Star Trek: Generations is one of the weakest of the four films that united the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, although it was more favorable to fans than Star Trek: Nemesis. Still, it had its issues, but David Carson, the direction of Generations, didn't consider Malcolm McDowell, who played the villain, Soran, to be one fo them.
In the book The Fifty-Year Mission The Next Twenty-Five Years—from The Next Generation to J.J. Abrams by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Carson is reported as saying the considered "Malcolm McDowell to be a key to the movie," and further added that McDowell "sits at the same level as Picard and Kirk."
The end, result, however, was that McDowell's performance did not wow critics or fans. Reelviews called him "probably the weakest Star Trek film villain," while the reviewer forThe Baltimore Sun wrote that "Soran as a nemesis [was] unworthy of the titanic meeting of Kirk and Picard."
In all honesty, McDowell runs neck in neck with Tom Hardy's Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis when it comes to bad villains. Though Carson saw McDowell's Soran at the same level of Shatner and Stewart's characters, any fan would be hard-pressed to feel the same way.
The Next Generation was coming off of a seven-year successful run with some fairly amazing villains, including The Borg, and, instead of choosing a worthy opponent that could stand up next to two of the best captains in the franchise, producers chose to create one that didn't stand out as anything other than annoying. And they decided to use him to facilitate Captain Kirk's death, which was a kick in the teeth to fans.
Based upon the plot of the movie, Soran might be considered necessary; however, any garden-variety enemy could have caused the same amount of havoc. And, if Captain Kirk had to die, he should have gone down in battle at the hands of a powerful villain that was feared by the galaxy. Soran didn't fit that bill.