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

Sorry, I meant to write Will, not Danny.

Am I the only one who felt casting Modine here was completely pointless? The three or four scenes where he got to actually do something could've been done by pretty much any second string TV actor, he never felt really threatening or anything.

Ryder was pretty good on the other hand, though her role was pretty one-note, it mostly went along the old "hysterical mother eventually finds the strength to face the monster" trope, a la Shelley Duvall in The Shining. Interested to see whether she gets to do more in a second season. The sheriff guy's "young John C. Reilly" impression and Eleven's intense innocence were the best bits of the show, acting-wise. Would totally watch a show revolving around those two only.

Frodo and the other three hobbits were all okay, but kinda interchangeable. The kid playing Sam was clearly the best, or at least he got the funniest snarky lines. Hope the second season elevates him beyond the comic relief role he mostly had in this one.

It's not like Modine is getting top billing jobs anymore, so his casting seemed appropriate. Also, they might be able to young him down a little bit if there are flashbacks in the future.

The only—ONLY—thing I found disappointing was the monster's design. Seems those featureless "venus fly trap" faces are so commonplace now. And while they do sufficiently creep me out, I guess I was expecting a better reveal.

I though all of the kids were amazing, even the teens. All the adults too. Nancy and Michael's dad was so exquisitely one-note and aloof.

Eleven's mother was the woman the chief and Winona went to go visit, yes? The story about the miscarriage seems like something that would have been used to cover up just literally stealing a baby.

Yeah, agree that the monster was disappointing and too "common horror creature" looking... They shouldn't have shown it properly at all, or it should've been truly faceless or something.

One interesting thing that was barely touched: it seemed like the Demogorgon wasn't really a "monster" per se, just an animal looking for something to eat? Even the creepy things done to Barb and others seemed to be just to provide food for its growing young. It felt like they could've gotten more out of the fact that Modine's character was the one real monster, but that wasn't really explored.

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Eleven's mother was the woman the chief and Winona went to go visit, yes? The story about the miscarriage seems like something that would have been used to cover up just literally stealing a baby.

Yeah, that seemed to be case. At first I feared they were gonna reveal Eleven was the sheriff's girl who didn't die after all, but thankfully they didn't go there, that would've been too appropriate.

I was waiting for them to reveal that Will was really the biological son of the sheriff

Also, I felt kinda bad for Barb and her family. So much of the show revolved around Will and how sad her disappearance made everyone, but at least he was saved! Barb's mom was shown in exactly one scene, and we never saw if her family even found out what really happened to her. In most cases I thought Stranger Things managed to avoid the worst cliches of the '80s movies it was emulating, but here it felt that because Barb was so clearly the "attractive teen girl protagonist's not-so-attractive best sidekick", her fate could just be hand-waved with barely any mention.

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I was waiting for them to reveal that Will was really the biological son of the sheriff

Wasn't it said that the sheriff had been in town for only 4 years?

And that he used to work in some bigger city before that? Probably lost that job because of the trauma of her daughter's death.

details

I think it was implied that he's only been back in town for four years.

As for Barb, I thought it was a pity she just ended up as story fodder in the end, but maybe her parents still believe she ran away?

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I seem to recall one of the deputies asking the sheriff whether it was like this in the big city, or something like that?

One thing that's been bugging me, and it's definitely not ruining the story for me in any way, is that if the gate to the Upside Down was only opened by Eleven recently, what was the creature feeding on before it could get topside?

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Can't imagine the sheriff not telling her parents that she died, even if he wouldn't/couldn't tell all the details.

xp Yeah, I think he grew up in Hawkins, moved away to Indianapolis, and then moved back after his daughter died and his marriage dissolved.

One thing that's been bugging me, and it's definitely not ruining the story for me in any way, is that if the gate to the Upside Down was only opened by Eleven recently, what was the creature feeding on before it could get topside?

Well like I said above, since the upside down world had all the same buildings as the real world, the implication seems to have been that it was once a normal parallel world that was inhabited by people, possibly parallel versions of the people in the real world. But then something had happened and the creature(s) had infested the world and eaten everyone there.

xpost They seemed to be setting something up, with the sheriff asking if Will was gay in this weird way. And the other cops saying he used to sleep with Winona.

And presumably the backstory of the upside down world will be explored more in the next season? Especially if Eleven is now stuck there.

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Yeah, I guess they could still reveal him to be Will's father. But that'd mean he was having an affair with her while he had a wife and daughter, not sure if they want to go there?

We're going to need a full character chronology to sort this out

Joyce and Hopper probably have some kind of ties back to high school, because he seemed to have some weird relationship with Lonnie (competition, disdain, something).

This was like the perfect blend of Spielberg and Stephen king

Was that a hatched egg hopper stopped to look at when they were in the upside-down?

I thought so. Nice Alien reference.

I wasn't sure, not after will choked out that baby slug

I imagine the snakey thing that Hopper pulled out of Will's throat hatched from the egg, then left a little creature thingy inside him to do...what? Who knows.

Eleven is the monster, guys

i.e. she created it

why was will still alive but barb was dead?

Will found hiding places

And was incubating the thing

i.e. she created it

Did she, though? Whenever she was in that black space with the wet floor, she could hone in on already living creatures (people to eavesdrop on), but there's no indication she could ever manifest something into being. She just brought it back out with her.

Xps yeah but the monster snatched him, right? So how did he get away?

And how did the monster get the scientist dude in the elevator at the beginning?

It came through a hole between the dimensions in the ceiling.

Yeah, it was a bit dodgy that the creature dragged both Barb and Will to the upside down dimension, but somehow Will managed to slip away from it while Barb didn't. But I guess Will is smaller and it was easier for him to hide? The creature didn't seem to have good eyesight, or possibly it was even blind? And Barb was bleeding while Will wasn't, so it couldn't track him by smell.

Since there were so many homages to the movie, I'm wondering whether season 2 will be the Aliens to season 1's Alien? The creature couldn't really have taken over a whole planet all by itself, and it was breeding anyway, so we should get multiple monsters next season... Though I'd be more happy if it was more about the mysteries of the upside down dimension in general, I'm not sure if the monster was successfully enough done that it could carry another season.

Yeah, the creature would have to have some amazing backstory for me to be happy with them focusing an entire second season on it.

One more interesting thing that wasn't really discussed in the finale: the sheriff pretty much sold out Eleven to save Will, didn't he? He told the bad guys where El and the other kids were hiding, so what happened next was kinda his fault. At first I thought they'd reveal he was faking, that he told the bad guys some false location, but that didn't seem to be the case... Maybe that's why he's bringing food to El at the end (and possibly helping her hide from the men in black?), because he feels guilty about it?

feel like we were robbed of epic modine death. but maybe he didn't die...it was too quick. they should have had him talking up against a wall in the school and the monster comes out of the wall and chomps his head off. that's always a good way to do it.

Yeah, I didn't really understand that sudden shift in his character. I guess his primary concern was making Joyce's family whole again, all else be damned. I don't know if El is still alive, or if she is, that's she's even in "our" world, but him leaving the Eggo waffles out there makes me think he feels pretty guilty.

I've only seen like 2 and some change episodes of this but my early reaction: fuck this show. Have a lot of affection for the things it references, but (or because of that) this feels so pandering, witless, and soulless. Does it do anything interesting in the back half or does it continue emptily jerking off ppl who were kids in the 80s?

i'm an 80's kid who has shrugged and ignored over 5 million 80's revivals and i loved this!

Yeah, the same here. It doesn't really go above and beyond it's inspirations, but IMO it's a solid, intriguing mystery story with mostly good actors and some neat visuals, not just an empty pastiche. The 80s tropes are really just the cake dressing, I would've liked this story even with a present day setting. But if the first 2 episodes haven't convinced you, I can't imagine the rest of it will.

one break with 80s form-- the girl who has sex lives and the virgin dies

I was thinking that mustve been deliberate hey?

How do you know she was virgin? Just because she looked geeky?

like i said on the netflix thread, it reminded me of the faux-spielberg Super 8 and i loved that movie to death. it's not like you can't do the 80's right its just that so many people get it wrong or just go for surface visuals. this had the surface visuals but it also just had a good t.v. movie story.

gotta say the first scene with her friend at the lockers, man, they nailed the brainy redhead hairdo and outfit so perfectly. stunning really.

this was better than M&M too. i eagerly awaited this t.v. movie in 1982 after i read the book.

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

plus, as far as nostalgia goes, i'll take Poltergeist and Stephen King short stories over stupid Ghostbusters any day.

one break with 80s form-- the girl who has sex lives and the virgin dies

― Blowout Coombes (President Keyes), Thursday, July 21, 2016 12:44 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This occurred to me too. I thought at least Steve was a goner.

I've been watching everything from Ep2 of this season on x1.25 playback and still it's like fucking glacial, I should just step off.

This is like "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: The Extended cut."

And so loud. All of it so loud. My poor dogs did not enjoy being in the room with it.

Dogs are the best tv critics, mine barks at the television whatever is on and he's always correct.

why did I expect this episode to be anything but hot garbage, it was filmed with the rest of this season.

Dogs are the best tv critics, mine barks at the television whatever is on and he's always correct.

Ha! Mine normally don't care, which was why I noticed it. They had a real air of "Jesus, is this still happening?" when we started into the final hour last night, and I could only agree.

Despite the runtimes I felt like these last two moved much faster than the first batch of this season. Having the different locations moving toward the same point in time worked very well in that respect.

I stuck with it but yeah, fucking interminable. If I had a button that automatically jumped past any 'people emoting in rooms' scenes, the second episode would have been about a half-hour long.

And so loud. All of it so loud. My poor dogs did not enjoy being in the room with it.

The problem is that the dialogue is so much quieter than everything else, and the sound effects are on steroids.

“Here, let me staple that.” [ominous zoom-in on stapler] KER-CHUNK!!!!!!

Has anyone made a youtube supercut of every time someone turns away from the group, looks off in the distance, and shouts “Guys?…GUYS!” ?

That's become a running joke in our household.

God only knows when we'll get around to watching the final episode. Even one of my kids had just about had enough. She'd recently re-watched most of the other seasons with her cousin, and when the credits of this penultimate episode hit she immediately said she wanted to watch S3 again to remind herself that the show could be good.

Her theory of what went wrong with this one is basically the "high on their own supply" theory. That is, the show people think every single cast member and relationship is equally important and iconic, and therefore deserves as much screen time as possible. And yet, they keep adding new characters, who if only by dint of being new are often more interesting. Again, imo the only actors carrying any weight in this season are Hopper and Max, and the former has been relegated to a Russian prison camp (I have no idea why) the whole time. Tbf, my kid defended Wynona's acting in this season by citing the terrible dialogue she's been given to deliver, but my take is that a good actor (David Harbour, Sadie Sink) can rise above the campy melodramatic stuff.

In their defense, the rest of the crew features some performers with solid comedy chops. Dustin, Steve, Argyle, Murray. But this show is not a comedy, and their comedic relief comes off as yet more padding amidst all the oppressive portent.

This is like reading a book by having it spelled to you. Trust your fuckin audience just an IOTA for god’s sake.

Still enjoying, but increasingly grudgingly.

Bah, you grumpy old fucks :p

My daughter and I loved the finale. Yes it was overlong but there was certainly plenty of fireworks and also lots of feels and stake raising.

Also liked how everything was tied in to earlier seasons and the final shot definitely left me looking forward to next season

I guess I'm grumpy because I really enjoyed the first 3 series, despite always wishing it was a little pacier (can't defend the 'old' part tho lol)

There were many things about this season that I loved, particularly Eddie and Argyle. Joseph Quinn should give Charlie Heaton some tips on how to do a convincing American accent.

The last shot irrationally pissed me off. I thought, "Jeez, they just got home! Give them a minute to relax!" And what happened to Murray?

Older teen's spoiler-free take away from the finale: "It sucks."

We asked, is it because you didn't like it, or didn't like what happened? She said it's because the acting and writing were terrible. I'm kind of surprised, not that she thought it was terrible (I also think this season sucked, not least because of the acting and writing) but because she is by far the biggest fan in the house (had posters, shirts, etc.), and if it even lost *her* ...

The only major disappointment for me was that the Dean & Jerry dynamic of Steve and Dustin -- which had been getting funnier with each season -- was largely absent. My idea for a spinoff is having those two, in character, co-hosting a variety show set in the mid-'80s.

I'm about 20 mins in and so far the most annoying rhing is "cracks in dams create pressure, the pressure builds..." no, the pressure is constant, the cracks reduce the ability of the dam to withstand it.

I chuckled at the use of breaking something to demonstrate how things break.

"Here is this pane of glass." (throws brick) "Now it has shattered. Understand? We are in grave danger!"

(Calls to get pane of glass replaced)

so
slow
and did the baddy win in the end or not?
They took everything that was good about this show and spoiled it, BOOOOOOO

I do like Vecna's crib, very end-of-Labyrinth.

'Member Labyrinth?

"cracks in dams create pressure, the pressure builds..." no, the pressure is constant, the cracks reduce the ability of the dam to withstand it.

ah but what if this water is CLEVER, sensing the dam's weakness and exerting extra pressure there!

Disappointed none of the bullies ended up in a dumpster, try harder next time guys.
― kinder, Saturday, 20 August 2016 13:14 (five years ago)

If every single one of the bullies doesn't end up in a dumpster at the end I'm quitting Netflix.

― kinder, Saturday, 4 June 2022 09:25 (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

This might be starting to look a little obsessive but come on, those rollerskate jerks needed some comeuppance or it's not a true 80s story.

Tbf, she did get a broken nose, one jock got a kick in the balls and main jock was literally cut in half by an earthquake.

pfft, they needed to get gunged or something

S4 really gives [insert your preferred worst season of True Blood] a run for its money. absolute chore to get through.

I never thought to compare ST to True Blood but wow, yes

Where did that fucking sword come from?

It was still sitting there from back when the prisoners were sent out to fight with melee weapons, when he originally escaped.

Oh fer fucksake

we finished it tonight & i’m just gonna say i enjoyed this season

i don’t have a lot of deep things to say yet but i think that all the dark teenager shit was so good. so many moments this season that really felt like stephen king done right, honoring the best most crushing moments in his best novels, just such a tonally ~right~ mix of teenage dark shit with supernatural gross weirdness

not a ripoff. not an imitation.
there were moments that were just like being huddled under my blanket with a flashlight still reading way after lights-out, or trying to sleep but hoping nothing bad happened to anyone while i was away. there were times this season, and esp the finale where, in the moment, those stakes still felt kinda real, in the best stephen king way possible. I was all-in. And i didn’t expect that.

i didnt love the russia storyline: it dragged a lot - but i could watch tons more of the rest of the gang having adventures together, because that shit was great

anyway maybe that makes me an old cornball … or maybe ~you all~ are a bunch of complainy complainersons! geez lol jk jk

but i will say: the actual ending? fuuuuuck that was on some lotr return of the king five-ending bullshit omg END jeez

the real mystery of season 5 better be what did erica find under lucas's bed? it was a hundred on the disgusting scale! the disgusting scale only even goes to ten!! my money is on demogorgon hentai, but that's no surprise, my money is on demogorgon hentai most of the time

VG otm with pretty much all of that. I enjoyed watching this season the most since s1, could have lived with less Russia and a better ending.

I still haven't seen the final episode, but I did have my daughter and her friend watch the original "Nightmare on Elm Street," and her take was that the creators of "Stranger Things" owe that movie "5 billion dollars."

Josh’s daughter OTM

(Well, maybe it’s a little more Nightmare on Elm Street 3)

That's the one in the asylum right? Dream Warriors? The hundreds of hours of the season I have seen to date remind me a lot of the first one. whenever I get around to watching the 30-hour final episode maybe I'll see the dream warriors comparison.

Dokken shows up

Would awesome if the Spotify top 10 was, like, Kate Bush, Metallica ... and Dokken.

Netflix sub ends tomorrow so I binged ST from start to finish this past week. Hmm

Season 1 was okay but didn't really have me geared up for any more. I persisted. S2 was meh but saved my interest with the "Billy" character - haha what a card. S3 kinda better. S4, didn't live up to the hype, but the final episode I thought was pretty amazing and now I want more.

love Gelman in this, and I actually liked all the Russian prison camp stuff.
The pizza hippy guy was annoying as shit tho.

so now I'm trying to cram in Lady Dynamite before my sub ends

Lot of bad wigs this season. I was also disappointed by the much hyped Kate Bush scene because... you could barely hear it? I thought it'd be a swelling mass of song powering over everything but it was just sort of tootling along?

I just finished binging this whole series. I loved it, although Eleven falling apart at the 11th hour (heh) seemed not to fit, especially when she came in as such a badass.

I gotta say, the metal scene with Eddie and Dustin was probably my favorite moment of the whole season, if not the entire show.