I feel like Kirk/McCoy has way more room for me to play when/if I do start writing fic for Trek - I don't have to work my way through setting up the relationship like I'd have to do with Kirk/Spock - not saying that there isn't good fic to be had in that, but there's only so much of it I can read or write.

Uhura *did* have more to do in this movie than she did in the original series, is the sad thing, and she hardly had anything to do in the second act besides be the Worried Girlfriend. But then Sulu, Chekov, and even Scotty - heck, even McCoy - almost disappeared by the last third of the movie, so I put that down more to the focus of the movie swinging over to Kirk and Spock than to the romantic subplot itself (though it probably didn't help). But I can't help but ship it because of the way Uhura seems to be completely okay with Spock's Vulcan nature and he with her human one, not demanding more of him by way of emotional demonstrativeness than is in his culture to give but at the same time...it's like, she's not being needy, but she's also not settling for scraps of affection, and I felt like despite not having much to do in the second act she definitely had her own life separate from him.

While I did like Kirk and Spock, I would buy many, many tickets in support of an entire film of Sulu, Chekov, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura and their shipboard shenanigans, with bonus Captain Pike because you know they're binging him back on board - as kayliemalinza pointed out to me, no way are they going to let a kid just out of Academy command the Enterprise for anything more than a "reward" period. After all, Kirk and Spock wouldn't last very long outside the ship were it not for their tech support and people who actually know what makes the ship go. :D