Leonard Nimoy on Star Trek and the Future of Spock

Just before the weekend, Trek Movie gave us the heads up about a fantastic Leonard Nimoy exclusive interview by Star Trek Communicator and Official Fan Club founder Dan Madsen on Starland.Com (go here for the full interview). Mr. Nimoy talks, amongst other things, about how he feels about Spock’s character arc, the relaunch of the series with the JJ Abrams film, his thoughts on the destruction of Vulcan, the passing of the torch, Zachary Quinto, and whether or not we could expect to see his character Spock Prime again in a sequel:

''DM: I assume as well that you are very open minded to appearing as Spock again should they ask you?

LN: I have no illusions on whether or not they need me. They decided that they wanted to make this film using Spock as kind of an anchor for the story, which I think worked very, very well. They don’t have to do that again. If they decide they have a role for me to play I would be very interested in talking to them about it. But I have every reason to believe that they have established a whole new set of characters and they can sail very well without me and that’s fine. Either way is good with me. I am very gratified that this has happened.''

One of the most interesting part of the interview for me was Mr. Nimoy’s explanations of the origins of the Vulcan salute and the Vulcan nerve pinch :

''LN: . . . It sort of happened on the spot very much like the line, “Thrusters on full.” It was the Amok Time episode and I was very much in touch with the idea that we were seeing Vulcan and Vulcans for the very first time. Other than Spock, we had never seen a Vulcan before. We had never seen two Vulcans meeting each other before. On the spot, I said to the director, “We should have something special that Vulcans do when they greet each other. Humans shake hands, Asian people bow to each other. He said, “What do you want to do?” I said, “Well, how about this?” And I did the Vulcan salute with the fingers parted right on the spot. Believe me, I wasn’t thinking of it in advance. It just occurred to me when that procession arrived with T’Pau in the sedan chair I thought, “What a great opportunity for some secret Vulcan thing!” That’s how I came up with it. Gene wasn’t there. I think he must’ve seen it in the dailies a couple of days later and then the writers started introducing it into the scripts the same way they did with the Vulcan nerve pinch. That happened right on the spot as well. I was supposed to come up right behind Bill Shatner and hit him over the head with the butt of a Phaser. On the spot I said to the director, “This doesn’t feel right. It feels wrong for me to hit him with a gun.” He said, “What would you like to do?” So I said, “Well, how about I do this and Bill reacts and drops to the floor unconscious?” And that’s the way that happened. You wait for these moments of inspiration to hit you.''

What do you think? Would you like to see Spock Prime returning in a sequel?

sources: Trek Movie, Starland.Com