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

June, 1982
June 4 Hanky Panky Comedy $9,823,934
Poltergeist Horror $10,700,000 $74,706,019
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Adventure $12,000,000 $78,912,963

June 11 ET: The Extra-Terrestrial Drama $10,500,000 $435,110,554
Grease 2 Musical $14,297,083

June 18 Author! Author! Comedy $13,111,101
Firefox Action $21,000,000 $45,785,720

June 25 Blade Runner Thriller/Suspense $28,000,000 $32,656,328
Megaforce Action $18,000,000 $5,675,599
Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl Concert/Performance $327,958
The Thing Horror $13,782,838

E.T. played for like 400 years in my town.

Tron was the only other movie that came out that summer that i was really into. though i did enjoy young doctors in love.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/year/1982

I watched ET on netflix for the first time since '82 recently, and it was...ok. Might actually be the moment Spielberg jumped the shark for me (tho I have enjoyed a few others from him since then). I think part of the reason Stranger Things didn't amaze me overall was because it's not like I loved every thing it references in the first place.

looking at '82 list, Conan, NIMH, Rocky III, Dark Crystal were all big players in Ms Harpool's 3rd grade classroom

road warrior was the other biggie for me that year.

Fast Times was for the Older Kids

yeah i was only 13/14, my dad wasn't gonna take me to see porky's or fast times. he did take me to see richard pryor on the sunset strip though. and diva. and diner. and we saw eating raoul at the movies but i think it was a year or two later in nyc.

we had to drive to danbury to see a lot of movies. there were three different theaters there. the drive-in was in danbury too. only one place to see movies in my town. (we had to go to new milford to see blade runner. okay, i'll stop now. i have a good memory for this stuff.)

it's all right here in the official poll:

Movies My Dad Took Me To When I Was A Kid - The Poll!

I remember standing in the 3-block line for Return of the Jedi in NYC w/my dad. They sold programs, and cotton candy and had acrobats juggling fire. It could have been the County Fair in 1883.

ROTJ and ET (twice) are my earliest moviegoing memories.

does anyone remember this from 82/83? love affair between a boy and time-traveling pirate. okay, not really...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YRu8mNaYQsk/TUJ4ktXrxFI/AAAAAAAAA4I/OHKMWcJKzXI/s1600/Voyagers%2521Omniwallpaper.jpg

They don't do it anymore, but remember that ET was rereleased. They did that with some of the Star Wars movies too.

on freaks and geeks when they mention watching 3's company and love boat i kinda forget that those shows were still on in 1980 but of course they were.

Yeah, ET was rereleased a couple of times. If I ever saw the first two SW movies in a theater they would've had to have been rereleased.

i remember being really bummed out when they cancelled tales of the gold monkey.

yeah, they could re-release because it would take years for the biggest movies to come out on video. And on the nostalgia tip, I REALLY miss $1 second-run movie theaters

That summer I saw Tron, Poltergeist I think. Saw Firefox on cable or VHS a lot, part of the Blue Thunder/Airwolf rogue aviation trifecta.

(forgot about bring 'em back alive too. like tales of the gold monkey only lasted one season. raiders knock-offs bit the dust quick but i never missed them.)

Was it ET that had the ridiculous VHS release delay? Like it didn't come out until the late '80s or something? My grandpa had a pirate copy so we were cool.

xp

I watched both of those. And of course watched the clear SW ripoff Battlestar Galactica

Yeah, same for all the Star Wars movies, you had to wait forever to buy, or nick one from the rental place

you guys this is turning into "nursing home dayroom: the thread where we reminsce about the olden days"

The first movie I remember seeing in the theater was The Empire Strikes Back, followed shortly by Herbie Goes Bananas. 1980 was a great summer to be 6 years old.

these kids have the best look for the period under discussion:

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

quiet you, and where's that Capris Sun I ordered!!!

oops. right. no video. and yeah with that i'll stop gen x memory lane. sorry.

Was it ET that had the ridiculous VHS release delay? Like it didn't come out until the late '80s or something?

Yeah, I think you're right! It took a very long time for that to come out, even as a rental.

(although that video was the 145 Tron episode of Starcade on Youtube. great viewing material.)

Voyagers was great RIP John Eric Hexum

the one sf show I have fond memories of that seems totally lost to time was about a family getting lost in an alternate dimension

xp

Veg otm.

and no I am not referring to Land of the Lost

xp

Otherworld! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088587/

honestly, i didn't really feel that nostalgic watching Stranger Things until AFTER i had watched it and everyone started talking about it. i just liked the characters and the story. i was on the edge of my seat! i didn't really think about movie posters or whatever. the music stuff i noticed but i shrugged it off. like Television. i'm so sure he was listening to Television. but that was about it.

i mean even the original music in the show just reminded me of NEW 80'S-inspired stuff. not old stuff. it sounded current.

(on the starcade t.v. show you won really cool prizes...)

https://i1.wp.com/www.retrocrush.com/archive2/dragonslair/bionicchair.jpg

I remember the host of Starcade was named Geoff, but it sounded like "Jeff" and I thought that was weird.

Yeah, very much The 80's as seen through a hip-ish, modern lens i.e. all the "right" movie posters, synthwave soundtrack, Smiths/Television/Joy Division/New Order refs, etc.

xxp

which i guess is a fair way to play this, but it just added to the ersatz feeling that really pushed me out of it

Jonathan was the only hip-ish, modern lens character in the series. I agree that some of the pre-recorded music choices were too clever, but I bought a lot of the original interstitial music being period-correct.

White kids in an Indiana town would've been playing Johnny Cougs and Rick Springfield and Journey.

And Zeppelin and AC/DC

And the Smiths and Joy Division. And REO Speedwagon. And Styx. And the Housemartins, probably.

It's interesting that both Poltergeist and E.T. had their origins in Speilberg's what if the aliens were evil Close Encounters sequel Night Skies. Stephen King was originally supposed to write Poltergeist too.

it's a rich tapestry

is there a good critical book about spielberg? i might read one. though i'm scared to read most film writing. something about the psychology of his movies would be interesting to me. war of the worlds is the only more-recent movie of his that i loved and it's the only recent one i've seen that brought me back in time to the movies i loved of his when i was a kid. if you don't count things he has produced like Super 8.

his grown-up movies don't thrill me so much. the last movie of his before war of the worlds that i really liked was probably empire of the sun.

Empire of the Sun works great if you turn off the sound - John Williams' score ruins it

I was really high on both Minority Report and Munich at the time they came out, but I haven't watched either in a number of years. Wonder how well they hold up.

both trash iirc

Minority Report is garbage

I've never sat through Munich cuz idk the subject matter, I don't trust Spielberg to deal w it well it would probably just make me angry

Munich is great, Minority Report is the "Temple of Doom" to War of the World's "Raiders."