Imagine a Star Trek film that shows us not the newest adventure of the original crew of the U.S.S Enterprise, but one that peeks backward along that future time line to those characters' first encounters with each other. This film would lay a foundation for the relationships forged between James Kirk, Spock, Leonard McCoy and others who one day would become heroes in their fictional universe and cultural icons in our own.

Now imagine some of Hollywood's most talented young actors stepping into those space-faring roles. Ethan Hawke, perhaps, taking Starfleet by storm as Cadet Kirk? And John Cusack, possibly, at Kirk's side with the distinctive pointed ears and arched brow of a certain Vulcan?

A decade ago, this very scenario was proposed to Paramount Pictures chiefs as the sixth Star Trek film by none other than Harve Bennett, the producer who led the Star Trek franchise through its most popular and successful run of motion pictures to date. The year was 1989, and then on the table was Bennett's finished script for Star Trek: The Academy Years.

"I had a joyful script about cadets Kirk and Spock in a simpler time," Bennett said recently from his home office in the Los Angeles area. He proposed the script not long after his fourth turn as producer for a Star Trek movie and nearly a decade after he first joined the world of Star Trek, having been hired by Charles Bluhdorn, then chief executive of Paramount's parent company Gulf+Western to produce Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. "It's one thing I left unfinished, and when I tried to finish it, it just didn't work out."

At that point, Bennett admittedly had come a long way in the Star Trek franchise. An experienced and accomplished producer before getting the Star Trek job at Paramount in 1980, he began his tenure there with a days-long marathon screening of each and every episode of the original Star Trek series ever made. His first outing, ST II, became the fifth highest grossing film of 1982, and led to his writing and producing its sequel, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, in 1984. He followed that in the fall of 1986 by producing and co-writing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which remains the franchise's most successful film ever, then remained onboard the Enterprise as producer of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Even though Bennett will admit that his experience on ST V was less than satisfying, he wanted to continue his work of 23rd Century storytelling with a proposal for a bold new direction in the big-screen adventures of Kirk and the crew. Star Trek: The Academy Years would give audiences a glimpse into the early lives of their favorite Star Trek characters.

In his script, Kirk and Spock were fresh-faced cadets at Starfleet Academy, joined by McCoy, older than the typical cadet and already a physician, having joined Starfleet to put behind him some of his life's tragedies including the death of his father as mentioned in ST V. Among the cadets' favorite instructors in the script was one Montgomery Scott, a teacher of mechanical sciences.

While Bennett still holds some of the script's plot points close to the vest, he mentioned that at the time of the story, warp speed had not been reached by Federation scientists - but would be by the end of the picture.

"I had a romance between Kirk and a cadet named Cassie, who dies bravely in his arms," he says, "which explains how he never came to love that way again." And the producer had specific ideas for the film, having selected Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., as the location for Starfleet Academy, and sending feelers on the project to young actors including John Cusack to play Spock and Ethan Hawke to play Kirk.

Some initial hesitation was voiced by Paramount official Martin Davis, who told Bennett that there couldn't be a Star Trek movie without the original cast. In response, Bennett wrote "wraparound" scenes, making the main story of the script a flashback sequence. The film might have opened, Bennett said, with William Shatner as Kirk addressing the cadets at the beginning, then ending with Leonard Nimoy as Spock meeting Kirk up at the graveside of his lost love before their return to the Enterprise.

When Bennett actually was offered the chance to produce a sixth Star Trek film, though, officials preferred he go a more traditional route with the original cast as a nod to the 25th anniversary of Star Trek's debut on television.

"When they said I could do the next Star Trek movie, they wanted an anniversary piece - and wanted it done in nine months," Bennett says. "I figured it would take three months for a script, considering that the fastest I'd ever done one was six weeks. Then I figured that it would take a minimum of six months for the opticals, so I passed."

Bennett's close friend Ralph Winter went on to produce Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which was directed by Nicholas Meyer a decade after Bennett hired him to direct ST II.

And Bennett also allows another glimpse into a Star Trek that never was one from the mind of the show's creator himself. Bennett got that glimpse in a conversation with Gene Roddenberry about the time that studio heads gave their approval for ST IV.

"For many years before and during my time, Gene Roddenberry had wanted to do, since (the classic original series' episode) "City on the Edge of Forever," another time travel story. They turned him down, and he always was very disappointed in that. When we told him that we were going to do a time travel story, he said, 'Good, now's the time to do the one I've always wanted to do.' It was the Kennedy assassination, and it involved the crew being in Dallas on that fateful day.

"I have had my issues with Gene," says Bennett, "and I said that this is a story we cannot tell. There is one thing we cannot change, and that is a major event in history. If we changed the outcome, we would be booed out of the theater; if we show the outcome of the killing of a beloved president, it's a downer. And it's a story in which the crew cannot come out as winners."

Looking back on his tenure with the films of Star Trek, Bennett says he remains proud of his work, comparing his role in the Star Trek universe to that of producer Gene L. Coon's on the original series. Bennett's respect for Coon's work grew from his marathon screenings of Star Trek and his understanding of the role of a great producer.

"Here's the thing about Gene Coon," explains Bennett. "Roddenberry was the man behind Star Trek; he was the visionary and its great promoter. But it was Gene Coon who did the day-to-day aspects of production.

"I liken myself to that next decade's Gene Coon, whom I consider to be an honorable, wonderful man," he says. "I feel wonderful about my place in Star Trek. It's very satisfying to see how we revived the beached whale. It's false to say that we started out to do that. I just wanted to make the best movie I could make."