There were many costumes gaffs on Star Trek Mostly in rank insignia. I was in just about every series but mostly in voyager and ds9. Like for example when Picard calls a vice admiral fleet admiral. But that could just be that the vice admiral command a fleet and so Picard just called her fleet admiral for short. This is plausible because picard is no military man so I don’t he give much through into ranks. My question is was the costume department too lazy, didn’t care, or didn’t even notice the rank insigniaI mistakes know that it’s a small thing but it’s he little thing that can make a show great.
Rank problems
- Thread starter Gabriel
- Start date
More likely it has to do with that particular Admiral, Shanthi from Redemption was identified in the script as the head of Starfleet, and the head of Starfleet is meant to be a Fleet Admiral. Most likely the props/costuming people screwed up on the pips. The three boxed pips for Vice Admiral seemed to be the Go To for a majority of Admirals in the 24th century.
Not sure I'd call into question the competence of the people responsible, but rank insignia screw ups are quite common. Here's a list which includes most of them. http://www.st-spike.org/pages/uniforms/errors/errors.htm
My favourite is Tuvok wearing the entire first season with Lt. Commander insignia, despite the fact he was a Lieutenant. I especially like a nitpick website talking about the flashback scenes in the season 6 episode Fury that take place during the first season, showing him with the Lt. Commander pips. As they worded it "I don't know how to flag this one. It is wrong, but it is also consistent."
I know, just watch the episode, and yeah and it seems she is the head of starfleet. Well I’m just tired of those people not getting it right. I know I’m not an expert but how hard is it to make sure you got the rank insignia right. I mean I know it’s a job but with it just seems sloppy.
Another possibility is the writers had zero military background and thought that "Lieutenant" was a proper short-version of Lieutenant Commander. I've seen the same thing in non-Trek fiction where they kept calling a Lieutenant Colonel "Lieutenant" instead of the proper short-version of "Colonel". So, instead of dropping him one grade, they dropped him three (1LT -> Capt -> Major -> LtCol -> COL).
Exactly at the very least they could have consulted with some military people. But I’m sure some of them are prideful to ask for that kind of hep
Trekkies' favourite kind of wrong.
I know we've had a thousand threads on costume errors and whatnot; but put yourself in their shoes.
Sometimes you work for ten hour days, have to come up with all sorts of funky costumes, have to shop around used furniture stores, supervise tailoring etc...This stuff happens, literally all the time. But you know what the best thing about it is?
IT'S FICTION! Just ignore the error and enjoy the show; or if gaffes bother you, just don't watch.
Sometimes you work for ten hour days, have to come up with all sorts of funky costumes, have to shop around used furniture stores, supervise tailoring etc...This stuff happens, literally all the time. But you know what the best thing about it is?
IT'S FICTION! Just ignore the error and enjoy the show; or if gaffes bother you, just don't watch.
I know right there so professional yet apparently they can’t even proof read. Meaning away they don’t even need to ask people they can just look online. One thing I like about the Star Trek box is that those authors actually took some time to do some research on the things that the writer smiths like standard military protocol ranks and other stuff. And you can tell in the writing
Yes but they don’t just produce an episode in the day it takes several days that means I have several days to realize there error. And these are just simple error some of these errors are getting annoying. Doesn’t stop me from enjoying the show but it is annoying. But at least some of them they actually fixed. Although if I were the show runner I would’ve hired somebody to inspect all the uniforms to make sure they all look correct. But that’s just me an ordinary person telling the magnificent Hollywood world a suggestion. Although I will give cut them some slack because the rank insignia is pretty small In TNG complicated in the original movie era so I guess if your tired is it is easy to miss.
Of course, people ITRW make mistakes, too. Even in the military, which is childish enough to impose career consequences on people who happen to make mistakes with their dress-up games...
The frequency of one-off mistakes in Trek is just about realistic for the real world; that is, the characters would be expected to make mistakes about as often as that. "Lieutenant" Tuvok is a different ball game, and calls for some sort of a rationalization in-universe, and draws attention to a failure to communicate between writers and costumers out-universe.
Timo Saloniemi
The frequency of one-off mistakes in Trek is just about realistic for the real world; that is, the characters would be expected to make mistakes about as often as that. "Lieutenant" Tuvok is a different ball game, and calls for some sort of a rationalization in-universe, and draws attention to a failure to communicate between writers and costumers out-universe.
Timo Saloniemi
No rationalization needed. A production error, plain and simple.
A few errors here and there is ok, but the amount across the series is ridiculous. I know you don’t agree but excuse me for believe in what my mother taught me: “do your job right or don’t do it at all”
A few minor errors across hundreds of episodes is pretty good really, considering the writers, costumers etc are writers and costumers and not military personnel. Compare with, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fourth season which butchered its military references left right and centre, with special agents in the military, civilian scientists giving orders, and random bits of surplus to wear. Or, for that matter, almost any programme featuring the British police.
I don't know about that. Most if not all the writers in Voyager's first season came over from TNG, so they likely would have known the proper abbreviation of Lt. Commander would be Commander.
My question is is why is nearly every starship commander in starfleet ranked a captain. I mean in all the navies of the world captains only command big ships but in Starfleet A captain can command a small ship. I don’t know it just seems like a waste of senior officers. I know that the out of universe answer is because they want to make it easy on the audience but what do you think the in universe answer is. I don’t know I just think will be interesting to see commanding officers of starships that aren’t all captains. And yes I know that both Sisko and Dax commanded the defiant and ranks lower than captain. I’m just thinking that if the small ship were commanded by commanders it could give less senior officer some more experience in actualy commanding a starship before moving up into the big ships.
They haven't shown many small Starfleet ships on ST, apart from maybe the Grissom. Maybe any ship capable of General Order 24 must have someone of rank equitable to carrying out that task.
