Having served in the U.S. military, I cannot unsee the fact that movies and TV shows ALWAYS fuck something up with the character uniforms-- Army rank on Air Force cadets, upside-down rank, badges pinned on the wrong side, the character is a Sergeant Major but they’re wearing Major rank, the character is wearing ribbons for wars they weren’t even alive to have served in, and so on.
I almost wonder if they intentionally screw that sort of thing up so they’re not “ripping off” real soldiers’ customs.
… But I’m being way too optimistic I think LOL.
There’s so much like this in media where I’m like “You could have just asked? Like so many people could have happily walked you through making this authentic!!”
I hadn’t considered your first point, maybe that’s it! I also wondered if maybe they just thought whatever they did looked “cooler”, so they went with that? Because yeah, you can totally hire a consultant for that kinda thing, or heck, just look it up online!
Some Wardrobe guys don’t like dressing actors as ‘real’ soldiers, so they fudge things. The other is that something will aesthetically look ‘better’ than the real thing so they just go with that. I’ve worked on a few military projects and it’s entirely dependent on the military costumer and what they want to do.
One picture I was a Russian mercenary and they threw random ranks on everyone. The costumer thought I was nice so he gave me an FSB velcro patch that I got to keep, which was pretty cool. Another I played a SEAL and we had some well known SEAL dudes behind the film, so they were very attention to detail on everything so that was really cool.
Having served in the U.S. military, I cannot unsee the fact that movies and TV shows ALWAYS fuck something up with the character uniforms-- Army rank on Air Force cadets, upside-down rank, badges pinned on the wrong side, the character is a Sergeant Major but they’re wearing Major rank, the character is wearing ribbons for wars they weren’t even alive to have served in, and so on.
I almost wonder if they intentionally screw that sort of thing up so they’re not “ripping off” real soldiers’ customs.
… But I’m being way too optimistic I think LOL.
There’s so much like this in media where I’m like “You could have just asked? Like so many people could have happily walked you through making this authentic!!”
I hadn’t considered your first point, maybe that’s it! I also wondered if maybe they just thought whatever they did looked “cooler”, so they went with that? Because yeah, you can totally hire a consultant for that kinda thing, or heck, just look it up online!
It’s 50:50 two things.
Some Wardrobe guys don’t like dressing actors as ‘real’ soldiers, so they fudge things. The other is that something will aesthetically look ‘better’ than the real thing so they just go with that. I’ve worked on a few military projects and it’s entirely dependent on the military costumer and what they want to do.
One picture I was a Russian mercenary and they threw random ranks on everyone. The costumer thought I was nice so he gave me an FSB velcro patch that I got to keep, which was pretty cool. Another I played a SEAL and we had some well known SEAL dudes behind the film, so they were very attention to detail on everything so that was really cool.