How the weirdest, scariest and most uncomfortable costumes in the history of cinema were created before CGI

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today, in the era of computer graphics, costumes and sets in cinema are often replaced by painted ones. However, this was not always the case, and even now sometimes, for especially complex masks, they decide to create them in the old fashioned way, by hand. While modern materials can work wonders, the actors are sometimes uncomfortable in these strange designer outfits, and sometimes the shooting turns into a real torment.

Jabba the Hutt, Star Wars - Return of the Jedi

This character in the movie saga is a huge alien … either a slug or a frog. This negative character was very carefully thought out by the creators, in the guise of an evil alien one can trace the features of many terrestrial animals, and quite unpleasant ones - from annelids to amphibians. In Return of the Jedi, the role of Jabba is "played" by a 1-ton doll that took three months and half a million dollars to create. Four puppeteers were recruited to control this monster, making Jabba one of the largest devices ever used in a movie. Since it was impossible to move the hulk from the outside, the puppeteers worked, climbing three of them inside the "suit".

The Muppets' puppeteer actors David Alan Barclay, Toby Philpott and Mike Edmonds were now learning the skills of working as a threesome, in the closest collaboration possible. One controlled the character's right hand and mouth, and also read lines in English, the second was the left hand, head and tongue, and the third, the smallest in stature, was responsible for the movements of the doll's tail. The very realistic eyes and rich facial expressions of the character were assigned to the fourth participant, but he controlled them from a distance, using a walkie-talkie. If we add another voice actor, in whose voice Jabba speaks in the film (and he speaks only in Hutt, and all his lines were translated into English with subtitles), it turns out that five people were needed at the same time to bring only one hero to life. All this was so difficult that the creators of the doll even decided to make a small documentary called "Life Inside Jabba Hut".

Uniforms in Star Trek: The Next Generation

The costumes of superheroes and vigorous space explorers usually look like a second skin - they sit wonderfully on the characters and clearly give strength to the lucky ones who dress them. However, behind the scenes, everything happens exactly the opposite. One of the most unfortunate examples of such heroic design delights is the uniform created for the movie Star Trek: The Next Generation. The fact is that when choosing a material, dressers thought only about the result, but not about the convenience of the actors. As a result, clothes made from spandex looked great, but created a lot of inconvenience when worn for a long time. The artificial material did not allow air to pass through at all, it turned out to be impossible to process it from the inside after each hours-long session, so after a while on the set it smelled not at all cosmic distances - after all, spandex, moreover, perfectly absorbs odors and stores them, no matter how much you ventilate. In addition, suits, for better fit, were sewn one size smaller, which clearly does not add convenience when worn. This, by the way, is the secret of the perfect fit of all hero uniforms.

Robocop suit

This costume, very difficult to perform and wear, became a real bone of contention on the set. Because of him, for the first time in history, the project of the film almost fell through. The fact is that the director did not like the created version of the "robo-armor" very much. It is difficult to say why Paul Verhoeven saw the most important props only immediately before filming, when he was already completely ready, but, as a result, due to his abuse with the designer, the filming was delayed, and then still resumed, and all with that the same suit. However, the designer, offended by such an attitude towards his work, simply did not come on the very first day of filming, and he was the only one who knew how to pull a bunch of complex elements onto the actor. The film crew tried to do this for … 11 hours, after which Peter Weller himself, who played Robocop, refused to participate in this booth. The director of the picture, who was pretty tired of all this, immediately fired the capricious star, but then had to take him back, since the suit did not climb on anyone else. It's amazing that this film was released after all.

Alien costume

The example of this film clearly shows that you can still make a "candy" out of a heap of all kinds of rubbish, if truly talented professionals get down to business. The film was shot in 1979 as a low-budget, and then paid off tenfold. It is believed that the basis for the success of the project was the amazing costume of the evil alien monster. The real star of the tape, although it remained behind the scenes, was the Swiss artist-designer Hans Rudolf Giger. It was he who invented and created the image of a creepy xenomorph. His work was not even accepted at first consideration - they seemed so disgusting, but director Ridley Scott insisted that he was shooting horror, so you need to scare the viewer properly. As a result, Giger took up the making of the suit. The film crew shunned the artist. The front of the head of the Alien costume was molded in the shape of a real human skull. When Giger was asked where he got the "prototype", he replied: "Don't ask me about it." The whole group was sure that the artist was hiding corpses in his basement, but these rumors, of course, were not confirmed.

In addition to latex, all sorts of things were included in the monster's costume: pipes from an old Rolls-Royce, snake spines, many condoms for veins on the face, etc. The most difficult element of the Alien was his head. For close-up shots, a structure was created that consisted of 900 moving elements. With all this, not a single actor was suitable for turning into an alien - the alien's figure had to be different from a human. The decision came by accident. In a bar nearby, the director saw a huge and very thin Nigerian (his height was 2 meters 20 cm). Bolaji Badejo was approved without samples, since the second such "Alien" was definitely not to be found.

Suit "Mystic"

An amazing character, capable of transforming into anyone, became a real decoration of the X-Men movie saga. However, bringing this scaly-blue comic book girl into a movie proved to be a daunting task. When fashion models Rebecca Romijn was offered the role of a mutant, she did not expect what she would have to face. The girl was warned that the make-up would be difficult, but she was not prepared for the fact that “dressing up” would last for 8 hours! About 110 silicone flakes, each of which was glued to the body, three layers of blue paint, and then five layers of other shades - the skin could not withstand the load and was constantly covered with ulcers. In addition, the most unusual character was carefully guarded from the attention of the press, so during breaks between filming, the actress was forced to sit locked in a room with no windows.

Jennifer Lawrence, who played the same role in the following episodes, was much more fortunate. The complex bodypainting was replaced with a costume, and only the face was painted. But the actress had to straighten out the natural human needs during the filming, right in tight leotards, because it was very difficult to take off the costume. For this, the designers provided for special holes … but during the operation it turned out that not everything is so simple, therefore, according to eyewitnesses, by the end of filming, the suit also emitted a not very pleasant smell. However, actors are a strong people, for the sake of art they are ready to make many sacrifices, especially since modern cinema is ready to generously pay for such inconveniences.