I think I was more devastated by the loss of the Enterprise-D than I was by the death of Kirk (and I say this as someone who is a big fan of Shatner's Kirk). I would have much preferred if the ship had been badly damaged to point she was dead in space and then given a major refit and partial redesign for First Contact.
I was, too. The D was the ship we'd been with for 7 years, and, it looked fucking great on the big screen. Except for the ridiculously dark lighting in some scenes. That was the Enterprise many had grown up with.
Kirk's death had less impact because Kirk's presence in the film was too ridiculous for it to fully register. His death on the Ent-B had some impact to it.
But the two losses are simiar in the respect that they are both a bit callous, sudden, and are stupid, atrocious moments in the movie.
There was Wil Riker, the best pilot on the ship, 10 feet away from the helm. But in a moment of real crisis, he puts Troi, with all of 6 months experience, at the helm, and she's too slow to make the corrections fast enough. Or put Data on the helm and let Troi take the Ops panel.
Generations pisses me off, because they did have some good story material to work with. The metaphor of the Nexus being an ultimately hollow, addictive place, and Soran being driven to self-destructiveness to get back there, had some good potential.
There is a lot I like in the TNG films, but they never connected and followed through like the better TNG episodes did. The Enterprise-D crashing is the same problem there is with STXI: cramming stuff into a story without it making sense. Why the D didn't just modulate its shields, return fire, and pulverize that BoP - because someone wanted to crash-land the saucer. Who cares whether it makes sense. It was a shitty way to lose a ship called Enterprise.
