Wil Wheaton is not amused by a fan’s custom LEGO minifigure of Wesley Crusher.
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Wheaton played Wesley on Star Trek: The Next Generation. It isn’t unexpected then that fans sent the fan’s custom TNG LEGO minifigures to Wheaton. The fans were aiming to get Wheaton to comment on the depiction of Wesley crying.
Wheaton decided to take his response to his blog rather than social media.
“Approximately 162% of the total population of Twitter users has sent me this Gizmodo post about some mostly-awesome custom (unofficial) LEGO minifigs that are inspired by the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Wheaton writes. “Approximately 600% of them asked me to comment, and since I can’t do that in 280 characters without resorting to the dreaded [THREAD 1/66], I’m doing it here.”
Wheaton says he’s happy that someone cared enough about Next Generation to make the set. He also says he’s disappointed with the crying Wesley figure.
“In this particular custom set, though, Wesley is depicted as a crying child, and that’s not just disappointing to me, it’s kind of insulting and demeaning to everyone who loved that character when they were kids,” Wheaton writes. “The creator of this set is saying that Wesley Crusher is a crybaby, and he doesn’t deserve to stand shoulder to minifig shoulder with the rest of the crew. People who loved Wesley, who were inspired by him to pursue careers in science and engineering, who were thrilled when they were kids to see another kid driving a spaceship? Well, the character they loved was a crybaby so just suck it up I guess.”
Wesley has long been a punching bag for the Star Trek fan community. Wheaton has defended the character in the past and does so again here.
“I want to be clear here, because I know that future members of my Twitter blocklist will send me a cropped image of LEGO Wesley crying, or tell me to shut up because I’m making too much of this: this isn’t about me,” he writes. “This is about thirty years of people kicking Wesley Crusher around because writers in the first season of Next Generation (who gave us such memorable gems as Angel One, Code of Honor, and The Last Outpost) didn’t write him as well as writers did in later seasons, and once the fandom narrative was fixed, no amount of Final Mission or Starfleet Academy -like episodes could change it.
“I understand that a lot of people will see the humor in this, and I respect that. From a certain point of view, it is very funny. I don’t think that this was done this way to be mean/ If anything, it’s just lazy. But because so many people asked me what I felt when I saw it: I’m disappointed, because this isn’t the way I’d like to see Wesley portrayed in a medium that I love. I just feel like Wesley Crusher and the boys and girls he inspired deserve something that isn’t making a joke at his expense, or just reducing him —again– to little more than an idea.”
The custom Star Trek: The Next Generation minifigure set is available to purchase at Minifigs.me.
