How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and TMP?

[SchwEnt]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

Given the use of transporter technology, I wouldn't be surprised if they used the base structure as the same, while everything else was just altered in the matter stream.
:-)

That, and just how much of SF headquarters have we seen in TOS?
For all we know, majority of SF installations were already undergoing a drastic refit while TOS was on the air.
The Enterprise was simply the most prominent change.

I've thought about that, the Enterprise was out on a mission and the rest of the fleet was already incorporating TMP changes. The Enterprise got everything in one big refit prior to the V'Ger incident.

But then I can't explain the starbases and other starships we saw during TOS, where none of them had any of TMP changes.

 

[MacLeod]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

But we only say a fraction of Federation space in TOS and from memory only 1 space based station. K7, as for other starships we might have only seen a small perentage of the total fleet.

Just because we don't see something doesn't mean it's that other ships in the fleet look more like the refit Constution and Miranda Class vessels.

 

[Crisp Conditions]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

But we only say a fraction of Federation space in TOS and from memory only 1 space based station. K7

There was also the K-7 lookalike used for an unnamed space station in The Ultimate Computer (original version), which in the remastered version has a fancier appearance and has now been retconned (based on its surface markings, although which were not entirely on-screen) to be Starbase 6.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Computer_(episode)#Remastered_information
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Starbase_6

 

[The Castellan]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

I'd not exactly call Starfleet the military.

Uh regardless of what name you wanna give it. Realistically they're not gonna drastically redesign the uniform 3 times within 20 years, as if its that important.

Anything is possible.

 

[J.T.B.]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

Uh regardless of what name you wanna give it. Realistically they're not gonna drastically redesign the uniform 3 times within 20 years, as if its that important.

Why not? 20 years is a hell of a long time!

Was the Army uniform the same in 1905 as it was in 1885?
Was it the same in 1945 as it was in 1925?
Was it the same in 1965 as it was in 1945?
Was it the same in 1985 as in 1965?
Is it the same now as it was in 1992?

US Army Blue uniform: 1953 to present
US Army Green uniform: 1954-2014
US Army enlisted rank insignia (basic design): 1920 to present
US Army officer rank insignia (basic design): 1851 to present
US Navy officer blue service uniform: 1919 to present
US Navy officer dress white: 1905 to present
US Navy enlisted blue jumper: 1869 to present
US Navy officer rank insignia: 1869 to present
US Navy enlisted rate insignia: 1894 to present

Certainly there are new field, working and protective variations coming out all along, but the fundamentals take a long time to change. A change as drastic as the one from TMP to TWoK is pretty much unprecedented, except in the case of a revolution or coup.



Justin

 

[BK613]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

@ J.T.B
Your information about US Navy is incomplete. Zumwalt made major changes to Navy uniforms in the 70s, including discontinuing "Crackerjacks" in favor of dress shirt and tie uniforms (looked like bus driver uniforms LOL). It wasn't until 1980 that Service Dress Whites (think Popeye here) were reintroduced.

You also leave out the host of changes that are occurring now to uniforms, with many version of uniforms that I proudly wore now discontinued.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

I think it was due to Rodenberry wanting to change the look.

Yes they already designed Phase II and then it became TMP.
Phase II was going to look like that. Star wars came out in May 1977. It sounds like that Spring everyone wanted a piece of Star Wars look and style.
See my post in the futuristic thread about the 1970s use of white minimalism in scifi.
http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=5998066&postcount=23
Do we know what year Phase II was supposed to be ? 23rd or 24th century?

 

[Christopher]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

Do we know what year Phase II was supposed to be ? 23rd or 24th century?

At that point, they hadn't tied down the specific years when Star Trek took place; it wasn't until TWOK that it was definitively established as taking place in the 23rd century, and it wasn't until the end of TNG's first season (in "The Neutral Zone") that we got a specific calendar year for any Trek episode or movie. (Roddenberry didn't want to tie down the date too precisely. TWOK did it because Roddenberry was only a consultant there, and "The Neutral Zone" did it because it was shot from a first draft during a writers' strike, otherwise the date reference might've been cut.)

But Phase II was meant to be set just a few years after TOS, reuniting all the TOS cast except for Spock aboard a refitted Enterprise on its second 5-year mission. Remember, TMP was a rewritten version of the pilot script for Phase II, so that series would've been in the same basic timeframe as TMP.

 

[J.T.B.]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

@ J.T.B
Your information about US Navy is incomplete. Zumwalt made major changes to Navy uniforms in the 70s, including discontinuing "Crackerjacks" in favor of dress shirt and tie uniforms (looked like bus driver uniforms LOL). It wasn't until 1980 that Service Dress Whites (think Popeye here) were reintroduced.

Fair enough. I will modify that to say:
US Navy enlisted blue jumper: 1869-1975, 1980-present. The fact that the traditional style was reintroduced actually illustrates the strong pull toward continuity in uniforms.

You also leave out the host of changes that are occurring now to uniforms, with many version of uniforms that I proudly wore now discontinued.

I acknowledged that in the final paragraph. The point still stands: There are plenty of aspects of uniforms today that would be recognizable to servicemen of WW2, WW1 or even the Spanish-American War. The change from TOS to TMP or the post-TNG shows/movies I can buy, but the radical and complete change from TMP to TWoK, is hard to believe.



Justin

 

[Christopher]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

^Which just underlines that ultimately this is fiction, and that its ideas are interpreted by different creators who take things in different directions. Part of enjoying fiction is the willing suspension of disbelief. We should know and accept that fiction isn't going to work the same way as reality, and that's part of its value. It's not only more exciting and (hopefully) more coherently structured than reality, but more mutable as well.

 

[Timo]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

The fact that the traditional style was reintroduced actually illustrates the strong pull toward continuity in uniforms.

Which we might use as an excuse for the rapid changes in the late 23rd century Trek uniforms: the TMP style was a brief aberration that never caught on, and the style from ST2 onwards is essentially the TOS style (with black bellbottom pants and boots and turtleneck shirts, only now with near-constant use of formal jackets on top) reinstated after the experiment.

Incidentally, this also separates the uniform change from the technological changes introduced in the roughly matching timeframe. Those weren't a fad that went away, but rather a steady and unrelenting evolution of things that only looks drastic to those who see it applied all at once on NCC-1701 at her triumphant return from deep space...

Elsewhere in Trek, things do not flip-flop quite that frequently, thankfully enough. And as matters currently stand, the TOS style is essentially seen from 2233 to 2270, with rather minor changes mainly involving the color-coding of the shirts (and with the intermittent use of coats similar to the ones that will appear in ST2).

We might even decide that the TMP style wasn't a style as such, but rather the Alternate Summer Uniform worn at San Francisco at the time of the armageddon scramble of the half-finished starship. Nobody had time to change at launch, nor to stock the ship with anything but more of the same so that even the later costume swaps only went from irregular to irregular and never featured the actual starship service style of the day. /

Timo Saloniemi

 

[J.T.B.]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

^Which just underlines that ultimately this is fiction, and that its ideas are interpreted by different creators who take things in different directions. Part of enjoying fiction is the willing suspension of disbelief. We should know and accept that fiction isn't going to work the same way as reality, and that's part of its value. It's not only more exciting and (hopefully) more coherently structured than reality, but more mutable as well.

I quite agree, and it doesn't really detract from the movie for me (though a few more touches of costume continuity with TOS/TMP wouldn't have detracted either!). But if you want to go hunting for real world examples that correspond to what's shown in the movies they are pretty thin.

Which we might use as an excuse for the rapid changes in the late 23rd century Trek uniforms: the TMP style was a brief aberration that never caught on, and the style from ST2 onwards is essentially the TOS style (with black bellbottom pants and boots and turtleneck shirts, only now with near-constant use of formal jackets on top) reinstated after the experiment.

That's a stretch. The only things that really match with TOS are the black trousers and boots, and the pants are modified with striping. Aside from being high-necked pullovers with collars vaguely like the "Cage" style, the movie shirts are actually pretty different: They have ribbed barrel cuffs instead of coat-style cuffs, no rank insignia and no breast badge, and are worn tucked in.

The basic un-cluttered look of TOS and TMP uniform was replaced with something visually quite different, with colored straps on opposite shoulder and cuff, contrasting trim front, back and sides, external belt with large buckle, bright metal pin insignia instead of sewn-on and some kind of dot-and-dash pins (supposedly for years of service) that were never deemed necessary before or since. The jacket style is quite different from those seen in "The Cage" or the TOS dress uniforms. Perhaps most drastic is that enlisted personnel were put into uniforms quite visually distinct from those of officers, while previously all had worn the same style.



Justin

 

[BK613]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

I assume that peeps here know that the cadet uniforms in TWOK are slightly reworked and re-dyed TMP uniforms. And the turtlenecks are suggestive, as others said, of the colored shirts from TOS. Given that, in-universe, the likely min-max of the gap between these movies is 7.5-12.5 years*, one could argue that the TWOK uniforms were an evolutionary result of reintroducing color to the excessively neutral TMP uniforms.

---@ JTB

The fact that the traditional style was reintroduced actually illustrates the strong pull toward continuity in uniforms.

Shrug, you said such changes occur only during a revolution or a coup; Zumwalt's changes were neither, they were very radical, and they were around for a shorter time than the TMP changes.
---
*(assumes that "two and a half years" and "fifteen years" are accurate values. Not all agree, I know. If Space Seed happens first thing on the five year mission, it's 7.5; the last thing and it's 12.5)

 

[Christopher]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

I quite agree, and it doesn't really detract from the movie for me (though a few more touches of costume continuity with TOS/TMP wouldn't have detracted either!).

Well, personally I hate the TWOK uniforms -- they're ridiculously impractical as everyday duty wear rather than fancy dress, and they make the crew look like they're in a historical costume drama, like in the holodeck scene in Generations. I would've loved to see a few more movies in the style and era of TMP. So I definitely wouldn't have minded if they'd kept the TMP uniforms, just with somewhat more saturated colors.

But if you want to go hunting for real world examples that correspond to what's shown in the movies they are pretty thin.

On the other hand, people sometimes complain that Starfleet is too humancentric and should have more alien influence. Maybe this is the result of alien influence. Maybe completely changing the uniforms every few years is an ancient tradition of the Andorian or Tellarite military.

 

[Timo]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

Perhaps most drastic is that enlisted personnel were put into uniforms quite visually distinct from those of officers, while previously all had worn the same style.

Naturally, movie costuming will always be more diverse than TV show costuming. But since the topic is in-universe rationalization, it's pretty simple to point out that distinct "coverall" or "jumpsuit" style is a feature of the TV shows as well, whenever it can be afforded. This style appears in TOS, TNG and DS9 alike, and indeed is used exclusively in VOY. In all these shows, the style is shared by officers and enlisteds - but it is shared by officers and enlisteds in the movies, too! That is, we have seen Cadet Picard in those coveralls in ST:NEM, while other supposed cadets in ST2 wore the tunics; Janice Rand held commissioned rank while donning the coveralls in ST4; and (in a TV show, but in the movie costume context) most of Captain Garrett's E-C bridge officers wore coveralls.

All we really need to rationalize is why there at times (to wit, ST2-6) appears to be a predisposition among enlisteds for wearing the coveralls while officers wear the tunics. And that's not difficult to do at all, as we have seen formal inspections and funerals where people line up wearing diverse costuming including engineering "radsuits" (or whatever those clumsy things are); clearly, convenience rather than formality is an overriding concern on such occasions, and "working stiffs" can be expected to have their work clothes on more often than not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cmdr.Druss]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

Not quite related to the movies, be still related to uniforms:

When TNG was put into production, why did they choose to swap command gold and operations red around to command red and operations gold?

Has an in-universe reason for this ever been developed?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

They simply thought it looked better. That's why Data wears yellow, when his role (he does what Spock used to, even if they call him "operations manager" and not "science officer") really should have put him in science blue.

 

[Christopher]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

I thought it was to get away from the "redshirt" cliche for security guards.

In-universe, it hasn't been explained.

 

[Timo]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

...Although in-universe, STXI went to extra pains to shuffle the deck further, and to establish that the colors had been switched at least once before.

Currently, it seems as if gold stood for command in ENT, before giving way to blue for the 2230s, before reverting to gold, before becoming white, before becoming red. But there may have been further flip-flops in between; apparently, this is a feature of the Trek universe, rather than a bug. I wonder if there is an in-universe desire to disassociate certain colors from certain professions or fates every few decades?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[J.T.B.]

Re: How do you account for the drastic design change between TOS and T

Shrug, you said such changes occur only during a revolution or a coup; Zumwalt's changes were neither, they were very radical, and they were around for a shorter time than the TMP changes.

It was not a radical departure in style, it simply put male E-1 through E-6 sailors in the same type of uniforms as chiefs, officers and females had worn for decades. Rate insignia were unchanged. There were plenty of threads of continuity with established styles.



Justin