Cosmic Love

Nimoy: So, Spock… How did you feel about the success of “Unification”?
Spock: I beg your pardon?
Nimoy: Er… I mean, how did you feel about meeting the crew of the Enterprise-D–Captain Picard and Data–some eighty years after your last mission aboard the Enterprise-A?
Spock: Oh. I found them to be fascinating and worthy individuals. But… to be candid, meeting them did remind me of one distinct disadvantage to being Vulcan.
Nimoy: Disadvantage?! Spock, you have changed–I can hardly believe you’d admit such a thing! So what is it?
Spock: Being long-lived. I miss my human friends…

- From I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy

And that brings me to what I feel was the most important scene for Spock (and for me) in the film. It so moved me that I mentionned it in Chapter 1: the scene where Spock–defeated and depressed after his realization that his protégé, Valeris, is a traitor–is lying quietly in his quarters, clearly indulging in a very human moment of melancholy. Kirk enters and makes an effort to cheer his friend and to rally him to action.
In reply, the Vulcan turns to Kirk and says softly, “Is it possible that we two, you and I, have grown so old and inflexible that we have outlived our usefulness?”
As I said earlier, it was a very poignant question for me as well as for Spock. For not only was the Vulcan on the verge of retirement, and meditating on the fact that, at long last, the Enterprise crew’s missions together were over–but I was well aware that this was most likely the last Star Trek film for both of us. And as I turned toward Bill and uttered those words, any sense of “mask” slipped away. I honestly felt myself merge with the character, Spock… and at the moment that the Vulcan spoke to his captain, Leonard Nimoy asked the same question of Bill Shatner. I recall looking at him and wondering: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Bill? That this really is the end of our ‘mission’ together…?

- From I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy, about the shooting of STVI.