Senior officers to the Bridge

[mikailborg]

Paramount has released several stills from next year's Star Trek movie. Of course, since I want everything on that big screen to be a surprise, I was able to resist checking them out...

... for all of about twenty seconds.



TrekMovie.com is the source website. I'm seeing some new Galactica influence on this bridge set, but interestingly, it's as though Trek intends to take its bright future back from BG, thankyouverymuch. I'm thrilled to see this, this isn't the rust-colored Ops of DS9, or the mood-lit bridge of the Voyager - this is a ship that's Boldly Going.

Do my eyes deceive me? Abrams brought back the miniskirts, and tossed in short sleeves as well! In fact, the uniforms are remarkably similar to the old Theiss designs. I'm more and more pleased with the thought that this won't be revisionist Trek, but Classic Trek for the 21st century. I think that's a bit brave.

So, a quick poll, for those who clicked through the cut. As usual, feel free to discuss further in the comments:

[Poll #1279718]

Comments

[jdunson.livejournal.com]

In general, I like the idea, and this bit "Abrams was insistent that every piece of equipment on the bridge serve a legitimate purpose — that they all have 'functionality.'" is encouraging in terms of overall attitude.

I'm not really in love with all the "hotspot" lighting, though; some of it is faux-task lighting marginally positioned, but some appears to be doing nothing but causing distracting hotspots and reflections. The catch might be that it's intended to be the "emergency" lighting, taking the bridge lighting from a cool, smooth, indirect look to a direct, multi-shadow, incandescent look under stress.

I don't like the black-as-command offhand, it seems unlikely for both ceremonial and practical reasons. However, one can interpret the quote as this being *a* Captain's uniform, as opposed to *the*, and combine with some of the away shots (shown climbing out of a drop pod on a planet) and hope that this is a stealth, environmental, or surface-encounter variant. The lack of obvious insignia is probably another sign it's not the normal uniform; in most shipboard stressful situations, being able to identify senior people at a glance is important (it's not like you have to worry about snipers).

On mini-skirts: My hope is that they take the approach that there are both skirt and pants options available for women as equally valid personal uniform choices. Shorts and short-sleeved polo shirts seemed to be a popular option for all genders in the shuttle long-duration missions, as another possibly relevant point, although in a zero-G setting still dominated by physical gadgets pockets were important. On a Trek universe large starship, for someone not on away missions, having no or minimal pockets might not really be that much of a disadvantage; what do they need to carry? They don't need an ID card, or keys, or money/credit cards, and most people don't need tools or writing implements (she is holding a stylus, but I'm thinking that goes with the console in a tablet-PC sort of way), likely no one on active duty needs medication on their person, etc.

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

The crew shot on movieblog.ugo.com (linked from the TrekMovie page) implies that the uniforms use the "colored overtunic atop black undershirt" construction seen in some old Classic episodes. So, maybe Kirk just temporarily lost the overtunic somehow. (He does have a bandaged hand in the bridge shot.)

And I'm with you, the female uniform should have the pants option if desired... there's precedence for that in Classic, as well.

[anterus.livejournal.com]

The black outfit reminds me a lot of the not-complete uniforms that captains on TNG and DS9 wore all the time. My guess would be something similar.