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

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.

ive seen alien & aliens & i think i noticed one reference in both seasons. it's been awhile. also i never really broke down films in this way where i was isolating them into bit parts or lines i memorized or "memorable shots" or any of that, my approach to film has always been much more as average viewer than it was like my more music nerd tendencies. so anyway the references go over my head a lot, or they more just feel like an ambient tone of '80s-ness

King Mob graffiti sounds p fucking blatant to me

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, November 1, 2017 2:38 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sad this isn't about D-40 arguing that Stranger Things rips off Chief Keef somehow

heh

shakey mo i thought you were leaving this thread

"Kali actress was so bad"

"and her crew was corny as hell"

they were awesome! such a perfect homage to 80's movie/t.v. "punks". that alley that 11 walks through was such a perfect MTV video alley too.

that whole season was totally worth it for the awesome last episode. that was the best last episode ever. so cool. they really saved everything great for that one hour.

if you watch that companion netflix series 11 talks about how hard that chicago episode was for her. how after they filmed the modine part she had to go cry in the bathroom for an hour.

ep 7 was an excruciating set-up to the final 10 minutes or so where they break into that guys house, which were good. I turned it off halfway through (during the "dead end justice" scene) because the tone was so wrong.

"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."

i really saw this at part of her bildungsroman. she's the most compelling character by far and the visit to her mom and then chicago and then knowing that she has to go back and face that place again...it was a pretty cool coming of age thing!

the cabin stuff was pretty intense too. a crash course in teen/father angst/boredom. and she was trapped there just like she was trapped with papa modine all that time. kinda creepy. trauma city. so, that's why i appreciated her freedom quest.

Yeah, I guess if I was being charitable, maybe the 80s movie punks are purposely cartoony to emphasize how they don't even feel like they're from the same world that Eleven is used to - a child who's been locked up her whole life and has very little experience of the world. Maybe? Idk. They're still super annoying.

xp agree the cabin stuff was great. She's a fantastic actor

the duffer brothers talk a little about how they were excited to do the 80's urban movie thing on that netflix interview show. they should do a whole movie for netflix a la linda blair's savage streets.

http://www.joblo.com/images_arrownews/linda-blair-4.jpg

that episode made me want to watch class of 1984.

http://www.slashingthrough.com/images/reviews/classof2.jpg

Yeah, I plan on watching all those extra features segments that we got this time. I just finished the season last night though, so I'm giving it a while to breathe.

that rap on fallon is painful, I made it about 20 seconds in. I just can't do those things.

Cara Buono and the Lost Boy kid scene was a hilarious tonal shift. I wonder if much is going to come of that in S3? Kind of hope so, although I don't know what that'll mean for their family

I'm also hoping the Invisibles shout-outs in the Chicago episode were more than just a cute gag, and next season we're gonna see some psychic punks vs. government conspiracy action, inspired by the comic, instead of yet more Upside Down monsters.

I don't want to watch this (presumably) spin-off show. The punks reminded me of any number of useless vampire gangs, except none of them were vampires. And if you're worrying about laying low, maybe don't have a massively obvious and different hairdo for each member of your gang. I genuinely wouldn't have cared about the hair if they hadn't kept talking about wanting to stay out of sight. It all reminded me too much of the episode of Gilmore Girls where Jess goes to California.

The stunt casting I really want to see for next season is Greg Evigan as Paul Reiser's husband.

I was mostly reminded of the "punk" episode of Quincy, but didn't mind the episode.

I can't place where the warehouse is, though. It looks like it's on the water, east of downtown, which would put it in/near Navy Pier...which was pretty touristy in 1984 (as it is now). And there are/were no train lines that went to Navy Pier.

My favorite fake punks are the bad guys in Jackie Chan's "Rumble in the Bronx," not least because in 1995 (!) they should have known better ...
https://cdn.empireonline.com/jpg/80/0/0/1000/563/0/north/0/0/0/0/0/t/films/33542/images/rGeVEsRDVvlMBN7fmOKhNW2GtWy.jpg

but because you can also clearly see the Canadian mountains in the background of half the scenes.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yAqQZgvm-ys/UQWqGm3CIyI/AAAAAAAAA9g/bdBelxlf6B8/s1600/rumble_bronxmountains.jpg

The stunt casting I really want to see for next season is Greg Evigan as Paul Reiser's husband.

This.

Rumble in the Bronx was, iirc, the movie my friends and I were trying to go to but was inexplicably rated R. My parents hadn't left yet and volunteered to see it with us so we could go

not the best Jackie Chan, but lol@ the punks

i hope these kids end up okay in real life. i can see dustin in a future version of celebrity rehab. hope 11 goes the natalie portman route and not the lohan route. guess it depends on who she has around her. they are all pretty talented but she is definitely the breakout star. man, that will byers can really look insane in some shots. his face is crazy.

also, it totally went over my head that they were playing dig dug as a nod to the tunnels under the town. and that animated video game was a nod to the whole dustin/max/lucas thing. they are clever.

Yeah, I'm to the point where I always fret about kid actors and their futures. Justifiably so, sadly.

I thought the ending was pretty great. Look, man, this isn't high art. It did what it set out to do, it was well-crafted, pretty much everybody brought their A-game. I just can't find it in myself to gripe about folks who've smooshed Spielberg and King together so perfectly.

Dustin and Steve is such an inspired pairing. I hope we see more of that. Dustin's lil mini-arc in the last episode was legit affecting.

I also love Steve giving Dustin all his dumb PUA advice about negging girls and ignoring them, which ended up blowing up in both of their faces. Whereas Nancy was able to tell Dustin how to REALLY relate to girls.

hair advice was on point though