Star Trek: The First Adventure

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.

Star Trek: The First Adventure was a movie penned by Harve Bennett and David Loughery that was intended to follow Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, for a 1991 release date, corresponding with Star Trek: The Original Series' 25th anniversary. The production of this film made it as far as a written script and a few pieces of conceptual art.

[edit] Story Premise

According to co-writer David Loughery, this film was intended to kind of a "Top Gun-Star Trek, in which this rambunctious, willful Iowa farmboy, Jim Kirk, goes to Starfleet Academy and meets up with this misanthropic, misunderstood, brilliant Vulcan, who is the first Vulcan ever to attend Starfleet Academy." (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD, Disc 2)

The premise of the story would focus on young Kirk's development from a careless youth to a responsible leader, and includes the loss of a great love, while the climax of the story, he and Spock battled slavery on an alien world. (Trek: The Unauthorized Story of the Movies)

[edit] Rejection

The rejection of the film was due to the fact that "too many people had a vested interest in doing Star Trek the old way. The days of the old Enterprise crew at Starfleet Academy may eventually be told in a feature film or new TV series with younger actors, but this wasn't the time."

Overall, "Paramount Pictures, Gene Roddenberry and the regular Star Trek actors hated the idea. Although studio executive Ned Tanen supported the project, the other studio executives did not. Paramount rejected this approach when Bennett made a make or break demand. He quit the studio when he lost, turning down the offer to produce Paramount's version of Star Trek VI." (Trek: The Unauthorized Story of the Movies)

According to Nicholas Meyer, after the idea for the premise was tossed out, the studio was still "not happy going out on V" and still "wanted another Star Trek movie" so they approached him on coming up for an alternate idea, which both he and Leonard Nimoy eventually developed into the story that would become Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Special Edition) DVD, Disc 2)

[edit] Conceptual Art

USS Enterprise	Young James T. Kirk	Young James T. Kirk	Young Leonard McCoy
Young Spock	Vulcan attire	Vulcan attire	One-person spacecraft

Undeveloped spin-offs
Assignment: Earth • Star Trek: Planet of the Titans • Star Trek: Phase II • Star Trek: The First Adventure • Star Trek: IMAX
See also: Undeveloped Star Trek projects, Undeveloped Star Trek episodes