"So an interesting tid bit, I hope, wether anybody liked Uhura/Spock or not is that, though we ran most of our outline by JJ, Alex and I did not tell him we were going to make them an item. We let that be a surprise to everyone in the script. JJ later said those scene were key to his decision to direct the movie." - Bob Orci (link)
------------------- "It brings out his human side, it fits Spock’s arc for the surprise of the fact that he does share humanity and in the revelation that his father did love his mother, and therefore Spock himself is then capable of that and you...