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After reading Why does Carol not get rid of the Kree symbol on her suit when she changes its colours? and this excerpt from the accepted answer:

As mentioned above changing the colour of the suit sends a strong signal that she's changed alliances and so changing the symbol wasn't actually necessary.

This raises the (in-universe) question of why does the Kree suit even have colour changing functionality in the first place if all Kree are green?

Is it that:

  1. Only the Kree we see have a green colour scheme, but Kree who perform other functions have different colors?

  2. There are opposing political factions within the Kree that are designated by colour?

  3. Some other in-universe reason?

Out of universe I know it makes it easy for the audience to recognize the change.

2 Answers 2

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Camouflage

A big benefit of being able to change your colours on the fly would be so that you can camouflage yourself into your surroundings. We don't see them do this in the film, if I remember correctly, but they didn't really need to. It makes for a massive advantage over the enemy to be able to seamlessly adapt to your surroundings. Remember that Yon-Rogg's squad seem to be quite an elite unit, considering the mission we see them go on so it would make sense they have access to some pretty cool tech.

This is backed up by Andy Park, Director of Visual Development for Marvel Studios, who has this to say on the suit being able to change colours:

The idea was that, "As they go on missions, they can change their color on the fly, for camouflage reasons," explained Park.

BuzzFeed, 21 Secrets About The "Captain Marvel" Costumes That Will Make You Say, "Wait, That's Really Cool"

Other Kree do wear different colours.

Whilst the official reason appears to be for camouflage as explained above I think it's worth noting that we do see other Kree wearing other colours.

In Guardians of the Galaxy we see the Kree Ambassador wearing a red uniform. Whilst this could be more of a formal outfit than the green uniforms of the Starforce members we see in Captain Marvel it does show they don't restrict themselves to just the green.

Kree Ambassador shown wearing red
Click to enlarge.

In Guardians of the Galaxy we also see an older version of Ronan and at this point he has changed to it being all black rather black with the green highlights we see in Captain Marvel and it does look like the same outfit. Whilst it's possible this is because he has "gone rogue" it could be down to him moving into a different position within the Kree Empire.

Ronan in Captain Marvel with the green highlights on his uniform
Click to enlarge.

Ronan in Guardians with a solid black uniform
Click to enlarge.


And to clarify on my comment in the linked answer, it would still hold true as she is switching sides from the Kree and Yon-Rogg's unit and we see only see their unit with the green colouring.

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    I'm not sold on the "camouflage" aspect. I seem to remember a sensitive covert operation to a certain planet in order to retrieve a secret operative - and nary a bit of camouflage in sight!
    – Peter M
    Mar 22, 2019 at 14:09
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    @PeterM The whole execution of that mission was daft, they say they don't want to be noticed and then the first thing they do is walk straight into the middle of a group of "natives".
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Mar 22, 2019 at 14:10
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    One might further speculate that the typical shades-of-green scheme might further help. Perhaps Kree can see shades of green much sharper than their usual target Skrull's brains can, so it works for them like Hunter's Orange
    – T.E.D.
    Mar 22, 2019 at 22:15
  • @TheLethalCarrot Actually, the first thing that happens is that Carol sees a door and goes "okay, let's go through the door", and the leader is like "Are you daft? That's the most 100% obvious ambush set-up possible", as his main role for most of the film is to gaslight her about needing to not be so impulsive and emotional, but then to move the plot along they go through the door anyway, which forces them into the ambush, aka walking right into a bunch of "natives". Mar 25, 2019 at 3:15
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This raises the (In-Universe) question of why does the Kree suit even have coloring changing functionality in the first place if all Kree are green?

Camouflage is the most likely answer - the ability to blend in to different environments and societal norms (e.g., not just urban vs. woodland, but Kree city clothing vs. Xandar city clothing, etc.) The cut is obviously going to differ from local norm, but if the color scheme is right, it'll pass a cursory look. These Warrior Heroes are operating out and about on a regular basis, and it makes sense for them to be adaptable.

The fact that we never see them take advantage of this capability during Captain Marvel makes it hard to substantiate this (or any) theory.

(As a close analog, Kiera Cameron's police suit in Continuum does exactly this.)

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    Turns out this seems to be the official explanation to, see the quote in my answer from Andy Park.
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Mar 22, 2019 at 12:47
  • @TheLethalCarrot I upvoted your answer as soon as I saw that update :)
    – gowenfawr
    Mar 22, 2019 at 12:48

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