I wouldn't want anyone removed from their homes, harmed or killed to cure my cancer, no. I know it's tempting, but it's wrong.
But it wouldn't just cure your cancer. It would cure cancer for millions. Is moving six hundred people such a bad thing for such a wide ranging benefit? Would I have handled the relocation differently? Absolutely. Would I have relocated the Ba'ku to benefit billions? Absolutely.
That's always been one of my biggest problems with the film. The "bad guys" are actually kind of in the right. It's ridiculous to pass up an opportunity to improve upon the quality of life for billions. They just went about it in the dumbest way possible. Also, they went about it in a way that completely goes against the character of Starfleet. They've moved/removed people before and were pretty much straightforward about it. Why change that now?
I consider this to be one of the movie's strengths. The evil "ugly" people are the ones who will improve the lives of billions, and the good "pretty" people are the ones who'll prevent this. Not even the people inside the Federation universally consider Data to be a person. So not exactly "kill." It was shown later in the movie to possess transporters, why not maintain it in orbit?
That's a personal choice for you, but if you really put "removal of a village from their homes" as a concern above "curing cancer for billions" then there's really no point in continuing this argument because your ethics are so different from mine that I don't really know how to bridge the gap.
I also think the film cheats by not having the Baku give their opinion on the matter. They love the sanctity of life, so what would their thoughts be if leaving meant saving billions of lives out in the galaxy?
Yeah if the Baku really were as righteous and walked on water as the movie flatly attempts to portray them they would have just said, we'll move and let you use the planet's radiation to save those billions of lives. As it is they consider their immortality more important than billions of others.... and these are the people we're supposed to sympathize with?
I completely agree with you, but actually I still say that they shouldn't even really need to move. Just open the planet up to others while they have their land similar to a nation or something that is off limits to off-landers.
But there's no way billions of people benefit from the radiation if they actually have to travel to the Briar Patch. And the effects wear off after you leave.
Do you mean in the Federation, where they can already regrow eyes for the blind, heal injuries, and extend the life of humans to two centuries?
BillJ is right. Gathering the special properties from the ring was not intended to recreate the rejuvenation effect 100% like it is on the planet, but to help advance current medical treatments. The admiral himself said that with this research, medical science can double life spans, not make people immortal. This is important for many reasons. The Sona's condition as depicted in the film gets worse over time with the Admiral stating that most won't survive for even a decade. If this discovery can double the life span of mere humans, imagine what it could do for the Sona's condition. Probably the biggest issue that's only vaguely mentioned is that the Federation is at WAR. A war in which very bright individuals were convinced we were actually going to lose. If the Federation had this medical expertise that can increase someone's life span, I'd say you have a bargaining chip to get more systems onto your side.
Well, hm. The "condition" they have... they die of old age, like every fucking living thing in the entire universe. Maybe to clarify things... do you think the metaphasic reaction collector thing at the end was supposed to be repeatable? My understanding is that it was a one time process, and then they would have bottled the collected particles and sold them, and then it would have been over, the entire planet rendered lifeless, and they would have had to harvest other places.
That was the result of them obsessively trying to extend their lifespan. Plastic surgery, medication, genetic manipulation, they tried everything. Their bodies were producing toxins because they were living rotting corpses. They also made themselves infertile during the process, which was the irony. Instead of fighting the fact that they would die some day like everyone else, they should have gotten themselves a few kids. But they were jealous and tried to be just like their parents, and almost destroyed themselves with that. I also think the Ba'ku got older and would eventually die some day, because there was a certain visible age range/diversity amongst the adults as well. All they had was more time, but they weren't actually immortal.
So its wrong for the Son'a to try and remove the Ba'ku from that planet, but its okay for the Ba'ku to remove the Son'a from the planet? How does that work?
But. The Ba'Ku. Didn't. Remove. The Son'a. From. The. Planet. The Ba'ku exiled them from their village, that was all. Then the Son'a left the planet because they didn't want to live in the Briar Patch. That one is explicitly stated in the film.
Well if that's true, the Son'a could have just made a new village somewhere else on the planet. If they had the means to travel through space, surely they had the means to start a new town somewhere else on the planet, even a couple of miles away from that village. Seriously now you have just pointed out a huge plot hole in the movie. If you are right, the Son'a's grudge against the Ba'ku makes no sense and robs them of anything that made them compelling as villains. At this point, I think the Son'a would have worked better if they were just greedy aliens who had nothing to do Ba'ku and revenge wasn't part of their motive. Where the film did they say the Son'a were just exiled from the village and not the entire planet? Also how can a group of pacifists with no tech have defeated their more violence prone neighbors who were interested in technological development? This makes no sense.
Colony Jarod, he said Colony. If it was just the village, why does Ru'afo make the case of being exiled to die slowly? If leaving the planet was his choice, why didn't anyone bring that point up? Even Picard says "The children have returned to expel their elders. Just as they were once expelled."