Author: Chris Snelgrove Published
When older fans complain about NuTrek, they usually focus on the writing, and understandably so; after all, there’s only so much vulgar Zoomer slang you can hear before you ask why characters hundreds of years later sound like today’s edgy teenagers instead of capable Starfleet officers. However, the biggest problem facing the series today has nothing to do with the writing or even the acting.
The worst thing about modern Star Trek is that it’s become heartless ugly. Despite spending over eight million dollars per episodeuniforms, ships, outer space visuals are worst With over 60 years of franchise history. If you doubt this, don’t worry: like a good Ferengi, I have all the receipts!
credit where credit is due
Let’s start with the uniforms, and in the spirit of fairness, let’s start with what actually works well. uniform in strange new world It looks great, although that’s always a given; one of the show’s goals was always to update and modernize the aesthetic Star Trek: The Original Series. The 60s uniforms from that earlier show are still definitely iconicand southwest northwest simply updating their looks, giving us something akin to Kelvin Universe: a clever redesign of the most timeless uniforms in the entire series.
This may be topical, but I actually really like the uniforms from the first two seasons Star Trek: Discovery. They feel like a sleek, modern version of the blue visiting jackets Captain Pike and Spock wore in the first game Star Trek: The Original Series Pilot episode.
Plus, they fit into the existing lore better than most fans imagine: the series has had weird uniform variations since the beginning (such as different insignias for different ships and variant uniforms for different professions), and the Golden Age of Trek has continually featured characters wearing different styles of uniforms (such as hybrid TNG and DS9 Designed in generations).
Coupled with the fact that Discovery is an experimental ship seemingly backed by Section 31, it would make sense for these characters to don sleek blue uniforms. However, once it jumped to the 32nd century, the crew abandoned this killer look. Instead, they adopted entirely new uniforms, but there was one major problem: they were extremely ugly, beginning the decline of the Star Trek aesthetic that continues to this day.
about to get ugly
in season 3 Star Trek: Discoveryour favorite characters got new uniforms, and it felt like a serious downgrade: Those beautiful blue costumes were replaced by soulless gray uniforms, the dullness of which was broken only by colorful zoning stripes. It doesn’t help that the characters seem more bland than ever, and the storylines this season are severely downgraded from season two. To add insult to injury, these drab uniforms look too much like what Kirk and the crew wore on the show. Star Trek: The Movieand that film’s pastel pajamas are widely regarded as one of the worst uniform designs in the series.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 attempts to rectify this poor design, replacing last season’s blandness with bold and colorful uniforms. It’s a good idea on paper, but in reality, the new uniform designs look like what you’d get if you ordered them original series Clothing from Ironwood.
It’s hard to take these characters seriously when the open flaps at the bottom of their tunics make them look like a white-collar boss, and they feel like they’re wild enough to unbutton their shirts and unbutton the bottoms to celebrate Casual Friday in style.
No, captain, my captain
Part of the reason for the next Star Trek fashion failure lies with arguably the most popular living Star Trek actor, Patrick Stewart. when Paramount lured him back Picardhe insisted he didn’t want to wear a Starfleet uniform, which is why his character and his Season 1 crew were running around in dark costumes that Stewart might have stolen from the set of David Lynch. dune. This is a big reason why seasons 1 and 2 were so painful to watch: in addition to being so poorly written, it also made Nemesis Looking like a masterpiece, the costume design of our series regulars is lazy and totally phoned-in.
Starfleet’s uniforms are a little better than Picard’s crew, but not much better: their uniforms sometimes look like updated versions of TNG Academy uniforms, sometimes they look like lower deck. By season three, everyone was just wearing leather jackets with some light Star Trek theme.
This causes us to return TNG The staff looked (awkwardly) like bikers from an AARP-themed motorcycle club. It’s as if the producers were so worried about the show looking or feeling like a real Star Trek show that it would be crazy for a costly revival of the show to ultimately reinvigorate the series.
These students failed Fashion 101
The latest criminal on the cutting edge of Star Trek fashion is starfleet academya show that couldn’t decide exactly what its main character was like. Sometimes the uniforms worn by coaches like Jeter Leno look like colorful hourglasses dropped haphazardly on a swath of black fabric.
The Doctor wears something similar to his monochromatic version Voyager Holly Hunter’s principal wears something like a monster maroon coat with no style whatsoever. At the War College, Commander Nel Lake is wearing something that looks like someone tried to draw battlestar galactica After being hit in the head, restart the duty blues.
Incredibly, the cadet uniforms are even more scattered in style: they mostly roam campus in drab gray uniforms that look like worse versions of what everyone wears. Star Trek: Discovery Season three. Sometimes, though, they unzipped and wore only tight red shirts and black pants (which they accessorized with futuristic tactical vests for an exciting game of laser tag). Speaking of laser tag, they donned letterman jackets after winning a game against War College, which makes me wonder if anyone on the writing staff actually played sports in school.
None of the designs are great (except for that Starfleet Academy hoodie that looks inexplicably comfortable), and a few are downright ugly. This ugliness is made worse by the character’s visual clutter, with more costume changes per episode than most cosplayers go through in an entire year. this is symbolic starfleet academyThe biggest problem as a show is this: it tries to do too many different things at once, and ends up losing its identity in its frenzied pursuit of pleasing fans of all generations.
Clothing makes an astronaut
Believe it or not, this only scratches the surface of how ugly NuTrek is. I haven’t gotten around to the forgettable ship design yet (quick, draw starfleet academy Teach the boat from memory, I dare you! ) and lazy outer space effects that make combat increasingly difficult to track. These battles are sometimes visually boring (like Battle of the Two Stars) Discover) to pathetically lazy (like Riker threatening the Romulans Picard with the entire copy/paste fleet). At a cost of over $8 million per episode, NuTrek gives us less variety and excitement in space combat than NuTrek did. deep space nine Did it in the 90s.
The biggest problem is still the clothes, and it’s gotten worse since then Discover First aired nearly a decade ago. Star Trek is a franchise with more than half a century of cool costume design. next generation Proof that Paramount once knew how to update designs original series became a pop culture phenomenon. If the creators behind NuTrek are completely incapable of making these shows look decent, they have only themselves to blame when viewers stop watching them entirely.
