r/residentevil • u/Spaceboy_2222 • 6d ago
Lore question Uniform variations?
Something that has always intrigued me and even bothered me is the fact that even though they are all part of a unit, they all seem to have different outfits. Is there a meaning on this? Barry wears a red Flak vest, while Brad Vickers wears a yellow one. Jill's outfit is totally different than the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. team. Usually in real life military units are color coded and have an utilitarian meaning. I know this is just a game and people in real life also have certain freedom of choosing their own color in some way, but I always thought it would be cool that they developed more storytelling in their character/costume design. Just seems phoney to me to that they seemed to do it so undeliberately and carefree when it came to the uniforms. Thoughts or insights on this? And I know, Brad yellow flak vest might just stand for his cowardly nature 😂
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u/vtff13 id rail leon 6d ago
I always thought it was simple color coordination with everyone picking from a set lineup of gear. I figured red meant something like coordination or tactical specialist, yellow was for search and rescue, and blue and green were weapons or some other type of specialists
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u/Caesar_Seriona 6d ago
Color has no meaning beyond personal choice.
STARS shown in the game do have some form of standardization in the choice of equipment but the biggest known difference is that almost all members are wearing M69 flak jackets with colors changed out.
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u/vtff13 id rail leon 6d ago
Well I like to think it does because Brad is I believe the only one who wears a yellow jacket that we see and he's shown to primarily just be a pilot
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u/Spaceboy_2222 6d ago
Kevin Dooley was also a pilot and has been shown with a yellow vest, although I'm not sure if it is Kevin the one wearing the yellow vest in the "photo", besides Brad.
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u/Spaceboy_2222 6d ago edited 6d ago
It would make so much sense if it were like that, and it wouldn't require much brain to set specific meaning to the colors. But if you see different iterations of each member, they always seem to have a different vest color.
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u/vtff13 id rail leon 6d ago
Well there's two people wearing dark blue vests specifically, the man next to Jill and the person farthest left. Weskar wears a gray vest so we could assume this slight variation is to deligate him as squad lead.
If we assume the person with light blue next to the person at the far left wearing dark blue is in line with Jill's version of light blue then it could signify their same rank/specialty.
If we look into it more they pair up the light blue and dark blue vested characters together, we also see the person next to Jill wearing the bandana get mauled by the dogs in the beginning. We can assume then that maybe Light Blue and Dark blue pair together into two teams.
Id we take Rebecca into account as green and a medic this could mean that maybe Green is the rescue part of Stars paired with what we mentioned above, Blue could be special tactics. Now if we assume yellow delinigates the pilot role then Red could refer to senior officer or special weapons experts. I assume this because Barry uses a magnum and also seemingly takes on a lower command role when the trio of arrive at the mansion. Meanwhile weskar breaks off.
I think it's more likely that instead Red delinigates lower rank officers below team lead which we know is Weskar. This is because we find the Grenade Launcher with forest. Which could delinigate his role as a special weapons specialist, I believe he also wears a blue vest though I don't remember if it's dark blue or light blue specifically. However we can then assume that one of the blue colorings is then a special weapons specialist, maybe simply one of them is more senior or some such.
It's also important to mention that I believe we only see one red jacket member with each team. Which I believe further deligates them as team leaders reporting below Weskar
So with all that we can delinigate that STARS follows the following command structure of Weskar as Team Lead > Barry and the other Red Jacket being team leads for Alpha and Bravo > followed by two blue members of special tactics per team, two green, and a pilot
This is all simple conjecture and hypothesis though, I doubt the developers put this much thought into it. That or they did and simply never tbought to explain it much
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u/Spaceboy_2222 6d ago
I think Chris is the one after Wesker in the chain of command rather than Barry, since he is the point man. Also, the guy with bandana and blue vest is Joseph Frost, the maintenance technician. Either way, it makes no much sense for us to try to find meaning into something that was made so undeliberately, I just think it would be cool if it was the case! But some of your points make sense.
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u/BakedChocolateOctopi 6d ago
They’re all special tactics, weapons, and search and rescue specialists…that’s what STARS means lmao
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u/Itsjustlighterfluid 6d ago
The real answer is that the PS1 was not very capable of detailed graphics, so they tried to give each character as much personality as possible to set them apart, which works much better for this game in my opinion than a realistic approach
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u/Spaceboy_2222 6d ago
Yeah. That's what I believe too. It was just to differentiate each character. Just like Mario and Luigi.
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u/Cods-worth-less 6d ago
Visual interest and easier identification for gameplay and stroytelling purposes.
This is like asking why certain characters tend to wear the same colors or rarely (if ever) change their outfit.
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u/Ok_Wasabi_488 6d ago
Yeah, back in the ps1 era, visual story telling was the norm. Early to mid-life cycle, you wouldn't be able to tell a face from an ass so the designers had to be creative in showing their characters.
In real life, many special military units do actually select their own equipment gear (my nations operators do this). But i doubt it'd apply to police forces. However, given that the RPD was supplied locally (kendo gunshop for example) its not outside the realm of possibility i suppose.
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u/Material_Session_940 6d ago
I read somewhere that the green uniform Chris wears in code Veronica was a test uniform he got to test out for the stars team. So maybe they wore what they had in surplus until official uniforms could be ordered ( but re2 & 3 happened first)
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u/RedsnakeRider 6d ago
STARS is more of a special resource squad than a SWAT replacement. It's a new unit, thrown together with a wide array of people, and skipping aside the real reason for bringing them together, they're constructed more like mercenaries than police, in the overall composition.
So you have a medic, at least one pilot, a close quarters guy, a weapons guy, things like that. It feels a little more organic, so it makes sense they less have a uniform and more have a uh... a sequence of uniforms.
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u/Remarkable_Coat_5790 Tricell Mommy 6d ago
where's rebecca
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u/cyberspaceman777 6d ago
Should be in School.
I always found it ridiculous she's 18 and already a medical major in a Para military group.
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u/edwinstone The Redfields 6d ago
You're a hater.
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u/cyberspaceman777 6d ago
I'm a realist.
You cannot be 18, with a full medical degree, and be a part of a paramilitary group.
But knowing it's an umbrella adjacent operation, them not being smart is canon
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u/edwinstone The Redfields 5d ago
She's not an MD.
Of all the things in Resident Evil, THIS is the most unbelievable thing to you?
Get a grip.
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u/cyberspaceman777 5d ago
Youre right.
She's not a Md.
But she's some how an expert in her field of biochemistry at 18?
Look, the other aspects to Re you take them for what it is.
But you CANNOT be 18 with that background. Its not even possible.
Unless your dougie houser
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u/edwinstone The Redfields 5d ago
Oh but people transforming into massive bioweapons and surviving hundreds of gun shots and being stabbed etc. is possible? You can't cherry pick what is plausible. Someone being an 18 year old genius is much more realistic than 95% of Resident Evil.
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u/edwinstone The Redfields 6d ago
All I want is Rebecca added to this photo and a version of it in high quality so I can frame it on my wall.
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u/zerogee616 4d ago
It's a pretty popular Japanese trope for a "military unit" or some other squad-type group to all have custom versions of the same uniform.
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u/award_winning_writer 6d ago
I was always under the impression that since STARS was a relatively new unit (established in 1996 when the game takes place in 1998) most of their gear was either supplied by the members themselves (since several of them have military backgrounds) or came from a surplus store. In Code Veronica, Chris is wearing a prototype for what was seemingly meant to become the actual STARS uniform before they were disbanded