Yes, the casting for old!Charles and old!Erik was *that* good
Here's Stewart doing Macbeth's "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" soliloquy, and here's McKellen. I'm sure directors, by definition, had much to do with the different approaches, but look at Stewart's utter despair, and compare it with McKellen's utter *disdain*.
In a better world, we would've had an Star Trek:TNG movie where the Federation finds a wormhole to another galaxy and learns that most civilizations in the universe are cybernetic and either Data- or Borg-like. Then it goes from first contact plot to spy thriller, as reluctant Ambassador Picard and internment camp candidate Data must prevent a Pearl Harbor first strike with a horrifying self-replicating smart antimatter bomb from Section 31, headed by the imperious and brilliant (McKellen character's name).
You know, X-Men with the Federation as mutants.
In a better world, we would've had an Star Trek:TNG movie where the Federation finds a wormhole to another galaxy and learns that most civilizations in the universe are cybernetic and either Data- or Borg-like. Then it goes from first contact plot to spy thriller, as reluctant Ambassador Picard and internment camp candidate Data must prevent a Pearl Harbor first strike with a horrifying self-replicating smart antimatter bomb from Section 31, headed by the imperious and brilliant (McKellen character's name).
You know, X-Men with the Federation as mutants.