Really curious as to why you hate Insurrection quite so much? Particularly on the moral stance? (Unless it's that the Federation even agreed to the idea of dispossessing the Baku in the first place? Because that is abhorrent, I agree.) (fair warning, I actually really enjoy it! I'd say along with Generations it's my fave of the Next Gen movies, although First Contact has many many merits and I don't deny that.) You're quite right re Bechdel. That scene is the only 1 with just women, full stop.
*Headdesk*
I had written a giant epic reply to this and then accidentally closed the tag. *Crying*
Well, maybe a more concise version is better.
Basically, I find the Ba’ku themselves intolerable. Their selfishness. Their incuriousity. Their indolence.
These people stumbled upon the greatest medical discovery imaginable. Leave aside the ridiculous Federation plan to wreck the joint to harvest its mojo for a second - just think about the number of people who could be cured with the extra time and research opportunities offered by a phenomenon that can halt and temporarily reverse the effects of disease. At the very, very minimum the Ba’ku themselves have a vastly enhanced lifespan. One of them could maybe take two minutes out of their sitting-on-their-arses time once a year to do a little research and see if there’s some knowledge they could gain and share from studying this phenomenon.
It’s not like we’re looking at later generations who’ve growned accustomed to this rural idyll. It’s mostly the same long-lived settlers who first arrived. They know there’s a universe beyond their doors, and what learning and discovery can do. But Sojef says they left their last gaff because “technology had created weapons that threatened to destroy all life.” So that’s it? Find a place where you’ve got yours, cleave to the idea that technology and weaponry are synonymous, and never strive again?
I’m not saying there aren’t difficult questions to be asked about revealing the planet. Maybe knowledge would need to be restricted. Maybe it couldn’t be restricted and it’d lead to stampedes. Maybe the answer would turn out to be that the universe isn’t ready (though I’m skeptical of that trope in general.) But the Ba’ku never seem to ask these questions. And the film never requires it of them. “No more questions”. Enjoy your humming birds and your Hameau de la Reine, and don’t worry about anyone beyond yourself.
There are defenses one could mount for the Ba’ku probably. Trauma from wherever they came from. Or the effects of the planet on their priorities. Or even just - hey they are a very unusual society of incurable Luddites who legit lack the capacity for innovation. But the script isn’t here for that. Their position is uninterrogated. Absolutely, what the Federation is planning is indefensible. (And how worthy or not I think the Ba’ku themselves are is irrelevant to how awful that is.) But it’s also hard to take seriously as a plot - Dougherty and Ru’afo are just sort of designate baddies with a plan that makes little sense. That obscures bigger questions about the Federation’s moral play here.
Most of it is just down to the fact that I think the stories quite clumsily put together probably? YMMV, and you may read it quite differently. But as it stands, I find watching our crew’s lack of qualms about the Ba’ku’s behaviour frustrating. And the Ba’ku themselves unforgivable.