The film Star Trek VII – Meeting of the Generations was a dream come true for many fans. Not only was it the first outing for the crew of Star Trek: The Next Century, but it also featured a meeting between Captains Kirk (William Shatner) and Picard (Patrick Stewart). Despite all the joy, fans over the years couldn’t help but ask themselves why the crew different uniforms throughout the film carries.
The uniform change in Star Trek 7 was production-related
In The Next Century, the crew members wear one-piece jumpsuits with a large colored area on the chest, stomach and arms. Later, the jumpsuits became two-piece suits with a largely similar design. On Deep Space Nine, the crew was given different uniforms. These were predominantly black and only had one colored shoulder area. The collar of a gray shirt was visible underneath.
In the film Gathering of Generations, most of the crew members wear the same uniforms as in The Next Century. However, Picard, Data, Riker, La Forge and some other members can also be seen wearing uniforms that look like Deep Space Nine. This fact is shown in the film just as little is explained as the fact that some of the people mentioned change their uniforms during the film.
According to an article by Screen Rant, the reason for this lies not in the film itself, but in the production. The producers wanted new uniforms for the film, but the new designs were scrapped shortly before filming began. This left the creators little time to come up with an alternative that would meet the producers’ request for new uniforms. Without further ado, some were Borrowed uniforms from Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, which had the same design. Unfortunately, since the uniforms were made for other actors, they didn’t fit the TNG characters perfectly, which can be seen in the film.
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In the following film the uniforms became uniform again. This time designs similar to those of Deep Space Nine were used again, except that the shoulders were gray and the collars of the shirts had the color coding. This design was subsequently adopted for the Deep Space Nine series.
Anyone who will catch up on the meeting of generations and uniforms can stream the film with a subscription to Paramount+ and from the usual purchase and rental providers.