Bingowings said:
It's about exploration and contact with the alien.
The problem is is that's ALL that happened in that movie. They explored a bit. They made contact with an alien. And that's it. But it somehow took over two hours of gratuitous (and boring) special effects, and the Enterprise crew contributing little more than staring at the viewscreen, to get that to happen.
If Gene screwed up it was by allowing the film series to slip through his fingers and by allowing TNG to fall into the wrong hands before he died.
Rick Berman's hands weren't the best, but, then again, he was the one following Gene's terrible mission statements. If it had stayed in Gene's hands, I can't imagine TNG reaching any of the level of success it did without him... or even lasting seven seasons.
RE: Whoops. Almost forgot. "Lame attempts at political allegory" isn't Gene's Trek? Aren't we forgetting the Yangs and the Kohms?