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After five seasons, the “Stranger Things” kids are all grown up. Well, at least the actors are. In the world of the show, they’re still just youngsters trying to save Hawkins, Indiana from being swallowed by the Upside Down. With the fifth and final season about to hit, we’ll soon see whether they’re successful in that regard. Before the show ends, however, the new season begins with a flashback sequence that required a ton of VFX in order to de-age Noah Schnapp’s Will Byers.<\/p>\n
When “Stranger Things” debuted back in 2016, Schnapp and his fellow “Stranger Things” cast members were just middle schoolers doing battle with the eldritch beasts of the alternate dimension that exists beyond the veil of Hawkins. Now, however, Schnapp is a 21-year-old, which made things a tad difficult for the Duffer Brothers and their crew when crafting the opening moments of the new season. Luckily, “Stranger Things” season 5 had one of the highest budgets ever for a TV series<\/a>, which meant the Duffers could afford to pay their VFX team for what was months of work spent solely on revisiting the time period in which the inaugural season unfolded.<\/p>\n The flashback takes place in 1983, when Will first disappeared into the Upside Down and kicked off the events of “Stranger Things.” As such, the VFX crew had to de-age the 21-year-old Schnapp to his early teens. In the December 2025 issue of SFX Magazine<\/a>, the Will Byers actor explained how the sequence was created using a younger stand-in and scans of his own face, which were ultimately melded together to create a digital reincarnation of young Will. Such a process was, unsurprisingly, not easy.<\/p>\n