Was a reason ever given as to why Engineering/Security and Command swapped uniform colors between TOS and TNG?
So Command wouldn’t be so reckless if they’re wearing red. 
Not to be Capt. Bringdown, but I never thought they actually needed a reason. Militaries all over the world change uniform styles. The US alone went from blue Civil War to OD green in about the same amount of time between TOS and TNG, and in between then and now we went forest camo to desert camo to digital camo. I’d be surprised if they DIDN’T change in that time.
The post-series uniforms are more drab because the bright colors look garish and silly on the big screen. Same reason Wolverine isn’t yellow in the movies.
And of course, the classic exchange:
“Wait a minute, aren’t you two wearing the wrong color?”
“Don’t you know anything about this period in time?”
“I’m a doctor, not an historian!”
“In the old days, operations officers wore red, command officers wore gold…”
“…and women wore less.”
“I think I’m going to like history.”
- Bashir, O'Brien, Sisko, and Dax, clad in 23rd century Starfleet uniformsIt should be pointed out that between TOS and TNG, there was a period where everyone wore red, as seen in the feature films. It could be theorized that when color coding was re-introduced, that command officers kept the red so the gold/yellow was given to the operations personnel instead. But that’s just a theory. I don’t think it’s ever been explicitly addressed in any canonical work.
Are we asking why it was changed within the context of the show? Or why the show’s producers chose to change it? Both would be interesting questions.
Movie-era uniforms did have jackets all in maroon, but each division still had its own color undershirt.
Good point. They went “retro” - they “brought back” the jackets from the time of The Cage as well. Very stylish.
Much better than the “long underwear” uniforms of TMP!
A little googling brings up lots of musing, but no solid answers. A commonly repeated (but uncited) story is that Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes just looked better in red, and Spiner’s Data makeup clashed with the blue shirt he would have worn. So they decided to do some shuffling.
IIRC the colors in Wrath of Khan were a tad different as well- Scotty and Sulu had yellow/brown accents, Kirk and Spock had off white, McCoy had lime green, Uhura and Chekov had gray. Saavik had red.
Not sure what they signify exactly, but they aren’t the standard red/yellow/blue of the TV shows.
This was my assumption, which colors look best on the main characters.
Oh, that’s right. I had forgotten.
White - Command
Yellow Ochre - Operations - Engineering
Light Green - Sciences - Medical
Grey - Operations - Communications/Navigation
Windsor Green - Operations - Security
Red - Cadets
Sky Blue - Special Services
Black - Enlisted
Dark Blue - Operations - Federation Forces
The Enterprise was out exploring when suddenly a Klingon warbird decloaked off the starboard bow. Kirk turned to his yeoman and said, “Yeoman, bring me my red jacket!” The yeoman asked, “We are about to go into battle! Why do you need to change your clothes?!”. Kirk answered, “In case I am wounded in the coming battle, the red jacket will not show the blood, so the crew will not see that I am wounded and lose their courage.”
Suddenly ten more warbirds decloaked. Kirk turned to his yeoman and said, “Yeoman, bring me my brown pants!”
I thought they had all become Mormon. Like if Orson Scott Card had control of Trek.
I think it was a mistake.
Even with uniforms in the US army changing, blue is still the colour of infantry branch, red is artillery branch, and yellow is cavalry (armor, airmobile, etc) branch. I can’t see these changing, as heraldry generally does NOT change.
The story I heard was, that Gene Roddenberry got tired of red-shirt jokes. So he decreed that the two least-likely-to-die characters would wear red.
Actually, that’s the story I heard, as well. No more red shirt = expendable extra.
By the way, was Tasha Yar the first TNG crew member to die on-screen?
I would bet it was just based on which color looked best on Pat Stewart. I know Data was supposed to be in red but once they put Brent Spiner in makeup they were like “no” and put him in gold.
Incidentally, the “gold” uniforms of TOS weren’t really gold at all, they were more of a greenish color, but the cameras of the time picked them up as gold. Of course Kirk had that alternate wrap around uniform that actually did look green, as did his dress uniform, so I dunno why one turned gold and those didn’t. Fuckin cameras.
No, Assistant Chief Engineer Singh dies onscreen first in “Lonely Among Us”.
Neither. The (IIRC) unnamed helmsman/navigator/whatever dies in “Encounter at Farpoint,” frozen stiff by Q.