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

"have gone"? it's different people talking about it

well,not even sure I expect any show/movie to really capture the time it's going for -- nobody experiences media like they did in the 80s anymore, and for storytelling purposes, it's not even a criticism from me to say it's not like something that would have happened in the 80s. Really, I stopped thinking about the 80s past the first couple of episodes, because the time period doesn't matter that much to the story IMO

im not saying he's being hypocritical or something, i just think its funny when ppl try to take down a piece of art from contradictory POVs, find it usually says something about the art itself that no one can agree on even the basic framework w/ which to evaluate whether it succeeds for fails xp

word that makes sense xp to dominique

It Follows drove me insane with its weird non-specific timeframe & incongruous "vintage" shit just plopped here. there was no fucking point to having any of that shit except as an excuse to put a cool musle car on the cover

Stranger Things made the era part of the story & not just a reason for a girl to have a fucking perm. wired telephones & incandescent lights & magnetic compasses were part of the story & visual signposts for monsterousness etc

If all you see is just a bunch of references chucked into a lazy smartypants blender then I dunno, I kinda think you're deliberately ignoring the storytelling to make a point. There is a perfectly well-told, engaging & genuinely moving story here.

i mean i know I'm always pollyanna with this shit but those kids acted their butts off & winona was awesome & it if it was a book i'd read the shit out of it. it was fucking good TV!!! and whiney jfc if all you have is that it lifted from ET & some shit about fucking Family Guy like SERIOUSLY that a lazy hot-take even for ilx

but again, the target of pop culture generally is children

I don't think this is true at all but you have a funny definition of "children". Huge swathes of pop music w bleeped words, vast majority of blockbusters being rated PG-13 etc. I'm cool with all those things existing, what do I care - they sure aren't for me, but nor are they for 8yo. They're for people w large amounts of disposable income and time to kill ie teenagers and 20somethings

The funny thing is that the fictionalized 80s of E.T. and The Goonies was "real" to me as a kid in the 80s even though it didn't actually resemble my suburban life much at all (or maybe because of that). I lived on a short cul-de-sac street, right off a main drag that was definitely NOT bike-friendly, and so the handful of kids on that street were kinda all I had to go on. There was a bit of tromping around in the woods out back of our houses together and that was good, but nothing interesting ever happened really and we didn't have a clubhouse or anything. Also, Atlanta suburbs weren't exactly as lush and magical as the Pacific Northwest thing Spielberg and company were showcasing.

Still, these things press buttons well. As a kid on that street, I was drawn to tons of media - some of it decades old - that had this convincing imagery of large groups of kid-friends getting things done together, having adventures, evading rival groups of kid-friends, building clubhouses, communicating by walkie-talkies and meeting up on each other's porches without parental involvement. A lot of those things were reinvented for boomer or Gen-X kid-fiction, but by people whose childhood world (I think) was really more small-town America. I haven't really done the digging here but I'm thinking of e.g. Beverly Cleary, born in 1916 in a small Oregon town, but with her books starting to appear in 1950 and obviously still wildly popular in the 80s and I hope today. (She's still alive, btw! Always blows my mind.) Anyway, some of the nostalgia I get from Stranger Things is a nostalgia for the warm childhood feeling of imagining those experiences, more than having them. I think that's okay! That's the real experience of my life and lots of other people's lives probably, even if it happened through mediations like blockbuster family films.

I mean back in the 80s the monoculture was definitely by and large for children, there was a middle ground that aimed to be as inoffensive as possible to attract the widest possible audience (the kids AND the adults! crazy!) Nowadays things are atomized and what's left of "mainstream" media culture targets the biggest demo w time + money and that is not children.

this is maybe for another thread...

xxp

caught some of this while the missus worked thru it over the course of a week or so, she loved it, fwiw she is also 26 and I suspect most if not all of the "references" flew right over her head

I thought the end was pretty funny, like they go thru all of this unimaginable horror and winona and cop guy have to wander around silent hill and of course the monster thing but! one month later...everyone is hunky dory, back to d&d nights no biggie.

also my three year old daughter caught some of this too, was very fascinated, not frightened at all, I think she's going to be a weirdo tho so ymmv

eh 3yos have no idea what they're seeing half the time, no context

convincing imagery of large groups of kid-friends getting things done together, having adventures, evading rival groups of kid-friends, building clubhouses, communicating by walkie-talkies and meeting up on each other's porches without parental involvement

This is otm, and one of the things that Stranger Things got right IMO. Maybe not surprisingly, had the urge to watch Stand By Me soon after, as that was one of many movies back then that did this.

When I was a kid, seeing a movie where kids were the heroes and got stuff done -- it just made me want to be those kids, to have those adventures. It seemed like something me and my friends could realistically do, and Stranger Things definitely touches on that idea.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/stranger-things-survive-talk-their-creepy-nostalgic-score-w431789

What did you have to do differently for the show than your record?

Dixon: Just dealing with a film ... or a TV show, there's a broad range of emotions that you have to touch on, and a lot of that's a little more childish, a little more playful, than something that we would release as Survive. So, out of the necessity to tell the story, we're gonna write stuff that just would never make it out on a Survive album.

How do you know when you have the right mood?

Dixon: When it makes you feel cool. Like, "Oh, I feel cool right now." It's like, "I could be driving around in the car listening to this and feeling pretty good."

It's funny because Internet forums where they talk about music like this, driving is the overarching imagery.
There's obvious, like, Drive or whatever all that shit is. And we kind of have that, but we try to keep it a little back from that whole overly Eighties.

Your stuff's a little bit darker too.

Stein: Yeah. You have to mix it real warm and, like, kind of almost questioning what era it's from

Dixon: Yeah, we're definitely more interested in Seventies-style production than Eighties, which I think is the difference. A lot of those types of bands will go for the super cold stuff … that sounds really digital, and we kind of ... I mean, I don't know if we've accomplished that goal, but we're just drawn to Seventies recording styles a little more. I mean, Eighties is great, and we love all that stuff too. But we try to make it sound a little warmer.

Stein: Some depth and some movement to the dynamics of the track, just more life in there than just, like, smacking the shit out of the speakers.

So, how did you two hook up with the Duffer Brothers for Stranger Things?
Dixon: They're fans of Survive somehow and it's kind of a mystery ... like, they don't really know how they found us. But they did, and then they emailed us and asked if we were available. They put our song "Dirge" from our last LP in their trailer for the show. Like, they made a little mock trailer to pitch their concept to Netflix, and they had the song "Dirge" in there. They were like, "Oh, shit. That works pretty well for the trailer. It kind of got the vibe across."

What was the process you used to compose for 10 hours of television?

Dixon: I mean, we've been recording for years, and there's tons of stuff that we've always kind of known would be good for films, so we had some of that stuff lying around. And when they hit us up, we sent a lot of that stuff over just to say, "Hey, here's some different moods that could work."

And some of that stuff ended up being used, but a lot of it ended up being re-worked. And after we sent that initial, kind of, dump over to them, they picked a few things out, and then asked us to do a little more for certain things ... like write a theme for some of the characters to use ... to pitch to the producers and stuff. We got involved really early, before they had even cast anyone. And they used the demo that we'd sent to play against the auditions, which kind of helped them decide, you know, whether or not they wanted to use us ... and I think it may have also dictated who they cast for some of the characters. So, that was cool.

Stein: We were just writing ... just trying to, you know, imagine who these characters were. And we'd seen a little bit of the aesthetic they were going for. But there weren't scripts yet, there were just, like, these vague, kind of character descriptions. And to make scenes based on those ideas, you just had to ... kind of imagine what that was and feel it out and send it over. And some of those things actually just locked in and like stayed very early on

Dixon: And before we had even gotten the job. They basically told us like, "We know you can do scary shit and dark stuff so you need to show the producers that you can do some of the more lighthearted things."

Was there anything that you had in mind as a guide for your more lighthearted material?

Dixon: For me, there's this warm, fuzzy feeling that a lot of Nineties R&B like INOJ and even some like Mariah Carey. It's hard to explain, but there are certain notes that just sound like being a kid to me just because that's when I grew up I guess probably. Some of that stuff was kind of an influence for me on learning some of those kid themes I guess.

Was there anything that they came back to you and were like, "This is too scary"?

Dixon: No, they were like, "Make it scary as fuck." They're like, "We want to scare the shit out of some little kids ... and adults, so go for it." Especially for some of the more intense scenes, they were like, "Just make it go even harder. Make it as crazy as possible."

metainformative actually

def pushes that button, very common feeling

xp

Atlanta suburbs weren't exactly as lush and magical as the Pacific Northwest thing Spielberg and company were showcasing.

Half of what I loved about this show was that it reminded me of playing in suburban Atlanta woods

xxposts:
speaking of 3yos, the little sister character gave maybe the best small-child performance I've ever seen during one particular dinner scene (forget which ep, one of the earlier ones)

It doesn't sound exactly like it, but the theme reminded me of my favorite piece of library music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7HzC57HDZs

We had some good woods like I said, but so much more of my childhood landscape was parking lots and malls/strip malls. Stranger Things maybe waffles a little between "suburban" signifiers (the school buildings, the Wheeler house) and the more general small-towniness (the four-person police department, the town square/library/main street area we see a few times, the Byers house). It's easy to imagine a place where those spaces coexist, but it wasn't exactly the world where I grew up.

Funnily enough, it actually was filmed outside of Atlanta, in Jackson, GA - and the evil laboratory building is in Virginia Highland, twenty minutes from the house I grew up in. I went to summer day camp just down the street! So yeah... Stranger Things felt like my childhood, but not exactly my childhood.

imo pop culture is for people who are unburdened by 40+ hour work weeks, home ownership, and child care. in other words, a rather large portion of the population in our current underemployed, real estate-unburdened, family-deferring times

yeah this had some great acting all around. I teared up a bit when the mom finally found her kid again, and I didn't watch enough of this to be at all invested in the story or characters so, good job winona. music was good too

mh not sure I buy that - - - think of e.g. prime-time sitcoms or the late shows, they may be pitched at a level where the kids can enjoy them too (and often are or have been) but the basic premise is surely "take a load off at the end of your work day and spend some time with these friendly characters" etc. etc.

does anyone actually watch sitcoms and late shows? the only ppl I know who do are retired.

nobody watches television

it's strange they keep broadcasting it

I am pretty sure sitcoms and late shows are very popular even though I never see the latter and encounter the former only in reruns at the gym. I am also probably not a typical American. But are we talking "now" or generally about "pop culture"? Like, was Mary Tyler Moore specifically for "kids"? All In The Family? Setting aside sitcoms, what about cop and courtroom shows? I think these bore kids to tears but surely they are "pop culture."

Like, isn't the infamously "coveted demographic" 18-35?

I'm talking about now not 30 years ago

eh 3yos have no idea what they're seeing half the time, no context

having spent just about all day everyday with a child who is now 3, I think this is a tremendous underestimation of 3yr olds, better suited to <1yr olds maybe, though certainly a 3yr old has considerably less context to draw on than a 9 or 10 or 20 or 30 year old

Also figure that sitcoms are still popular with someone, though it isn't me. And though I do wonder how many people still watch TV like I used to, just flipping through broadcast and syndicated channels -- I doubt the key demographic has changed much. *Maybe* a little younger, but when I think of the prime pop-culture-interest age, 18-35 doesn't seem far off.

oh I agree, I was using "pop" in the ilx sense which usually has two necessary traits
- it is ubiquitous
- it does not exist

wins otm, in other words

idk about you're 3yo but mine basically has no concept of death or what happens when, say, someone actually loses an arm. He would probably understand what was happening if he saw someone get shot, but there's degrees of how traumatizing that might be depending on how it's portrayed. otoh he is cool with watching giant alligators swallow things whole, for ex. cuz that shit is just cool. but I can tell it's all kind of abstract, he doesn't register what he's watching as actually happening, it has no real emotional weight for him.

he might be sad if he saw a minion get dismembered lol

xxp

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

― how's life, Monday, August 8, 2016 2:39 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He's upstairs watching it with his mother and I just overheard 'Mom, they are so imitating Freaks & Geeks here!'

ahahha. this show, man, it's nothing but year-2000 sitcom references lazily flung onto the screen to get re-blorps from millennials who don't know any better.

thought it was weird when Will said he was 'watchin the game, havin a Bud"

"WASSSSSSUP... over"

https://i.imgflip.com/18n01p.jpg

d'oh, beat me to it

omg these kids are so cute

http://cdn01.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ryder-sthings/winona-ryder-gets-support-from-scott-mackinlay-hahn-at-stranger-things-02.JPG

I love that the actress who plays Eleven is named Millie Bobby Brown

otm

funny thing about ensemble casts, did modine have any scene with any of them besides El? how many scenes did winona have with them? but still.

tbf Will himself barely had any scenes with the other kids

I think Modine's only scene w/ the kids was that brief moment in the school when he finally found them but then he got (presumably) eaten not long after

someone said on twitter that Modine "looked like Treat Williams in old-person makeup" & I feel that this is hilariously otm

haahahahaha

dang that kid's teeth came in since they shot the show

Nice peewee herman outfit, keepin it period

finished this last night.... pretty much the most enjoyable watchy show ever.

one episode left to go and my impression of this show continues to go downhill - every single goddamn thing in it evokes something else, sometimes in the most hamfistedly obvious way possible (bike + vans chase scene, the especially lazy "Under the Skin" rip, kids' dialogue referencing D&D in *every scene*, etc.) I dunno this is really lovingly done but it's also annoyingly empty, there is literally not a single unique idea or original thought or twist or provocative angle to any of it. One thing I like about horror and sci-fi is their capacity to deliver surprises within familiar tropes - and this has none of that.

Anyway, some of the nostalgia I get from Stranger Things is a nostalgia for the warm childhood feeling of imagining those experiences, more than having them. I think that's okay!

This is a lovely thought and also OTM

those kids acted their butts off & winona was awesome & it if it was a book i'd read the shit out of it

This too

Seriously I have trouble with people complainng about Winona being too oddball and shouty - I feel like she totally killed this (as a usually kinda so-so actor it's possibly her best performance even)