What was wrong with the TMP uniforms?

[Warped9]

Having once been in the auto retail business I can tell you that while many people can say they like more vivid or richer colours the vast majority usually buy muted and uninteresting colours: light blues, soft greens, silver, grey, white and even beige.

I find shape and colour can work together or not. I often find white doesn't look good on large vehicles. Very dark colours (black, very dark blues and greens and reds bordering on black), and sometimes white, can also tend to play down an interesting shape and interesting lines. I cannot stand beige and champagne like tones on a car or truck--Yuch! Most grays are very boring, but some shades or tones can be quite nice on the right shape. I often find the red usually associated with sporty cars often uninteresting and conventional.

But advances in new paints and new processes are giving us some quite interesting tones, but sadly most people still go for the duller colours.

 

[Ithekro]

Some of the duller colors show less dust and thus the people feel like they don't need to wash their cars as often.

White is picked a lot in hot climates as it is believed to reflect the heat.

That that does not translate to uniform colors on a starship.

 

[Warped9]

There is a matter of context. For TOS in the era of colour television being new vivid colours worked well. But more realistically more muted versions would look better.

The thing about TMP is that while I would question some of their choices they evidently put a lot of thought into trying to be futuristic and believable in that context. They were trying for something that looked possible even if different from what most are familiar. I would certainly have ditched the one-piece design like what Decker wore, but most of the rest I simply found the colours too muted. I question the inclusion of the device worn at waist level and the cut of the tunic's hem, but otherwise I really don't mind the rest. I can critique the specifics, but the overall conceptual approach is one I respect.

OTH TWOK outfits were terribly over designed and simply not believable as everyday service wear. They also didn't look futuristic or in keeping with the design aesthetic that Star Trek had established for Starfleet.

Design and fashion are also dependent on fabric. The early seasons of TNG had a decent design, but the fabric was lousy and ruined it. The replacement design might have had better fabric, but the style looked ridiculous with the seam up the back. It also looked stiff and uncomfortable.

TMP and early TNG were going for something interesting, but the fabrics available and some of the creative choices made sabotaged the end result. Outside of those and the TOS concepts the Trek uniforms never again really looked right.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

Design and fashion are also dependent on fabric. The early seasons of TNG had a decent design, but the fabric was lousy and ruined it. The replacement design might have had better fabric, but the style looked ridiculous with the seam up the back. It also looked stiff and uncomfortable.

TMP and early TNG were going for something interesting, but the fabrics available and some of the creative choices made sabotaged the end result. Outside of those and the TOS concepts the Trek uniforms never again really looked right.

I agree on the TNG uniforms. I've never liked them. The TNG movie uniforms I thought were a good design, they were just a little baggy a lot of the time.

 

[LordMudd]

I just finished reviewing this entire thread. First I want to comment on a post on the first page, that everyone hated the costumes. 11 pages later and no one has commented on why the cast hated the costumes. I stumbled on a video on Youtube behind the scenes of TMP, and some related links. The cast hated the costumes because they were spandex, and everyone needed help getting in and out of them, meaning, if you had to go to the bathroom, you needed help. Spandex also shows the lines of anything under it. The video also commented on the big rec deck scene. It said that the set was built, used for 1 day of shooting that scene, then torn down. Unless the Decker/Ilia Probe scenes were shot the same day, I have a problem with this, waste of money to put that much of the set back together to shoot those scenes, but I guess that is what movies do best, waste money. Also it said the entire crew was in the shot. Unless they cut the crew in half, that isn't possible. Just a few weeks ago I was looking at the possibility of recreating that scene with action figures, so I did a rough count. There are only about 230 people in that scene.
A link I followed listed many of them, including Bjo Trimble, and both of James Doohan's sons. One thing I noticed on the list was white uniforms were being listed as Sciences Department.

I like the color test uniforms. Nice. A lot of people don't like red because it makes you a target too easy, hence the Redshirt stereotype, but in one of the books there was a comment that Klingons can't see red, when a Klingon walked into a restricted area because he could not see the red print on the black sign, it all looked like 1 color to him. You have to face the possibility that some species cannot see some colors. I do believe that Space 1999 influenced the uniforms. I also believe that color is necessary in space to reduce depression, making TMP the only version out of all Trek to get it wrong, but I still like them.

CCC.

 

[Warped9]

^^ As I said the materials used were not the best. But that's nothing new in film. Indeed some actresses over the years who are accustomed to our contemporary style of clothing have remarked that wearing period clothing involving corsets and all other manner of antiquated attire are truly uncomfortable to wear hours on end.

Contemporary hockey players cannot comprehend what it was like to wear wool sweaters to play decades ago. Modern baseball uniforms aren't made the same as those past either. And appropriately dressed men of bygone days used to wear wool suits even in summer.

On point I've little doubt something in the style of the TMP attire could be done with much better fabrics that actually could be worn with a decent measure of comfort.

 

[J.T.B.]

The cast hated the costumes because they were spandex, and everyone needed help getting in and out of them, meaning, if you had to go to the bathroom, you needed help. Spandex also shows the lines of anything under it.

The jumpsuits were made of heavy spandex, but the Class A's were a wool gabardine, like real military uniforms today. The Class B's were some poly/cotton knit, I believe.

 

[Maurice]

Robert Fletcher preferred natural fabrics because synthetics don't drape or shape well, so he'd go for materials like gabardine where possible.

 

[T'Girl]

It's a good point, people live on the ship as well as work there so a wider variety for off-duty is understandable. Chief Di Falco, for instance, is wearing a uniform with no rank insignia, which makes sense if it was an off-duty uniform and she was off watch and called to the bridge in a hurry.

If Chief DiFalco wasn't wearing her uniform while off duty (which is fine), then would not what she was wear be "civilian clothing?" We saw this frequently in TNG.

I'm not sure exactly what a off duty uniform is suppose to be.

 

[LordMudd]

It's a good point, people live on the ship as well as work there so a wider variety for off-duty is understandable. Chief Di Falco, for instance, is wearing a uniform with no rank insignia, which makes sense if it was an off-duty uniform and she was off watch and called to the bridge in a hurry.

If Chief DiFalco wasn't wearing her uniform while off duty (which is fine), then would not what she was wear be "civilian clothing?" We saw this frequently in TNG.

I'm not sure exactly what a off duty uniform is suppose to be.

In TNG, the ship was designed to have civilians on board, and to have facilities for them. Civilians were never regularly assigned to Kirk's ship, just for special instances.

CCC.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's a good point, people live on the ship as well as work there so a wider variety for off-duty is understandable. Chief Di Falco, for instance, is wearing a uniform with no rank insignia, which makes sense if it was an off-duty uniform and she was off watch and called to the bridge in a hurry.

If Chief DiFalco wasn't wearing her uniform while off duty (which is fine), then would not what she was wear be "civilian clothing?" We saw this frequently in TNG.

I'm not sure exactly what a off duty uniform is suppose to be.

In TNG, the ship was designed to have civilians on board, and to have facilities for them. Civilians were never regularly assigned to Kirk's ship, just for special instances.

CCC.

The concept of (probable) off-duty crew in civvies goes back to "The Cage".

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's a good point, people live on the ship as well as work there so a wider variety for off-duty is understandable. Chief Di Falco, for instance, is wearing a uniform with no rank insignia, which makes sense if it was an off-duty uniform and she was off watch and called to the bridge in a hurry.

If Chief DiFalco wasn't wearing her uniform while off duty (which is fine), then would not what she was wear be "civilian clothing?" We saw this frequently in TNG.

I'm not sure exactly what a off duty uniform is suppose to be.

In TNG, the ship was designed to have civilians on board, and to have facilities for them. Civilians were never regularly assigned to Kirk's ship, just for special instances.

CCC.

While there might not be any civilians on Kirk's ship, there were civilian articles of clothing.

 

[J.T.B.]

If Chief DiFalco wasn't wearing her uniform while off duty (which is fine), then would not what she was wear be "civilian clothing?" We saw this frequently in TNG.

I'm not sure exactly what a off duty uniform is suppose to be.

Well, it wasn't civvies because it had a badge and other uniform cues, just no rank. It was part of the concept for the movie wardrobe that there would be a wide range of official clothing people could chose from, including some for off-duty wear. Specifically, the wrap jacket Sulu is wearing in the first bridge scene was supposed to be a "leisure uniform." It is a little different, conceptually, than we think of uniforms today.

 

[SPCTRE]

Very dark colours (black, very dark blues and greens and reds bordering on black), and sometimes white, can also tend to play down an interesting shape and interesting lines.

That's definitely very true in the case of cars.

 

[Mytran]

230 people you say? Not far off the 203 crew compliment of Captain Pike's Enterprise!

 

[Richard Baker]

I really liked the original TOS uniforms- they did not look like military but had a futuristic, practical vibe to them.
IMO the Wrath of Khan uniforms looked too conventional and TNG just looked weird with the zig-zag in the middle.

 

[C.E. Evans]

...TNG just looked weird with the zig-zag in the middle.

It was supposed to be the bottom of the Starfleet "arrowhead" insignia, with the top flipped over on the back.

 

[AirCommodore]

I kind of have a soft-spot for them, and felt that they allowed for a futuristic look for the film. If there was one flaw, I felt that the overall design was not consistent. I couldn't tell which department belong to what uniform, and there were too many collar variations. But I did like the idea of slipping on a jacket over your uniform, one that was designed to be utilitarian, and not bulky (compared to the field jacket in TWOK).

I do wonder if the field jumpsuits in STiD is a throwback to some of the TMP uniforms, but without the 1970s look...

I liked the TMP uniforms. Apparently they didn't visually stand out enough from the gray tones of the bridge an other ship sets, so a bolder red was used later. I liked the white top, gray pants uniform especially. They needed to get the uniform color scheme straightened out. Maybe just stick to the white tops, and let division/department be shown with the shoulder rank strip.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I really liked the original TOS uniforms- they did not look like military but had a futuristic, practical vibe to them.

The cut of pants and boots gave the uniforms a nice military accent to the "unusual" costuming, which was carried over to TWOK - TUC pant design.

 

[Mudd]

...TNG just looked weird with the zig-zag in the middle.

It was supposed to be the bottom of the Starfleet "arrowhead" insignia, with the top flipped over on the back.

You know, the one time that I spoke to William Theiss he told me that his idea for the TNG uniforms was that they reflected and emphasized human anatomy - the pointed yoke representing the musculature of the shoulders with the piping there being the clavicle, and the colored panel in the front being the rib cage.

He didn't mention the arrowhead on that occasion but given the asymmetry and the obvious resemblance I don't doubt that it could have served both purposes.