By Jeff Szalay
Starlog Exclusive 1982  

Leonard Nimoy is not surprised by the huge success of "The Wrath of Khan". "It's great! There's nothing wrong with success," Nimoy says. "It's terrific and I am relieved because Bill, De, myself and the other people who have talked about this picture before its release felt strongly that it would be successful and that we were on the right track. What has happened here is that our perspective of what Star Trek is really supposed to be has been verified. The audience has said 'Yes, that's right!' ".

"The whole Star Trek thing has gone through so many bizarre twists and and turns they couldn't surprise me with anything they came up with!"

Happy about how the relationship has been handled he asks rhetorically: "Do you think the distance between Kirk and Spock has been narrowed?"

"I think it (the death of Spock) was done with some style. I am still having trouble being terribly objective about it. I think I'd have to see the film another three or four times to really get some perspective."

"I found myself being moved by the scene early, very early, at about the point where Kirk says to Scott something about you have to get us out of here in two or three minutes or we're all dead. You can Spock hear that and react. I'm already really feeling emotional about what's coming, and I felt the same way about making the picture – terribly emotional about it, and really came within a hair's breath of walking of the lot rather than playing the scene. .. scared of playing it... I think it works very, very well. It's a moving scene and I am pleased with it in the context of the film. I am glad that we did it... the intention was to do it honestly and sincerely as though it was final."

"There's a moment, a very interesting moment to me in terms of audience reaction, when you see Spock on the floor through the glass in the distance... when he gets up and straightens his jacket, I've heard people laugh. I've also heard some sharp intakes of breath. And there are two very interesting things happening on that straightening of the jacket, it's a pretty strange and wonderful moment. I think that there are some in the audience who think that he's getting himself together again and he is going to be OK. That we have some strange magical kind of explanation as to how he survived this thing. And then there are others who are very moved by it because they see it as Spock kind of recovering his dignity for his last moments with his superior officer. It's a very moving kind of thing."

In The Final Frontier: 'Space, the final frontier' is spoken by Spock instead of Kirk. Nimoy chuckles a bit at that and then says: "A lovely touch, isn't it?... Again it is open to interpretation, which I think is what makes it so fascinating."

Star Trek III: "I certainly would love to be involved in the very early stages of discussion."

Insert: Nimoy on Bennett, Shatner & the "Trek" Legions
"I would say that Harve Bennett is the driving force in the [improved] relationship with the studio... had a good sense of where the best of Star Trek was. He was involved with the writers every inch of the way, including doing some writing by himself... And I was very pleased with Nick Meyer who has a terrific feeling for the Star Trek literature. And I was very pleased with Nick Meyer's policy on the script which helped the attitude, the posture, the dialogue of the Spock character. Nick Meyer has a good feel for that kind of character – having been an intense student of Sherlock Holmes helps a lot and having written The Seven Percent Solution, I think he understands the style of that kind of intellect operating as an entity in the character. So he had a good feeling for Spock."

Quoting from his book "I am not Spock": " 'We (Bill Shanter and him) are as unlike as salt and pepper but on Star Trek I I felt we complimented each other in the same way. ... each of us could recognize the value of the areas we vacated and relinquished to the other. But the chemistry was at its best when we functioned in an interlaced pattern each as part of a whole.' Now, this was written in 1975, seven years ago and I still feel the same way."

"She [Dorothy Fontana] wrote a lovely thing called 'This Side of Paradise'. Lovely... because it showed us what Spock suppresses – terribly important."