The humanoid least likely
Like much of the Alternate Trekoverse, I am deeply curious about the origins of this thing that Uhura and Spock evidently have going on. I mean...Spock, people. In love! In lust! In a state of... non-indifference! Vis-a-vis a human! Vis-a-vis anyone! How? Where? When? Why? The Enterprise's communications officer is smoking hot, to be sure, but that fact is irrelevant to the point of hilarity in this case. I think we all know that smoking hotness, per se, does not a Vulcan move. An exceptionally high IQ, which Uhura also demonstrates, would seem to be more of a start. But really...are there any dumb Vulcans? (Note to self: Research this.) To be brighter than average, among Vulcans, only means you're barely breaking even.
So HTF did such a bizarre and splendid thing happen? Moviegoers really want to know, hence the zillion fanfics that have sprung up on this subject. I was no different. I had Spock-related questions that needed answers, so I made some up.
Let's start with the $64,000 question: are we to assume that Uhura and Spock are already sexually involved at the time the movie takes place? Lots of people think yes, based more on the reassignment scene, seemingly, than either of the chastely sexy makeout scenes. Apparently if someone asks you to put them on a more fabulous starship than the one they were assigned to, and you cave to their demands almost without arguing, the only plausible explanation for such weakness is that you are fucking them. I dunno, though. If you were fucking them, mightn't you overcompensate all the harder for your own vulnerability by sticking indefensibly to your guns in the face of an entirely just argument?
Other people, meanwhile, have been wondering aloud if the kiss in the lift is fact Spock and Uhura's first, so widely diverging interpretations of this matter are obviously possible. I'm not in that camp either; just the fact that Spock doesn't flinch or leap a foot in the air upon being kissed would seem to prove that it's happened before.
At this point in my musings, it occurred to me that there was probably a novelization of the movie out there that could serve as a cheat sheet on this subject, or at least provide a hint about what assumptions the filmmakers were working under. There is indeed a novel, and I did indeed spend fifteen bucks on it in an attempt to answer to this question, but its author, Alan Dean Foster, is cagey about the whole business. All he confirms is that no, the lift kiss was not Spock and Uhura's first.
I tend to think S/U are not yet knocking boots, partly because the problems posed by their recent status as instructor and student are serious and real. People who object to the Spock/Uhura relationship often mention how implausible it is that two such conscientious and career-minded people would take such a potentially ruinous risk, and I agree. Yeah, it's kind of cute to think they had an irresistible passion that blew aside all rules and barriers, but putting your loved one's entire professional future at risk is not really that sexy. I imagine them both to have been conflicted about their developing relationship, though to different degrees: Uhura because of the flagrant breach of regulation it constituted, and Spock ditto, plus the additional reason that a Vulcan falling for a human is, in a thousand ways, just not kosher. He has obviously overcome his inner freakout to the extent of acknowledging to himself and her that something has happened between them, but to the extent of being comfortable with actual sexual involvement? Doubts, I haz them. If you were accustomed to tightly regulating emotion in general, and unaccustomed to even being lucid, never mind emotionally involved, while mating (the questions of whether pon farr exists in the alternate Trekoverse, and if so, whether Spock has ever undergone it, are likewise fascinating), wouldn't sexual contact with someone you actually cared about, which Spock clearly does, pretty much make your head explode?
I hate to think that such an exciting narrative development as Spock's head exploding has already happened offstage and thus will never be explored, so maybe all this is just wishful thinking on my part. Not to mention overthinking: if Ortzman, who seem to have incorporated this canon-changing romance largely to hit an expedient emotional beat at a key place in the narrative, have given the matter anywhere near this much consideration, I will be surprised.
Overthinking is lotsa fun, though. There will definitely be more to follow.
So HTF did such a bizarre and splendid thing happen? Moviegoers really want to know, hence the zillion fanfics that have sprung up on this subject. I was no different. I had Spock-related questions that needed answers, so I made some up.
Let's start with the $64,000 question: are we to assume that Uhura and Spock are already sexually involved at the time the movie takes place? Lots of people think yes, based more on the reassignment scene, seemingly, than either of the chastely sexy makeout scenes. Apparently if someone asks you to put them on a more fabulous starship than the one they were assigned to, and you cave to their demands almost without arguing, the only plausible explanation for such weakness is that you are fucking them. I dunno, though. If you were fucking them, mightn't you overcompensate all the harder for your own vulnerability by sticking indefensibly to your guns in the face of an entirely just argument?
Other people, meanwhile, have been wondering aloud if the kiss in the lift is fact Spock and Uhura's first, so widely diverging interpretations of this matter are obviously possible. I'm not in that camp either; just the fact that Spock doesn't flinch or leap a foot in the air upon being kissed would seem to prove that it's happened before.
At this point in my musings, it occurred to me that there was probably a novelization of the movie out there that could serve as a cheat sheet on this subject, or at least provide a hint about what assumptions the filmmakers were working under. There is indeed a novel, and I did indeed spend fifteen bucks on it in an attempt to answer to this question, but its author, Alan Dean Foster, is cagey about the whole business. All he confirms is that no, the lift kiss was not Spock and Uhura's first.
I tend to think S/U are not yet knocking boots, partly because the problems posed by their recent status as instructor and student are serious and real. People who object to the Spock/Uhura relationship often mention how implausible it is that two such conscientious and career-minded people would take such a potentially ruinous risk, and I agree. Yeah, it's kind of cute to think they had an irresistible passion that blew aside all rules and barriers, but putting your loved one's entire professional future at risk is not really that sexy. I imagine them both to have been conflicted about their developing relationship, though to different degrees: Uhura because of the flagrant breach of regulation it constituted, and Spock ditto, plus the additional reason that a Vulcan falling for a human is, in a thousand ways, just not kosher. He has obviously overcome his inner freakout to the extent of acknowledging to himself and her that something has happened between them, but to the extent of being comfortable with actual sexual involvement? Doubts, I haz them. If you were accustomed to tightly regulating emotion in general, and unaccustomed to even being lucid, never mind emotionally involved, while mating (the questions of whether pon farr exists in the alternate Trekoverse, and if so, whether Spock has ever undergone it, are likewise fascinating), wouldn't sexual contact with someone you actually cared about, which Spock clearly does, pretty much make your head explode?
I hate to think that such an exciting narrative development as Spock's head exploding has already happened offstage and thus will never be explored, so maybe all this is just wishful thinking on my part. Not to mention overthinking: if Ortzman, who seem to have incorporated this canon-changing romance largely to hit an expedient emotional beat at a key place in the narrative, have given the matter anywhere near this much consideration, I will be surprised.
Overthinking is lotsa fun, though. There will definitely be more to follow.