What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

No, no problem. I had to double check to make sure I hadn't commented out of line of the topic. I definitely can see the confusion.

 

I actually thought NEM’s key themes of “nurture vs nature” and “striving to be better is what it means to be human” were extremely apparent throughout the film, and very classically TNG, in much the same way as GEN’s explorations of mortality and escapism-addiction were very clear and typical of TNG.

It’s really FC that is just a straight-up action flick and INS with a convoluted message/theme that I think are less clear.

 

I thought Insurrection was a theme of forced migration where a group of people are forced to move to a place they don't wish to move to.

 

They made a terrible mistake making the Ba'Ku a few hundred people who aren't even native to the planet, as it can be seen as basically an extended allegory about why NIMBYism is morally correct.

 

OK now that's a take on it I have never thought of.... I like it.

 

What is NIMBYism?

 

NIMBY means "not in my backyard".

 

Ok, I've heard of that. Never seen the acronym. (Too many acronyms in the world to keep track of.)

Thanks.

 

The theme could also be the same as that of most other stories where a person is offered immortality and turns it down. I call it the "Death is Good" trope, and it's nothing new... Ulysses walked away from an immortal life with Calypso in "The Odyssey".

Only Picard does it one better and he makes the decision for millions of people.

 

It kinda loses something when it's middle-class white people being forcably moved, though.

Oh no, those poor people living in paradise who have never known hardship!

 

There must be a way to replicate that planet’s effects.

Then too, maybe it was for the best if the Sona didn’t wake up what that Wicker Man bunch could have been worshipping

There’s your sequel

 

"You have warp capability?"

"Capability, yes. But where can warp drive take us, except away from here? Particularly, as there's a GAP store just over that hill, as you can see from our clothing"

 

Close, it was a Banana Republic store (but it is still owned by GAP, inc.)

 

The Trek universe has produced several ways for people to be potentially immortal, sometimes at the expense of others (Ira Graves is such an example) and other times not ("Rascals" comes to mind). It's just that nobody ever acts on it.

 

The natural immunity on Omega IV being another, impractical to outsiders since only the native civilizations were affected due to their ancestors' catastrophic bacteriological warfare. McCoy, Kirk and Tracey found out too late that it would all be worthless to the Federation.

 

Yeah. The Ba'Ku pretty easily stand in for a few dozen entitled wealthy people on large-lot suburban homes who don't want their views ruined by a new highway...or public housing.

 

"You're a warp capable culture. Just...go. Save yourselves the trouble. If the Federation don't relocate you the Son'a will do worse."

 

Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree. That may be how they come off in the half-baked or three-quarters-baked story that we got, but the intention was clearly to present the Ba'ku as victims of exploitation and manipulation. The existence of the holoship in the story specifically indicates that their way of life is being stolen from them. If the Federation really did have something analogous to right of way, i.e. if they did have the right to displace the Ba'ku, then there would have been no need for covert action and Admiral "Milton Krest" could have just ordered a regular Starfleet fleet in to do the job. But I'm not going to defend INS as a masterpiece of storytelling, because it's anything but that.

 

I've always found INS to be somewhat of a head scratcher. I'm still not sure exactly who was really "right" in that story.

Kor

 

Even the Son'a weren't completely, 100% in the wrong. The Ba'ku even admit they banished them from their society to punish them for pursuing different ideas that the Ba'ku found improper.