JJ Abrams and half his Star Trek cast were at Comic Con last weekend, but his movie was barely anywhere to be seen outside of a poster giveaway. JJ lamented that he wished that he could have brought the movie, but that the studio was just so not interested, and besides, the FX aren’t done.
Leaving aside that nobody at Comic Con gives a shit about the FX in a Star Trek film (and ignoring that Sony brought Venom in rough form for Spider-Man 3 two years ago and that Universal brought King Kong in fucking wireframe), there’s plenty he could have brought. Like, say a picture of Chris Pine in the captain’s chair in uniform. Or anyone in uniform. But JJ’s secrecy machine precludes this, so he’s hiding even the outfits from fans.
TrekMovie, though, has broken the secrecy and revealed the startling truth behind the new costumes: they look pretty much like the ones in the original series!
TrekMovie has talked about the uniforms with multiple sources and has confirmed that, just like on The Original Series,
Scotty (Simon Pegg) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) will be wearing red as will
other actors and extras in engineering, security and communications.
Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Bones (Karl Urban) will be we in Blue, as
will others in science and medical. And Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton
Yelchin) will join Kirk (Pine) in command gold…
According to TrekMovie sources, the Starfleet uniforms on the Enterprise are the element of this film closest to The Original Series
in design. They are comprised of very dark grey (almost black) pants
and boots for the men and mini skirts and boots for the women along
with the previously mentioned shirts. For the women’s outfits, the
mini-skirts are a bit longer than TOS and they have both short-sleeved
and long-sleeved versions, and at least one female member of the crew
will be wearing pants. The biggest difference with the tops is that
they are comprised of two pieces, with a very dark grey (almost black)
undershirt and the over shirt of the appropriate color, with a slight
v-neck. The undershirt forms what looks like a black collar, similar to
the TOS uniforms. As TrekMovie’s closer look at the new poster reveals
(above), the colored uniform blouses have small ‘delta shield’ emblems
woven into the fabric (this is most apparent on Saldana’s). Also, the
shirt Chris Pine is wearing in the new poster appears to be uniform
undershirt. Another change is the rank insignia which is said to be
similar but more simplified in design. Lastly, the delta shield emblem
is actually a pin instead of being sewn into the top, but still retains
the department variations on the design. Regardless of the few
differences, from a distance the new uniforms are almost
indistinguishable from those of The Original Series.
I am completely excited by this new movie. I love the original Star Trek – I had blueprints of the Enterprise hanging on my wall years before there was a Next Generation (yes, I was that much of a nerd as a boy). This is one of my most anticipated films of 2009, and I don’t want to be the guy telling Abrams how to promote his movie*, but I’m hearing from people on the inside that no one is happy with this cloaking device around the picture. Magazines have been looking to feature Star Trek and have been rebuffed. I understand that the secrecy worked with Cloverfield, but Star Trek is a franchise that needs to be re-introduced to the mainstream. Look at how The X-Files tanked; even ignoring how bad it was, the way Fox kept it secret ensured that no one outside of the fan base gave a shit about the movie, and it turned out the fan base wasn’t that big. How big is the Star Trek fanbase anymore? Big enough to open the film at number one, but big enough to make back what I keep hearing is a very sizable budget?
JJ, let your images go. Let us see these costumes. Let us get used to these actors in these roles. Nobody needs to see space battle footage, we would be happy to see Bones walking down a corridor being snarky to Spock. Help us understand why you cast this motley group and give us some faith. Look at how Zack Snyder has been working the fans; I happen to know that he’s very involved in the timing and choices of what gets put out there, and I think him introducing Watchmen to the world isn’t that dissimilar from you re-introducing Star Trek.
I want to love your movie, JJ. I want to gush over your pictures. I want to embed your clips. I want to tell naysayers that they’re dumb. But you’re just not giving us anything to work with.
*yes I do