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

which ties into another weird aspect to this series...do people outside Hawkins have any clue what's going on? do the people *in* the town even know? there's that post-credits sequence which implies that the whole incident turns into a weird conspiracy theory for late-night TV but that seems a bit inadequate to me...didn't the Mind Flayer gather up like 100 people, including several children who are all dead now? wasn't there a skyscraper-sized monster running around town for a few nights? did the massive Russian base under the mall just get ignored by everybody?

Zombies! Hyena people! Snyder!!

ok what makes sense to me now is that the Russians motivations were not so much about unleashing nightmare creatures as they were a way to send people from Russia to America undetected? explains how Hopper wound up in Russia I guess.

In MY country, GATE closes YOU!

oh god S4 is gonna have El rescue Hop through the gate while saying something like "keep the door 3 inches open", I just know it

gotta admit i got bored and wandered off somewhere around the TRUTH SERUM... can't really imagine coming back for more

I watched the second episode of this season

btw I should clarify, nothing bothered me about the truth serum bit. that’s just the last thing I remember lol.

was really struck by the depth of characterizations, the creative production design, the tightly plotted ratcheting up of tension, the recontextualization and reinvention of classic tropes from a new perspective

That’s supposed to be MDMA right? Was that around in 85?

MDMA has been around since the early 20th century

but I don't think it was supposed to be MDMA

finished tonight, show continues to be insanely watchable and very silly if you spend even one minute thinking about it after it's over. it looked great and a lot of the action scenes were really well done. they have an amazing cast that just keeps getting better. the steve/robin chemistry was so good.

and i won't remember a thing that happened by the time season 4 starts up.

Yeah Steve/Robin was the best thing in the series so far

Even if all the rest of these meanies are gonna pretend to ignore it, I'll admit that I noticed your pass-agg performative bitching, shakes, don't worry, we didn't forget that you hate things

shakey thank you for consistently delivering dramatic tension

I am prehistoric, but I can't help but think that the mall fight would have been more impressive looking with a non-CGI monster and actual pyrotechnics.

MDMA was definitely around in '85 and being discussed seriously as a drug used in psychotherapy. I think they just lazily invented a mixture of MDMA and sodium pentothal because the side effects of an SP overdose aren't fun.

Non-Stop Ecstastic Dancing from 1982 famously inspired and made under the influence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_Stop_Ecstatic_Dancing

one thing that I noticed this season is that the spooky title sequence which fit so well in S1 just feels goofy now, the series now is basically The Goldbergs + some Russians and a big ass spider

xp: so was Meat Puppets II (1984)

We just finished this last night. At this point, I've come to mostly just expect some spooks, some laughs, a dece cast that I enjoy watching, and a shitload of frothy retro pop cultural nods, all wrapped up in a sleek visual style. So I wasn't disappointed. Stuff like Hopper's letter at the end and Steve's evolving relationships (and just the evolution of Steve in general) are icing on the cake.

THAT SAID: while I contented myself last season with the likelihood that they weren't planning on stretching their supernatural wings beyond whatever's going on with the Upside Down and its monstrous inhabitants, we're now three seasons in with all those crazy goings-on but without much fleshing out of the premise. Like, cool, this particular bubble of weirdness is going to be the focus of the show, but could we maybe explore that bubble a little more? We have basically no better understanding of what this shit-crazy dimension is or why people are trying to access it or what interest its denizens have in our world than we did at the start of the series. If the next season is just about everyone running away from a hundred foot tall Demogorgon/Mindflayer hybrid, I might start turning into shakey.

It might be better not to. When mysterious fantastical things are explained they lose their magic and wonder.

Let me tell you about midi-chlorians...

yeah it's weird why would you want to learn more?

I don't need the nature of the weirdness to be explained, I'd just like the reasons for people dabbling in the weirdness or the weirdness encroaching into the real world to be a little more complex than 'because'.

Maybe they'll published a novelization where they flesh out details

well, if you found a scab on the surface of reality you would pick at it, wouldn't you?

yeah it's a bit weird they don't expand on it at all since I felt like S1 explained just enough to make it spooky but not enough that it would be bogged down in making no sense whatsoever. like...it's an opposite world or 'shadow realm' in which all our physical structures exist (there was a Castle Byers in the Upside Down right?) but the only way beings in there can effect the real world is through electrical pulses, or something? wasn't there a scene in S1 where a gorgon hand started pushing through the wall? and a random portal in a tree that Nancy got sucked into for a small while? idk I kinda feel the writers didn't exactly think about this a whole lot so maybe it's foolish to speculate too much

I am 100% okay with depictions of the inexplicable, but when there's a variety of shady parties in the narrative who seem to have gleaned something explicable about the 'inexplicable', there's only so much longer you can continue to depict the 'inexplicable' as inexplicable before it ceases to be narratively satisfying.

I kinda feel the writers didn't exactly think about this a whole lot

plenty of evidence that not a lot of thought went into this show. You want a Netflix 80s pastiche that had some thought put into it, watch GLOW.

do they explain what is ladies?

they are gorgeous QED

Just starting the third season (intentionally avoided this thread the last few weeks). I liked the Fast Times at Ridgemont High inversion but not a whole lot else in the first episode. I remember the sheriff was starting to grate on me towards the end of the second season, and he now seems to have officially taken over from the early Lucas (he got better) as the show's most annoying malcontent. Winona Ryder's still good.

After finishing S3 i really like Billy, and Steve & Robin. At least those characters were the most memorable for me. Billy’s “Moving In Stereo” scene was so great

https://media.giphy.com/media/uTBMqJFIrLU8BuWHnc/giphy.gif

When the two girls are in the mall and poke their heads around a corner in the second episode, where's that image taken from? Is it Desperately Seeking Susan?

...they repeat the image next episode with Dustin and the ex-boyfriend. Driving me crazy trying to place it.

I would watch a show of Steve and Robin working in a video store and solving mysteries.

I am putting in my formal request for them to do a series arc that is an homage to Electric Dreams (keeping up with the Giorgio Moroder).

I feel like the evolution of Steve can largely be chalked up to the realization that they made a huge mistake in casting Joe Keery in the role of an unlikeable jerk.

I would watch a show of Steve and Robin working in a video store and solving mysteries.

Yes, except I would like them to somehow continue wearing the sailor uniforms.

Bloodhound Gang remake. Erica in it too obv.

Saw some of the new season at a friend's, having skipped s2. They sure leaned into making Hopper incredibly brash and annoying, huh

I think he was just overacting.

talk about not learning anything from your parents

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/uma-thurman-daughter-tarantino-film-cast-maya-hawke-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-a8504081.html

"American Pie" was close to great...I've progressively lost interest in the monster (in all its various incarnations), otherwise I wouldn't equivocate.

Winona looks so much like Harry Dean Stanton in her Russian uniform. I can’t unsee it.

Leave Winona alone

Obviously I’m very sorry

love this season, all the Steve and Robin stuff was A+, I loved how he deftly turned the "reveal" into a friendly debate about the hotness of her crush

not so keen on the "Russians as villains" arc that they seem to be setting up for S4

the monster was better when it was a creepy gooey crawling pile of partly dissolved rats and flesh, once it gained a form it was a cartoon

dusty and steve spin off when

Rewatching ssn 3 with my wife
It is so apparent that the ice cream shop storyline is the golden one