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

Oh, right. She noticed the monster when she visited the Russian, and then he tells her to go meet the monster. I'm assuming right after that is when the chamber developed its ulcerous gateway problem and then after that is when they send in that poor dumbass with the tow cable clipped to his waist.

ok sure

xp

pretending that isn't a straight lift from under the skin is particularly bizarre

― meh 😐 (wins), Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:49 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how about a 'reference'?

that being said UTS is absolutely the better piece of work, more interesting, more provocative, more creative, more unique, more depth, more everything

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:30 AM (fifty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ahh more depth. so much deep

"lift" correctly denotes the laziness involved (ie implies thievery), is more appropriately pejorative

xp

ahh more depth. so much deep

lol Stranger Things made me think about one thing - the 80s. (ok two things if you count Under the Skin)

UTS made me think about considerably more than that

but again yes it doesn't really matter if UTS is better, it's a totally different thing/beast with different goals and a different vocabulary. the only point of overlap is ST's bite of the void scenes.

yes but what about how the whole thing is basically a rip of Beefheart's "Tropical Hot Dog Night"?

Meet the monster tonight
How would you like to be the lucky girl,
The lucky one?
– To be the monster tonight
Ow, to be the monster tonight
Oh, everything’s wrong, at the same time it’s white!
You get to be – you get to be – with me
And also to be the monster tonight

actually I was using the term "lift" pretty much interchangeably with "reference" cause d-40 & old lunch (latter possibly doing a zany improv character) were pretending it wasn't a reference

"UTS made me think about considerably more than that"

boobage...

xxpost So obvious now that I reflect on the characters constantly stepping out of triangles and into striped light.

But yeah it's a particularly obvious reference (nb I personally don't have a problem with this)

this is a really goofy argument. it is obvious to me, seeing the two side by side, that the reflective void shot is derived from Under the Skin. whether it's an homage or a rip-off might be up for discussion but since there have already been many weeks of discussion on Stranger Things's relationship to its source material this all seems a bit redundant (especially as the UTS connection has been referred to many times on this thread already). can we give it a rest?

sure

Yeah, that Under the Skin rip/homage is emblematic of the general (boring and creatively lazy IMO) “mix-tape” approach of ST and probably isn’t worth getting caught up on specifically. It just snowballed into something because people were actually insisting it ISN’T a pull from UTS when it very obviously is.

apparently D-40 was only concerned because I called it a "rip" instead of a "reference" so everything boils down to stupid semantics yet again I suppose

oh good can we just have the two people who've made it clear they hated the show monopolize the thread about it? let's do that

at least I've made my fucking peace with MR ROBOT season 2

Mix taping it up can be a totally creatively bankrupt and hollow approach but it kinda served a more decorative purpose wrt this show because it focused so heavily on fully fleshed-out characters and well-rounded and believable relationships. AFAIC.

awesome thread guys, great work

anyway hosers

the upside down for moi was like the 4th dimension

that's why i posted that video of that little duder explaining it in the infinity thread

the upside down IS here, but not all of us can see it, only if you are a creature of the 4th dimension you could, like el

if you are a 4th dimensional creature, you see things in 3d. if you are a 3 dimensional creature, like us, you see things in 2dimensions

...

yo...

the void was a way to get into the 4th dimension as this is what physics dictates

woof woof

meow meow

etc etc

Outraged that at no point did anyone walk an actual tightrope.

Are there threads about television programs or films that Οὖτις does like?

Under the Skin (2014) dir. Jonathan Glazer

iirc

I like lots of things

are you asking for a list or just telling me to stick to those threads :)

I would personally request that you make an attempt to like the right things, shakes.

Outraged that at no point did anyone walk an actual tightrope.

Have we talked about Mr. Clarke? I love that character. He's always there to supply extemporaneous science explanations whenever the story needs it, even if it means interrupting a hot date.

I would personally request that you make an attempt to like the right things, shakes.

I keep trying but for some reason it never works out

are you asking for a list or just telling me to stick to those threads :)

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, August 30, 2016 2:15 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have only noticed your cinematic expertise here and on the Star Wars threads. I don't wanna tell you to go home or anything like that and you're a positive contributor all over ilx. But in both these cases, it's nigh-Morbsian.

what can I say, sometimes ubiquity warrants critique

Have we talked about Mr. Clarke? I love that character. He's always there to supply extemporaneous science explanations whenever the story needs it, even if it means interrupting a hot date.

i was so relieved that he didn't die or turn out to be a creep (as his mustache would suggest).

The black void also appeared in an episode of Space 1999 in the 70s. So there. Someone else find something older.

I have a feeling that ST's black void was just an illustrative version of remote viewing/telepathy that was under budget. Had this been some Inception/Interstellar big budget B.S., it would have been all frenetic etc.

i really wish someone would make Area X into a netflix series. that is my dream. in that book a teeny tiny piece of an alien universe ends up on earth. hilarity ensues!

― scott seward, Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Feature, not Netflix, but Alex Garland so there's hope: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilation_(film)

Welp, here you go:

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

Episode titles for Season 2:

Madmax
The Boy Who Came Back to Life
The Pumpkin Patch
The Palace
The Storm
The Pollywog
The Secret Cabin
The Brain
The Lost Brother

Madmax is probably a reference to 80s franchise Mad Max.

Well now you're just stretching things to fit.

However "The Pumpkin Patch" is almost certainly a reference to horror classic, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!"

Really pointless teaser - episode titles don't seem v important in this show.

leading with what they do best ie opening title sequences

I've just finished the series thus far, and I'm ambivalent: it's well acted (especially the parts of Eleven and the D&D kids), entertaining, and tightly constructed, but it seems kind of neat and safe next to most of the films it mines for material. (Maybe I want something more like classic Carpenter or Cronenburg than like classic Spielberg.) I guess I just don't understand why you'd collage together so many 80s media tropes without apparently having much to say about 1980s cultural politics or the present moment beyond "the Cold War was used to justify various abuses of state power" and "misfits are cool and should stick together." I'll look forward to the second season, but I hope the series can develop into something gayer, messier, and more troubling.

I basically agree with Emily Yoshida, in other words: "I just don't know why you'd do a retro genre nostalgia pastiche without making it either a) more morally complex b) grosser c) female"

a.) ugh, no b.) who wants that? c.) what? this series was hugely female.

lol @ being horrified by moral complexity/grossness in the sf/horror genre

I mean, there's an abundance of both available.

This show was morally complex? Good/bad divides were p clear and static imo

i think you're misreading the comment

On c), I like Will's mother, Nancy, and especially Eleven as characters (Barb drops out of the series almost immediately, and Nancy's mother doesn't have much to do), but I don't know that that translates into a "hugely female" series so far, since the first two characters' role in the narrative is so heavily determined by the search for Will, and Eleven's self-sacrifice for her friends lets the writers get out of dealing with recovery from trauma in much more detail. (I hope she's developed further in the second season, given the hints that she survived her disappearance.)

c.) what? this series was hugely female.

It never really went beyond basic competence in terms of representing women, if that, and very little interaction between two or more women in the show which made the treatment of Barb extra sucky. Could've been a lot worse of course.

I basically agree with Emily Yoshida, in other words: "I just don't know why you'd do a retro genre nostalgia pastiche without making it either a) more morally complex b) grosser c) female"

― one way street, Wednesday, August 31, 2016 2:43 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because you don't have any particular political commitments

On the female representation, I'd go for "it had just enough". Yeah, there were strong female characters, no, they didn't feel sidelined, but as others have said, there wasn't a huge amount of interaction between them, and it probably wasn't even 50% female in terms of leads. The D&D boys obviously skewed that, and I can see reasons why they wanted that group to be all boys, but still...