Is young adult Ben the worst character design in the show?

[u/earora4498]

The hair is so bad that I couldn’t stop laughing the first time I watched this scene. I feel like everyone on set probably knew it too.

I honestly love that this show has moments like this - yes it takes you out of the scene but it also gives you a peek behind the curtain a bit. A lot of their de-aging techniques were funny.

[u/arsenicknife]

Hair and make-up was not the show's strong suit. Locke's "young" hair, Jack's beard, Claire's crazy season 6 wig.

[u/Tommy_Tsunami-_ → u/arsenicknife]

Lockes young hair always kills me

[u/igot2pair → u/arsenicknife]

Convinced Jack's beard was one of the others fake beards 😂

[u/AgentCirceLuna → u/igot2pair]

Would have been funny if they’d subverted this by him taking the beard off when he and Ben were in the hotel room, then Ben saying ‘oh, from the island..’

[u/Naked-Jedi → u/AgentCirceLuna]

In my head cannon, that happened now but just wasn't shown.

[u/un-sub → u/arsenicknife]

Jack's wig in the hospital scenes is pretty egregious as well

[u/Mud-Cake → u/arsenicknife]

Widmore's hair when he was middle aged

[u/Beginning-Client-96 → u/arsenicknife]

Some of the girls got horrendous hard front wigs throughout the entire show, Emilie De Ravin def had cut her hair by season 6 because both flash sideways and island scene wigs where a mess.

[u/Liz4984 → u/arsenicknife]

I liked Claire’s season six hair. LOL!

You could tell her hair was dyed in the beginning and I wondered if they would let the roots grow out but their determination to keep her blonde cracked me up.

[u/tbatz9 → u/arsenicknife]

You can clearly see the webbing(?) of Jack’s fake beard from some angles

[u/MeltedIceCube79 → u/tbatz9]

It was a real beard

[u/jesus_swept → u/arsenicknife]

"Crazy Claire" was literally just someone taking a wig and putting some leaves in it. Maybe matted with hairspray. They stopped caring about her character altogether at that point.

[u/ThisIsWhatLifeIs → u/arsenicknife]

Jack's Bears was fake?

[u/CelMJ → u/arsenicknife]

Dishonourable mention, the blonde wig they made Kate wear when she’s on the run was ABYSMAL. It was only one scene, but you can’t forget trauma like that.

[u/Jimbob929]

De-aging can be tough. I like how Better Call Saul just said fuck it even though some of the cast members are visibly older. Never “took me out of” Lost but yeah some of the wigs are goofy

[u/New_Championship1994 → u/Jimbob929]

I did like that they said fuck it aswell BUT honestly I also didn’t think they did terribly with some of it. Bob odenkirk being the biggest one, as I feel Jimmy looks a lot younger than Saul, and Gene was aged/altered nicely.

Also, Bryan Cranston flashbacks in breaking bad worked well too, and the Gus flashback wasn’t too bad either.

However, yeah there are a lot worse examples to use, but ultimately they really did well just semi-ignoring it/focusing on acting ability/making some reasonable changes.

I can even accept that Walt’s head expanded after a few stressful days in the desert with Jesse.

[u/smitteh → u/New_Championship1994]

Fat Todd ftw

[u/thepokemonGOAT → u/smitteh]

I could not get over that. Seeing a character gain and lose 50 pounds randomly in the same scene was too much for me.

[u/New_Championship1994 → u/smitteh]

My headcanon was he liked to fuck with Jesse not being allowed to eat as much, so just ate ice cream and pizzas outside of his cage.

[u/loverofpears → u/Jimbob929]

I thought they did an amazing job making saul/jimmy look and feel younger. Mike and Gus Fring don’t look much older from their original appearances, so not much work was needed there

Kim’s wig in the flash forward was fucking atrocious though

[u/SSShami]

Still better than Michael C Hall playing younger Dexter

[u/BobRushy]

I feel like people tend to forget it's all theatre and just get overly obsessive about everything looking real.

I like that Lost never really bothered much beyond basic visual cues that an actor is meant to be playing a younger version of that character.

[u/arsenicknife → u/BobRushy]

I mean, sometimes they could just cast a younger actor to play the role. I don't care either way, but there are definitely ways to handle it better.

[u/gate_of_steiner85 → u/arsenicknife]

Might not have been able to find a younger actor who looked similar to Michael Emerson so they just said "fuck it".

[u/Sprinkles4myheart → u/gate_of_steiner85]

Bummer they had cast his doppelgänger as Aussie and Claires baby daddy 😂

[u/Choekaas → u/arsenicknife]

In this case it would probably be weird to have a different actor because they didn't have a different actor for Widmore. During this time period they went with Alan Dale (who plays Widmore in present days) with some additional hair. People would be confused why Widmore has "aged to his original actor" while Ben is not yet Michael Emerson.

[u/brassyalien]

I like to call LOST's deaging technique "a wig and a prayer".

[u/Songmorning]

The emo hair just slapped over his normal face is terrible but also the funniest shit ever 😂

[u/RightToTheThighs]

They were given an impossible task lmao

[u/[deleted] → u/RightToTheThighs]

Agreed. Michael Emerson was over 50 years old when this scene was shot.

[u/justduett]

They really missed a decent chance to use Keir O'Donnell as young/mid-range Ben, but he made a proper d-bag boyfriend for Claire, so I guess that works.

Ben in his emo-adjacent wig to try and wipe years away always makes me laugh. Wigs, beards and the like were such a crap shoot on this show!

[u/mecofol]

he kinda looks like hitler in this photo...

[u/Jimbob929 → u/mecofol]

Thought that too. He’s just missing the ‘stache

[u/jimmyrich → u/mecofol]

It was sort of the hipster style at the time (that and the scarf) but that is strange because didn't this take place in, like, the early '90s?

[u/michael-clarke]

Same guy who did the hair and make-up for Michael C Hall playing a teenage Dexter, I'm sure of it.

[u/Gonzito3420]

Yes

[u/tbatz9]

I wonder if they put young Ethan in the scene to give context of Ben’s age because he looks like 50 year old Ben with a “young” haircut 😂

[u/jimmyrich → u/tbatz9]

Post-divorce Ben trying to get back out there.

[u/RJP-GD]

How old was he supposed to be in this scene?

[u/Malthur → u/RJP-GD]

Ben is about 11(?) years older than Ethan, so Ethan's age in that scene plus 11.

[u/RJP-GD → u/Malthur]

Checked this after I asked but forgot to edit my comment. According to Lostpedia Ben was 23 in this scene (b. Dec 19 1964) and Alex was born in April 1988. So yeah 23....tough paper round. Ethan was around 11 at that time.

[u/3-orange-whips]

Look, are we using “character design” to discuss human beings? Isn’t that makeup and wardrobe or costuming?

[u/SirGreeneth]

Locke always looks much older everytime they tried to make him look younger.

[u/LittleCricket_]

and the guy who played Thomas was literally RIGHT THERE

[u/teddyburges]

 it also gives you a peek behind the curtain a bit. A lot of their de-aging techniques were funny.

It hasn't gotten much better on tv since, have you seen the show Outlander?. They didn't even try when they had to age Claire and Jamie by 20 years. They just put Claire in middle age clothes, put a streak of grey in her hair and call it a day and give Jamie glasses!.

[u/Aquamarine094]

This is some Dexter level de-aging right here

[u/TrashCanBangerFan]

Young adult Locke and young adult Jack were worse, but probably only because they were portrayed in better lighting

[u/TezzaMcJ]

They shouldve gotten the geeky guy from the core who was hurleys friend at mr clucks to play young ben

[u/Advanced_Section891]

Tbf young people back then did look like they were in their 40s

[u/Actual_Head_4610]

This is awkward whenever something like this happens. lol But I'm more concerned with the kid. That was Ethan, wasn't it? And then he looks the same age, possibly older than Ben in the present...

[u/Big-Morning-1077]

Gen Z looking ahh

[u/90s_kid_24]

No. Younger old Widmore in the same episode is about 10x worse.

This hair is meant to show the change from the other wig he wore in the purge scene. Now he's living in the jungle with The Others and his hairs longer and unkempt

[u/qtpiebunnyforever]

The wigs on Ben and Widmore in their younger years are so hilarious to me 

[u/connect1994]

They were all fine lol, it wouldn’t have made sense for them to cast different actors

[u/Skevinger]

I don't think the wigs are bad.You guys are just used to their usual looks.

[u/thepokemonGOAT → u/Skevinger]

My mom was a hairdresser for 40 years and this show was a non-starter for her because of the atrocious wigs. They really are horribly done to anyone with an eye for hair/wigs.

[u/Azutolsokorty]

Lockes young hair is the best :D