The worst superhero costume in history, space bikinis, and a leather trenchcoat that sparked
a media frenzy — sci-fi costumes don't get much more controversial than this.
When audiences were first introduced to Princess Leia in the original Star Wars, she was wearing
a robe and had her hair in buns; a look that has since become iconic.
A few years later, though, in Return of the Jedi, Leia's look underwent quite the transformation.
After being captured at Jabba the Hutt's palace while trying to save Han Solo, Leia is clad
in the notorious so-called "slave bikini."
Of course, Carrie Fisher had a lot to say about the iconic costume over the years.
In typically-frank fashion, she wrote in a 1999 essay for Newsweek:
"That iron bikini [was] what supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell."
When Daisy Ridley joined the franchise for Disney's sequel trilogy, Fisher cautioned
her not to let the character's impact be sidetracked by her clothing.
She reportedly told her co-star:
"Don't be a slave like I was."
Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman was praised by fans and critics alike, with many singling
out the film's feminist take on its central characters, almost all of whom were women.
In particular, the costumes won a lot of praise: in a rare win for the genre, the battle armor
for the residents of Themyscira actually seemed like armor.
Later that very same year, however, when those characters returned in Justice League, fans
were quick to point out that the armor had changed.
Film critic Aasa T shared a side-by-side comparison on Twitter, showing the costumes in Wonder
Woman right up against the skimpier ones in Justice League.
They pointed out that the original version was designed by Lindy Hemming, a woman, while
the ab-baring bikini variants were created by Michael Wilkinson.
Even actor Jessica Chastain chimed in on the controversy, writing in a since-deleted tweet:
"Hey men, what would you wear to fight?
Hint: don't expose your vital organs."
One of the Amazon warriors defended the costume while speaking with USA Today, however.
Brooke Ence said:
"The girls on set, we never thought of [the new costumes] as a sexy version.
It felt a little more glamorous, if anything, because we had bigger, beautiful hair, which
I loved."
Studios like to release glimpses of their tentpole films far in advance, hopefully getting
fans excited about upcoming blockbuster releases through a look at a special effects shot,
an iconic star — or, sometimes, a costume.
Such was the case when Sony Pictures released an image back in 2017 of the main characters
in Jumanji : Welcome to the Jungle.
The image depicted Kevin Hart, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black
standing in the titular jungle.
Instead of getting audiences hyped for the movie, though, fans were surprised by how
much skin Gillan's costume showed off, her ultra-short shorts and ultra-cropped crop
top seeming rather impractical as an outfit for jungle-foraging.
"Why am I wearing this outfit in a jungle?
Tiny little shorts and a leather halter top.
What is this?"
The Hollywood Reporter published a piece putting forward theories as to why Gillan is "so scantily-clad"
in the film, with the outlet wondering if the plot involved "setting the gender equality
fight back 20 years."
Gillan responded online about the outfit, saying:
"Yes I'm wearing child sized clothes and YES there is a reason!
The payoff is worth it, I promise!"
The star was teasing the film's plot point that she plays an in-universe video game character.
Slashfilm writer Ethan Anderton got it right back in 2016, noting after the film's first
look was released that:
"Karen Gillan is clearly a makeshift Lara Croft."
Designer Jean Paul Gaultier, known as an "enfant terrible" of the fashion world, created more
than a thousand different pieces for 1997's The Fifth Element.
He dressed everyone in elaborate costuming, from stars Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich
to background extras with only seconds of screentime.
The most famous outfit from the film, however, is the bandage costume worn by Jovovich for
her character Leeloo.
While the costume became instantly iconic, Jovovich's own public statements about the
look have shifted over the years.
On the occasion of the film's 20th anniversary, the former supermodel and future sci-fi mainstay
told Vogue:
"I think our team did the most incredible job with all the costumes, but especially
Leeloo.
That just became the most unique costume that anyone had ever seen in a sci-fi movie at
that point."
However, around the time of the film's release, Jovovich had told Entertainment Weekly that
her infamous bandages were "a bit embarrassing."
Moreover, the costume led to the actor being harassed on set.
She also insisted that fans should be watching the film for Leeloo's character and not her
looks, telling the magazine that, despite all appearances:
"It's not really about her clothes."
Throughout Jurassic World, manly-man Chris Pratt repeatedly belittles the more steely,
hyper-feminine Bryce Dallas Howard's choice of outfit.
More specifically, he focuses often on her high heels, telling her that her footwear
is impractical for traipsing around a dinosaur-filled island.
"You'll last two minutes in there.
Less, in those ridiculous shoes."
True as that may be, Howard's character Claire elects to keep them on, insisting that her
outfit doesn't have anything to do with her strength or ability to outrun dinos.
She puts that to the test in the climax of the film when, in a much-derided scene, she
takes off running from a massive T-Rex, heels stomping the ground in slow-mo like she's
walking the runway on RuPaul's Drag Race.
So strong was the backlash to the scene that Pratt decided to prove himself capable of
running in heels, too, which he did on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
Howard also defended the character's fashion choice in an interview with Yahoo! Movies,
explaining that it simply isn't practical for Claire to waste time taking off her shoes
when she's perfectly capable of running in them, as the actor did herself on set.
Howard said:
"I don't think she would choose to be barefoot.
I don't think she would run faster barefoot in the jungle with vines and stones.
I'm better equipped to run when I have shoes on my feet.
So that's my perspective on it."
Ridley Scott's masterpiece horror movie Alien includes a number of superb sci-fi costumes,
not least of which was the horrific Xenomorph suit worn by actor Bolaji Badejo.
One of its more enduring looks also happens to be one of its simplest: In the third act
of the film, Sigourney Weaver's Ripley shimmies out of her clothes, stripping down to a shirt
and underwear.
At first, Weaver was all for this, even suggesting that her character should have gone a little
further.
In an interview with Films and Filming magazine, Weaver said:
"You see the Alien in its birthday suit the entire film, so I thought it was a cop out
having me wear the underwear, and not stripping entirely."
However, she noted that she had received backlash for the costume, including people who said
she had "demeaned" herself by performing the scenes.
Weaver claimed:
"It never occurred to me for a second that people would think my strip exploitive."
Weaver isn't the only one who's now less than enthusiastic about the costuming choice.
Director James Cameron, who helmed Aliens, has also criticized the underwear sequence.
In an interview with News.com, Cameron said he made an effort not to do the same thing
in his sequel.
When The Matrix hit cinemas in 1999, the world hadn't seen anything like it.
The Wachowskis pioneered "bullet time," made Keanu Reeves a mega-star, and brought Hong
Kong-style wire action sequences fully into the American mainstream — and they did it
all while outfitting their characters in some seriously badass leather.
"Woah."
In short, The Matrix was cool, one of the highest compliments you could give something
in the '90s.
At the time, one fan wrote:
"The Matrix is so cool it's not even funny.
This has to be one of the coolest flicks of the decade."
However, the film's instantly-iconic style also sparked a moral panic about whether its
trench coats were inspiring kids to violence.
Several weeks after the release of The Matrix, the United States was rocked by the Columbine
shooting, carried out by two teens who were said to be part of a nefarious group the media
called the "Trenchcoat Mafia."
The shooting's supposed connection to the killers' fashion choices made international
headlines.
This was debunked later, of course, but the fact that the Columbine killers were not actually
part of the "Trenchcoat Mafia" gaming community didn't matter.
By 2003, ABC News was asking if The Matrix, and its costumes, had inspired "violent or
mentally disturbed individuals" to act out their fantasies.
The answer, of course, is "probably not."
Here's a phrase that will send a shiver down the spine of any Batman fan: nipples on the
Batsuit.
The Batsuits featured in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever and Batman & Robin were worn
by Val Kilmer and George Clooney respectively — the latter of whom admitted in a Reddit
AMA that he was hugely embarrassed at the time.
Clooney said:
"That's not something you really think about when you're putting it on.
You figure all batsuits have nipples and then you realize yours was really the first."
And sure, he was actually the second.
But he's got a point.
Schumacher later addressed the controversy in an interview with Vice, acknowledging that
the nipples would always be part of his legacy.
He said:
"Such a sophisticated world we live in where two pieces of rubber the size of erasers on
old pencils, those little nubs, can be an issue.
It's going to be on my tombstone, I know it."
Some fans, though, are decidedly pro-nipple, with many in the LGBTQ+ community reclaiming
Batman & Robin as camp — although Schumacher expressly denied any intentional gay subtext
to his film's sensibility.
He told Vulture:
"If I wasn't gay, they would never say those things."
Camp classic or the worst thing to happen to superhero films, one thing's for sure:
the nipples certainly made their mark.
When Jennifer Lawrence stepped into the role of Mystique for X-Men: First Class, the character's
sleek look was one of the best things about the film.
Unfortunately, it seems that the prosthetics and body paint were too much for the actor
to deal with.
She later told Jimmy Fallon that it originally took eight hours to apply the costume and
that they'd gotten it down to three in time for the sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past.
"You just have to sit there, right?"
"Oh my God, well I stood, or I had to sit on a bicycle seat.
Which every woman knows is our dream come true."
By X-Men: Apocalypse, Lawrence was sick of it, and she told Entertainment Weekly she
was thinking about bowing out of the franchise because of the character's complicated costuming.
Lawrence told the outlet:
"I'm like, 'I can't even pronounce this and that's going in my nose?
I'm breathing that?'"
Fox worked out a compromise to get Lawrence in the franchise's closing chapter, Dark Phoenix,
but it wound up stoking more than a little controversy.
Mystique's full-body paint and prosthetics were reduced to the sort of blue face paint
and cheap-looking wig that you might buy from a Halloween store; less Mystique, more "Superhero
Team Blue Lady."
Fans inevitably took to Twitter to voice their disappointment.
One frustrated tweet read:
"Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique makes me sad.
The Mystique design now is a joke.
The character deserves better."
Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is mostly remembered for being a very
expensive flop, but it's quite a fun slice of flashy sci-fi deserving of another look.
At the time of its release, however, Valerian was controversial for more than just its poor
reviews and awful box-office returns.
Model Cara Delevingne was cast to play Sergeant Laureline, the sidekick to Dane DeHaan's Major
Valerian.
While some reviews noted that both her acting and her chemistry with DeHaan left something
to be desired, others argued that her wide-eyed, eager performance added something to the wonderful
trashiness of it all.
Delevingne's armored costume made headlines ahead of the film's release too, with fans
of the original comics noting that Laureline's outfit in a first-look image was bustier than
it should be.
An editorial in Metro UK typified the backlash, calling the gendered outfit "annoying" and
comparing the look unfavorably to Captain Phasma's far more androgynous armor in The
Force Awakens.