Yeah, he almost certainly means reference directories like Jane's and Conway's; you can clearly see the influence of Great War era dreadnaughts in particular
here, much more so than in the final version.
Anyway, I've been putting this off for far too long, so here's a revised version of the flag, using the image earlier as reference. I kept the aspect ratio the same (though I keep having a nagging feeling it should be broader or narrower), but the stripes are thinner, and shaded slightly differently than the canton (which is a purplish hue). They're just placeholder shades right now; far too close to the point of being identical, but at the same time I'm not sure what else they could be (dark-dark red? black?)
As for the star, white is clearly no longer an option. I had thought earlier a shade of silver might work, but it would seem to be need to be a very dark shade, almost gray. I liked the aesthetic effect gold gave in the Landreich flag thread, but I don't think I would have tried it here if it hadn't already been done for the movie:
I don't really like the lower gold effect in the second version; too garish a contrast with the red for my taste. Here's the same with a slight white stroke around the edges:
Final word on that star: look at the one above and from the movie intro production art, and it seems to be the same version - much thicker outside arcs, much smaller secondary points. I didn't incorporate that here, since I wanted to put something out as quickly as possible, but it's something to keep in mind.