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

I mean, there's nothing particularly new or 2010s-ish about nostalgia films with period dress and wink-wink things for people The Right Age. The boomers did this endlessly, with American Graffiti and Happy Days and I Want To Hold Your Hand and A Christmas Story and Forrest Gump and so on and so on. Before them, there were plenty of postwar Hollywood films playing up the still-in-living-memory 20s and 30s (running from, say, Singin' in the Rain to The Sting). If we're talking specifically about the use of consumer products and media artifacts, deployed at this density, to evoke childhood and time-and-placeness that might possibly be something new, since the sheer quantity and variety and brand-mobilizability of merchandised crap for kids surely spiked after the release of Star Wars... but idk.

Probably closest in terms of "hey, remember this barrage of things from When We Were Kids?" are list songs like Jimmy Buffett's "Pencil-Thin Mustache" (1974) and the Statler Brothers' on-the-nose title "Do You Remember These?" (1972).

I agree, this nostalgia craze is so weird and unprecedented

You must be kidding. The 1980s itself was all about the 1950s: color palettes, eyewear, hairstyles, etc. If anything, 80s nostalgia is way more subdued than when we revisited the atomic age.

you must be kidding, 1980s bore no resemblance to the 50s. 1980s were like the late sixties + the late seventies / the color beige.

um what? John Waters films, Memphis furniture and Googie rediscovery, Pee Wee's Playhouse, B-52s, Stray Cats...

I was absolutely kidding.

Also, I just remembered westerns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roBkw0RfY-Q

John Waters films, Memphis furniture and Googie rediscovery, Pee Wee's Playhouse, B-52s, Stray Cats...

Ladies and gentlemen ... the '80s!

Millennials totes invented nostalgia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHN5U_j4_o0

Boomers trafficking in nostalgia were just copying their parents. This was released in 1963:

https://waxvinylrecords.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/071011131.jpg

Millenials are one of the biggest audiences for Netflix content, so I think that might account for the very specific era nostalgia you see in shows like ST as well

Yeah, I remember when yard sales were *stuffed* with moldy 20s comps from the early 60s (typically re-recorded efforts, no doubt due to quality/availability issues with the source material), but presumably they scratched the same itch. "Oldies" from the 40s and 50s were a reliable market and radio format for a long time. The Boomers, let alone the late Gen-Xers of Stranger Things, certainly did not invent getting wistful over old tunes, or kidding each other about how silly their old fashions seemed from a few years' distance.

As for Season 2, I dunno, they seem to be pitching it hard as basically more of the same. I liked Season 1 so I'll probably watch and like this. I'd be a little more pumped if the trailer hinted more strongly at genuinely new elements, or teased some intriguing new characters.

Christ that Ready Player One trailer is so depressing - people in the future yearn for the 1980s because their present is so dire. And the movie is coming out next year. Like some kind of weird corporate cautionary tale

tbf the book is terrible

When was the first movie to feature kids playing with, say, actual Star Wars toys?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXADBfCH5cw ?

I guess a difference with stuff like Stranger Things, I suppose, is that while nostalgia by definition infuses many period pieces, the show also approximates the look and feel and vibe of things made around that time. So it doesn't just recall ET, it's at times made to look like ET, or sound like ET. It's a more pervasive multifaceted nostalgia. Unlike, say, Guardians of the Galaxy, whose central character is driven by nostalgia but which otherwise is thoroughly modern looking and therefore more ironic in its references.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, July 23, 2017 1:04 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we are just better now at emulating older media. at first digital technology couldn't do it. it took too much processing power. a lot of artifacts are analog errors we lost in the switch to digital. things like film grain, video distortion, RGB offsets, all kinds of things digital media doesn't do. in the 90s a music video would have the option to shoot on 8mm film or use old equipment but with video technology at the time it was very difficult to emulate the look/feel of aged materials. i used to think about this a lot in the 90s, cos music and film tried to look like the 60s in a lot of ways, like Elephant 6 bands and Austin Powers, but the bands always sounded like they were still recorded in the 90s. now digital technology and production knowledge (enhanced by democratization of production software through smartphones) has taken us to the era of the Instagram filter where even your grandma can apply post-production artifacts with the flick of the wrist.

Guardians i don't really see as exploiting nostalgia all that much. the mixtape thing is a crucial plot point with a history and character meanings. it is a also fun device that explains the fun soundtrack. finally we get to hear Ziggy Stardust singing while aliens shoot lasers at a giant psychedelic tentacle monster atop a floating space disco. this is the kind of fantastical cultural alchemy that has long needed to be visualized.

Kurt Russell/Hasslehoff as movie stars themselves is a funny callback but again it is deeply interwoven into the story and character beats. it is an admitted nostalgia, and Guardians is unique in that it takes a step back and investigates, it thinks about this infantilism. Peter and his father have this psycho-Freudian discussion into the plasticity of these fantasies and what they actually mean to the characters having them. symbolized by these pop culture icons dueling like roman candles at the heart of a self-made living planet called Ego. the Guardians films are pretty smart about how they handle nostalgia.

http://i.imgur.com/8ldapR3.jpg

And it probably explains why, despite nostalgia being a big thing, it's still not very likely for a studio to produce a big 2D traditionally animated film, as way of banking on 80s and 90s nostalgia, because that still requires a lot more effort.

Guardians i don't really see as exploiting nostalgia all that much.

Eh, he turns into a giant Pac-man to fight his dad, iirc.

now thinking I dodged a bullet by not watching those GotG movies

They're fun!

are you familiar with what I consider fun

http://e-cdn-images.deezer.com/images/artist/8615f819b8497a9f8edb6d46d08e3939/200x200-000000-80-0-0.jpg

heh

"Eh, he turns into a giant Pac-man to fight his dad, iirc."

http://cdn.movieweb.com/img.news.tops/NEod4RHPW7aLrx_1_b.jpg

2015 4ever!

is anyone else watching s2?

I am very much enjoying Max and I find Sean Astin's corny middle-aged guyness endearing

also apparently Steve & whatsername were dressed as Tom Cruise & Rebecca DeMornay from Risky Business and even after I was told that I only barely saw it and seriously WHO would ever know that. Or am I just super dumb.

don't answer that last question it was rhetorical

Veg is the best.

ohhh did not catch the Risky Business thing

I loved the Ghostbusters joke - "you just ASSUMED I was gonna be Winston"

only 2 eps in so far and yeah Max is pretty great too

Max in the huge Michael Myers mask made me lol — reminded me of the bit in Patton Oswalt’s new special about how a lost kindergartener in a crooked oversized werewolf mask was the most frightening thing he’d ever seen

I've also watched 2 eps, have a feeling I'll either burn thru all the rest in the next couple of days or never go back to it. I really enjoyed the first season iirc but it made almost no lasting impression on me*; watching the Netflix recap thing was a bit like "oh yea, this. I feel nothing"

A couple of eps in and I'm finding the spot the reference stuff a lot more irritating this time round and the jokes are landing with a total thud for me. I'm not mad at it tho

***SPOILERS*** the barb stuff is such embarrassing lame pandering but there's an extra funny meta element to "everyone just forgot about her" cause that literally happened irl after like 3 weeks of "omg barb is everything"

*with a couple of exceptions: I remember being quite moved at the end for some reason (was this when they played the moby song, that would explain it) and I don't think I mentioned it itt at the time but a weird thing happened in whichever episode it was that they ratcheted up the horror, it got to a particularly creepy/suspenseful moment and all the lights suddenly went out in my apartment block and I could hear loads of sirens and I convinced myself an "incident" had taken place in central Cambridge & was really freaked out lol

There's an exchange between Dustin and Mike's dad somewhere in episode 5 that makes the entire season worthwhile. It's just amazing.

First season was fine but meaningless to me, will probably watch the second season at some point. For now, my almost 13 year old is having some friends over overnight with the intent of binging the whole season. To which I say, good luck with that.

i loved the scene with mike & will at the end of ep 2 - genuine moment of love & friendship

as enjoyable as it was seeing Millie Bobby Brown as a new wave queen, that whole subplot with her labrat sister was so corny and obviously shoehorned in to kill time before her grand entrance. so much bad acting too... really jarred with the rest of the show.

i love how Steve continues to buck the stereotype of the douchey pretty boy boyfriend - I wanted more scenes with him just hanging out with the kids!

Bob the superhero, though. ;_;

Steve, Bob, Paul Reiser's doctor character...I love how this show is unafraid to make good people genuinely good. Like, I spent all this time wondering when one of them was going to reveal some dark side, but it never happened and that's really refreshing.

Billy's a real piece of shit, though.

also apparently Steve & whatsername were dressed as Tom Cruise & Rebecca DeMornay from Risky Business and even after I was told that I only barely saw it and seriously WHO would ever know that.

semi-watched the first few w/ k78 yesterday. She was asking "WHO is she dressed as?" I looked up and said "I dunno, but he's Tom Cruise in Risky Business," and still neither of us got de Mornay.

(I saw Risky Business once, 23 years ago)

see it again, it's a masterpiece

yeah it’s good but imo no-one is dressing as rebecca de mornay in risky business for halloween

I’m up to
“You’re being NAIVE, Nancy!”

fake Paul Giamatti conspiracy guy is something

brett gelman!!! <3

Erica is my new favorite character, the little sister with her pancake syrup

^ Yes! She was awesome.

As much as I loved S1, I'm so thankful S2 wasn't smothered in nostalgia. Now it's just a really solid character-driven sci fi series.

there was a ton of 80s callbacks slathered all over pretty much every episode

it was still a solid character-driven sci fi show though

Yeah, there were, but this time around it felt just very much about who those people were and not for the benefit of the audience. xp

that whole subplot with her labrat sister was so corny

I disagree. I was riveted by the possibilities this sort of branching out could open the show up to. But Eleven/Jane has always been the show's most fascinating character to me, so learning more about the others like her is far more interesting to me than another close call with the Upside Down.

yeah it’s good but imo no-one is dressing as rebecca de mornay in risky business for halloween

Not 34 years later, sure, but one year later, maybe

that said: I only made it 2 eps into S1 but this one is dizzying in the density of specific refs to or actual extracts from 1980s mersh genre films

lol at Gelman going full* iBrain in his confidence level trying to sell the "we water it down!!¡" metaphor in ep 5



*maybe 80%