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

Also, the meta dialogue that both Max and Brett Gelman get is a bit much.

Okay, they’re hitting the _Aliens_ refs hard enough that I’m cringing.

Just hit the Bon Jovi song in ep 7. This is starting to piss me off.

watched everything up to the last episode which I'm saivng for tonight.

Man episode 7 was as stupid as I'd heard. The Invisibles references somewhat saved it, but I desperately hope that wasn't an attempt to backdoor pilot a spinoff already.

"Will Byers is that hole. I don't think it's the actor. I think the writers have just left him terribly blank, and I don't understand why any of the other kids are his friends, why his mother is so protective of him, why his older brother treats him so kindly"

I see this, but in his defense, he's been a victim and/or missing in every episode of the show. You never get to see him just be himself, except for a bit in episode 1.

he's the Egon of the group, what more do you need to know?

I'm happy it wasn't another season of thrusting the kid named Michael into an ad hoc leadship role. Why do people always do this to the Mikes of the world? So unfair.

Sean Astin, who once played a kid leader named Mikey, wondering about “pirate treasure!” and solving a puzzle/map in ep 5/6

Curious who the 80s stunt casting for next season will be.

Corey Feldman is out, Christian Slater is still doing Mr Robot, isn’t he? Molly Ringwald / Jennifer Jason Leigh / Jami Gertz / Phoebe Cates? Larry B Scott?

I can’t remember if it was mentioned here but both the teenage dirtbag character and the chicago punks seemed far more like “80s movie teenage dirtbag” and “80s movie punks” shoved into a show about the 80s, rather than just “characters in a show set in the 80s”

Right, they were too cartoony.

I think the break with the tone was more jarring than anything. We jumped movie genres.

Again, I couldn't get over how much it was like The Matrix.

Jennifer Jason Leigh

she's too good for this garbage

also still managing a quality film career

Grant Morrison always said The Matrix ripped off The Invisibles, and since that episode was explicitly homaging the latter, I guess Morrison was right if it made people think of the former.

the Matrix rips off a lot of things

episode 7 was stupid mostly because if you can make people see/not see things why are you living in a gross abandoned warehouse? seems like it would be beyond trivial to get tons of cash and have a nice apartment

Yeah, the Matrix rips off/borrows/synthesizes a whole shit-ton of sources, not the least of which was its name.

How many times has King Mob been used as a name(not just in Vertigo)? 3-4?

Also, we mentioned that the cartoon clown face used as knife target made the connection to Akira even more explicit than just “secret govt project to experiment on injecting psi powers into children” that was already there, right?

Without going too spoiler heavy, the fact that they used the same sound effect for a bit of tech that is identical to tech used in the film they ref aggravated me. I knew they were already going to lean heavily into that film from the first episode, where you see Paul Reiser’s character observing an dude wielding a quad propane-fueled flamethrower. The level they went into that ep was some of the laziest Family Guy shit, where a Max amount of detail goes into the reference without any twist or comment upon it.

Still, two eps left, let’s see how they land this.

Also, had the thought that casting Brett Gelman as a Brett Gelman character means that they effectively put the same kinda (slightly?) cartoonish/OTT type as a GTA character into this show.

Molly Ringwald is on Riverdale

The Aliens riff where one of the soliders says "stay frosty" made me laugh, it's some Family Guy level referencing but at least it's hanging off an actual plot here

How many times has King Mob been used as a name(not just in Vertigo)? 3-4?

um

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Mob

"one in ten go mad, one in five cracks up" is the official tagline of ILE

Paul Reiser as Carter Burke if Burke was actually a halfway decent dude and got to be in charge of things. Good casting. (Aside from insinuating to Jonathan and Nancy that he'd straight-up kill them if necessary.)

This season of this show is the most anyone has said "Radio Shack" on television in at least a decade.

honestly this was moderately enjoyable garbage.

i did get a kick out of "kid thinks he's in ET but really he's in Gremlins" and i was really glad to see the Smoke Monster from L O S T can still get work and Hellboy is generally great but... that's about it really?

i mean, if I'm charitable the arc is Eleven Finds Her Way Back but really there was no story to speak of, featuring maybe three characters worth giving a shit about, set in a Fake 80s that's mostly stupid when it's not actively irritating (get stuffed, United Punks of Benetton)

can't wait for season 3!

i was surprised they had metal dude's dad call him a 'faggot'. that's a fairly realistic insult for the time but you'd think they would have sidestepped that.

It’s shown in an unquestionably negative light, at least

Didn't see the new It but that f-word pops up there, too, if I read correctly. Period slur!

Netflix episode dumps are annoying inasmuch as it eliminates one's ability to discuss a show until one has watched the whole damn thing. So I'm not reading anything upthread just yet, but with one episode to go I'll declare this to be pretty damn good. The only time it lost me a little was with Kali and the Dream Warriors (although I did appreciate the Invisibles-related graffiti in their clubhouse and, I suppose, not-so-subtle allusion that they're basically an Invisibles cell). At any rate: derivative shmerivative, I say. Derivative shmerivative.

yeah i think ppl overstate teh derivative-ness although i feel like w this season it starts to become more self-conscious & could easily veer as irritating as the people over-complaining about it

we did not invent retromania

Some serious T2 vibes in the lift scene at the end, and I'm sure the soundtrack to that part was lifted directly from Bladerunner 2048??

i don't find this show derivative at all. that's the wrong word entirely.

like, sure it's referential, reverential but it's hardly 'hey guys I got a Rubik's Cube', nor is the plot or the acting or anything about it particularly 'derivative' of anything happening on TV right now. It could so easily be a spoof of eighties VCR culture but I don't get that really

This show is so weird, I don't really care about any particular character and it's frequently ridiculous but very enjoyable to watch. I think it's the period detail that keeps me going.

i liked the LOTR 'ringwraith' style scene too, nice touch

i'm only two eps in but the use of music is ridiculously ott. i love a good soundtrack and i'm fine with them mining the era but let a scene breathe ffs, the first 10 scenes in ep 1 all come with a piece of music, it makes the show feel less like a story and more like a series of montages.

Agree that the Chicago parts were largely pointless. It's like 'we need Eleven to get lost somewhere' and they came up with this dumb Inception-meets-Matrix thing with these too-cool-for-school cyber-punks diversion to keep her busy for a whole episode.

https://www.avclub.com/explaining-stranger-things-most-obscure-reference-1820037980

Also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE7TS2Rituo

once Ready Player One hits theaters you will remember Stranger Things as a high water mark of referential subtlety

The more I read about the references, the happier I am that I have never seen Aliens, the Matrix, Goonies, nor Gremlins (and am unfamiliar with The Invisibles).

But then, maybe it's like loving Paul's Boutique, but never having heard Curtis Mayfield, the Beatles, or Sly.

It's pretty hilarious when they score a non-supernatural character moment with a menacing synth drone.

I'm wondering what Tarfumes actually has seen, now

*puts hand up* I've never seen the Goonies (all the way through. I've caught a bit of it on TV while flicking channels)

The fact that this show is so on the nose as Goonies meets X-Files is exactly its flaw.

I didn't see Goonies until maybe 5 years ago.

imo that one's a fair omission

I can say at the very least that this show is better than The Goonies.

Although I kind of feel like Explorers is an even more accurate reference point than Goonies.