I thought I'd apply this to the litmus test, and yes, you're right.
Picard: In the series: a shrewd tactician who could definitely handle himself in a fight when he needed to. In the movie: an feeble old man who gets his ass handed to him. (For all the amount of criticism that First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis get for "changing" Picard's character into an action hero, the irony is that the Picard in those movies is all much more in keeping with the man we actually saw on The Next Generation TV series.)
Riker: In the series: the man who single-handedly saved the Federation from a Borg threat that allegedly descimated a good part of the fleet. In the movie: commanded the ship to its grave at the hands of a piece-of-shit century old Bird-Of-Prey, that was so crap it got blown apart by a single torpedo, but which still managed to take down a Galaxy Class ship with what seems to have been a lucky shot in the right place. Lame.
Data: In the series: sympathetic android, everybody's pal, ultra-strong, unable to feel emotions, but through this lack of emotions possibly the most human character of them all. In the movie: the comic relief.
Geordi: In the series: the compentant chief engineer and best friend of Data. In the movie: can't fix some shitty coolant leak, and has a stick up his ass about Data pushing Crusher into the drink by telling him it "wasn't funny" (when, quite clearly, it was actually very funny indeed).
We could go on. But let's not.
Well all there is to add is Worf, Crusher and Troi don't do anything of any real significance.
Crusher gets pushed in the water and I can't remember anything she does.
Worf does nothing except come up with an obscure fact about defective plasma coils being why the BOP is retired that Data is able to parlay into the Enterprise winning the battle. Doesn't do anything badass or "Klingon" like
Troi has a few scenes of comforting Picard......So actually, even though it's a small role she plays, is the only character who is pretty close to her TNG role.
Oh and Guinan too I guess where she talks all somber and in riddles and shit is like her on TNG......Sadly that wasn't enough to save the film in my mind.
