Many Trekkies might be surprised to learn that William Shatner’s uniform was not gold, even though that’s what we remember, when he played Captain James T. Kirk on the original “Star Trek.” It was actually a groovy shade of green … or, at least that was the goal.
When “Star Trek” premiered in 1966, color television was still new, and studios were anxious to take advantage of the technology. At that point, color television projected images by combining tiny dots that came in three main colors: red, blue, and green. Likewise, the three colors of Starfleet uniforms were originally intended to be red, blue, and green. There was just one small snag, however: Due to the limitations of color TV technology at the time, what the camera captured wasn’t exactly what viewers saw at home. The material the costume designers used for green “Star Trek” outfits looked gold. What’s even more confusing is that sometimes Captain Kirk’s costume appeared green when he wore other uniform accessories that were made from a different material.
It took a while for Star Trek uniform colors to become official canon
As the “Star Trek” universe grew, so did the uniform variations. In the first “Star Trek” movie the costumes looked more like earth-tone pajamas; then everyone wore red for the next five movies. When “Star Trek: The Next Generation” debuted in 1987, commanders like Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) wore red while operations officers like Data (Brent Spiner) were dressed in yellow. Stewart’s original uniform was also exceedingly tight, which led to even more costume issues.
When “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” rolled around in the ’90s, producers finally decided to settle the uniform issue once and for all. In one episode, Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) travels back in time to when the original series took place. He notices the uniform color switch and brings it up when he returns. That’s when several crew members explain the history of Starfleet’s uniforms and their changing color scheme. Since then, nearly every “Star Trek” spin-off has kept its commanders in red unless it’s a spin-off that takes place in the past. In which case they revert back to the original gold uniforms … except this time they are actually gold and not a lime green optical illusion.
