I have looked all over and I can't find out why there are different shades of the same color uniform. For example; some red uniforms look pink, and some blue look green, and some gold look brown. Does anyone know why? Just bad production value for the show? or is there more to it. It drives me nuts, because uniforms should be, 'uniform'.
Uniform question
- Thread starter Vod
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The blue uniforms at least were notorious for changing color in the laundry. Perhaps it wasn't obvious even under studio lighting, but only showed up on the final film?
But do we ever see the other colors in a side-by-side comparison? Is a mustard uniform "brown" compared to a "still mustard" one in the same shot? Adjusting of colors from shot to shot is famously difficult work for the professionals involved, and something this iconic and blatant gets more scrutiny than the ever-changing colors of, say, the walls...
Timo Saloniemi
But do we ever see the other colors in a side-by-side comparison? Is a mustard uniform "brown" compared to a "still mustard" one in the same shot? Adjusting of colors from shot to shot is famously difficult work for the professionals involved, and something this iconic and blatant gets more scrutiny than the ever-changing colors of, say, the walls...
Timo Saloniemi
Various reasons, all production issues. IIRC the material they used didn't take to dyes very well. Regardless there's only "officially" three different colors, red, blue and yellow (gold.)
Production issues, changing of lighting/materials and even the medium of how you're watching the show can all cause the varying shades.
Production issues, changing of lighting/materials and even the medium of how you're watching the show can all cause the varying shades.
I hate you.
Well played.
It annoys me when people try to explain it away saying that Medical and Science had two separate division colours.
I can understand why they may be separated (after all they were during the Movie Era), but to me I think that it would make more sense for Engineering and Security to have two separate department colours.
I can understand why they may be separated (after all they were during the Movie Era), but to me I think that it would make more sense for Engineering and Security to have two separate department colours.
Funnily enough, we still lack any sort of dialogue confirmation on what the colors are supposed to mean. Departments, divisions, lines of work? The difference between line, non-line and staff? The three working shifts or watches? Three pay/prestige grades?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
In the picture above, looking how grey he is, that uniform must be a lot older and washed a lot more times than Beverly's. 
I don't think it was ever explicitly stated in dialog but the tech manuals were clear:
Gold = Command
Blue = All Sciences
Red = Support
And of course gold and red were switched for TNG+.
Then I-VI showed different-colored undershirts/collars, shoulder straps, and shoulder badges to differentiate command, medical, or whatever (maybe someone can elaborate here because I never learned the scheme here).
I was just commenting on this issue on another thread (General: Field uniforms)
IMO it should all be separated, because you don't want to accidentally grab an astrophysicist when you need a medic. Just like you want to make sure that the engineers have wrenches in hand and security holds on to their phasers.
In my world, officers and enlisted would get different uniforms too. If for no other reason, the NCO rank was really hard to see on screen (although, I'm really glad they finally included enlisted characters).
I remember flipping through a TNG comic when the show was in first run...they were coloring Bev's uniform green.
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