rjnoe (10/08/82)
Both Star Trek movies departed from the TV series' color scheme. In Star Trek II, the color of the uniform's epaulet (and usually the color of the shirt worn underneath) indicate the branch of Starfleet the wearer is in. For example, Kirk, Spock, and Terrell all wear white because they are of command level (Captain and higher). McCoy and Chapel wear the traditional color for medicine, green, and Scott wears orange, Engineering's color. I think Uhura and Sulu wear blue and only Saavik wears red. I have forgotten what Chekov wore. (This is all off the top of my head--I saw the list some time back before Star Trek I and I will dig it up again and report the official list.) Star Trek I also used this scheme but the color was in back of the metal pin-on badge on the left breast. While Star Trek I followed the rank scheme of sleeve stripes which was used in the TV series, Star Trek II reflected the rank by the shape of the clasp on the epaulet (right shoulder). Kirk has sort of a Maltese cross shape (rear admiral), Spock and Terrell have another shape indicating Captain, there are shapes for Commanders, Lieutenants, and Ensigns--without any stills in front of me I cannot give detailed descriptions of their shapes. About Star Trek III, the word is that "In Search of Spock" will be dropped as title well before release, maybe before production begins. Some story ideas are already being bounced around, but I am not at liberty to give details yet. Currently, no specific writer or script is anywhere close to being selected, so you can forget about a Christmas, 1983 release-- without a super fast post-production team (and both ST movies so far have gone unusually fast in this phase) I cannot envision release just over a year from now. But they surprised me with their quickness producing Star Trek II, so who knows? Roger Noe BTL - IH 5B-413 ihuxx!rjnoe