I think "Generations" is an okay movie overall, but very uneven in quality from beginning to end. The 23rd-Century prologue on the Enterprise-B has some serious flaws. The 24th-Century plot is pretty damn good, but it loses some punch when it becomes "we have to save the 230 million alien cavemen we never see". Kirk's death is not the best of all possible deaths (his "death" in the prologue was actually a lot more fitting than the one he got at the end) but it was decent enough given the context. However, where the film really goes off the rails is Picard's vision of the Nexus.
It just doesn't fit with his character at all. A Victorian English home on Christmas with a family of formal little children in formal dress? Ugh. No. Wrong.
Let's leave aside the "He's not English, he's French" objection (it's not that important) and address the "Victorian" part. Jean-Luc Picard was never one to look back to the past as an ideal or a golden age. That was Robert Picard's thing -- Jean-Luc Picard always looked ahead to the future, which is why he left the vinyard and joined Starfleet. He was interested in the past, but looked to the future. If Picard ever desired a home life, it would be a 24th-Century home life and not a 19th-Century one.
Speaking of which, all that damn formality. Picard is formal as a captain, but that's because he's acting as a captain. He's doing a job and he's being professional about it -- he captains a starship of over a thousand people and he's serious about his duties, because they're duties. He's not like that all the time, and we see him cut loose several times in the series. If the Nexus is supposed to be a place of absolute joy, then Picard wouldn't need to be stiff and formal and neither would his children.
And then there's the issue of Picard's vision of paradise being some domestic setting at all rather than a starship. Well, there was actually a way of making this fit with Picard's character and history: he almost decided to become an archaeologist instead of pursuing a career in Starfleet when he was young, so they could've made his Nexus a vision of what could have been (much like Kirk's was based on him staying with Antonia). But, of course, they didn't.
It just doesn't fit with his character at all. A Victorian English home on Christmas with a family of formal little children in formal dress? Ugh. No. Wrong.
Let's leave aside the "He's not English, he's French" objection (it's not that important) and address the "Victorian" part. Jean-Luc Picard was never one to look back to the past as an ideal or a golden age. That was Robert Picard's thing -- Jean-Luc Picard always looked ahead to the future, which is why he left the vinyard and joined Starfleet. He was interested in the past, but looked to the future. If Picard ever desired a home life, it would be a 24th-Century home life and not a 19th-Century one.
Speaking of which, all that damn formality. Picard is formal as a captain, but that's because he's acting as a captain. He's doing a job and he's being professional about it -- he captains a starship of over a thousand people and he's serious about his duties, because they're duties. He's not like that all the time, and we see him cut loose several times in the series. If the Nexus is supposed to be a place of absolute joy, then Picard wouldn't need to be stiff and formal and neither would his children.
And then there's the issue of Picard's vision of paradise being some domestic setting at all rather than a starship. Well, there was actually a way of making this fit with Picard's character and history: he almost decided to become an archaeologist instead of pursuing a career in Starfleet when he was young, so they could've made his Nexus a vision of what could have been (much like Kirk's was based on him staying with Antonia). But, of course, they didn't.
