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

https://media.giphy.com/media/KOEc8ca7DELmw/giphy.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQt9tM3fWsY

omg at Eleven rapping

finally got around to watching this last week. did 3 episodes on Wednesday, 5 on Friday. first time my girlfriend and i have binge-watched a show, fucking draining experience, very much like overindulging in drugs. at least on the second night. anyway, loved this show, but two things really bugging me that haven't been extensively discussed here:

1) Fuck Steve. To whoever said upthread that Steve is "basically more or less reasonable 80-90% of the time" - are you high? Steve is not only an idiot, he's an aggressive asshole, up through the end (when he tries to bust into the Byers house, sees Nancy's hand, then looks at Jonathan and screams "DID HE DO THIS TO YOU??????" He's a Grade A asshole in every scene, and while I appreciate the show avoiding annoying cliches and tropes, I'm shocked that so many people are basically OK with Steve. What the fuck? I hope he gets gored in season 2.

2) I have a hard time believing the town going back to normal so quickly, although as someone else pointed out, the ending takes place during Xmas, so they were probably just putting on a brave face. The bodies at the school could've been cleaned up quick, but what about the architectural damage?

3) No one cares about Barb and her mom only shows up once. Before I watched the show, I saw soooooooo many memes about Barb and how awesome she was/how much she sucked. She's a pretty distinctive type, and I think her sudden absence was intentional, to start some Internet hysteria...

Steve might be my favourite character.

And I think he is morally complex! If you see him as a Biff Tannen-type bully jock, I think you're missing a lot.

But he's really, really dumb and a raging asshole. At no point does he redeem himself - the whole "need a hand?" thing with the marquee was just nauseating.

he tries to bust into the Byers house, sees Nancy's hand, then looks at Jonathan and screams "DID HE DO THIS TO YOU??????"

I just rewatched this scene. He really doesn't scream that line. I don't think it's a wildly unreasonable thing to wonder of a woman who is visibly injured and making weak excuses for it when you know she has been spending time with a weird stalker-ish guy. Forcing his way into the house might be beyond the pale. The circumstances were pretty exceptional, though, and it's not exactly the worst thing someone did in the series.

Not to keep the discourse churning, but I like this article's take on the series's gender politics, and it seems relevant to the question of Barb's (probably unintended) appeal:

People like Barb, because she’s the nerd girl, the point of access for a part of the audience neglected by this Boys’ Own Show. She is at least the beginnings of a character we could be happily attached to, the possibility of a show that honored female friendship as much as male friendship, and as much as heterosexual romance. People like Barb in defiance of what Stranger Things says is important, in defiance of her cut short existence and her lack of development. Liking Barb is the finding/making our place that fans do, attaching ourselves to characters who are underserved by the narrative, that resonate for we parts of the audience that are underserved by the narrative. Liking Barb, or Eleven, or Joyce, or Nancy is about making Stranger Things better than it sets out to be.

http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2016/09/01/the-cool-girls-missing-girls-of-stranger-things/

I liked Barb as on-the-nose visual shorthand of a very particular nerdy '80s type. She didn't have the opportunity to be much of a character though so, yeah, I think the hype is a little overblown.

The actress is going to be playing Ethel on the forthcoming Riverdale show, FYI.

http://images1.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Square-Pegs-cast-square-pegs-1268226_285_290.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLdQc53Glbw

hey but like

what about the funeral, and will's "body"

and the pathologist from "state" who presumably submitted an autopsy report?

and dr brenner?

and the trashed school?

how did the town process any of this information??

It was all over the papers at least.

http://i.imgur.com/Gsc1die.png

Kinda sad the show was set up as yet another guys-in-suits-walking-slowly conspiracy type series, let alone that there will be another season. It probably would have worked better as a stand-alone mini-series type event, not least because it is so redolent of "It" and "Firestarter" and other adapted (and equally erratic) Stephen King works.

Would have been a funny ET callback if instead of Modine they cast Peter Coyote. Maybe too old, I guess.

Don't fret: they're planning to replace all of the guns with flashlights for the home video release.

I think it would be awesome if shows like this quietly retroactively altered or replaced things in past episodes, just to mess with people and/or reward anyone rematching. Like, in season 3 have someone say "whatever happened to my lucky octopus," and then you go back and rewatch an episode from the first season and they've inserted a scene with a lucky octopus. Just to mess with nitpickers and also, you know, space/time continuum/alternate dimension. Or even sneak in a stand-alone episode under a different name, somewhere on Netflix, that is just a humming "stream" of the parallel dimension, where every once in a while a creature or kid wanders by.

Your first idea sounds like stuff that didn't work well when George Lucas did it. Second idea kinda neat.

kinda like the futurama dvd set that has a full-length episode of everybody loves hypnotoad

I was thinking subtle on the former, just little retroactive Easter eggs.

Don't fret: they're planning to replace all of the guns with flashlights for the home video release.

I think it would be kind of great if they did a VHS release and added that. Although Spielberg would probably sue at that point and Whiney's head would implode.

that'll be in the sequel, E.T. Commando

Commandic Gump, E.T.

starring the guy that played the dad on Alf

For some reason I thought he (Max Wright) was dead, but he's just been sick.

disappointing that the stranger things monster wasn't alf, would have really contributed to the textural richness of its lattice of reference points

Unfortunately, ALF is busy appearing on another current show (which I don't want to name for the sake of those who have yet to have their minds melted by ALF's appearance on said show).

bit early to say that the monster isn't alf - i live in hope that we'll see this scene in s2

https://s3.amazonaws.com/stranger-things-netflix/adb97419-2859-42b8-9243-475ef97b1a01.gif

ha

Was looking for a visual description of Melmac to confirm that it is in fact the Upside Down and came across some crucial info:

In the original version of the theme song, the line "'Cause there ain't no one like you in the Melmacian race" was sung "'Cause there ain't nobody like you in the Melmacian race," where the word "Melmacian" was pronounced in three syllables as MEL-may-shin. Reasons for this are unknown, but the second version of the song (as shown in the lyrics above) uses the 4-syllable pronunciation of "mel-MACK-ee-yan" for which a precedent was set in the ALF TV series.

In the ALF comics, he technically lives in the Marvel Universe, so maybe he'll cameo in the next Avengers movie?

would pay good money for an alf / modok roadtrip comedy

Alf could be a villain in the next Avengers and in the climax, when surrounded with nowhere to go, he yells "I *KILL* ME!" and jumps off of the building

They could maybe use cats as bait, in stranger things, and accidentally catch alf.

I'm devastated that I can't find any ALF/MODOK mash-up art online. Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend.

*must not make 'alf wants to eat modam's pussy' joke*

I never watched ALF but for some reason remember seeing this issue of the National Enquirer when it came out so the dad being a crack addict is all I can think about when I hear it mentioned
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/06/20/04/29C8D7FB00000578-3131715-image-a-37_1434772329336.jpg

The ALF set was all built on a raised stage with tons of holes and slots concealed in its floor, so that the puppeteers could race around and have ALF pop up where he needed to be, or have him 'walk' across short distances.

The space underneath the set, guys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0K0VpPjMjQ

A super easy, super tired gag at this point, but still effective imo

I never watched ALF but for some reason remember seeing this issue of the National Enquirer when it came out so the dad being a crack addict is all I can think about when I hear it mentioned

That and the parts in Permanent Midnight where Jerry Stahl is writing ALF while completely strung out on heroin.

https://vt.tumblr.com/tumblr_odb54zJYQX1uh91oc_480.mp4#_=_

There's something I find awesome in Tangerine Dream responding to this show and its soundtrack by putting out their own covers & reworks of music that wouldn't exist were it not for their own work decades earlier.

http://pitchfork.com/news/68221-tangerine-dream-covers-stranger-things-soundtrack-listen/

https://m.soundcloud.com/tangerinedreamofficial2015

it's like a (dieter) moebius strip!

So Tangerine Dream recorded songs inspired by the songs in the show inspired by Tangerine Dream? That's funny.

Who is td at this point? Jerome froese and...?

Josh Freese.

that's so rad

love some tangerine dream albums

"Who is td at this point? Jerome froese and...?"

"Josh Freese."

and Josh Wink. sometimes they do secret shows as Triple J.

I thought ulrich schnauss was in td as well?

Thorsten Quaeschning - keyboards, drums, vocals, guitar (2005–present)
Hoshiko Yamane - violin, cello (2011–present)
Ulrich Schnauss - synthesizer, piano (2014–present)