TMP Uniforms
- Thread starter Bry_Sinclair
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Pot meet kettle.
^ For the win.
Now now children.
Calm down, its only a bit of fun.
Calm down, its only a bit of fun.
We were lucky in Australia. Our transfers of the theatrical version of TMP on Beta video were stunning! (The only scene that was oddly muted was the conference Kirk and McCoy had with Spock after he arrived on the Vulcan shuttle. It goes almost b/w on the US version.) On the strength of that purchase of a Paramount Home Video Aust. release, I ran straight and bought their "Barbarella", and several other movies, on video sell-thru.
By the time the Special Longer Version got to Oz, TMP's VHS transfer didn't seem as vibrantly different as other studios' work.
And when It's a Wrap! auctioned those dyed costumes, the bemused people making the descriptions for the eBay listings wondered why the cloth Paramount name tags were coloured, similarly to the whole uniform, instead of the typical white.
The costuming bbs sites had a great time explaining these mysteries.
The McCoy disco shirt:
Also, Spock hasn't been given his black collar yet. A couple of last-minute mods to wardrobe, there.
Note that, in this version, Kirk's blue/grey uniform has both epaulettes and sleeve braid. In the final movie, it was one or the other, and only both for his admiral outfit.
The disco outfit I referred to earlier was the one he wore when beaming aboard, complete with neck bling and beard.
Did you see the line-drawing version of TMP Uhura in the View-Master Show Beam push-button projector (which resembled a long plastic torch) cartridge? They coloured the uniform pants as if they were her bare legs, giving her a similar look to Ilia in her robe. Hilarious!
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Again...can someone explain why these uniforms were apparently so uncomfortable? With the exception of the jumpsuit, they look like pants and a shirt.
They rode up with wear...
The McCoy disco shirt:
One is forced to wonder why Kirk is sitting at the navigator's position though. Or has Shatner decided he can crew the entire ship by himself?
The Captain's chair won't arrive until Tuesday.The McCoy disco shirt:
One is forced to wonder why Kirk is sitting at the navigator's position though. Or has Shatner decided he can crew the entire ship by himself?
If I understand it correctly, the material had elasticized stirrups under the feet and braces over the shoulders to make the fabric very taut when standing. The pants were also connected to the shoes. The pants had no fly. The curved darts and seams in the tops made them very form fitting. When sitting, the actors had to be careful not to damage the finish of the resin "Perscan" buckle devices.
All of this tension caused the actors' shoulders, backs, ankles, etc., to ache - after only a few hours in costume - plus there was the need to take one's dresser to the bathroom, for assistance in getting disrobed.
I've always liked the TMP uniforms best of all, because they seem to have the most thought behind them. The range of dressier, ordinary and more practical variations makes a lot of sense, the continuity of rank insignia from TOS seems realistic, and they fixed some TOS omissions by providing for showing rank on short-sleeved shirts and grade insignia for enlisted personnel.
I can understand criticism of the uniforms as unattractive or dull, that's a matter of taste. On a conceptual level, though, I don't see how that matters as one should expect that the fashions 300 years in the future would not be in accord with today's tastes.
Justin
I can understand criticism of the uniforms as unattractive or dull, that's a matter of taste. On a conceptual level, though, I don't see how that matters as one should expect that the fashions 300 years in the future would not be in accord with today's tastes.
Justin
Well said.
Sure, TMP uniforms were A-OK. Color preference is a personal thing and that's fine if the tans and beiges don't work for some. But the styles and design are perfectly acceptable. If you look at what people really wear living and working in space, it's t-shirts and shorts, gym pants and polo shirts. So if that's reality, I can certainly accept TMP uniforms as workable and appropriate.
The Captain's chair won't arrive until Tuesday.The McCoy disco shirt:
One is forced to wonder why Kirk is sitting at the navigator's position though. Or has Shatner decided he can crew the entire ship by himself?
LOL
-Chris
Someone once posted here the projected future uniforms of a space station, as featured at EPCOT in the 70s - and the colours and designs were intriguingly similar to TMP's Starfleet uniforms.
There was also a mixup, I believe, where all of the uniforms were something like a half size too small. It was either a screw up in measurements or that the material shrunk during costume manufacture.
This also lead to extras being cast based on measurements to fit many of the costumes.
It's funny that years later, when they went for the same "look" on TNG that the spandex used in the season one uniforms was used in the wrong "direction" which resulted in back problems among the cast, and resulted in the uniform change in subsequent seasons.
That's normal procedure for any show where wardrobe items can't be purchased "off the rack".
Designing for the far future is always going to be a challenge with mixed results. Obviously not everyone is going to be happy. Hell, does everyone wear the same thing today? Hardly, although in general we do dress similarly in concept even if different in detail.
Styles will change or evolve while recycling earlier ideas. We also look back and can see drastic change over centuries and it's not wholly reasonable to project forward and except something similarly drastic. But clothing over the past decades to centuries has evolved to be more comfortable, particularly with the development of better materials. This will probably continue unless society itself changes drastically.
It probably wouldn't be too hard to design some sort of comfortable looking future wear that would also be comfortable for the cast, but then there would probably be complaints that the style looked too familiar, too similar to what we already have. So some would still be unhappy.
The main issue with the TMP styles is that they evoke a similarity with something immediately familiar. I say similarly because the '70s had pants that were loose and flared which definitely wasn't what we got in TMP. But men and women in the '70s could wear suits that were the same colour all over and that was similar to the TMP uniforms. The only thing that was "disco" like was the collar of McCoy's outfit and even that wasn't really the same. No, I think people make such an issue out of the clothing simply because there were disappointed with other aspects of the film.
On the flip side I've always disliked TWOK uniforms. These definitely didn't look like future wear. They looked very retro and not at all believable as comfortable everyday wear. The TMP uniforms look credible as an evolution of what we saw in TOS although I'd argue a little more colour was needed. And it's easy to see an evolution from TOS to TMP to TNG and DS9. TWOK uniforms don't look even of the same universe. Instead of tweaking the overall TMP concept (in which we might have gotten something like the TNG concept only years earlier) they simply reacted by making an arbitrarily drastic change that was wholly inconsistent with what had come before. Indeed the whole feel of TWOK is like a reboot where they want you to forget TMP as if it never happened...but thats really a different discussion for another time.
Styles will change or evolve while recycling earlier ideas. We also look back and can see drastic change over centuries and it's not wholly reasonable to project forward and except something similarly drastic. But clothing over the past decades to centuries has evolved to be more comfortable, particularly with the development of better materials. This will probably continue unless society itself changes drastically.
It probably wouldn't be too hard to design some sort of comfortable looking future wear that would also be comfortable for the cast, but then there would probably be complaints that the style looked too familiar, too similar to what we already have. So some would still be unhappy.
The main issue with the TMP styles is that they evoke a similarity with something immediately familiar. I say similarly because the '70s had pants that were loose and flared which definitely wasn't what we got in TMP. But men and women in the '70s could wear suits that were the same colour all over and that was similar to the TMP uniforms. The only thing that was "disco" like was the collar of McCoy's outfit and even that wasn't really the same. No, I think people make such an issue out of the clothing simply because there were disappointed with other aspects of the film.
On the flip side I've always disliked TWOK uniforms. These definitely didn't look like future wear. They looked very retro and not at all believable as comfortable everyday wear. The TMP uniforms look credible as an evolution of what we saw in TOS although I'd argue a little more colour was needed. And it's easy to see an evolution from TOS to TMP to TNG and DS9. TWOK uniforms don't look even of the same universe. Instead of tweaking the overall TMP concept (in which we might have gotten something like the TNG concept only years earlier) they simply reacted by making an arbitrarily drastic change that was wholly inconsistent with what had come before. Indeed the whole feel of TWOK is like a reboot where they want you to forget TMP as if it never happened...but thats really a different discussion for another time.
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