How Star Trek Learned From Its Worst Effect
For the most part, Star Trek is a franchise known for its groundbreaking special effects. However, the real secret to the success of the different effects is that the experts behind the scenes are constantly learning from past mistakes and striving to make their future work even better. A great example of this occurred in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Unnatural Selection,” where makeup designer Michael Westmore confirmed that the old-age makeup on everyone looked so good because they learned from the bad aging effects of “Too Short a Season.”
You Have To Start Somewhere
Before we can dive into what this Star Trek design guru said about “Unnatural Selection,” we have to first dive into the earlier episode that he mentioned. “Too Short a Season” was a season 1 TNG episode where Captain Picard must bring the elderly Admiral Mark Jameson to negotiate with terrorists on a distant planet. We later find out he severely violated the Prime Directive on said planet in the past, but the far stranger revelation is that he has been overdosing on anti-aging drugs that transform him from an elderly man to a virile officer before killing him.
A Noble Effort With A Goofy Outcome
This is the episode Star Trek makeup designer Michael Westmore later compared “Unnatural Selection” to, and for good reason: previously, the designer’s main experience in aging up one of these characters was making DeForrest Kelley look positively ancient in the TNG premiere episode “Encounter At Farpoint.”
But “Too Short a Season” required creating several different ages for Jameson actor Clayton Rohner, and Westmore had less than a week to get everything done. It’s a minor miracle that he got the aging effects in place for this episode to meet its shooting deadlines, but the final effect on the relatively young actor looked downright goofy.
Third Time’s A Charm
Now, fast-forward to the second season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Unnatural Selection,” and Westmore got his third chance at bat when it came to making Starfleet officers look artificially older. This episode featured a virus that made people old, and the worst victim of it was Dr. Pulaski. Compared to the earlier portrayal of the elderly Admiral Jameson, Pulaski’s old-age makeup looks light-years better, and the makeup designer later revealed exactly why that is.
Westmore Finds His Groove
The most obvious reason the elderly makeup looked better in this Star Trek episode was, of course, that Westmore was now very experienced with this effect, and “Unnatural Selection” benefited from his earlier experiences on “Too Short a Season.” Ironically enough, it also helped that Pulaski actor Diana Muldaur was a bit older than Clayton Rohner when she got aged up. According to Westmore, this meant “we were able to make intermediate changes by using highlight, shadow, and a little stretch rubber,” but in the earlier episode, “it was impossible to make those changes without using appliances.
Perfecting The Formula
Star Trek is a franchise that has been aging up its actors since The Original Series episode “The Deadly Years,” and the practice certainly didn’t stop with “Unnatural Selection.” For example, Deep Space Nine aged up Dr. Bashir on multiple occasions, like when he was hit by a telepathic attack in “Distant Voices,” or when we saw an alternative future version of him in “The Visitor.”
Of course, Bashir actor Alexander Siddig is amusing proof that no matter the quality of the old-age makeup, these designers can’t predict just how sexy these Star Trek actors will stay as they age (Google him now, thank us later).
De-Aging: The Final Frontier
As for us, we’re happy that Star Trek designers like Michael Westmore learn from previous mistakes, and we have to give him full kudos for making the elderly makeup in “Unnatural Selection” so awesome. It’s so good, in fact, that it’s enough to make up forget how downright weird Admiral Jameson looked in “Too Short a Season.” We’re left with one big question, though: when we get to be the admiral’s age, can these designers take it to the next level and make us look younger?
