Why the depressing colours in Starfleet's later years?

[Alienesse]

The Enterprise-D had it right, almost taking cues straight out of aircraft passenger cabin design. Keep the environment bright and cheery (although they missed the 'avoid hard angles' part.)

Not to mention glass coffee tables...

It strikes me that relentlessly hammering into the heads of a crew that they are living in a tin can of air, day after day, for years, can only aggravate the psychological issues inherent in such situations.

You do have a point there. But I could argue that there is a considerable design difference between the Galaxy class Enterprise-D and the Intrepid class. The Galaxy is a 'luxury liner' designed to hold families as well as the crew, which justifies the softer color tones. The Intrepid is smaller and less oriented towards deep-space exploration missions.

 

[Sandoval]

But then again who knows what the style will be in 300 years.

Silver jumpsuits.

Elvis jumpsuits.

And Elvis-style quiffs.

 

[JWD75]

I love the interior of the Enterprise-D. The interior of a starship should be bright, cheerful, and comfortable even if - especially if - the universe outside its hull has none of those qualities. A starship is a safe haven and home in a hostile and indifferent universe and its interior design should reflect that.

 

[BillJ]

IMO, what happened was the Nineties. Grunge. The rough, dirty, splicey “workprint look” of countless music videos and TV title sequences. Tim Burton’s Batman movies. Dark, depressing and gritty was “in,” and Trek just went along with the fashion of the time.

Which is funny because they just finished a TV show where they were averaging 20 million viewers a week with the 'lighter' look. The moral of the story is that if it ain't broke... don't 'fix' it.

 

[inflatabledalek]

I think in real world terms a large part of it is simply down to the different designers working on the shows. Zimmerman seems to actually favour browns, yellows and blues in his sets (the Final Frontier A, E, DS9 and the Runabouts all favour them, even if they're not as cheerfully bright as the D) whilst the chap who did the later TNG shows and Voyager seems to go more for the greys.

As far as I recall the only regular ships Zimmerman designed to follow suit was the Defiant (intended as a more militaristic war ship and I suspect another reason for it having the same colour scheme as the other new ship on the block was to give them the option of redressing Voyager sets if they ever needed to, though I'm not sure if that wound up ever happening) and the NX01 which was specifically trying its best to seem earlier and more primitive. That's assuming the grey reworking of the A in The Undiscovered Country was down to Nick Meyer's insistence.

 

[CmndrSela318]

I don't have any theories about why it was done. I do have a couple of opinions.
I liked the black uniforms with all the color on the shoulders.
I didn't like the black with gray where the color used to be.

 

[Skywalker]

It wasn't the 1960s and they didn't have to sell color televisions anymore.

 

[RocksW]

I love the enterprise D colours, I strongly feel that if there was ever a new iteration of trek going back to that kind of style would be a huge pull in making people watch it. The Enterprise D looks like a nice place to live, as well as looking like a high tech star-ship.

A darker style =/= a better style

Sci fi doesnt always have to have dark metal corridors. I'm sick of dark metal corridors! I really want to see an effort to get away from that kind of thing. TV is a visual medium, and I think it hurts Sci Fi having shows that all kind of look the same. The enterprise D was like a character in its own right because it has its own style.

 

[Anji]

The colors became dulller because B&B wanted a more realistic setting for the series.

But let me ask you, would you rather spend a year or two on a ship that looked more like a hotel than someone's basement?

The absence of light and color will play with your psyche.

And cut it with the Roddenberry bashing. If it wasn't for him there would be no Star Trek at all. The sarcasm on the BBS is getting annoying.

 

[mupps]

Whatever the reason for the change, I liked the color scheme of Voyager and especially of the NX-01 better than that of the Enterprise-D. Besides being easier on the eyes, (at least for me, I hate beige), I think the military air of the sets was more realistic. In spite of all the talk about the Federation being a peaceful organization intent on exploration, Starfleet does seem to get into quite a few rumbles. Which is only natural, I guess. Space is not necessarily a friendly place.

I totally agree. You summed it up perfectly.

It strikes me that relentlessly hammering into the heads of a crew that they are living in a tin can of air, day after day, for years, can only aggravate the psychological issues inherent in such situations.

The Enterprise-D had it right, almost taking cues straight out of aircraft passenger cabin design. Keep the environment bright and cheery (although they missed the 'avoid hard angles' part.)

Then again, the psychology of people in Star Trek is such that they are totally clueless about everything, so maybe a dull, dreary environment is beneath their notice.

Beige is bright and cheery?....I always think it's one of the most depressing, boring tones imaginable

I have to say I never found the later more muted Ent-E, Defiant etc particularly bad. With what we know of overly illuminated, garishly bright offices and their effects on workers in them. I can't imagine the Ent-D's work conditions being especially good for the crew.

 

[mupps]

I love the interior of the Enterprise-D. The interior of a starship should be bright, cheerful, and comfortable even if - especially if - the universe outside its hull has none of those qualities. A starship is a safe haven and home in a hostile and indifferent universe and its interior design should reflect that.

Not trying to be a dick, but that "homely comfort" ideal was the same strain of thought that put families on the Galaxy class ships..

How many families were wiped out when in early TNG episodes Galaxy class ships went boom?

SF is the military/exploratory/discovery arm of the Federation, it's hard, sometimes dangerous work, if you want to live in Disneyland then it might not be for you.

Aircraft carriers now don't haul entire entire broods of the crew around.
Antarctic research stations don't have day care facilities. etc

 

[Newton]

I love the enterprise D colours, I strongly feel that if there was ever a new iteration of trek going back to that kind of style would be a huge pull in making people watch it. The Enterprise D looks like a nice place to live, as well as looking like a high tech star-ship.

A darker style =/= a better style

Sci fi doesnt always have to have dark metal corridors. I'm sick of dark metal corridors! I really want to see an effort to get away from that kind of thing. TV is a visual medium, and I think it hurts Sci Fi having shows that all kind of look the same. The enterprise D was like a character in its own right because it has its own style.

You just said what I was going to say. Thanks for saving me all that typing. Voyager, although I liked the set, was much too dark. DS9 was worse, but that was a Cardassian station, so I can understand the darkness there.

 

[erastus25]

I always thought TNG was brighter/less depressing than TMP!

 

[Cicero]

This very question is one reason I started writing a crossover fanfic between Voyager and Trading Spaces.

I'm not sure if that's more or less odd than the Animal Farm/The Scarlet Letter crossover I came across a few years ago (which was actually very good).

 

[T'Girl]

DS9 was worse, but that was a Cardassian station, so I can understand the darkness there.

Okay, but could you still understand it a couple of years after the Federation and the Bajorians took over the station?

And why were they still using Cardassian language visual displays? (separate issue)

How many families were wiped out when in early TNG episodes Galaxy class ships went boom?

I'm trying to remember, was overtly mentioned that any galaxy class (other than the Enterprise) carried children? In the early episodes Picard seem to indicate that it wasn't a standard Starfleet wide policy.

There's also the consideration that there have been children on military bases that could have come under attack, my family was in West Germany during the cold war. The Enterprise Dee was a "flying Starbase."

 

[Arpy]

Antarctic research facilities don't have daycares because they cost money and the trips aren't that long. Aircraft carriers aren't off in interstellar space for decades at a time. In peace time, and in mostly empty outer space where ships can be by themselves for decades at a time, families on starships isn't farfetched or unreasonably dangerous at all. On mindbending creations like the Galaxy Class - it's a no brainer. Try living on Earth during the Cold War. We thought the folks safe in orbit would have been all that was left of us.

 

[Newton]

DS9 was worse, but that was a Cardassian station, so I can understand the darkness there.

Okay, but could you still understand it a couple of years after the Federation and the Bajorians took over the station?

Sure. The in-universe explanation may be that changing the lighting on the entire station would require a significant investment in time and resources and I guess it was decided that those resources could be better used elsewhere.

In production terms, they may have wanted a new look and feel for the show, to make it 'grittier' than TNG.

And why were they still using Cardassian language visual displays? (separate issue)

That has always bugged me too. It seems that anyone, from any background, can go up to a console and instantly know how to use it, even though it is in the Cardassian language and layout.

Once again though, changing every console and attempting to integrate Starfleet systems with Cardassian systems would have been a mammoth task, much more so than changing the lighting.

 

[RandyS]

I love the interior of the Enterprise-D. The interior of a starship should be bright, cheerful, and comfortable even if - especially if - the universe outside its hull has none of those qualities. A starship is a safe haven and home in a hostile and indifferent universe and its interior design should reflect that.

Not trying to be a dick, but that "homely comfort" ideal was the same strain of thought that put families on the Galaxy class ships..

How many families were wiped out when in early TNG episodes Galaxy class ships went boom?

SF is the military/exploratory/discovery arm of the Federation, it's hard, sometimes dangerous work, if you want to live in Disneyland then it might not be for you.

Aircraft carriers now don't haul entire entire broods of the crew around.
Antarctic research stations don't have day care facilities. etc

Well, we aren't talking about real life, we're talking about Star Trek.

What somebody would or would not do, or bring in a real life military situation is not relevant and does not matter.

 

[Sandoval]

As far as Deep Space Nine goes the Bajorans were under Cardassian occupation for virtually all living memory, so there's no reason that they wouldn't be completely familiar with the spoonheads' computers.

Also I don't understand why people think that non-Cardies using the Cardassian computers would pose any more difficulty in the twenty-forth century than changing the language on twenty-first century mobile phones - the 'look' is identical but the language is easily altered but difficult to show on screen.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I don't recall any Galaxy class ships going BOOM in early TNG. Its not a hard stretch to imagine the ships in the Dominion War weren't hauling around a K-10 school system.
Sadly there is no right answer here. Liking or disliking the D's interior is just that. One person's warm and inviting is another person's bland.