If Dr. Soran had been fully developed as in the movie novelization and original concept of Generations he would have been a much more interesting and three-dimensional villain for Picard and Kirk to fight and not just some obsessed guy who lost his family who'll blow anything and everything up to get back to his personal paradise.
If you've ever read the novel of the 1994 film you know that Tolian Soran was a villain more along the lines of Annorax in Voyager, a profoundly decent and intelligent man who was pushed into inconsolable grief and anger due to the Borg attacking and destroying his homeworld and then being ripped from the Nexus by the Enterprise-B rescue mission. He didn't want to kill and destroy to get back inside the ribbon but his anger at having failed to protect and save his wife Leandra and his children just overwhelmed him, and the addictive effects of the Nexus only made things a whole lot worse.
He was much more textured and sympathetic in the novel than in the film. A shame, really. Malcolm McDowell had more he could have played with had the Beebs let him and not been so concerned with keeping the film at just under two hours in running time.
