The Enterprise saucer crash is definitely one of the highlights of the film and one of the last great examples of amazing motion control miniature work in Trek before the switch to all CGI. However, I still think destroying the D was a bad decision overall.
It looked great and I'd swear the during-crash sequence had more scenes of the saucer in the stratosphere that got removed for the home video releases, but the shattering glass - dramatic as it was - also made no sense (transparent aluminum thanks to the clown comedy act of TVH, which did more to harm the franchise than TFF had but I digress.) The reuse of 'Yesterday's Enterprise" for script content and direction (which was great) was also impossible to not notice. But with all the scripts being worked on for season 7, DS9, this film, etc, it's easier to see why.
Using the "D" design as the "E" would have been cool, though the need to build a new design with new interior sets made sense. The "E" is a melding of the "A" and "D" and exemplifies a lot in terms of nice curves let down by the lack of "Why is this bit here?" as the aft of the "E" has what looks like a shuttle bay door but isn't. Cargo bay for where they can't beam stuff in, perhaps? And apparently longer, thinner nacelles fix the warp 5 conundrum. Sure does look great on screen, regardless.
The cinematography in TFF is gorgeous. For all the grief Shatner gets, I think he was far and away a better film director than Nimoy. He shot TFF like a movie. TSFS and TVH feel too much like TV episodes to me in the way they are shot. Even the supporting cast members, never known to have an abundance of nice things to say about Shatner, have commented on what a good director he was.
Nimoy was solid, but Shatner definitely used the camera aperture and aspect ratio to better effect.
Ironically, TFF feels like a "60s episode on the big screen but without the florid 60s colors".
Seconded, re: the cast complimenting his direction.
The budget changes, schedule issues, lack of f/x team as they were busy on the biggest films of the year all cobbled this story as much as the demand for more TVH-style humor, except "fish out of water" just did not work when they're all back in their habitat again. The 78 decks whatever, in the opposite order, is one of the cringiest examples. Shatner's direction in this scene is not merely shrewdly done with fast angle changes to up the suspense and situation, it's fantastic. It's the misplaced attempt at comedy (script level) with the deck numbering count is what lets it down. And other scenes in the film really sell suspense and the necessary emotions quite well.
Honestly, the need for the comedy, which feels unnatural way too often, did far more to this film. A film that is exploring metaphysical concepts as well as another brilliant idea of "if the big three empires came together to build something, what might happen as a result?" - except that idea also got lost along the way. The movie is almost trying to do too much and all the elements are diluted as a result.
You know, this is an interesting point. I think most people would say that the TNG cast is made up of better actors than the TOS cast overall. Yet, I agree with your assessment. The TOS cast had a special magic on the big screen that just worked. For as legendary as the TNG cast became on TV, and in spite of the fact that they are all good friends in real life, they just didn't translate as well to the big screen. Not bad, just lacking the magic that the TOS cast had.
The movie scripts are the thing; TOS was always more action-oriented while having a flair of brainy stuff (as a result of "The Cage" being rejected.) This translates to the big screen far better. The TNG movies didn't need to do a loose string-along arc the way 1982-1991 had with the Klingons as many movie series with sequels didn't and didn't need to do that. But the translating of the TNG style from small to big definitely lost a few ingredients, and making Picard a big action figure with catchphrases definitely did not help.
