but he was unsure why.

Any pet owner knows that feeling you have for a pet, and for Data to have such a bond really does help bring his arc full circle. After all, all he wants to be is more human than he currently is, and what’s more human than crying because you found your cute little fur-buddy?

Seeing him have a very human reaction over finding his pet is the pinnacle of what he was striving to be because only humans seem to have such an affinity for things like cats.