The movie/season premier reran last night here (we saw it the first time) and the rub-down scene did seem a bit gratuitous. I'm assuming the directors/writers felt it necessary to compete in today's media audience--but such was never the reason any Trek fan ever watched the shows or movies to begin with! All I can figure is that they thought they could attract new viewers with the hint (!) of the forbidden Vulcan flesh (ooh, naughty!
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Luckily such scenes haven't popped up much elsewhere in the series thus far. Hopefully it won't happen again, but I saw previews for the next five 'all brand new episodes' and there were a few scenes of very close fraternization!