posted
In TUC, Valeris is referred to as "Lieutenant" but her uniform rank pin is not that of either a lieutenant or a Lt. JG. In fact, it is not a pin I have seen or noticed on any other officer's uniform throughout the movies. It looks like this:
Is there such a rank as LT. SENIOR GRADE? Is this what this pin is?
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posted
Okay, the devil's in the details, so let's get this straight. There were no Lt.Cmdrs in the movie 2. This was mainly because Bob Fletcher forgot to design a rank pin for them! Soon enough, fans reminded him of this omission, and he designed a Lt.Cmdr pin. That's the one shown in the above picture.
Unfortunately, some unrelated sources had already dreamed up their own Lt.Cmdr pin, the one with the broken rung. This pin was never used in the movies, yet has erroneously perpetuated itself in reference works.
The real Lt.Cmdr pin was seen on several characters, beginning with at least ST4. Valeris wore it while addressed as Lieutenant, which is a bit odd - it's very rarely that a Lt.Cmdr gets addressed that way, outside of angry dressings-down. Her replacement at Enterprise helm wore the same pip after Valeris had been taken to custody.
Technically, though, it IS correct to say that nobody in movies 2 and 7 wore the pin or had the rank. It just isn't correct to say that nobody did that in movies 2 THROUGH 7.
capped
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posted
Wow.. make a simple statement.. a-hem.. here we go.. in the portions of movies 2-7 which took place in the era of the red jacket uniforms, nobody was overtly addressed or identified in a script (in a canonical manner) as Lieutenant Commander.
This doesnt mean there were no lieutenant commanders in the background, but if there were there is nothing that confirms to us there were. More confusion is, since the orginal costume designs neglected to include it, there is little decisive evidence as to what was intended to be lieutenant commander.
But to examine the story, original drafts probably included Saavik, as a lieutenant commander.. when Saavik was removed from the part and Valeris created in her place, the producers intended for her to be a lieutenant, probably newly graduated from the academy based on Spock's comments. In fact, she was issued an academy red turtleneck. But her jacket bore the grey department color (another serious problem) and what is assumed to be a Lt. Cmdr. pin. This would correspond to the position Saavik was supposed to hold, Lt. Cmdr in ships services (science, nav, whatver.. they really werent clear on who got yellow and who got grey, since the only science officer we saw was spock who wore command white, and chekov wore grey to be a navigator but his true department was security)
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posted
If I recall correctly (is that "IIRC" for short? - I'm new to this), Sulu wore the insignia displayed above by The Mighty Monkey of Mim in ST: II through to ST: V and was (as far as I know) a Lieutenant-Commander. Thus Valeris was a Lieutenant-Commander and addressed "Lieutenant" for short as it might have been a recent promotion and possibly provisional.
As for Lieutenant and Lieutenant, junior grade insignias - they are as specified in the Encyclopedia.
[ October 01, 2001: Message edited by: akb1979 ]
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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posted
Sulu (and Chekov, and Uhura, and McCoy, and sometimes Scotty) were full commanders (or later, above) in all the movies, thus eliminating the need for a lieutenant commander insignia to be used on the main cast.
Their pin was a variant of the one shown above except with two horizontal bars
[ October 01, 2001: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]
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You should check out the whole site, though, from here.
Great stuff!
Also, I remember the book Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise having the unofficial pin (I think). That book also said the Enterprise refit was an Enterprise Class starship and that the E-A used to be called the USS Ti-Ho.
posted
There is. It's just not called Lieutenant Senior Grade, it's simply "Lieutenant" ... (obviously, if there's a Lieutenant junior grade, then the next step up would be a senior-grade lieutenant, although it's not "Lieutenant (s.g.)" ... )
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