A thread for Stranger Things, the "Goonies meets X-Files" new Netflix series (with SPOILERS!)

yeah, whoever did the costuming got it so right. and they didn't go overboard. they could have just been looking at one of my high school yearbooks.

i remember watching The Ice Storm and thinking that they went a little overboard with the nostalgia. like 4 layers of brown on a person. it's probably really tempting to go nuts.

but Barb, man, i KNEW Barb. you know?

only on episode 5

been having fun naming all the 80s music and artefacts in the show

it also opened up a discussion about 4th dimension stuff with the gf last night which was fun

I've seen a few people suggest that the monster is one of the previous experiments (1-10) gone wrong

just a little too early for this picture to be in nancy's locker. very big with the girls in my hometown.

http://www.globalarray.net/user/cardboardstars/soloflexbodyyy2208072011.jpg

so i wanted to wait til i finished watching the entire series to bring this up (only on ep5) but

i vaguely remember reading online about a conspiracy theory that involved the us gov't/cia/fbi (don't remember which) interrogating an alien, named patient something-or-other (some numbers i believe), who was confined to a particular cell. the theory is really about the experiments they did on it

anyway i don't see enough of these types of shows/movies or read about aliens enough so i'm assuming this is just a reference to a popular conspiracy theory/incident in real life

Oh god I remember that Soloflex ad.

I always felt bad he couldn't get his shirt off completely.

Is that Scott Brown?

ab phallus.

Just finished. Loved it absolutely. Yes, it was insanely reference-heavy, but it didn't feel like fanwank to me. I cared about pretty much all of the characters and found the mystery compelling -> a much greater feat than pure homage could pull off.

there's some sequence we didn't see of total mayhem after she makes contact

We see onscreen, as she's screaming with fright at the monster in the black space, that her psychic terror opens up the cracks between the worlds.

I do agree there's some plot-hole stuff where people who should be communicating things they've discovered just never get around to it.

Also, stuff like this is never a plot hole! This is how people behave! Yes, you're shouting at the screen going "tell them tell them, pool your resources", but *that* would be the TV/movie convenient option, not the real-world option.

Do agree that the use of bugs/surveillance definitely seemed a bit hit-and-miss in a way that even kind of incompetent bureaucrats would have managed to get more right.

Do agree that the use of bugs/surveillance definitely seemed a bit hit-and-miss

This was one of the only superfluous plot devices imo. If it served any purpose at all, it was not enough to waste time on.

the only real inconsistency i spotted was in episode 8, when one of the feds tells hopper and joyce that the atmosphere is poisonous so they have to wear those hazmat suits. i'm assuming he meant the entrance to the upside down is poisonous, because others (including hopper) had already been inside the upside down without any protection, but it's not clear only outside the entrance is poisonous, and if this were true, it sounds a bit too silly

but i really dig this show

I don't know, I didn't really read that as inconsistent. Lots of things are noxious or poisonous or dangerous in some way, that doesn't mean that everyone who is exposed will die or even get majorly sick. People survived the nuclear bomb. People survived Chernobyl. People survived working with asbestos. People survive gas leaks all the time. That doesn't mean those things weren't/aren't incredibly hazardous, it just means that you don't *necessarily* get sick, and that minor exposure might not even do you any noticeable harm. A government facility that has easy access to hazmats would definitely use them, though.

Also, see Will - he definitely became ill after prolonged exposure. Obviously you could attribute it to fear, hunger, exhaustion, etc, but he looked actually ill from being in that world for so long.

(Also I'm p sure Silent Hill atmosphere was poisonous and most of them didn't die through the atmospheric conditions... plenty of other things to git ya)

fair points

The non-communications...after some more reflection I think there were two that really bugged me. #1 is Jonathan hearing about the no-face guy through Nancy, which he immediately connects to his mother's story. That happens in the fourth episode but he never talks to Joyce about it until they're at the police station together in the seventh. IIRC we're meant to accept that Jonathan doesn't bring this up because his mother's very upset and so on, and the only time they're together in that stretch is for Will's funeral, but you'd think he'd have said SOMETHING given that their last conversation was the big public argument about her being crazy.

#2: Hopper discovers the fake Will body, then heads immediately over to break into the evil laboratory even though he now has reason to believe they're involved in a massive conspiracy, and (I assume) has figured out this conspiracy probably killed the diner guy to cover their tracks. Fine if he wants to risk his life, but shouldn't he let Joyce know that she's not crazy and that the body is fake? Or pass around notes or something to let people know of this flagrant, tangible evidence of a huge criminal conspiracy? Because if they do kill him, the truth dies with him. It all comes right at the end, but that was one that really did bug me at the time - everybody is just leaving Winona Ryder freaking the fuck out when they've all got proof that she's not nuts! I know, it's a pacing thing, and it is satisfying when we finally, through an unlikely chain of events, have all the heroes together and on the same page.

Also a bit odd: the show seems to strongly suggest that Eleven is the daughter of the MKULTRA victim Hopper and Joyce visit (rather than that kid being say, Three or Seven) - seems kind of strange that neither of them say anything to El about this, during the long evening preparing the makeshift sensory deprivation tank. I get that there was a lot going on, and nobody knew how it was all going to end, and that finding out her mother was a catatonic wreck might be upsetting, but it feels like something one of these characters would do.

Obvious angle for the next season: everybody's looking for El (good guys and bad guys) while Hopper is trying to mop up other loose ends -- - better known as One through Ten. MKULTRA goes far enough back that its children could be whatever age - could totally see a Sylar-from-Heroes-esque deranged killer wandering around, say. Not sure this would be a great way to show but it is a dangler that totally invites some new stories.

#1 was dealt with upthread, but it wasn't just because his mum was upset, it was because his dad was there, which changed the situation completely, both psychologically and practically. It wasn't so much that his dad was persuasive about not making it worse for Joyce, but that he was physically present at any opportunity Jonathan had.

#2 I do agree with. It seems foolish, even in the heat of the moment, to go straight to the Big Bad Conspiracy people rather than to go to your potential ally. But I guess he's a very tropey "grizzled loner with tragic backstory" kind of guy, so it's not world-jolting to me. (Actually what was world-jolting was in the first episode where it was revealed his daughter was dead, I actually let out a groan b/c it's just too obvious a backstory. I think they did manage to pull it off without it being too horrifically cornball, though.)

#3 - not sure. Bear in mind that Eleven doesn't even really have a concept of having a mother. It sounded like she was taken pretty much right from the womb. It might be a bit much to throw that into the mix as well as sending her off to a parallel universe.

Btw, did anybody else assume that the numbers referred to clones rather than just test subjects? There's nothing really there to indicate it but that was my first thought, in fact I didn't even really entertain the idea that there would be non-identical test subjects until after halfway through.

my interpretation was that Modine (aka Gendou Ikari) initially were using El to spy on the Soviets or read minds or whatever,

No interpretation about it, I thought that was pretty clearly telegraphed?

Yeah, that was shown on screen. They didn't actually say "oh, and now it is time to spy on Soviets", but they did make her find a guy who was talking Russian and then she broadcast it to them.

Also I was sure that El was going to be Hopper's daughter for a while, glad that turned out not to be the case.

Yeah at that point I just thought "oh of course, she's being developed as a spy tool, should have realised that".

Oh yeah totally - the part that was not explicit was the exact sequence of how their scheme developed. I was speculating that, specifically, it began as spying and expanded dramatically into the Upside-Down and the monster only after they discovered those things through their use of El. Then there's another serious uptick when the contact opens up the gate, and they have to redesign the facility and the program around containing and exploring this other dimension. As opposed to, like, their ultimate goal was always the exploration of other dimensions but they worked their way up to it gradually or something, y'know?

(I was also addressing speculation like Number None's suggestion that El created the monster, sunny successor's confusion as to the location of the portal, the discussion over what the black nothingness was,)

The thing about the Jonathan/Joyce thing is, okay, he doesn't want to talk about it while Lonnie's around, fine, but.... how about you wait til Lonnie leaves, and then tell her? Or leave a note or something, since you're going off to face possible death hunting the monster with Nancy? I get that he's a teenager and might make poor decisions but he's spent days with his mother on the "you need to STOP THIS!" tip, you'd think it'd be a really important thing to him that she's right.

I guess I basically accept the genre-trope answer to Hopper not communicating with anybody. He seemed interested in bouncing ideas off the other cops earlier, though, even just to talk himself through the cockamamie theory forming in his head. Maybe it only bugged me because, again, we've seen SO MUCH of Joyce freaking out on her own, nobody believes her, etc., that it seems cruel to her. I related to her character and it was galling that no one was telling her anything for a couple episodes there. I guess that does raise the tension - oh man, if Hopper bites it, everything he's found out will be lost! But to me the minuses outweighed the pluses.

Finished watching this over two evenings, really loved it. From what I'd read about it I thought the genre/era details might be distracting but they weren't at all. I like that they've left just enough loose ends for a sequel to follow on.

Something Tuomas said upthread:

* The black nothingness wasn't the upside world, it was merely a visual shorthand to show how Eleven perceived things when she was trying to contact someone with her ESP powers. We saw the same black nothingness when she was spying on the Russian agent(?), which happened before she even made contact with the upside down world.

Reminded me that when Eleven was trying to explain the upside down world to the others she used the all-black underside of the D&D board, so that makes sense.

First episode watched yesterday. Blimey, I really enjoyed this.

i like the video of the two kids singing along to the theme song. can't figure out how to link to it directly:

https://www.facebook.com/StrangerThingsTV/

love the fan art too.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13912632_1095694733839689_529391156152322734_n.jpg?oh=121bc051789a39f6b20922790ac1a2bb&oe=582090F6

Loved this.

http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2016/07/27/487602000/kids-on-bikes-the-sci-fi-nostalgia-of-stranger-things-paper-girls-super-8?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

Some interesting bits in this, on the "Kids On Bikes" genre. Some threads could be delved into much further, but it's a prompt of some kind.

Sometimes the dialogue would be so on the nose as to be cringey, which happened a handful of times in Ep 6.

Enjoys much of it otherwise.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh loved this omg

xp yeah I thought that, like the woman in the station saying to Nancy after Jonathan punched the cop "only love can make someone be so passionate. Or stupid."

No country music ffs!

dolly parton's in there somewhere

xp yeah I thought that, like the woman in the station saying to Nancy after Jonathan punched the cop "only love can make someone be so passionate. Or stupid."

Yeah that was particularly irritating too bc it was so rong. Like no you dopey office person insulting someone's whole family would do the job just fine.

I did like that they made the boyfriend less of an outright bully, his reaction to Jonathan's amateur photography is reasonable given his limited understanding of the recent events (even if his handling of the situation is totally alpha-male). even gets upset about how his friends treated his "ex" afterwards despite seeming to be on board with it at the time.

also thankful that there are high school scenes where people with letter jackets don't make obligatory appearances every ten seconds in the hallways (though they also didn't have much opportunity to do so)

iana child psychologist but I wonder if Johnny Five Eleven will speak in full sentences in s2 because she is obv fluent in English and I'm not sure it made much sense that she didn't speak in full sentences once she started talking

She's been a human lab rat her whole life. What reason could she have to trust people she's never met?

sure, that is a reason not to speak at all at the beginning

once she obviously fully trusts her new friends it is a bit weird that she doesnt use sentences

This is ok (havent finished yet), not sure there's much more here than v thorough pastiche tbh.

wrong

Loved the performances in this, especially the toothless kid and Winona

Loved Steve's redemption/epiphany, which happened all of a sudden like the Grinch

I cried when Will got rescued. I wonder if tge ad&d insurance company demanded payback.

as far as boy on bike genre films, i think the overall emotional tone had lots of elements of flight of the navigator.

Yes!

Weirdly i wanted to watch that after finishing this series

God this gave me all the goddamn feels

I like how it partly ended up being about how mediocre parents can still be good parents, or are deep down, or when it counts or something idk quite how to articulate it

So good. SO good.

Liked this a lot but it did feel like the weight of the obvious references (ET, Alien - at one point where Hopper and Winona are in the upside down she shouts something far too close to "get away from her you bitch" for comfort) was too much for me at times. Did love that the end titles were just randomly scattered through the show - the final ep has them after about 10 minutes and I think ep 5 has them about 5 minutes before the end.

Because you know I love nitpicking, how credible is it for the science teacher to have The Thing on VHS in late '83 or alternatively that it was on broadcast TV that soon after release?

One mystery I haven't seen discussed anywhere is Hopper finding his daughter's stuffed tiger in the upside down. It's implied in one of the flashbacks that she's seeing something that isn't there, could that be an early attempt at breaking through? Also could her leukaemia just have been exposure to the toxic environment of the upside down?

When the boys were looking for Eleven after she'd run off and shouting for her I couldn't get this out of my head, which spoiled the tone a bit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU

haha yeah i was thinking about that lift scene too aldo!