Some showed too much skin, some were completely impractical. And depending on who you ask, some just drew way too much attention to actors' nipples. These costume changes were a little too out there... even for sci-fi.
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00:00Some showed too much skin, some were completely impractical, and depending on who you ask,
00:05some just drew way too much attention to actors' nipples.
00:08These costume changes were a little too out there, even for sci-fi.
00:12When the first X-Men movie came out in 2000, the studio believed the public wouldn't be
00:16interested in brightly colored spandex costumes.
00:19Instead, the production dressed the team in black leather, much like filmmakers had done
00:22with Blade, in the surprisingly successful 1998 film iteration of the Marvel Vampire
00:27Slayer.
00:28By 2014, however, this trend had come to an end.
00:31So, when the RoboCop remake came out that year, the lead character's makeover in an
00:35all-black, robo-body just seemed silly rather than edgy.
00:39Fans also wondered why he kept a normal-looking, flesh-and-blood hand attached to his powerful,
00:43cybernetic body.
00:44The movie never addresses it in the theatrical cut, but there are actually two explanations
00:48for RoboCop's newly human hand.
00:50One is a visual metaphor.
00:51A human hand on the trigger of a police gun is meant to reassure the public that he's
00:55not a soulless machine.
00:57A deleted scene from the film offers a more superficial explanation — that Raymond Sellers
01:01believes in the ability to judge a man by his handshake, and wants to ensure Alex Murphy
01:05can still deliver on this social contract.
01:07Hey, can you save his right hand?
01:09My father always said you can tell a lot about a man by his handshake.
01:12The film itself expresses neither of these, and in the end, does the audience the favor
01:16of giving RoboCop a silvery makeover to match the original.
01:20David Lynch's 1984 Dune adaptation elicits mixed responses at best, but regardless of
01:25a viewer's reaction to the storytelling, few would deny its production design is awesome
01:29to behold — even if it's not always true to Frank Herbert's book.
01:33With an H.R. Giger-inspired biomechanical design, costume designer Bob Ringwood's moisture-conserving
01:38stillsuits featured in the film seem like an elaborately direct precursor to his work
01:42on his Batsuit design for the Tim Burton Batman films.
01:46By comparison, when Denis Villeneuve mounted his production of Dune, the stillsuits looked
01:50quite lazy by comparison.
01:52This iteration of the design looked more like regular clothes with extra bits glued
01:55on rather than form-fitting survival devices.
01:58The general idea was to make the stillsuits look more like something actual desert tribes
02:02wear today than to look explicitly futuristic and alien.
02:05Villeneuve got so much right that in the end, complaints about the costumes faded away,
02:10and the movie won six Oscars.
02:11Unfortunately, none of those victories were for costume design.
02:15Between the 1969 premiere of the final episode of the original Star Trek series and the first
02:19movie's 1979 release, both real-world and sci-fi fashion changed a lot.
02:24In the wake of 2001 A Space Odyssey and Star Wars, bright red miniskirts weren't going
02:29to cut it in a serious intergalactic adventure.
02:32Though less garish, the Starfleet uniforms dreamed up for Star Trek the motion picture
02:36have failed to stand the test of time any better than their counterparts on the TV series.
02:40Tans and beiges didn't prove to be particularly attractive uniform colors, and some of the
02:44faux-naval touches looked more like Carnival Cruise uniforms.
02:48What's more, the decision to sew the shoes into the pant legs resulted in pointless difficulty
02:52while changing.
02:54As costume critic Gavia Baker-Whitelaw succinctly highlighted in her blog Hello, Taylor!, it's
02:58the sheer impracticality from both a production and viewer standpoint that really sets these
03:03uniforms apart.
03:04It seems that the public's opinion on this matter was also shared by the cast.
03:08In William Shatner's autobiography, he also pointed out that the uniform got far too tight
03:12when the men tried to sit down.
03:15Thankfully for all involved, the sequel's attempt at Navy-style formal wear proved much
03:20more popular all around.
03:22If there's one thing that can be said for the leather costume worn by Ben Affleck in
03:252003's Daredevil movie, it's that it's slightly easier to look at than the full-body blindfold
03:30worn by Rex Smith in the 1989 TV movie The Trial of the Incredible Hulk.
03:35Unfortunately, that's rather faint praise, and the 2003 costume ultimately turned out
03:39looking more like bondage gear than most super suits.
03:42It seems that the film's director, Mark Steven Johnson, was well aware of this fact, telling
03:46Yahoo! that he found it particularly challenging to be faithful to the character's original
03:50spandex-heavy aesthetic.
03:52He explained,
03:53"...we ultimately settled on leather because it was the most practical.
03:56Like if you're riding a motorcycle and you go down, leather is going to protect you the
03:59most.
04:00But it was also easy for it to come off looking like S&M, and the horns didn't help."
04:04Johnson went on to explain that he credits the new costume worn by Charlie Cox in the
04:08Marvel Cinematic Universe as an improvement, acknowledging that it has a tasteful balance
04:12of protective practicality and that signature leathery style.
04:16For a character based on a kid's toy line, G.I.
04:18Joe villain Baroness appeals to some very adult sensibilities.
04:22Usually clad in skintight armor or leather, with long black hair, ruby red lips, and glasses,
04:27she certainly has a sensual aesthetic.
04:29Many higher-end collectibles emphasize this erotically-charged combo, and it's a popular
04:34look for cosplayers who can pull it off.
04:36Stephen Sommers, who directed 2009's G.I.
04:38Joe The Rise of Cobra, didn't seem overly concerned about having the characters look
04:42like their toy counterparts, and in the case of the Baroness, he seemed to have missed
04:46her appeal completely.
04:48Rather than giving her librarian specs that frame her eyes, Sienna Miller's Baroness mostly
04:52wears auto-darkening sunglasses.
04:54Additionally, her not-especially-contoured bodysuit is hidden under a trench coat half
04:58the time.
04:59Perhaps Sommers was inspired by the classy looks of the Matrix, but fans were less than
05:03enthused about his treatment of the character.
05:05While there were elements of her character in the film that detracted heavily from the
05:08bad girl reputation she'd built up in the past, the misinterpretation of her costume
05:12was the most obvious sign that she was a Baroness in name only.
05:15For everything else he got wrong, at least Robert Schwentke's 2021 installation Snake
05:20Eyes gave fans a recognizable version of Cobra's favorite bad girl once again.
05:25After two movies as a strong leader who is more competent than the male heroes assigned
05:28to rescue her, Princess Leia Organa got captured and stripped down to a gold bikini by Jabba
05:33the Hutt in Return of the Jedi.
05:35While Star Wars is one of the most iconic sci-fi franchises in history, this costume
05:39has already been heavily scrutinized and parodied in the media.
05:42Is there a picture of you in my wallet wearing a metal bikini?
05:46God, I hope not.
05:51Over a decade later, Kenner Hasbro finally made an action figure of Leia in the get-up,
05:55and though it was officially labeled Princess Leia Organa as Jabba's prisoner, the fans
05:59quickly dubbed it Slave Leia.
06:01The first iteration of the figure proved hugely popular with collectors, though after
06:05a while, the appeal died down.
06:07After Disney took over Star Wars, they quietly started phasing out that particular look in
06:11merchandise.
06:12For her part, the late Carrie Fisher surely had feelings of her own on the costume, but
06:16when asked by The Wall Street Journal in 2015 how she would explain the outfit to kids,
06:20she gave a very tactful answer.
06:22"'Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit.
06:26And then I killed him because I didn't like it.
06:27And then I took it off.
06:29Backstage.'"
06:30Despite getting a cue from Fisher's sentiment about the bikini, Disney ultimately began
06:33describing Leia in that outfit as a Hutt Slayer rather than a captive or slave.
06:38Long before Sony started making movies like Venom about characters from the Spider-Man
06:42franchise without actually featuring Spider-Man himself, DC tried to make a movie featuring
06:46a character from the Superman universe without Superman.
06:49In comics, the character Steel was John Henry Irons, one of four Superman-esque heroes who
06:54appeared after the original Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday.
06:58Irons didn't pretend to be Superman, but he wore a caped metal suit that made him resemble
07:02a literal Man of Steel and carried a large hammer in homage to folk hero John Henry.
07:07In the movies, however, he's played by Shaquille O'Neal wearing armor that even Tony Stark
07:11would reject outright.
07:12With no contemporary Superman on the big screen, the movie Steel depicts Irons as a brilliant
07:17weapons designer who must protect the inner city when a fellow soldier steals his arsenal
07:21and sells it to criminals.
07:23Nine years before Iron Man hit the big screen with a nearly identical concept, this inventor,
07:28upset with the misuse of this tech, develops a powered-up suit of armor to fight evil.
07:32Without Superman, the film ditched the cape, and in order to showcase Shaq's acting, Steel's
07:37full head mask got replaced with a metal cowl that strongly resembled Batman's without the
07:41ears.
07:42Evidently, the technology to do a full-body motion-capture suit wasn't ready in 1997,
07:47and the cumbersome results speak for themselves.
07:50The Green Goblin has one of those costumes that works on the page much more easily than
07:53in real life.
07:54It's supposed to be deranged tycoon Norman Osborn in what's effectively a Halloween costume
07:58and mask.
07:59In the comic medium, that mask can be as expressive and realistic as any given artist wants to
08:04make it.
08:05In reality, a criminal in a rubber mask might be less visceral to see.
08:08Sam Raimi's Spider-Man tried to come up with an alternative that would make sense within
08:12the world of a movie, going with the notion that Osborn would wear green armor to increase
08:16his strength and design a helmet reminiscent of his own tribal mask collection.
08:21Unfortunately, fans derisively described the appearance as resembling a Power Ranger,
08:25and given their own tacky reputation in the early 2000s, this wasn't exactly a compliment.
08:30Willem Dafoe's committed performance helped people overlook their issues with the design,
08:34though many fans wondered why Raimi would bother to put a mask over Dafoe, as his face
08:38actually looks like a sinister goblin when he grins just right.
08:42At long last, in Marvel Studios' Spider-Man No Way Home, he kept his natural deranged
08:47face and donned a purple hood to look more like the comics.
08:50However, in honor of the many fans of the Raimi movies, the power armor underneath it
08:54all remained.
08:55I just want to kill you myself.
08:58Atta boy.
09:00When Warner Bros. initially proposed a Catwoman movie, the idea was that it should star Michelle
09:04Pfeiffer in that stitched-up vinyl outfit from Batman Returns.
09:07However, by the time the film came out, the concept had devolved into Halle Berry dressed
09:12up like a psychotic hamster in a bikini.
09:14Well, unlike some of the other costume designers on this list, Berry's costume designer, Angus
09:18Strothy, seemed pretty satisfied with his work, telling Cinema Review,
09:22"...there were so many elements to take into consideration, because the catsuit is such
09:26a distinctive, almost historical costume.
09:28We did want to pay some homage to the other Catwomen, and I think we achieved a wonderful
09:32blend of the past and the not-too-distant future."
09:34While making the film, director Pittoff didn't feel bound by existing continuity, and parental
09:39backlash to the perceived sexuality of Pfeiffer's version didn't exactly help with creating
09:44a more faithful adaptation to the comic book character.
09:47The movie's Catwoman was an all-new creation named Patience Phillips, in a city that definitely
09:52didn't resemble Gotham.
09:53It's possible that, due to these many changes from the source material, the movie did not
09:57become a blockbuster.
09:59Even so, it won Berry a Razzie Award the same year she won the Oscar for Monsters Ball.
10:04Between Tim Burton's first Batman and Batman Returns, Michael Keaton's batsuit evolved
10:08from looking like an organic physique to plaited armor.
10:11When Joel Schumacher took over as director for Batman Forever, the design reverted back
10:15to a more anatomical look.
10:17Emulating classical statues, Val Kilmer's initial batsuit infamously sported nipples
10:21and a sculpted butt.
10:22However, perhaps because he reverted to an armor-styled sonar suit for the climax, fans
10:27really seemed to reserve their ire for the subsequent film, Batman & Robin.
10:31In this installment, George Clooney's bat nipples appeared to be even more on display.
10:35Costume designer José Fernández explained to Deserto that his designs for Kilmer's look
10:39in Batman Forever specifically were actually an homage to Roman armor, and the borderline
10:44nudity brought out by many of the skintight costumes from the comic books.
10:48He also noted that making the suit a lighter color for Clooney made the nipples more pronounced.
10:52Schumacher, a gay man and former costume designer himself, defended his vision, telling Premier
10:57magazine in 1995,
10:58"'It's my Gotham City, and if I want Batman to have nipples, he's going to have nipples.'"
11:02Considering fans were relatively quiet about Alicia Silverstone's sculpted armor as Batgirl,
11:07there's certainly a case to be made that homophobia played a part in the great bat-nipple panic
11:11of the 90s.
11:13In comics, the Joker is generally a skinny, dapper fellow with purple coattails and a
11:17face transformed by chemical exposure to have white skin and green hair.
11:21Jack Nicholson's 1989 movie versions tuck pretty closely to that look, as did Cesar
11:25Romero on the 1966 TV show.
11:28When fans first glimpsed Heath Ledger in clips from The Dark Knight, however, several aspects
11:32seemed off.
11:33"'Well, you look nervous.
11:36Is it the scars?'
11:37"'You wanna know how I got them?'
11:42Rather than a bright splash of color against the darkness of Gotham City, Ledger wore a
11:46more muted purple, and the clown hair and face came from sloppily applied dye and makeup.
11:50However, once the movie came out and Ledger's actual performance nailed the clown Prince
11:54of Crime's personality, fans rejoiced.
11:57In the process, Ledger made cinematic history and ultimately earned himself a posthumous
12:01Oscar.
12:02Fans again worried when images of Jared Leto's Joker first hit the web, complete with the
12:06L.A. gangster aesthetic favored by Suicide Squad director David Ayer.
12:10Weared in tattoos and sporting a grill, he came across like he was trying to cosplay
12:14as a SoundCloud rapper.
12:16The logic behind this character's look was that, after he killed Robin, Batman knocked
12:20his teeth out, prompting the damaged tattoo on his forehead.
12:23Suicide Squad fared well at the box office, though was largely panned by critics.