Star Trek: The Next Generation's Romulan Redesign Started A Series-Long Writer Feud
"Star Trek: The Next Generation" famously struggled creatively during its first season. The inaugural villains, the Ferengi, flopped (to the point actor Armin Shimmerman felt the need to repair their reputation when he returned to play Quark on the spin-off "Deep Space Nine"). So, the writers dug up some old foes with a storied history — the Romulans. The Romulans returned in the season 1 finale, "The Neutral Zone," and became enduring enemies of the Enterprise-D.
The Romulans were once Vulcans but split off centuries ago after rejecting the path of logic and serenity. As a result, the Romulans share most of their cousins' physical features, such as pointed ears. In "Reunification," a two-part episode in "The Next Generation" season 5, Spock (Leonard Nimoy guest-starring) is working on Romulus to bring the Romulans and his people back together.
However, upon the Romulans' reintroduction in "The Neutral Zone," make-up Michael Westmore gave them some cosmetic surgery, including a V-shaped forehead ridge. According to the behind-the-scenes book "Star Trek: The Next Generation 365" by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann, Westmore wanted to make the Romulans look more "threatening" and make it so they could be easily distinguished from Vulcans.
According to that same book, writer Ronald D. Moore (who penned one of the series' best Romulan episodes, season 3's "The Defector") disagreed with Westmore's design ethos. Moore said, "I hated the foreheads on the Romulans. The backstory [established in 'Unification'] was that they were basically the same race, yet somehow the Romulans got these different foreheads at some point." "Star Trek: Picard" later amended this by stating the Romulans with ridged foreheads were from Romulus' northern regions, while the smooth-headed ones hailed from the South.
Moore was never shy about voicing disagreements when working on "Star Trek" and his problems with the Romulans' appearances don't end there.
Different Romulan outfits in Star Trek
According to "The Art of Star Trek" by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the Romulan make-up on "Star Trek: The Original Series" was costly. That's why the "cheaper" Klingons became the go-to "Star Trek" villains, even though they debuted later. (The Romulans first appear in episode 14, "The Balance of Terror," while the Klingons debut in episode 26, "Errand of Mercy.")
In "The Original Series," the show saved on make-up by hiding Romulan extras' ears with helmets. Only the important Romulans got to bear their ears, like Mark Lenard's commander in "The Balance of Terror," and then Joanne Linville's commander and a disguised Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in "The Enterprise Incident." The Romulans wear silver-ish chainmail-style fabric with different-colored sashes denoting rank (the high-ranking ones wore pink sashes, and the grunts wore blue ones).
"The Next Generation" ditched the helmets and, after "The Neutral Zone," the sashes (replaced with y-shaped torso belts). The Romulans kept wearing grey, square-patterned shirts, though, now with extra padding, especially around the shoulders.
Moore thought these outfits looked terrible, the exact opposite of the "threatening" posture that Westmore was aiming for, and claimed he wasn't alone:
"Big shoulder pads, the quilting. They were just dopey. And [executive producer] Rick [Berman] would defend them. It became this whole weird in-house political thing. We'd say, 'Can't we just get new uniforms for them?' And he'd say, 'We established them before any of you people were on the show, so...'"
The Romulans' next aesthetic update came in the 2009 "Star Trek" film directed by J.J. Abrams. The Romulan villains (led by Eric Bana's Nero) wear black trenchcoats over their shaved heads and tattooed bodies. I don't know if a look that edgy would be Moore's speed, but it sounds like he'd have preferred it over the Romulans' "TNG" appearance.