A couple of years ago I worked on a production in which we were required to show a hypothetical UK military unit as it would exist in the year 2090. As part of this we did a fair bit of research into rank and unit insignia, and particularly medal ribbons as we wanted to show those which would survive until 2090, and include some new ones which might be developed in the meantime.
In general I feel that a reasonable effort was made to get it right, although the first day on set one of our actors, an ex army officer, immediately pointed out a glitch in the placement of ribbons on the jacket.
In the defence of the film industry in general, there are several problems:
- The history and traditions of the UK military in particular make it very, very complicated, as this thread illustrates
- The producers realise that their ability to make money out of the production is not dependent on accuracy, so they won't budget the time to spend to get it right, over the objections of the costume people, and
- Scripts are generally written long before the involvement of a military advisor. Advisors generally want paying (the assistance I've received here notwithstanding). At the point when major story decisions are made, the writer is often working at risk that the script may never be produced, so it's difficult to justify the cost.
P