- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/henry-cavills-third-option
- https://web.archive.org/web/20100917090118/http://www.startrekpropauthority.com/2008/05/bill-theiss-lost-interview-rare.html
Another quirk involving the original series’ tunics were the colors - in particular, “command.” Trekkies everywhere will swear Spock wore blue, Scotty wore red and Kirk wore gold. Wrong. The three Starfleet colors were blue, red and green. Lime green, to be exact. “It was one of those film stock things;” Theiss states, “it photographed one way - burnt orange or a gold. But in reality was another; the command shirts were definitely green.” As further proof, look at the wrap-around tunics as well as the dress uniform tunics of Kirk’s – all green. They came off as their true colors because they were constructed of different materials than the standard duty command shirts.
And the Delta goes on the hip too:
Sideways deltas cause we gangsta
It doesn’t really matter what the “true” color of the tunics were. If it photographed one way and was presented that way on screen, THAT is the canon color. It doesn’t matter what color the actual prop or costume was, all that matters is the final presentation. That (whether an accident of lighting or intentional) was an artistic choice. It’s a fun bit of behind the scenes trivia, but it doesn’t change the fact of canon that command had variously colored tunics, sometimes in green and sometimes in gold.
Makeup for film actors was pretty garish and multicolored in the early days of black and white films. But, no one would claim that the characters “real” faces were those same shades.
I agree.
We gotta use what’s on the screen as a source, not what was behind the scenes.
What’s next, they’re gonna tell us they weren’t really in space? 😁
Its an interesting bit of trivia though.
For me, the deciding point comes from what color they made the merchandise. You’ll find a rare item in green, but 90% of the items out there are in yellow.
To me, that’s a decision to make yellow canon.
IMO, the yellow uniforms also look better than Kirk’s tunic green, so it ended up being an accidental improvement.
The colours and cuts laid out in Franz Joseph’s Technical Manual are authoritative. They’ve got authentication stardates and everything.
I mean that document lists “tenne” as the color, which doesn’t seem right to me at all.
I thought it was “taupe” for some reason but I can’t find where that would be suggested.
Closest I could find, from Wikipedia:
tenné is a “stain”, or non-standard tincture, of orange (in English blazonry), light brown (in French heraldry) or orange-tawny (in continental heraldry) colour.
I agree I wouldn’t use that word to describe the colour, but it looks just about right the way they print it on the “Uniform Color Code” uniform colour code page, so that’s just a question of what you want to call it.
I liked Enterprise bringing back the green in the Mirror universe:
You’re all wrong.
They were gray.
This you?
A: Dogs can see color. (Just at a reduced chromatic range)
B: Televisions didn’t always have full color technology.
I like Calvin’s dad’s response to black and white film: Those old movies are in color, but the world itself was black and white back then. 😌
Yes but Porthos suffered from achromatopsia due to a transporter accident. It didnt come up much in the show.
Wow, TIL
