Tuesday, 7 December 2021

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Costume Design by:

- Bob Ringwood ( notable efforts: Excalibur (1981), Dune (1984), Solarbabies (1986), Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Demolition Man (1993), The Shadow (1994), Batman Forever (1995), A. I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) )

- Robert Blackman ( notable efforts: The Running Man (1987), Star Trek: The Next Generation (Seasons 3 to 7), Deep Space Nine (1993 - 1999), Voyager (1995 - 2001), Enterprise (2001 - 2005), Pushing Daisies (2007 - 2009), Mockingbird Lane (2012) )

The last of the movies based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Nemesis was an especially dour and miserable effort, trying to emulate the 'dark' style of action horror films that the early 2000s were flooded with - this attempt to stay relevant failed hard, with Nemesis killing off Star Trek films until the generic dull reboot films. The costume design for this final cinematic outing of the 90s Enterprise crew was done by the esteemed Bob Ringwood in one of his last few gigs before his retirement. Almost all the guests at the wedding are just in reused costumes from episodes of the various 90s Star Trek series, with one of the exceptions being the pink dress worn by Troi, which is a relatively simple design, with flowers on one side of the shoulders, as well as more on one side of the waist.




Another one of the few exceptions is the golden hat and dress worn by Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) in the characters last appearance on-screen - Guinan's dress has the typical asymmetry that was typical to her dresses designed by Durinda Wood and Robert Blackman in all previous appearance,s but this time it is worn with a golden-coloured gown cut with hole-patterns on each side. In a way, this design was a bit 'going full circle' for Ringwood, as one of his first costume design efforts - David Lynch's Dune - would have had similar hats worn by the villagers on Arrakis.




Another Starfleet uniform is briefly glimpsed, this being another Robert Blackman design as per the contracts to always design any Starfleet uniforms in the movies, regardless of who else was designing for the rest of the cast - these tunics are similar in design to the dress uniforms seen in Insurrection, but are grey with white lining.

This film involves the Romulans again, who this time are in their most conservative fashion seen - as the photo below shows, for the Romulan senators Ringwood crossed over Japanese and ancient Roman fashions, with all the senators having a mosaic-like pattern on their collars, the chief senator distinguished by the star-like pattern on his own silken robes. The guards of the senate are never seen on-screen apart from just in the distance, but the website photo below shows that they were in bulky padded armor, slightly resembling Ringwood's designs for the armor uniforms seen in Solarbabies and Alien 3.
The military of Romulus are also in markedly different uniforms than their previous appearances, wearing rather snappy tunics covering in a colourful mosaic-like pattern, with a metallic brooch worn with the black shirt, and with a belt over the tunic - this is a marked contrast to the large-shouldered outfits they wore in their television appearances! These uniforms would later be reused in episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise that involved the Romulans.




The rather dire villain of this film is the slave turned warlord Shinzon (Tom Hardy), who is clad in a design that was playing up to Ringwood's favorite design elements - a shiny black jumpsuit with slick shiny black padding on the arms, legs and torso sides, with an ornate shoulder armor, and fitting with a cape. In interviews with 'Star Trek Communictor', Ringwood said he went to insects for inspiration for the uniform of Shinzon and his minions, hence the iridescent sheen, with Ringwood saying he also used inspiration from 19th-century uniforms for the more ornate parts (the collar is a dead giveaway of that particular inspiration). The suit was put on auction by Christie's.










Apparently a cut scene would have had Shinzon wearing a workout costume consisting of a bottle-green jumpsuit worn with a vest with iridescent panelling over the back - slightly similar in design to jumpsuits that Ringwood had designed for the scifi horror oddity Supernova a few years earlier.
Shinzon is the leader of the vampire-like Remans, the sister species of the Romulans, whose soldiers are all clad in similar outfits to Shinzon - the otherwise unnamed 'Viceroy' (Ron Perlman) wears an outfit that is almost identical barring the chest armor (which has less pronounced pointed shoulders and different carvings over it, as well as an buckle-like marking on the waist.






The various Reman soldiers are in similar uniforms to the Viceroy's, except they do not have capes and the chest carvings are slightly different, with some Reman crewman just having shiny black pointed shoulder pieces instead of any armor. Just like the Romulan uniforms, the Reman uniforms were also reused in episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise.







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