To those who complain about the main pairing of the new Star Trek movie

[beatrice_otter]

There are those who complain about the romantic relationship in the new movie, saying it's not true to the original series. I present here a clip from TOS to the contrary:


Spock and Uhura, in TOS

1. "Vulcan has no moon"



2. Uhura sings to Spock


3. And later borrows his Vulcan harp


4. I couldn't find a clip for this one, but in the episode "Who Mourns for Adonis?" Uhura has to rig up a subspace bypass circuit to restore communications (basically, rewiring her whole board). Spock compliments her work, saying he could think of "no one better equipped" to handle it, which is high praise indeed coming from Spock.

Basically, while they weren't in a relationship in TOS there was definitely chemistry ... and I can look at these scenes and believe they have a history.

Comments

[From: glitch]

The relationship itself didn't bother me so much as the absolute randomness of her going up and kissing him in the lift. Did I miss something in the film?

[From: skywaterblue]

The scene where she convinces him to put her on the Enterprise? And he says he didn't want it to look like he was playing favorites? The subtext is that they've been shagging for a while.

[From: glitch]

Whoa, really? I definitely... didn't get that impression. Well, then.

[From: aubergine]

When I watched the scene about the ship assignments, I thought it was about them working closely on sciencey things and them having a mentor/mentee relationship. But then when I saw the scenes on the lift, I was like, "Ohhhh, so THAT's what that was about!"

[From: lankyguy]

Absolutely! I thought it was very clear, they were in an ongoing relationship.

[From: beatrice_otter]

The scene where she bullies him into assigning her to the Enterprise. His justification for assigning her elsewhere at first was that he didn't want it to look like favoritism. Nothing's outright stated, but ... it's implied. It's just that with Spock, being Vulcan, it's not going to be referenced directly, y'know?

[From: glitch]

I remember the bits you're referencing, but I really didn't get the impression of a previous (romantic) relationship between them. Certainly not any kind of level of familiarity that would make the turbolift scene make sense. Oh, well.

[From: mecca]

You're not alone, I didn't get that impression either. I thought he just didn't want to show any favoritism towards her because she did so well in class, he didn't want her to come off looking like a teacher's pet.

[From: liviapenn]

That doesn't really make any sense though... I mean, if she was the best student, she *deserves* to be on the best ship. It's not "favoritism" to give the best assignments to the best students, that's actually how it's supposed to work. :D

The only reason to be worried about favoritism is if people might think Uhura got the assignment for some reason *besides* academics, like a friendship or romance.

[From: (Anonymous)]

I didn't get the sense that the romantic relationship was pre-existing--what I got from the "favoritism" thing initially was that Uhura, as especially excellent, was in fact favorite student, and perhaps that they had developed a friendship closer than normal for a teacher/student. In hindsight, I interpreted it further as that they had developed feelings beyond friendship but they hadn't been expressed; that Spock didn't know how to deal with that, and that he was trying to avoid the problem by assigning her to a different ship instead of the post she deserved. The turbolift scene came at a moment of emotional turmoil and need for comfort; I can easily see suppressed feelings coming out at a time like that, and intimacy developing from that point more suddenly than it would have otherwise. I don't think that they would have been in a relationship while physically at the Academy for ethical reasons, and had Vulcan not been destroyed, I doubt they would even have gotten together when we see them.

~Amy (citharadraconis on lj)

[From: (Anonymous)]

There's also the idea where she says she's going on the Enterprise and he basically immediately caves. My mom and I both agreed that if he did not have feelings for her, it would not have mattered how forceful she was the answer still would have been no. In the same guise, if she was the most logical for it then he should have put her on the Ent. to begin with, to do otherwise implies some concern for her safety.

[From: doyle]

What puzzles me is not people saying that they don't like the Spock/Uhura or thought it wasn't there in the original - fair enough - but that Kirk/Uhura was the canon TOS couple and should have been in the movie. I mean, there are tons of episodes I haven't seen for years (I'm rectifying that now) but the only hint of Kirk/Uhura I remember ever is the Aliens Made Them Do It kiss in Plato's Stepchildren.

[From: mecca]

I agree! I thought that was the direction they were going with all the flirting they had between them and then BOOM! a WTF moment with Spock.

[From: beatrice_otter]

I know! You can't count Aliens Made Them Do It. Aside from that, I can't think of any interaction between the two of them other than purely professional ... and if Kirk was interested in a lady, it's, hm, a lot easier to tell than with Spock.

[From: catecumen]

Thank you for finding and posting these clips. Good work! I'm an old-time Trekkie and I loved this movie.

[From: kazari]

Thank you for this post! I immediatly went to the Charlie X scene in my mind when the lips started locking, but I had no memory/knowledge of the other few scenes' shippy-ness.

Personally, I was pleasantly surprised by Spock/Uhura. I hope the fandom can embrace them as a pair at least a little bit. I'm looking forward to Kirk/Spock/Uhura threeway fic asap. 8D

[From: beatrice_otter]

Heh. You can have the K/S/U threesome--I want the long plotty what-now fic dealing with the S/U relationship in a universe where there are now only a few thousand Vulcans and they are an endangered species and thus he is under lots of pressure to make lots of little Vulcan babies.

[From: beatrice_otter]

Thanks!

[From: mswyrr]

After seeing the film, I had a strong craving for that storyline, too. Happily, There's a writer named Kristen Elizabeth over on fanfiction.net who's doing something like that in a fic titled The Opposite of Logic. It's a WIP, but good. I do hope our little fandom grows enough that we get several takes on this arc, though.

[From: worldstosee]

I honestly thought it was hilarious because Kirk was doing all that flirting with her, trying so hard to get her attention - but it's Spock who gets the girl. :)

[From: (Anonymous)]

On 'bring back star trek' (a tv show that was made in the uk where a comedian tracks down the original cast). Uhura tells the presenter (Justin Lee Collins) that the kiss between her and Kirk was actually meant to be between Uhura and Spock, Shatner made them change it.

[From: imadra_blue]

Oh, thanks for those clips! I like seeing some TOS subtext. In this light, watching ST2009 really seems to pick a logical (hee, hee!) subtext and makes it canon. They could have gone with the subtext of Uhura/Sulu (TOS), Uhura/Scotty (ST5), or Uhura/Kirk (TOS), but chose Uhura/Spock. There were certainly options! Uhura is and was both personable and gorgeous, why shouldn't she have options?

After watching ST2009, I'm 1000% behind Spock/Uhura. In fact, they make me gleeful in many ways. It's het done right, playing to my preferences. I was shocked when I first saw it, it never occurred to me before, but it feels really natural to the movie now.

[From: beatrice_otter]

Absolutely. Uhura is smart, strong, in control, and has a man who values her strengths and complements her perfectly. It is how you do het.

[From: imadra_blue]

Amen, sister.

And the eye candy ain't bad, either. >.>

[From: mswyrr]

I've gone from zero to sixty on this ship in, like, a day or two. So it makes me very happy to know that there's Old Skool justification for it, so I don't have to feel like the pathetic het shipper begging crumbs from the Ultimate Slash Pairing's table. ;)

They're just... as you say below, het done right. Which, as a clever feminist bitca, can be so hard to find!

[From: beatrice_otter]

Het pairings in TOS fic tend to be either Spock/Nurse Chapel or Spock/Saavik. With Kirk or McCoy, any fic het pairings pretty much have to be OFC's, because neither of them had anything more than babes-of-the-week (sometimes awesome babes of the week, but anything more involved? fortet about it). Nurse--later Doctor--Chapel had a huge crush on him that mostly made him embarrassed. She's an intelligent, competent woman, but 60's ideas of the role of women show through with her. She left a career as a (iirc) biochemist to enlist as a nurse on Enterprise to search for her fiancee who literally preferred his sexbot to her, and then spent the rest of the show pining after Spock. Saavik was Spock's protege in ST:II and ST:III, in which she helped Spock through Pon Farr. In the books, she and Spock were eventually married. Spock/Saavik can be great. Spock/Chapel ... ow. Not to mention which, aside from when he was in Pon Farr, Spock never really responded to anything Chapel did other than maybe get embarrassed. Uhura, on the other hand, he was actually friends with.

[From: (Anonymous)]

Don't forget the season three TOS episode called "Is There No Truth in Beauty?" when Spock refers to Uhura saying, "And Uhura, whose name means freedom. 'She walks in beauty, like the night.'" He quoted Byron about Uhura.

Also, if you look back on the series, Spock's usually one of the very first people to rush to Uhura's side whenever she falls down when the ship rocks, or if she's hit by a dizzy spell. He's very chivalrous to her.