Colour of Imperial uniforms

[Apollonius]

I'm confused about what the actual colour of Imperial uniforms is supposed to be. In episodes IV-VI there seem to exist four shades: olive-greenish-grayish for high-ranking officers; black for low-ranking officers and enlisted; gray for technicians (and vehicle crews?); and a rather ugly shade of beige for some officers only seen in episode IV.
But when I look at artwork produced after ca 1990, I see even high-ranking officers dressed in pure grey, with no hint of green at all. Star Wars Galaxies, the Dark Horse comics, the LEGO SW palette, etc.
Why is this? Is it supposed to reflect a different era, in which the Empire reformed its uniforms? Is it laziness? Is it retconning? Whose idea was it? Why didn't Lucasarts step in when the first mis-coloured products came out? They're usually rather strict with regards to continuity.

[Darth Tedious]

You're pretty spot with the meanings of the colours, though the greenish (I believe it's called olive khaki, for pedants) seems to have been interchangable with the grey, with some scenes shpwing officers of very similar ranks wearing either.
The beige is for ISB (Imperial Security Bureau) officers. There were also (in the EU) white for Grand Admirals, and red which was only worn by the director of ISB.

As for the reason for the lack of green/grey, I would guess laziness as the out-of-universe answer, with era differentiation as an in-universe reconciliation. It certainly can't be a retcon, as the films outrank every other medium.

It isn't really something I would think LucasArts would be terribly worried over, there are some inconsistancies in the costumes between the movies (particularly the Stormtroopers), though the officers were one of the ones which were maintained thoughout the OT.

There's a pretty in-depth talk on uniform colours here, with much discussion of the green/grey confusion.

[Apollonius]

the greenish (I believe it's called olive khaki, for pedants) seems to have been interchangable with the grey, with some scenes shpwing officers of very similar ranks wearing either.

Are you sure it's not just too bright or too dark lighting desaturating the hue? I always felt that the colour of all the high-ranking officers in all scenes in the original films were the exact same colour, even though it may seem different depending on the environment.

there are some inconsistancies in the costumes between the movies (particularly the Stormtroopers)

I never noticed that. Can you give me some hints so I may see the differences? The only difference I could think of would be the sandtrooper pauldron, that never appeared again after ANH. I always found that pauldron silly. What was its purpose anyway?

Oh, and thanks for the link. I will check it out right away!

[Ritterin Sophia]

This should help.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial ... y_uniforms

[Eternal_Freedom]

I recall something about Grey being Imperial Army/Starfleet, and Black was for Regional Sector forces. No idea where that comes from though.

If you want to worry, look at the rank insignia between IV and V-VI. It's a right mess.

[Darth Tedious]

the greenish (I believe it's called olive khaki, for pedants) seems to have been interchangable with the grey, with some scenes shpwing officers of very similar ranks wearing either.

Are you sure it's not just too bright or too dark lighting desaturating the hue? I always felt that the colour of all the high-ranking officers in all scenes in the original films were the exact same colour, even though it may seem different depending on the environment.

there are some inconsistancies in the costumes between the movies (particularly the Stormtroopers)

I never noticed that. Can you give me some hints so I may see the differences? The only difference I could think of would be the sandtrooper pauldron, that never appeared again after ANH. I always found that pauldron silly. What was its purpose anyway?

Oh, and thanks for the link. I will check it out right away!

The colour saturation thing is a fairly contentious issue. There's a lot of comparison shots in the thread I linked (being a costuming forum, the people there are pretty obsessed with finding the right colours.
E_F is right on about the rank badges being all over the place, too. The only thing that seems to have stayed fairly consistant for rank markings were the code cylinders.

Besides displaying rank, the Sandtrooper pauldrons don't appear to have had much purpose. In the costuming community they're the subject of many jokes, especially when worn by non-sandies. If you're interested, the order of rank is orange > white > black. There were also grey paulrons for dewback riders, but they were retconned out of existance.

As for some differences in the Stormtroopers:
-In ANH, the handguards were five-sided, sort of trapezoidish shapes, in ESB on RotJ they were replaced with the rounded clamshell shapes which appeared on the Snowtroopers.
-The teeth on the helmets changed in each film, being grey in ANH, black in ESB, and the black extending out around the mouth in RotJ.
-The holsters were worn on opposite sides in ANH and ESB, and were all over the place (or sometimes absent) in RotJ.
There's more, but that'll give you a few things to look for to start with.

[Apollonius]

-The holsters were worn on opposite sides in ANH and ESB, and were all over the place (or sometimes absent) in RotJ.

That reminds me of the Emperor's arrival on the second DS. Did you notice how some of the stormtroopers are holding their carbines the wrong way? Some point to the right, some to the left. They look like a third world militia, rather than the Empire's elite. To make it worse, their posture is rather un-soldier-like. Some have their heels together, others have them apart. Many are even slouching. WTF, can't you stand at attention before your fucking Emperor? Oo

The colour saturation thing is a fairly contentious issue. There's a lot of comparison shots in the thread I linked

I looked at these shots, and it seems very obvious to me, that all those "grey" uniforms are, in fact, olive khaki. What do you think?

[Darth Tedious]

-The holsters were worn on opposite sides in ANH and ESB, and were all over the place (or sometimes absent) in RotJ.

That reminds me of the Emperor's arrival on the second DS. Did you notice how some of the stormtroopers are holding their carbines the wrong way? Some point to the right, some to the left. They look like a third world militia, rather than the Empire's elite. To make it worse, their posture is rather un-soldier-like. Some have their heels together, others have them apart. Many are even slouching. WTF, can't you stand at attention before your fucking Emperor? Oo

Indeed, my fan theory is that the Stormtrooper corps had lost all semblence of discipline by that point, resulting in their loss at the Battle of Endor...

[ComradeClaus]

I recall something about Grey being Imperial Army/Starfleet, and Black was for Regional Sector forces. No idea where that comes from though.

If you want to worry, look at the rank insignia between IV and V-VI. It's a right mess.

Yeah, that really bothered me about Captain/ADMIRAL/ Captain? Piett. Did he get demoted or something? You'd think Lucas would fix THAT, rather than make Han shoot "not first"

[Darth Tedious]

I recall something about Grey being Imperial Army/Starfleet, and Black was for Regional Sector forces. No idea where that comes from though.

If you want to worry, look at the rank insignia between IV and V-VI. It's a right mess.

Yeah, that really bothered me about Captain/ADMIRAL/ Captain? Piett. Did he get demoted or something? You'd think Lucas would fix THAT, rather than make Han shoot "not first"

And this is why I say uniforms are the last thing on his mind. Costume fuckups are very low on the priorities list.
Hell, the Stormtrooper who stuns Leia on the Tantive IV didn't even have blue tube stripes down his cheeks!

[Patroklos]

I don't think it requires too much explaination. In most Earth armies, especially ones made up of many joined political entities, there were vast differneces in uniforms of the same armies based on household units, regional influences, the availability of certain metals/fabrics over the course of an extended conflict, commander preference, religious affiliation, branch/service requirements, local produced items, difference in mass manufacture amoungst firms, etc. etc.

Even if you take a look today there are small differences between US uniforms produced by different companies. There are tolerances for quality control for sure, but differences remain all the same. There is nothing to say any army can't allow more wiggle room. Look at the Nazis, they had all sorts of novelty uniforms for various higher ups and their pet units, or simple multiple options that were all authorized within the same service causing stark differences even withing the same company sized units.

We have a rather sanitized sense of what armies are "supposed" to look like because when we recreate a Roman or Napoleonic or Civil War or WWII or Vietnam move of other recreation media constumers tend to mass produce the most recongnizable or most pleasing version of a period uniform.

How many of you have seen these walking through any Civil War movies?

[Apollonius]

I don't think it requires too much explaination. In most Earth armies, especially ones made up of many joined political entities, there were vast differneces in uniforms of the same armies based on household units, regional influences, the availability of certain metals/fabrics over the course of an extended conflict, commander preference, religious affiliation, branch/service requirements, local produced items, difference in mass manufacture amoungst firms, etc. etc.

While that is true, it doesn't apply here. It's not as if we had variations between units and characters within a given medium. Rather, we have the situation that each medium is absolutely consistent in itself, but diverging from other media.
In the films, all senior officers are wearing olive khaki. There is no deviation.
In some other media, like SWG or Dark Horse, all the senior officers are wearing grey. Again, there is no deviation.
I wasn't asking why the uniforms of certain units deviate from regulations, but rather what these regulations actually say. There is no question that, whatever the regulations are, all Imperial units adhere to them. Olive and grey officers are mutually exclusive throughout all media, be they canon, quasi-canon or non-canon. Whether that's realistic or unrealistic may be an interesting question, but the fact is that the Empire is very strict in enforcing its dress code. The only question is, why some media interpret that dress code differently than the original films.

And I agree with those who say that it's not an important question at all. But I guess every fanboy has at least one pet peeve that seems pointless to everyone else.

[Elfdart]

The colour saturation thing is a fairly contentious issue. There's a lot of comparison shots in the thread I linked

I looked at these shots, and it seems very obvious to me, that all those "grey" uniforms are, in fact, olive khaki. What do you think?

Olive khaki? The officers are wearing field grey. It looks more greenish in yellow light and more greyish in blue light.

[Darth Tedious]

The colour saturation thing is a fairly contentious issue. There's a lot of comparison shots in the thread I linked

I looked at these shots, and it seems very obvious to me, that all those "grey" uniforms are, in fact, olive khaki. What do you think?

Olive khaki? The officers are wearing field grey. It looks more greenish in yellow light and more greyish in blue light.

Sure about that?



Both under the same lighting.

[Elfdart]

Veers' uniform shows some of the same color variation. Greenish tint:



Sans greenish tint:

[Darth Tedious]

In two completely different shots, mind. Was that even the same uniform he was wearing?

I pointed out the picture I did for a reason- it shows two uniforms next to one another and under the same lighting and the difference is clearly visible.

Of course, there is also the light grey, as seen here:



Which is not even close to the field grey/olive khaki that we're arguing over...

Possible they just threw these fuckers together with whatever material was handy at the time?

[Elfdart]

I don't think it requires too much explaination. In most Earth armies, especially ones made up of many joined political entities, there were vast differneces in uniforms of the same armies based on household units, regional influences, the availability of certain metals/fabrics over the course of an extended conflict, commander preference, religious affiliation, branch/service requirements, local produced items, difference in mass manufacture amoungst firms, etc. etc.

There's another big factor: laundry. How many times was it washed? Was it hung out to dry in the sun? If you look at color photos of Marines from WW2, you'd think they had changed uniforms from the traditional dark olive/pea soup color to almost khaki, but this is really just a case of the same uniforms being sunbleached.

Considering how many different environments (let alone different manufacturers) there might be in the GFFA, I'd think a certain amount of variation in color would be inevitable, no matter how advanced tailoring and laundry service might be. On top of that, officers might cling to uniforms that have been broken in, and some might even wear duds outside the standard-issue ones. There are too many plausible reasons in universe for color differences to assume this is some kind of error.

Even if you take a look today there are small differences between US uniforms produced by different companies. There are tolerances for quality control for sure, but differences remain all the same. There is nothing to say any army can't allow more wiggle room. Look at the Nazis, they had all sorts of novelty uniforms for various higher ups and their pet units, or simple multiple options that were all authorized within the same service causing stark differences even withing the same company sized units.

Like this example of field grey tunics:

[Skgoa]

There are a couple of more aspects to consider:

- Officers could simply be providing their own uniforms, with a certain amount of leeway regarding colours. E.g. german officers do that. Though I don't know whether thats only true for parade uniforms. Anyways, it has resulted in tank commanders wearing "field grey" uniforms that are almost black.

- Other than the inconsistencies in the movie, the big divide seems to be movie vs. comics. Well, then that is easily explained by it simply being different media. Everything looks slightly off in comic books. The movies are higher canon, thus their version counts.