Kes's aging makeup in Before and After

[Solarbaby]

The Ocampa have an average life span of 9 years. Fair enough!

Although I find this hard to swallow considering the Ocampa society is so civilised. I would Imagine that any sentient race with such an amazingly short life span would be a selfish race concerned with getting the most from life.

The Ocampa we see, are nothing like that. Also they once had impressive mental abilities which they forgot. 9 years doesn't seem long enough to develop those abilities even in an society where they had all achieved the same level of mental discipline.

But anyway- they live for 9 years. Fair dos. What I find strange is that Kes was only 9 years old in the beginning of Before and After but she looked 70 with the makeup. I understand that the metabolism changes as we grow older, usually slowing down. But in Kes's case why does she look so old? I know that the producers made her appear old so the viewers can follow the story better. But it just seems rather silly that she would appear so old.

I know a few elderly people who look 30 years younger than their age because of good genes, and looking after themselves. It doesn't neccesarily make sense than Kes would physically age so much on the outside in 9 years.

I don't think aging effects are relative to the natural life span. Much more is involved in this. Even with her metabolism being different from humans, it takes a lot longer than 9 years for a human to show signs of old age as much as she did. A lot of the ageing effects is from external sources. Diet, sunlight, weather. She spends most of the time on the ship! Not sunbathing. She is a skinny little thing, so her diet must be good.

I think it's a bit hard to believe that her body would be programmed to show old age quite so quickly. Plus the makeup looked really bad. I think even on their death beds Ocampa should look pretty much the same as throughout their life.

This is probably a bad analogy but have you seen a 200 year old tortoise? They look as young or old as 100 year old one.

Any thought on this?
http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/3x21/beforeandafter_008.jpg

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/3x21/beforeandafter_021.jpg

 

[JanewayRulz!]

I think the aging is as swift in the final year as it is in the first year where we go from birth to marriage in 1 year. I don't see her as "70" in that first scene as much as I see her as "90".

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Didn't you answer your own question?
She was 9 in Before and After- the very end of her lifespan, of course she looked old.
As for your other points

-The Ocampans on Ocampa have no psychic abilities
-Many people assume the life span only became shorter after the arrival of the caretaker
-The Ocampans weren't particularly civilized, they were like babies being looked after my a parent.

 

[JarodRussell]

What I find strange is that Kes was only 9 years old in the beginning of Before and After but she looked 70 with the makeup. I understand that the metabolism changes as we grow older, usually slowing down. But in Kes's case why does she look so old?

Because she was already looking like she was in her mid-20s when she was just a year old?

 

[kathrynjaneway]

What I find strange is that Kes was only 9 years old in the beginning of Before and After but she looked 70 with the makeup. I understand that the metabolism changes as we grow older, usually slowing down. But in Kes's case why does she look so old?

Because she was already looking like she was in her mid-20s when she was just a year old?

Exactly. It bothers you that she looks 70 with 9 years, but it doesn't bother you that she looked about 25 when she was only ONE year old? If it had happened your way, she would have been a baby when she came on board. For the Ocampans, 9 is like about 80 for humans, it's the end of their life cycle.

 

[Solarbaby]

It bothers you that she looks 70 with 9 years, but it doesn't bother you that she looked about 25 when she was only ONE year old?

Well I find the Ocampa physiology absurd anyway. But I can buy into it the notion of them being born as babies and they grow really quickly in a year into a fully grown adult form. If the reason Kes's ageing in her 9th year is because her metabolism is different from ours then she should have started showing signs of ageing each season.

A human in their 20s looks different than in their 30s. Sometimes only subtle differences depending on the health care regime, but still noticeable unless they are very lucky with their genes. For Kes to look the same 20 something from her 1st year until 8/9th year seems unrealistic.

Also I found this funny. The Doctor Van Gogh has a full head of hair. I thought in the 24th century people didn't care about such things. Hence Picard's bald head.

I feel that the writers in this episode were lazy and took the audience for fools

 

[kathrynjaneway]

If the reason Kes's ageing in her 9th year is because her metabolism is different from ours then she should have started showing signs of ageing each season.

Well, on Voyager it's different. The person doesn't change, just their hair does. Haven't you noticed how Kes' hair changed through the seasons? That was her way of aging Maybe they didn't know how to change her hair in Before and After, so they decided to actually make her look old to create the effect...who knows?!

 

[Solarbaby]

Well she must have aged 2 years in the 3rd season. Because her hair suddenly went from a crop to long curly locks

 

[Lynx]

The change of Kes's hairstyle has nothing to do with any attempts to show any aging. It was the result of the fact that Jennifer Lien had an allergic reaction to the glue which was used to attach the Ocampa ears on her head. By letting her have her own hair, or more correctly a wig with long hair was a way to simply omit the Ocampa ears, therefore the radical change of hairstyle.

In "Worst Case Scenario", Kes (or more correctly a holodeck image of Kes) with short hair shows up briefly. If you look closely, you can see that she's not wearing the Ocampa ears in that episode.

 

[exodus]

Well I find the Ocampa physiology absurd anyway. But I can buy into it the notion of them being born as babies and they grow really quickly in a year into a fully grown adult form. If the reason Kes's ageing in her 9th year is because her metabolism is different from ours then she should have started showing signs of ageing each season.

A human in their 20s looks different than in their 30s. Sometimes only subtle differences depending on the health care regime, but still noticeable unless they are very lucky with their genes. For Kes to look the same 20 something from her 1st year until 8/9th year seems unrealistic.

That would fall under the "fictional" part of sci-fi.

As far as a Trek universe answer, the ep. "Innocense" and a few others in Trek took what we thought we knew of physical aging and threw it out the window.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Well obviously they can't try and age her each bit in every episode, that's totally impractical and would very likely look silly.
Everyone knows Kes's aging didn't actually make any sense as we saw middle aged looking Ocampans in Caretaker and yet Kes never aged, the only plausible in universe explanation is perhaps that Ocampans quickly go through all of middle and old age (appearance wise) in the last year of their life or so, that would fit ok with what we saw of her in "Before and After".
Otherwise I'm happy just to suspend by disbelief, Kes's lifespan wasn't that far out an idea for me especially concerning what happened with the caretaker/planet destroying thing.