All this fuss over epaulets? The whole movie is mindless and contemptible just because of a little extra fabric on the shoulders? I don't even know how to begin to respond to that.
Old Bob Fletcher Interview on TMP costumes
- Thread starter Ryan Thomas Riddle
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It's called "English".
While Kirk's admiral's uniform has a certain formality -- even stuffiness (which fits the nature of the story and the character at that point) -- to it, the presentation of the TMP uniforms is of a more relaxed style than the black pants and jack boots of TOS; which comprise about half the wearer's body, by height. Overall, even with the introduction of epaulettes (more for utility and simple adornment than any overt statements about hierarchical discipline), the TMP uniforms convey a more refined sense of their wearers being scientists and explorers.
I'm not surprised you don't know how to respond, since that's not what I said (though putting words in a critic's mouth is par-for-the-course amongst STXI fans, I've noticed). Rather, the film's attitude in this matter is symptomatic of flawed thinking across the board. This issue, in and of itself, neither kills the film nor elevates it; it is, merely, one more area in which I personally find the film simplistic and out-of-sync with a more heightened ethos that ST was once able to explore/express, and that arguably -- ideally, at least -- defines what ST is or should be about. If you don't get that, then, I guess, you don't get that.
Or, simply reading way too much into the costume designs of a movie you were pre-destined to dislike?
You notice a lot that's not there, perhaps.
Here we go . . .
Or, perhaps, I know baloney -- i.e., fraudulent moves like ad hominem, reductio ad absurdum, leading questions and other red herrings -- when I see it.
That's quite a stretch. The shoulder tabs in TMP were clearly to indicate grade, since, unlike TOS, short-sleeved uniform variants would be common which would not allow for the standard cuff stripes. And, scientists and explorers or not, a military hierarchy is clearly in place in TMP, as evinced by the scene about the temporary grade reduction for Decker.
--Justin
ST:TMP and JJ's Star Trek are my two favourite films of all time. It's possible to enjoy both equally.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
You are proof it is possible. Most of the rest of the world is proof it is seriously unlikely to see that viewpoint.
While tons of people like the Abrams thing for whatever strange reason, not a lot like TMP (which I understand, even though I don't wholly agree.)
I've read plenty of your posts, and find some quite informative, but I still don't see how it is possible you could hold such opposite-headed flicks in such high (highest?) esteem. I like ACTION JACKSON and 2001 a lot, but they aren't representing the same idea, which is (theoretically) the case with two properties that are both identified as STAR TREK with the (on-paper anyway) same characters.
There might be a counter-argument put forth that ST is that good BECAUSE it can support such different approaches, but I think that'd only be limited to a single series (like the non-anthology anthology GR notion), not a reboot.
Well, there you go. I enjoyed both equally, despite being 30 years apart. They both gave me a deeply involving Star Trek experience and have stood up to multiple viewings, alone and with friends. Both films had amazing special effects, new UFP alien designs, engaging soundtrack music, and a camaraderie between the characters that made me want to climb through the 4th wall and join the crew.
I was emailing back and forth with Bjo Trimble today, and I asked her for her opinions on the JJ "Star Trek". I hadn't seen any public comments from her in several years, but I knew she'd been open to new ideas, such as presented by TAS, TMP, ST II and TNG.
Bjo said, "In general, both John and I liked the new movie. While we deplored the general crash and bash that always must be included in a movie to get the 'younger crowd' and we are terribly tired of sulky brooding villains in long overcoats and tattoos, we liked the movie. We thought the moving time-line was far more believable than the silly nexus, and think it was a brilliant way to break away from the over-worked old story-line that was about to kill off the franchise.
"With this concept, a very young Kirk could visit his much older counterpart, or an older Uhura could end up in the younger Uhura's alternative universe. Really a fun idea. The addition of tidbits from the classic Trek series and movies made it fun for us. John cracked up when we saw the tribble in the cage. In all, I see far more hope for the Star Trek franchise than we have had in years.
"Please feel free to share this opinion with others if you wish."
Then she added a P.S.: "I am constantly surprised by the close-mindedness of some fans; we are looking toward a great future. This means change as well as a positive attitude. Without those things, how can we ever achieve that Trek future we enjoyed so much on TV?"
I'm still waiting for an explanation of your prior accusation: "Or, simply reading way too much into the costume designs of a movie you were pre-destined to dislike?" So far, all you've done -- cowardly, I might add -- is switch gears, rambling about your personal opinion of two movies, and concluding with a drive-by insult ostensibly fashioned by a third party (but whom, tellingly, you have been only too happy to publicly quote and highlight).
I never really liked the TOS uniforms as an adult, although the bright colours made them engaging to me as a child.
TMP and TNG season 3 uniforms were ok and the Kelvin uniforms looked much better in the new movie.
An amalgam uniform might look better but that has to be counterbalanced against their desire to adopt a TOS feel. Maybe we can all play around on Star Trek online's character generator to come up with new uniform ideas...
TMP and TNG season 3 uniforms were ok and the Kelvin uniforms looked much better in the new movie.
An amalgam uniform might look better but that has to be counterbalanced against their desire to adopt a TOS feel. Maybe we can all play around on Star Trek online's character generator to come up with new uniform ideas...
I just bought Star Tek Magazine 23 with the TMP retrospective. It was nice, although I felt the overall tone was more negative than I'd have liked! I guess it was a tough movie to work on and the overall result was imperfect but I still love it!
Best things were good old Christopher's wistful article and some pictures of zaranites that I'd never seen before! Awesome.
Best things were good old Christopher's wistful article and some pictures of zaranites that I'd never seen before! Awesome.
I didn't think it required any more elaboration. You wrote a longish explanation about the size and position of epaulets in JJ's film that I couldn't see added anything convincing to your argument. I still think you are reading too much into the costume design. Nothing cowardly about that.
In my discussion with trevanian, yes, not with you. Nothing cowardly about that. I wasn't talking to you at the time.
"... ostensibly fashioned"? Bjo gave me permission to quote her, and if you take her comments as an insult that's up to you.
Not to re-rail the thread or anything, but can anyone make out what the crossed-out color tabs on the first class-A uniform sketch are labeled as? I've had a copy of this magazine for almost thirty years now, and I've never been able to make it out. By the way, there was a prototype of this uniform made in tan and white with the longer pointed shoulder tabs in red that was up on ebay a year or two ago. I'll see if I can locate some pictures of it if anyone is interested.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Have to disagree here...TWOK was a movie not reality. And the uniforms, and the new bridge paint job, went together very well. I was in the military for a long time, and i was glad to see TREK have some sort of nautical, if 'unreal' look to it...and those uniforms, and Horner's music, were both spot on, in terms of entertaiment; IMO
Rob
The TMP Enterprise is the best everrrrr.
I always thought they changed the uniforms in TWoK because the main cast was getting too fat to pulle off TMP style outfits. I like them but red is a very unflattering colour for a lot of people.
I think a uniform that is a hybrid of the NuTrek Kelvin and TMP uniforms would be my preferred choice as long as they apply some logic to the colour scheme. Why is Chekov in biege while his junior is in grey? Why? I hardly think Kirk's yeoman sends out a ship-wide announcement every morning telling the crew what colours to wear just to brighten up the bridge...
I always thought they changed the uniforms in TWoK because the main cast was getting too fat to pulle off TMP style outfits. I like them but red is a very unflattering colour for a lot of people.
I think a uniform that is a hybrid of the NuTrek Kelvin and TMP uniforms would be my preferred choice as long as they apply some logic to the colour scheme. Why is Chekov in biege while his junior is in grey? Why? I hardly think Kirk's yeoman sends out a ship-wide announcement every morning telling the crew what colours to wear just to brighten up the bridge...
Seems you're well-practiced at distortion.
I said that your switching of gears -- i.e. your evasiveness (going from a remark about my supposedly being "pre-destined" to hate a film to an assertion about you loving both TMP and STXI) -- was cowardly. Nothing more, nothing less. Strange that you dredged my remark up and applied it to two situations when I was clearly using it in reference to a single situation; and, in truth, it's applicable to neither of the situations you contrived to make it seem as if I had in any way, shape or form confabulated.
Further, I don't personally take Bjo Trimble's remarks as any kind of insult. She's entitled to her own opinion, and I am entitled to be upset or not; in this case, I'm not. But I did, and do, find it curious that you have, indeed, presented her assessment of a film in this thread, not least when her remarks are clearly about the entire film; when this thread, by contrast, is merely about uniforms (and, more specifically, TMP uniforms, first and foremost). In addition, you prefaced her remarks with a comment about how you "knew" that "she'd be open to new ideas", and you also ring-fenced her "post script", slightly; a post script that carries a particularly loaded sentiment (highly agreeable to you, no doubt; but again, very little to do with uniforms, really).
Now, if I were to do a little post script of my own -- it's not entirely relevant, but if you've indulged Bjo Trimble (it may have been more prudent, by the way, to have presented her remarks in the STXI forum, where many fans may like to read them; not in an innocuous and not especially apropos location like this thread), you can indulge me -- I would respond to Trimble's post script thusly: in my opinion, this comes down to attachment. Simply put, some fans are more attached to the idea of Star Trek continuing than others. Those with a strong attachment will, in the eyes of those not enamoured with J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek", tend to embrace the new film for what it signifies or appears to promise: more Star Trek. This strikes me as rather odious, for it allows the movie to get a free pass (through this lens, its strengths and weaknesses as Star Trek, never mind a work of art, are not even up for consideration), and it's also somewhat fascistic (the subtext of such remarks, invariably, is: "You Must Accept This! It's The Best We Are Going To Get! And If You Don't Accept It, YOU Will Have Killed Star Trek!" (and the mob will get you)).
Offensively, Trimble even takes the fascistic undertones one stage further, accusing fans who don't like the movie (what else is "close-mindedness" synonymous with in her context?) of lacking the right mindset for building a more positive future for humanity ("how can we ever achieve that Trek future"). THAT is baloney. For one, by denigrating those of a more weary disposition, she is endorsing a commercial product and assenting to commercialism itself; this is not only a malady of our times which she is (unconsciously, perhaps) endorsing, but very much against Star Trek's less corporatized and less materialistic future; in other words, she refutes her own proposition exactly as she makes it. Whatever else you may or may not want to say about Abrams' Star Trek, it's product; very expensive product, designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience and generate more product. THEN there is everything else Trimble is implying about people who don't like the movie -- and it's one hell of a guilt-trip to lay on individuals that don't like what she does with such a gross canard. So I take back what I said before: on that basis, I *am* offended. What makes those remarks even more ironic is that the people who don't like STXI, as far as I can tell, don't like it primarily because they see it as anti-Star Trek and very crude in all kinds of ways. As much as Trimble finds the alleged dislikers of XI close-minded, the same could just as easily be said for those that tacitly embrace the kind of retrograde stuff us dislikers perceive that Abrams' Trek wantonly engages in (crass commercialism, mawkishness, sensationalism, empty spectacle, contrived "destiny" motifs, the encouragement of scientific illiteracy, etc. -- ALL against the human spirit). Anyway, that's a diversion . . .
All of the above, combined with your earlier responses, strikes me as very defensive behaviour. I enter this thread by thanking the OP for the TMP article, I then quote another member who mentioned the new uniforms and make some observations of my own -- positive and negative -- and, before I know it, I'm fielding responses from multiple posters about my negative remarks; all of which take the same belligerent tone:
Four remarks; three members. I haven't quoted the names; I think it's more amusing to look at them without attribution, given how similar they all look and sound. I notice that each and every one of those remarks, either by itself, or what it precipitates, tries to strawman my points in exactly the same way; while the "pre-destined" jab strikes me as typical of someone in love with STXI (its anti-secular-humanist "destiny" tract is a huge part of its narrative, after all). Interestingly, this discussion quickly went from uniforms to sensitive STXI fanboys trying to smear someone for talking down their movie. Now, of course, I'd have been happy to further clarify my remarks; but I only do this when there's respect for an opposing opinion; the above remarks indicate that there is none. Shame. Could have had a nice exchange.
I do also wonder, is this par-for-the-course, now, with Abrams' sort of movie-making? There is a lot in his movie that encourages the sort of aggressiveness and suspicion/contempt of the intellect that's been an emergent phenomenon on the Internet in the last ten years, I think, like the lead character bawling at another more emotionally-restrained and intellectually-stronger (near) lead, even punching and kicking two security officers who take him away (because of his unwieldiness) on request; a conflict of interests that is later resolved by the lead character returning to deliberately provoke the other character into an emotional frenzy (the height of shame for an entity that prides itself on emotional restraint and decorum; and the lead character is presented de facto as the cunning alpha male we should follow and even cheer for; his tenacity in this and other matters being an inherent part of his self-realization, and a viewer's emotional investment in this self-realization and its fulfilment in a calculated medal ceremony is exactly what the film relies on to work). One need look no further than Rotten Tomatoes and at both the virulent and voluminous response to Armond White, the first major critic to tend a negative review of STXI, to see how this phenomenon is peaking at hitherto unimagined levels. Personally, I am very worried. I'm not saying that anyone on here is like that (though I do believe some are), but, in my estimation, STXI fits comfortably into this new climate of entertainment for entertainment's sake (aesthetically; in reality, for $$$), and woe betide anyone who speaks ill of such things, in part or in whole.
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Yikes - the movie was flawed but don't have a cow. Star Trek has been through many different incarnations with widely varying tone. If I'm honest, the pace and tone of this movie is more like what I wanted to see in Enterprise but the writers made it far too much like TNG instead.
There were some really dumb plot elements in NuTrek but... uh... Spock's Brain anybody? Bjo Trimble is right in that fans should try to take a more balanced view overall. Sci fi movies only get made with backing and backing generally only comes in the form of action blockbusters. If faced with NuTrek or nothing I'll go with NuTrek. Who knows where it might spin off?
And if that doesn't work, they can always just re-boot again with Gaila finding Kirk in the sonic shower. Simples.
Fandom is hilarious in its strength of feeling over tiny elements. It's so sweet to see. My mate is a massive Lord of the Rings fan and actually disliked the recent trilogy. She relented somewhat after watching the exended versions but even so...
I do mean to be a bit patronising because I'm no different. I've ranted about misguided warp factors, transporter range, Chekov's age, the wisdom of jetisoning the warp drive at the event horizon of a black hole (I mean don't they power the shields?), the physics of red matter, the absence of Janice Rand and a number of other female characters etc.
The film was a fun romp even if it was as dumb as hay. Go with the flow; it's all we're getting for now.
There were some really dumb plot elements in NuTrek but... uh... Spock's Brain anybody? Bjo Trimble is right in that fans should try to take a more balanced view overall. Sci fi movies only get made with backing and backing generally only comes in the form of action blockbusters. If faced with NuTrek or nothing I'll go with NuTrek. Who knows where it might spin off?
And if that doesn't work, they can always just re-boot again with Gaila finding Kirk in the sonic shower. Simples.
Fandom is hilarious in its strength of feeling over tiny elements. It's so sweet to see. My mate is a massive Lord of the Rings fan and actually disliked the recent trilogy. She relented somewhat after watching the exended versions but even so...
I do mean to be a bit patronising because I'm no different. I've ranted about misguided warp factors, transporter range, Chekov's age, the wisdom of jetisoning the warp drive at the event horizon of a black hole (I mean don't they power the shields?), the physics of red matter, the absence of Janice Rand and a number of other female characters etc.
The film was a fun romp even if it was as dumb as hay. Go with the flow; it's all we're getting for now.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I suppose I could email Bjo's daughter-in-law Denise Connell to get HER take on the new movie (her company SNAPDRAGON GIFTS is closed temporarily, but should be back online shortly ... she has terrific taste and was my favorite vendor when I was managing a new age bookstore and buying sidelines and statuary from her), but that might not carry the same weight as your celebrity quote.
Even so, I am surprised at the P.S. -- I'd figure she would have LED with that naive bit and then went into her opinion of the film. The idea that general positivity and the rush to get on the next round of 'what's new' is a basis for reaching a treklike future (a diffuse goal, since we have no idea how to get THERE from HERE, even if you use produced Trek as a guide or ... 'bible') is as ill-considered as when Gary Kurtz declared that SW would inspire more SERIOUS dedication to space travel than any effort by NASA, and just as foolhardy.
Kurtz redeemed himself in my eyes by making RETURN TO OZ, and history has shown he is the only guy who can keep GL on track for a decent SW flick (Kurtz produced SW and EMP only), but still that early remark sticks in mind; hope that doesn't prove to be the case for my thoughts of Bjo.
