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

Fan service has completely cannibalized everyone's ability to think rationally about film.

There's like huge chunks of this that are just biting E.T., which is one thing if it's like Spielberg or Leone biting from Japanese movies a tiny cross-section of Film Forum mouthbreathers have seen vs. wholesale jacking from a move that made $750 million in 1982 dollars

^^^

i mean i think a lot of ppl over a certain age would see the similarities if ~pointed out~, but, for real, loads of otherwise very observant people just don't have huge parts of their brain/awareness given over to noticing what might seem to you or anyone else itt a really obvious ref (kids on bikes, eg). these ppl, btw, are the ppl that are impressed by and are, ostensibly, the target audience of all those "do you see??" articles that point out all the influences on something like ST. they've seen ET and Alien, they're just not consuming media the same way as 'movie heads' do.

also lots of ppl under 30 haven't seen any movies from the 80s!

directly referencing some of the biggest blockbuster films of all time is not some movie nerd shit

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Like the side-by-side comparison video that's been floating around is not some sweet Sploid #feels moment for me, it's an assassination of the directors

References aren't good is how I break it down, anyone can put a thing from another thing in a thing, hardly matters how obscure or otherwise it is

directly referencing some of the biggest blockbuster films of all time is not some movie nerd shit

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― Οὖτις, Monday, August 8, 2016 12:24 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are you guys missing my point on purpose or something

the referencing all the biggest films isn't movie nerd shit, sitting there and cataloging all the references while you watch it is movie nerd shit. even the big and obvious references! that just isn't how everyone watches or thinks about movies (or listens to music or whatever).

i think sometimes ilx forgets that it is populated by ppl who think about and criticize media, often professionally

avg schmo watching stranger things and not noticing the specific references, even to major films that he has himself seen and enjoyed, is more than likely the norm.

Not sure why we need to walk a mile in the shoes of your Johnny average rube friends tbh, when most of the critical praise (which is what whiney's talking about) is about the tapestry of references it's a bit having your cake & eating it

To put a finer point on it: I think emulating the cinematography and "kids in peril" tension and moonlit flashlights of E.T. is a brilliant way to approach a TV show. Using a very familiar and nostalgic vintage "feel" to launch your original ideas is great

However, I think that poaching entire scenes and plot points is weak as fuck and people have given these guys a pass

I thought this show was pretty cool and some things definitely felt like references but not in a way that broke the narrative flow.

A few moments played with those expectations (although, yeah, in an admittedly basic way before Whiney jumps in saying I'm pleased by the most pandering bullshit), like the moment where the kids are all on bikes and, were it ET, it'd be the moment where ET makes them take flight... but Eleven flips the van

imo any wholesale "poaching" was limited to things that exist in a half dozen films, not "scene recreated exactly from ET"

haha I did groan in advance of the flying bike moment and was a little surprised by the truck flip, dunno whose point that proves

well, his initial point was that it was like a stylized family guy ep, with one jarring call-out after another, loudly announcing themselves as call outs. which is not accurate at all, imo, and why the viewing experience of my average rube friends seems germane --- most ppl aren't noticing all the references/swipes, and the show gets away with it as a result

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i think it's totally fair for critics to jump on the wholesale poaching, esp since it has gone almost completely unnoticed by the viewing audience.

i thought all the references -- are they really references when nothing in the whole show is outside the referent? -- felt really lived in and not jokey quotes. not like a "family guy" bit at all! it's a period piece. "period" known v much through movies. something like a cover version.

look i hate all that imgur culture sploid jerkoff nerd shit too but i think something of the warmth of this show missed you completely. does daptones stuff make you mad too?

"I think emulating the cinematography and "kids in peril" tension and moonlit flashlights of E.T. is a brilliant way to approach a TV show. Using a very familiar and nostalgic vintage "feel" to launch your original ideas is great"

^^ I love this element of it!

i could probably overlook my irritation with how cheaply this show lifts from 80s touchstones if the story and characters were compelling, but it failed on that level for me too. rote by its nature, even w/ its few knowing curveballs. couldn't overcome the gross fanservice-y feeling that this is no more than a plastic conglomerate of All Those Things You Like.

kids were good actors though. not their fault.

It Follows is the obvious recent antecedent to this. More than Beyond The Black Rainbow I mean

outside of the score and the similarities with child experiments the similarities with BTBR are ephemeral, imo

even those are pretty much drawing on the same source

I think It Follows is different. Time period intentionally ambiguous, fairly original concept, unique tone. It did have that Carpenter-y electronic score and neighborhood-kids-band-together thing though.

just here to say i think whiney is completely insane

and there's not like some secret high-art way to reference truffaut that is somehow substantively different than someone referencing Aliens, it's not like "Star Wars" was an especially subtle lift of "Hidden Fortress" or something, it's just that the films '80s movies were lifting from are more distant to whiney than the '80s films themselves

also....THIS IS A MOVIE FOR KIDS. WHO DONT HAVE THE SAME CULTURAL REFERENCE POINTS

FAMILY GUY??? gtfo forever

that big iconic scene from Aliens ...that as a 13 year old in 1996 i had never even seen myself. why would a 13 year old today have seen that movie?

like, whiney, this shit is all CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT. Music, too.

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?

I don't think his kid has anything to do with this subplot. First off, it happened years ago; secondly, it may not have even happened in this town. I don't think we're supposed to see a link between his daughter's death and the upside down. its just a commonly available stuffed toy that gave him a flashback

3 Feet High and Rising was just a Family Guy episode.

I think It Follows is different. Time period intentionally ambiguous, fairly original concept, unique tone.

yeah I loved It Follows, didn't feel like a pastiche to me

THIS IS A MOVIE FOR KIDS.

wtf now way in hell would I let my kids watch Stranger Things. Maybe if they were, like, 12.

10 at the earliest depending on the kid

David Harbour has hinted that the daughter thing may come up in S2

Kids might dig it, but Stranger Things core audience is ppl who grew up w/ 80s entertainment for sure.

Like I doubt this is killing it as intensely with 10 year olds as it is with the 30 somethings in my Facebook feed.

I haven't introduced my older kid to it, but I should get around to recommending it before school starts.

re: It Follows

I didn't mean that it was doing exactly the same things as this. Just feel like it may have have been an inspiration. Or even helped it to get a green light

that big iconic scene from Aliens ...that as a 13 year old in 1996 i had never even seen myself. why would a 13 year old today have seen that movie?
--Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40)

Like I doubt this is killing it as intensely with 10 year olds as it is with the 30 somethings in my Facebook feed.

― circa1916, Monday, August 8, 2016 1:38 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

obviously it's going to do v well with that demo for obvious reasons, but i think at this point it's just a matter of early adopters. The show's main characters are still 13 year olds, and my memory is that this tends to be the main thing i liked about shows when i was a kid: that they starred kids

David Harbour has hinted that the daughter thing may come up in S2

― Number None, Monday, August 8, 2016 1:36 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that may be but i dont think they've had any moment of the show that suggested this was the intent

I mean, I never saw a Cecil b demille movie at any age but I can get the references from Looney Tunes
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Monday, August 8, 2016 1:42 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is looney tunes a show that came on at the same time as spongebob squarepants, or arthur?

wtf now way in hell would I let my kids watch Stranger Things. Maybe if they were, like, 12.

― Οὖτις, Monday, August 8, 2016 1:34 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

12 year olds ... are kids

Idk, to me, the great majority of the references are unquestionably THERE, but they don't play out as Family Guy jokes - the show doesn't stop for something that feels weird and out of place so that you know there's a reference going over your head. My guess is that the thirty-somethings sharing this in my feed are loosely divided between people who consume a LOT of media and have re-watched many of the referenced things multiple times, and people who don't, for whom the show is producing an overall feeling that they assuredly recognize as familiar, enjoyable, 80s-ish and fun. Maybe they go "oh, this is kind of like E.T., cool!" once the kids are on the bikes, but they are not going "this is from Altered States, this is from Nightmare on Elm Street..." They let the next episode start because they want to know what happens to Hopper, Joyce, and the kids, not because they get a tickle every time something from a Cronenberg flick shows up. They likely haven't seen any Cronenberg flicks!

It's like the divide between people who immediately were like "hey, Stephen King font!" and people who didn't think of that, but saw it once it was pointed out to them. I'm basically in the first category but enjoyed the show as if I was in the second, because the references are basically woven together into a coherent new thing which mostly maintains a smooth and jointless surface. There were really only a few things that felt over-emphasized and rubbed in my face - the kids playing D&D (just like the kids in E.T.!) was probably the big one.

I wasn't massively in love with this, but it was fun and charming, and had me hooked enough to get through four episodes a day.

Do we know why the agency let Hopper go the first time he was caught in the facility? That didn't make a lot of sense to me, unless they had reason to think that he could lead them to Eleven. Did they just not see him as a serious threat?

12 year olds ... are kids

I hate to break this to you but when busting out demographics for media, "kids" entertainment /= 12 yo, it skews younger. And I say this as someone who has to sort throughout a lot of menus of things "For Kids!"

the kids playing D&D (just like the kids in E.T.!) was probably the big one.

― Silence, followed by unintelligible stammering. (Doctor Casino), Monday, August 8, 2016 1:52 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i haven't seen ET in quite a few years so i assumed it was a meta-ref to freaks & geeks, lol

Do we know why the agency let Hopper go the first time he was caught in the facility? That didn't make a lot of sense to me, unless they had reason to think that he could lead them to Eleven. Did they just not see him as a serious threat?

― jmm, Monday, August 8, 2016 1:54 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they were just going to make him seem crazy

it wasn't just thrown in there for no reason either. The bit with El explaining the upside down using the board was quite cleverly done I thought

They also took the opportunity to bug his house so I think it was also a "figure out how much this guy knows" deal. Their coverup had already gotten messy with the murder of the diner guy, maybe they figured knowing where the police were at in their investigation would enable them to anticipate it or tie up loose ends more cleanly. I think hoping he would lead them to El also makes sense. OTOH they're apparently not listening to the bug very closely, because he completely trashes his house and ultimately unscrews the light where the bug is (which you think would be a kind of loud, very obvious development over the microphone) and it doesn't seem to affect anything that happens.

Yeah, the board was good. I just meant that there was a LOT of the D&D stuff, just it came up in so many scenes. I would have been okay with them having some other interest appropriate to dorky kids of that age and time period. Not a huge gripe, just something that felt more like a reference-for-the-sake-of-a-reference than some of the other stuff.

I mean, I never saw a Cecil b demille movie at any age but I can get the references from Looney Tunes
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Monday, August 8, 2016 1:42 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Looney Tunes (or even the 90s pastiche stuff like Animaniacs) is a much better jumping off point than Family Guy. I mean, Family Guy's entire shtick isn't that things are references or done in the style of an old tv show or movie, but a half-assed riff directly on the source where they either say "remember this episode of the A-Team" followed by a reenactment of some truck jumping off a ramp. You can enjoy the Looney Tunes stuff without having seen the original, but you get the underlying joke if you know what they're referring to.

tbf there are those Looney Tunes moments where it's just "Look, it's Peter Lorre, but drawn as a cartoon!" or whatever, which totally went over my head as a kid, and generally aren't funny in their own right. But those are few and far between I think.

To me, this was a mix of Spielberg themes, but with a Stephen King plot.

Only the characters aren't graphically wounded by the monster by the end of the story, with a strange amount of attention on the physical rending of their bodies as meat. Maybe the slashed hands thing counts?

Only Douchey Steve is visibly fucked up, and that's due to a protagonist.

I think I own the same model of Pentax Jonathan uses. Given to me by my dad who bought the thing in...1983(ish).

Every so often the collision of the two Stephens yields something that doesn't exactly work tbh - like, the bullies are straight out of It but their acceleration into really dangerous territory happens super suddenly and then they're effectively defused as threats. In the Spielberg world they are still, basically, kids, and certainly not suffused throughout with the dark creepiness of PURE EVIL LURKING BENEATH ALL THAT SEEMS GOOD. It basically worked for the purposes of what the story needed, but it didn't really ring true for how things had been progressing. (It also kinda lets the cat out of the bag, since now Random Suburban Bully's Mother also believes in El having psychic powers. But I guess the pile of corpses at the high school would also create some problems in that vein...)