Reviews and a design challenge

[mikailborg]

Quick review of the Hitchhiker's Guide movie:

You should probably go see it if you like any of the other versions, or you like SF comedy. Sure, they took a lot of stuff out. (Cutting 3 hours of radio play down to 90 minutes will do that.) Sure, they changed a lot of stuff. (This was a practice Douglas Adams himself was quite fond of.) But if you go with an open mind and don't insist on a copy of one of the other Hitchhiker's media, you ought to have a good time.

Quick review of last Friday's Enterprise:

Plot? Who cares? Space battle scenes with a certain class of starship... *happy sigh* (There's some other eye candy too, for het-male or compatible formats.)

In all seriousness... I wonder how a 21st-century costume designer would design a believable futuristic military uniform that would provide eye candy for het-females and compatible? Bill Theiss tried showing some leg in the men's "skant" uniforms for TNG, and the design died a quick, ignoble death. It's an interesting question.

Comments

[jdunson.livejournal.com]

I put a considerable amount of thought into the outfits and uniforms for the GURPS:Space campaign I ran for many years; this was a "minimal tech magic" setting, with no antigravity, no force fields, etc.

The approach I finally took involved basically 3 tiers of underlayer:

* Non-spacers wearing a wide variety of options, including many common sorts of underwear from today (and the past), some updated types using advanced materials (adjustable-tension smart fabrics replacing wire and boning support, for instance, and impact-rigidifying flexible plastic sheets evolved from kinetic armor replacing rigid light sports protective gear), and a few new ideas made possible by heavy use of advanced materials (largely in the elaborate evening wear area, given the cost, but computer-controlled deformable active materials plus flexible display surface treatments allow for some interesting tricks).

* Spacers that don't expect frequent combat or emergencies (e.g. most passenger liner crew, ordinary freighter crew, crew and residents in large space stations, etc.) would wear an outfit that ended up looking rather like a modern bicycle racing outfit; skintight shorts and T-shirt out of a somewhat slick and stretchy advanced material. This was designed to wick moisture away from the skin, provide support, prevent biological growth, provide for a fairly minimum level of modesty, and to be easy to get clothes and protective gear on and off over. It was designed to be a fairly good spacesuit underlayer for short to medium term use, and as a side effect also made fairly good swimwear.

Over this would be worn whatever work or play appropriate outfit the user desired (or their company required). In many space environments, the most practical addition would be simply a pair of cargo-pocket shorts, or a tool / utility belt; and some sort of grip-slippers. Many private spacecraft and the "working decks" of some company space lines would therefore be crewed by folks not really wearing much else.

I'm reasonably sure that an appropriately-built individual could provide eye candy by wearing what is basically spandex shorts & shirt, a tool belt, and little else... and it would be logical in context. People with more body modesty (either the characters or the actors) would wear what is basically tropical navy gear over it... lightweight pockety shorts and a shirt, probably also with pockets. Note that this is what Shuttle crews on long-duration missions basically have been wearing in the real world.

(continued next comment...)