What Worked
The Captains Meeting
While the situation that brought them together wasn’t great and the length of time the two spent together could’ve been far more than what we got, none of that is meant to say it was not an awesome encounter. Jean-Luc Picard and James T. Kirk are among two of the beloved names to ever take up the Captain’s mantel and seeing the first two men to ever take the center seat of the Enterprise really did feel special.
The Original Series Getting a Send-off
The idea of bringing in the original series actors was a great idea. While the original script went from having every original actor involved and having a ship-to-ship battle between the Enterprises, down to just a cameo, it still worked with what we got. Gone was the entire cast and instead Kirk was joined by Montgomery Scott and Pavel Chekov. They weren’t the first names for the cameo roles but they still added a bit of nostalgia to the proceedings.
Bringing back TNG villains to bolster the movie
Obviously, beyond the main cast, the idea of bringing back Next Generation characters to help bolster the film made sense. We can argue about who they used, and how limited some of them were in their usage (like Guinan) but Generations did a good job making the film feel like all the best parts of a Next Generation episode.