Does anyone find Star Trek II-V very (aesthetically) dated?

[Commander Kielbasa]

Obviously the Original Series is dated in its own ways, as is the first movie, but....

Between the color grading of the 'Trilogy' and V, Khan and his crew looking like an 80s Hair Metal band in II, Uhura's Jheri Curl, Kirk's TJ Hooker perm and other things, does anyone feel that II-V are very visually dated?

While the OS is dated in terms of SPX I find things like haircuts and stuff like that featured on the show to have generally stood the test of time. A guy could go out and wear Kirk's hairdo now and not look old fashioned, but if he wore Kirk's TJ Hooker rug he'd look ridiculous today. Even Khan looked better in the OS:

 

[Tosk]

Everything old is new again. Fashion is cyclical.

 

[Herbert]

Perhaps they are visually dated but I don't really give a rat's ass. Won't affect my desire to watch them.
I'm not put off by a 40s gangster movie simply because it looks like the 1940s. I can watch a movie like Earthquake and at times cringe because it just reeks 70s but that's part of its charm.

 

[Kronos]

This will always happen, the new Trek stuff will look comically bad in a few years, just the way it goes, guessing what will still look good in the future never work.

 

[Vger23]

Clearly these were popular styles in the 2280's, even if it looks ridiculous in the 2010's!

 

[F. King Daniel]

Of course, but that's part of the charm. I love the 80's version of the future.

 

[Khan 2.0]

Clearly these were popular styles in the 2280's, even if it looks ridiculous in the 2010's!

maybe being in another 80s decade will bring back the 1980s styles, perms etc

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Everything old is new again.

 

[Steven P Bastien]

Between the color grading of the 'Trilogy' and V, Khan and his crew looking like an 80s Hair Metal band in II, Uhura's Jheri Curl, Kirk's TJ Hooker perm and other things, does anyone feel that II-V are very visually dated?

Absolutely. It's horrible. People should have common sense when making SciFi movies/shows, - not to interject the present day styles.

By the way, Khan should have been into the styles of the 1990s, not the 1980s.

 

[Steven P Bastien]

Hey, what about Kirk needing glasses in IV. What's up with that? They don't have an improved version of LASIK eye surgery by then? And worse yet, he ends up with antique ones from our past?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Hey, what about Kirk needing glasses in IV. What's up with that? They don't have an improved version of LASIK eye surgery by then? And worse yet, he ends up with antique ones from our past?

Kirk appreciates relics from the past, even if he feels like one himself sometimes.

Absolutely. It's horrible. People should have common sense when making SciFi movies/shows, - not to interject the present day styles.

On the other hand, we've seen what happens when they try to imagine styles of the future in TNG...

 

[Steven P Bastien]

Kirk appreciates relics from the past, even if he feels like one himself sometimes.

I get that, and feel the same way myself. But, why would he not correct his vision with the technology available?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I get that, and feel the same way myself. But, why would he not correct his vision with the technology available?

Maybe it reminds him of his human frailty. Keeps him humble. People do weird things for reasons that make sense only to them. McCoy allows it because he understands human psychology, plus it's not a potentially fatal condition. Just a quality of life thing. Maybe Kirk thinks he looks good in specs. Since he was not actively jaunting around and fighting wars, in which case this single point of failure could make all the difference between life and death for his crew, he's cool with it.

Hey, it's not like he anticipates this, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last

 

[Lord Garth]

It looks visually dated but the '80s are the decade of my childhood (and the '90s are the decade of my adolescence), so I don't care.

Heavy Metal Khan is the best Khan. Same with the Klingons.

By the way, Khan should have been into the styles of the 1990s, not the 1980s.

Khan hated Grunge, so he resisted it to his last breath.

 

[XCV330]

I'll leave you as you left her.. abandoned in a Camelot Music store with neither comb, gel, nor mousse for all eternity.
Very alive...
very alive..

 

[Galileo7]

Of course, but that's part of the charm. I love the 80's version of the future.

Agree, the future view '80s production design is as wonderful as the future views of '60s 2OO1(1968) or '70s SPACE:1999(1975-77).

 

[inflatabledalek]

I was reading a discussion about Blake's 7 the other day where someone was talking about how the show's approach to technology and design had now aged into almost having a steam punk style aesthetic to it. Which is an idea I kind of liked and made me think we need a similar term for those 60's-80's (not sure when the cut off point would be, probably around the time shows like TNG started introducing more modern style computers than the old solid state ones?) takes on SF that have that sort of aesthetic and look to them. I can actually see there being a mini-genre one day of SF with BBC micro style computers you have to climb into with a welder to fix and everyone has mullets.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Hey, what about Kirk needing glasses in IV. What's up with that? They don't have an improved version of LASIK eye surgery by then? And worse yet, he ends up with antique ones from our past?

Kirk was allergic to Retinax 5, the treatment offered to most patients with vision impairments.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Between the color grading of the 'Trilogy' and V, Khan and his crew looking like an 80s Hair Metal band in II, Uhura's Jheri Curl, Kirk's TJ Hooker perm and other things, does anyone feel that II-V are very visually dated?

Yeah, a bit. When I last watched TSFS (shortly after Leonard Nimoy's death, I think), I noticed that it's probably the most 80s looking of the films, with all those pastel colors, the hairstyles, and the popped collars on the costumes. And yeah, Shatner's TJ Hooker hair has not stood the test of time well.

I personally find it fascinating how depictions of the future become dated. We think of the Flash Gordon comic strip as being a very 1930s view of the future today, and some bits of TOS practically scream 1960s (all that tie-dye costuming in the third season...), and TMP seems very 1970s, with the leisure suit/footie pajamas uniforms. Nicholas Meyer once said that if you filmed a historical drama taking place in say, 1575, in four different decades (the 1930s, the 1950s, the 1970s, etc.), you would be able to tell which year each version was filmed just by the costumes and filming styles.

But honestly, the Star Trek that looks the most dated to me today is TNG. It looks super 1980s, even as the show stretched into the early 1990s. TOS's style was generally more classic and timeless, but TNG looks very much of its time to me.

 

[Firebird]

Yeah, a bit. When I last watched TSFS (shortly after Leonard Nimoy's death, I think), I noticed that it's probably the most 80s looking of the films, with all those pastel colors, the hairstyles, and the popped collars on the costumes. And yeah, Shatner's TJ Hooker hair has not stood the test of time well.

I agree with you 100%. The thing that makes it look especially dated to me is the very flat lighting used in a lot of the bridge and Earth sequences in the first part of the film. It's very reminiscent of the boring cinematography from a lot of TV series around the same time. It's only after they arrive at Genesis does the cinematography start doing more interesting things with setups and use of shadow.