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

"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.

haha I watched that last year w the kids at a relative's house and yes

not a good film

(it works okay until the aliens actually show up)

I'm wondering what Tarfumes actually has seen, now

― mh, Wednesday, November 1, 2017 12:17 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In terms of references in the show, Ghostbusters, E.T....and yeah, that's pretty much it.

I was more into comedies at that age; wasn't interested in a lot of scary/supernatural stuff.

Just looked through a list of films from '85 and here are my reference predictions for next season:

Back to the Future
Rambo
Real Genius
Day of the Dead
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Silver Bullet
Teen Wolf
Ghoulies
Krush Groove
Kiss of the Spider Woman
Weird Science
Tampopo
Mask
Santa Claus: the Movie
The Color Purple (obligatory Spielberg)
Re-Animator
Police Academy 2
Cocoon
Grace Quigley
The Goonies

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).

The Invisibles is a comic from the '90s and '00s, it's not the same type of reference as the rest of the series is trucking in

Which makes the whole homage kind of jarring tbh

haha I watched that last year w the kids at a relative's house and yes

not a good film

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 November 2017 16:28 (one hour ago) Permalink

(it works okay until the aliens actually show up)

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 November 2017 16:29 (one hour ago) Permalink

OTM, however I watched the shit out of it as one of the few VHS tapes we owned.

I assume it's as clumsy and stupid as the refs to Under the Skin in S1

xp

With Under the Skin they were basically just ripping off a cool visual

It's a lot clumsier than that

I think all of S3 should be a blatant Mac and Me homage.

The main characters in The Invisibles are a five person group of violent punk rebels with psychic powers, fighting against a nefarious conspiracy involving the government and other authorities. It's not really a particularly blatant lift, the motivation of the group in the comic is completely different, and presumably so is that of the bad guys.

Yes, which makes it all the more inexplicable

As people have already mentioned, the whole psychic kids scenario in ST is more reminiscent of Akira than the Invisibles.

xpost

As I mention, the only reason I made the connection was the explicit Invisibles-related graffiti in the background during their scenes.

It's not really a particularly blatant lift

King Mob graffiti sounds p fucking blatant to me

I meant lift in the sense that they'd borrowed the plot of the comic. The graffiti are just a cute little shout-out.

in a show composed entirely of cute little shout-outs

idk why I'm on this thread, I'm not watching this and will duck out

it's just...odd that they would shout out such a 90s artefact in a (ostensibly) none more 80s show

I thought you were gonna let us enjoy our sub-literate derivative nonsense

Maybe they just wrote the episode, then realised the characters were unintentionally similar to the Invisibles, and decided to add the graffiti to acknowledge the similarity?

I'm pretty sure they were explicitly intended to be the Invisibles. Eleven kept saying stuff like, "hey, Invisibles, where am I?" and "hey, Invisibles, where is the bathroom?". IIRC.

Well, TBH, in that one scene Kali did make them *invisible* to the cops.

Your honor, the prosecution rests.