exactly, that scene with Riker and Troi was all about hanging a big "bad guy" sign on Ru'afo because the writers knew they needed to stack the deck against the Son'a to make the Baku look better. Also, the UFP had allied with the Klingons and the Romulans against the Dominion, neither of which is democratic and both of which have lower castes in their societies. But all of the sudden moral purity is valued in your allies when it's the Son'a, huh?
Learning to love "Insurrection"
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exactly, that scene with Riker and Troi was all about hanging a big "bad guy" sign on Ru'afo because the writers knew they needed to stack the deck against the Son'a to make the Baku look better. Also, the UFP had allied with the Klingons and the Romulans against the Dominion, neither of which is democratic and both of which have lower castes in their societies. But all of the sudden moral purity is valued in your allies when it's the Son'a, huh?
The Klingons and Romulans at least respect the no subspace weapons rule.
Also their not drug dealers.
!
Um, err, yeah. Every movie does that. Bad guys are bad because they do bad things.
Um, no you're missing my point. I was saying that the writers were afraid that the Son'a WOULDN'T come off as "bad guys" based only on their actions in the film, so we have that scene where they list all this bad stuff that they do.
It's like holding up a sign to the audience that says "did you get that, they're the BAD GUYS," so we don't have to contemplate the "moral dilemma" of the film for ourselves and just side against the Son'a because they're drug dealers and stuff(boo! hiss!)
And this is different from previous Trek stories how exactly?
LOL. You make up that "the writers were afraid" and move on from there to make a point that isn't valid.
I guess I could say that the Die Hard writers were afraid that the audience wouldn't see Hans Gruber as the bad guy, so they included that scene where he blows Takagi's brains out. It was like somebody shouted at the audience: DID YOU GET THAT?!?! HE'S THE BAD GUY!!!!
well in a way that's true. That's what a lot of film and TV writers do when they think a villainous character is perhaps coming off or going to come off as too sympathetic or complex, so they do something like that. That's what DS9 writers did EXPLICITLY with Gul Dukat in seasons 6-7 of DS9 when Wolfe or Behr or someone thought Dukat was coming across as too sympathetic, or layered, or complex, so they made him into a cartoon villain.
The Son'a would have otherwise come across as the wronged and sympathetic party in INS, so they make them drug-dealing conquerors.
Just that, the writers obviously can't have the audience making up their own minds and choosing sides freely. For the movie to work the audience has to side with the Baku.
And even with the heavy handed way the Sona are portrayed, the Baku still don't come off well. As evil as the Sona are eventually revealed to be, the Baku themselves are hardly sympathetic.
I never really saw the Sona to be evil in any way. They're just desperate. If you look at the circumstances they face, this is more a fight to survive than a plan for mass murder. Remember what the admiral said about how establishing a colony on the planet won't affect the Sona till most of them are dead? And the plan wasn't to go in guns blazing, it was to move the baku out peacefully. I honestly don't know what that convenient trigger happy Sona was doing in the holo ship, but that was the plan.
Even when the Baku were fleeing, they still used non-offensive means to capture them. When I see Ru'afo declare "This is going to end now", I agree with him. His fellow Sona are going to die if they don't get this mission done, and the only reason the Baku don't want anything to do with them is because....
.
..
...they'll be inconvenienced.
I never saw the ending as a happy one since the Federation has now lost this huge potential in medical advancement and has condemned most of the Sona to death. And for what? So a group of technology protesting elves can be happy? Screw this movie.
I don't feel sorry for the Son'a. They had three hundred years of exploring space and conquering a few races. Why not retire instead, after let's say two hundred years, back to the planet while all of them were still fine and healthy. They could have "snuck" back onto the planet at anytime without the Ba'ku's knowledge and reaped the benefits. Sure they'd have to live there, but you'd think by that time and age they'd want to settle down. Instead they wait last minute to do something drastic and all because they don't want to live on the planet.
Hell, they could have gone back after a year of being "exiled" without the Ba'ku knowing they were there.
Hell, they could have gone back after a year of being "exiled" without the Ba'ku knowing they were there.
You’d think so. Instead they continued exploring space, learning, creating new things, and developing new technology, technology that even the Federation can’t duplicate and that can improve the lives of hundreds of billions of people. Why the hell anyone would do that instead of “settling down” in the Briar Patch like the Ba’ku I can’t understand, and it totally loses them my sympathy.
You’d think so. Instead they continued exploring space, learning, creating new things, and developing new technology, technology that even the Federation can’t duplicate and that can improve the lives of hundreds of billions of people. Why the hell anyone would do that instead of “settling down” in the Briar Patch like the Ba’ku I can’t understand, and it totally loses them my sympathy.
yeah, I have to agree with your sarcasm, and it goes to why I think this film is like the "anti-Trek" with its message.
In Star Trek, the message is usually about exploration, the positive benefits that technology can bring, cultures developing and evolving, a common good, etc.
In INS, the message seems to be this romantization of a group of culturally stagnant isolationist space Luddites. A very strange message.
Lets enjoy some Eifel 65. 
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z5lf78hSPE&feature=related[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z5lf78hSPE&feature=related[/yt]
You’d think so. Instead they continued exploring space, learning, creating new things, and developing new technology, technology that even the Federation can’t duplicate and that can improve the lives of hundreds of billions of people. Why the hell anyone would do that instead of “settling down” in the Briar Patch like the Ba’ku I can’t understand, and it totally loses them my sympathy.
yeah, I have to agree with your sarcasm, and it goes to why I think this film is like the "anti-Trek" with its message.
In Star Trek, the message is usually about exploration, the positive benefits that technology can bring, cultures developing and evolving, a common good, etc.
In INS, the message seems to be this romantization of a group of culturally stagnant isolationist space Luddites. A very strange message.
Following up on that:
The Ba’ku explicitly don’t want to go anywhere, ever, figuring there’s nowhere to go except “away from here.” They don’t want to meet other people, learn or do new things, or make any progress. All they want to do is live forever in that one perfect moment, and they never spare a thought for what that means for the fate of billions of other people.
Does that sound a little familiar?
Ba’ku + Picard = Soran
I keep hearing this but how do they not come off a sympathetic? We don't even spend that much time getting their views on the situation? How do we know how they would have reacted to being asked? WHICH THEY NEVER WERE ONCE IN THE FILM.
Um the problem wasn't that Soran wanted to live in the Nexus, it was that his way of getting to it was going to kill billions of people. The Ba'ku weren't actually hurting anyone just living on a planet in the middle of nowhere.
In fact their more like the Halkans from Mirrror Mirror. With the federation acting like the Terran Empire only without the firing phasers on them for resisting in this case.
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B&P (Ba’ku + Picard) were damn well aware of the situation. “They didn’t ask nicely,” while a valid point, is a very weak one, all things considered.
Oh, please!
The Ba’ku and Son’a discovered the planet together. The Ba’ku decided to use the planet like the Nexus, living forever in that one perfect moment, never improving themselves or doing anything that made a difference to anyone else. The Son’a left the planet, explored, learned, created, and eventually found a way to use the planet to help billions. B&P destroyed the product of all that work and the potential for helping billions when they blew up the collector rather than evacuate the planet. It’s ridiculous to pretend they didn’t hurt anyone. They hurt billions.
Yes, the Son’a did some unsavory things along the way. And rather than deal honestly with the Ba’ku, they made the unfortunate decision to sneak them out hush-hush in the night so that the collection would be a fait accompli before anybody made a stink. They’re obviously not perfect by any stretch, but these flaws do not justify B&P.
The writers employed a cheap artifice to make the Ba’ku “innocent”: they had Picard make all the decisions for them. Picard presumed to speak for the Ba’ku and declare their removal unacceptable even though, as you point out, he never actually asked them what they thought about it. Picard came up with the plan to move the Ba’ku to the caves and use them as human shields to stop the collection. Picard made the decision to destroy the collector rather than evacuate the planet. This passiveness makes the Ba’ku sympathetic (to some people, such as yourself), and this sympathy supposedly justifies the decision Picard makes on their behalf.
If you look at B&P from the outside as a monolithic entity, its behavior is incredibly selfish and incredibly destructive. But they’re not a monolithic entity. The writers conceived them as two entities and introduced an implausible “the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing” situation, simply by not having the two entities bother to discuss these decisions. This blindness is used in such a way as to make the individual actors seem sympathetic at first glance, but the sympathy does not stand under scrutiny.
Thats just it they weren never asked AT ALL. And considering the apparent Federation policies of "if we ask and you say no, we usually leave" from TOS and if you tell us to go away forever, we go away forever" from TNG the federation loses any moral ground especially since their plan never changed from "kidnap and take" to "negotiate and compoensate".
Heck the feds even flat out said that the Ba'ku weren't getting anything out of it.
No the Son'a were kicked out becuase they tried to take over the village likely through force to end their little debate with the Ba'ku over what path their race should take.
No they didn't they wanted the metaphasics to help themselves they just worked with starfleet so they didn't have the feds getting annoyed by crossing their space to get to them.
There was never any attempt by either side to negotiate. That doesn’t make one side righteous and the other side evil.
Just a few posts back VR said the Son’a were bad guys because they could have returned to the planet any time they wanted and reaped the benefits but instead chose to continue living outside the Briar Patch with the rest of society. When I defend their choice to be productive you say they get no credit for it because they didn’t have a choice. I feel like I’m kicking at moving goalposts.
Yes they did.
You may not give any credit to their motives for doing those things, but whether you like it or not, they did them.
The technology would have helped billions. The Son’a would have been among those billions helped, but when you help billions, you’re entitled to at least that much.
Don’t you see what you’re doing here? The Son’a were doing something that would have helped billions. B&P destroyed it. Those are the facts. You baselessly impugn the Son’a’s motives, which are completely irrelevant, in order to deflect discussion of the motives and consequences of B&P’s behavior.
