You know what's kind of funny about this whole thing? I don't know how many of you knows this, but they actually tried to do this movie about two decades ago, shortly (I believe) before Star Trek Five. They had an idea of doing a prequel to the series with a young Kirk and company with the basic premise of "We meet the young team, get to know them a bit, disaster strikes and it's up to the young and tested crew to save the day."
This idea seemed to have everything going for it, as they figured even if the film was laughed out of the theaters, they could just go back to making movies with the original cast, but then Gene Roddenberry railed against the film, comparing it to the Police Academy movies, and, even though he was reduced to just a "consultant" on the movies at this time, he still had enough weight to get the idea scrapped.
Guess since he's dead that's no longer an issue, but just find the whole story rather interesting.
Anyway, hope it turns out okay! Never had a chance to watch Enterprise, but I think after Voyager, Star Trek definitely needed some down time to reboot itself.
Actually Roddenberry had nothing to do with any of the movies after TMP except getting a fat check as a consultant.
I've seen a synopsis of the script for the Academy movie (which would've been Star Trek VI) and it wasn't that bad. The real reason it got canned was that 1991 was the 25th Anniversary of Star Trek and they wanted a movie that would hand the reigns over to TNG and be a good send off for the old crew.
Harve Bennett, who produced Treks 2-5, said they weren't giving him time enough to make a proper movie for their send off and bowed out. Paramount then gave the producer duties to Leonard Nimoy, who then brought Nicholas Meyer back because he knew the guy could work quickly and they could bring the film in on time.
The people who protested the Academy movie most were the TOS actors.
The new movie directed by JJ Abrams is a sort of reboot (similar to the Bond reboot with Daniel Craig), and takes place prior to the events in TOS. It evidently jumps around a bit in time also, because even Chrisptopher Pike (played by Bruce Greenwood) figures into the action.
Spoiler below!! Avert your eyes if don't want to know anything about the movie.
The ship in those pictures (USS Kelvin) is destroyed before James T. Kirk's birth and his father , George Kirk, is the first officer.
Rumor is that the movie takes place in multiple timelines.