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

that’s interesting, i think the real problem is that the whole hawkins crew can act circles around the california crew (except argyle, he’s a cliche but the actor is likable enough to make it work)

xps to josh

The actor playing Eddie has big RDJ energy

Yeah, another reason why sidelining him for two entire episodes (so, about six hours) made no sense. Hey, let's introduce this new livewire character with lots of energy! And then ... let's lock him away so we can focus on all the moping!

No one strikes me as a bad actor in this show but many characters strike me as pooooooooooorly written/not-fun. Agree that Hawkins Crew >>>>>>>>>> Cali Crew.

will appears to be wearing the same shirt that he did in S1, which is now small enough on him that it has fused with his own flesh

i am watching because my kids are crazy about it. “this is the best series i’ve ever seen”

first ep of new series pretty rough in terms of graphic child death, not a fan really

Just wait until they flash back to the graphic child deaths in every single episode. In case you missed those details.

I’ve just finished episode 4 (so, like five hours in) and it’s odd that it feels like the table is still being set, rather than the plot fully underway. Not much to add other than I agree with a lot of the points above: too many disconnected groups of characters, longer running times haven’t added to the show at all, and I just fast-forward through the Russian stuff. The cast is too big—I don’t think Will or Jonathan, for instance, have mattered at all to the plot so far. Writing that, I realize that I don’t care much about the main cast from the first season anymore—Mike and Eleven don’t interest me much either yet this season. If it were up to me, I’d reduce the young adult case to Robin, Steve, Dustin and one or two others. Also have noticed a lot more flashing back to things that happened only one or two episodes ago.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned it before - is it too obvious? *has* it been mentioned? - but the new series of Stranger Things has made Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" come back into the pop charts here in jolly old blighty, at number 8:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61685561

My initial reaction was "how does that work", and then I remembered that you can buy music over the internet. Perhaps she'll finally crack the elusive US market. Three months from now Kate Bush will get a cheque for £15.45 for all the streaming royalties. She has even acknowledged this fact (the chart placement, not the fact that you can buy music over the internet) on her website:
https://www.katebush.com/news/stranger-things

At this point my mind is pinging because I'm sure I first read about this on a forum very recently, possibly Ilxor itself. My internet search history has "stranger things baltimora" in it on 01 June, but nothing from Ilxor. Someone else must have pointed this out already. They must have.

In her message Kate Bush uses the phrase "bated breath", which she could so easily have misspelled, but she didn't because she went to grammar school. When I was a kid there was a Children's BBC TV show called Running Scared that had "Running Up That Hill" as the theme tune. Even as a kid I thought the show was punching above its weight. I learn from the internet that it also had Brian Eno and Jon Hassell on the soundtrack. I wonder if the producer picked up the phone and thought "if you don't ask, you don't get".

Stranger Things.

nice.

Based on S3 and my 20-minute peek into S4, one of the main problems--the main one, maybe--is that, unfair though it may be, some kid actors were not meant to be anything other than kid actors. Their acting is just very awkward when they get older. On the old Roseanne show, Darlene made the transition from energetic kid to brooding teenager brilliantly; D.J., on the other hand, who was so weirdly funny early on, just wasn't very good as a teenager. For me, that was the case with at least two or three of the characters on Stranger Things.

― clemenza, Saturday, June 4, 2022 10:48 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Malcolm in the Middle definitely had this problem with Dewey & a little bit with Reese. Malcolm himself transitioned to an overly whiny & dramatic teenager pretty well I guess but yeah it didn't surprise me his career basically ended there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBeuBFE6yHU

(xposts) It was a few decades before I realised the song wasn’t actually called “Running Scared”

I heard "Running Up That Hill" on the radio today, so--maybe--that's why.

There was some functionally identical cover of "Running Up that Hill" I heard a bunch on a radio maybe a couple of years ago. This one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7iVWK2W48o

Of course all the comments are still about Stranger Things. But if that's what it takes for people to hear this song, that's cool with me.

started watching this when my gf put on “the first episode of stranger things”, and it took me about 20 minutes to realize she meant first episode of the fourth season. ended up continuing to watch and despite its seriously languid pacing and kaleidoscopic direction it’s enjoyable with some serious flaws, the main thing beings there’s just too many characters with not enough to do. like much of its intended audience I am set up to tolerate a lot of the imperfections just because of what they’re going for, but I can’t say there’s much this show adds to the canon that twin peaks or buffy haven’t already. happy for kate bush tho

way behind, just watched 1st ep of new season & i really dug it

I still really like the Stephen King vibes & i think they do it so well ie using the characters as a bridge to the actual spooky bad shit but also spooky bad shit can just as easily be homelife or school

i don’t think any of the kids are any worse now than before, just some of them don’t get to do very much or arent expected to

eddie my new fave, he reminds me of a 90’s actor i cant quite place rn but the young rdj comparisons are also otm

just finished it yesterday - same, i quite like this still, overstuffed as it is. the high school/teen angst/bullying stuff is still the most tedious part of the show, but it gets better once they get deeper into the Upside Down/mystery shit. Russia plot went on for far, far too long but overall, it's good folding laundry TV.

Re some of the kids not having much to do: I was gonna say that it doesn't help that they keep adding new characters, but... I really like the new characters and prefer them to most of the original cast lol. Love Argyle and Eddie. i also thought young RDJ the first time I saw Eddie, not just his looks but his mannerisms and the way he talks as well.

Robin/Maya Hawke also a really fun presence - she really is equal parts Uma/Ethan, it's kinda fascinating to watch.

young rdj

only just realised people are talking about robert downey jr and it's not actually a typo of ronnie james dio

a young richard d. james

Was Maya Hawke's character this manic in the last season? It's so weird to see her paired with Nancy, because Nancy acts like a younger actor playing old and Hawke seems like an older actor playing young, though irl she is five years younger than Natalie Dyer. (I think Will and Mike and Dustin are the only teens that are still teens; Steve is 30, a couple of years older than Charlie Heaton, who looks 40 playing 30.)

Argyle ... I assume that is a Die Hard reference?

remindes me of a young Mr. October himself, slugger reginald duane jackson!

who unfortunately has been CANCELLED since that time he tried to assassinate the queen.

The awful wig they gave Heaton isn’t doing him any favors in terms of him trying to look like a teenager.

And with the number of hard turns it took, that VW bus should’ve flipped on its side at least 20 times now. (Unless it’s an in-jokey reference to Back To The Future, where the older VW bus also should’ve flipped a bunch of times.)

Really enjoyed this season. It's always been dumb but also a lot of fun and watching with my 14 year old daughter helped me focus on the fun side. She's also much better than me at naming all the kid actors as they've all got like 20 million followers on instagram or tik tok or whatever.

But yeah the final Vecna reveal was incredibly heavy handed, even for this show. Like, yeah we get it already. The zooming in on his wrist would have been a really cool reveal if they hadn't spent the previous 10 minutes or so clearly fucking telegraphing it.

Quite like the fact that they may have been foreshadowing Vecna in previous seasons as apparently there's a few scenes where you can hear the distorted clock chime.

I'm a bit puzzled by timeline I was thinking that 001 as orderly looked too young to be the kid who had killed half his family but I guess there's puberty aged kid in 1959 who is in the Creel led programme as an orderly in the late 70s and it's only 20 years. BUt yeah that whole origin thing seemed to be very heavy handed

BUt otherwise have somewhat enjoyed the season. Is everybody getting too old for this to continue anyway.

i'm pretty sure i am

Lol. Season 5 is the final one and mutterings that there will be a time jump because the kids are getting too old

Am I the last idiot on earth to realize that Gaten Matarazzo is the son of Dawn Weiner?

Apparently not? Mother also named Heather M, but not related to the actress.

Ahhhhh, okay. I saw his mother's name and just assumed.

kept wondering why dmitri the russian prison guard looked familiar. it's jaqen h'ghar from GoT!

i’ve seen three episodes of this now and you know what? i love it??

i feel like it’s leaning into pre-80s genre pulp in a way i love. the high school basketball star wandering into the woods, distraught, screaming to the gods.. the utter psychedelic insanity of the roller rink. elle is going to go full carrie and i can’t wait

I wondered if the denouement fight was a trope I wasn't overly familiar with, based on pulp films from the time or something

I watched the first half of the first episode last night, not bad at all.

In a way, it felt like returning home after a long journey.

But I’ll echo many others in saying damn, that’s a long episode of TV.

Will Byers has grown!

Lucas’ sister is NOT ELEVEN YEARS OLD

But whatever. This is a good time

The Duffer brothers grew up in Durham NC. Nice easter egg placing Skull Rock at Cornwallis and Garrett roads .. both roads in Durham probably near where they lived though those 2 roads don't intersect

https://imgur.com/a/3vISxMD

Agh, the image didn't work. Can look it up on google maps if you care.

We had a good time watching. As everyone has pointed out, editing the episodes down from 80+ minutes to 60-65 minutes would have made it much better. No need for a self-indulgent director's cut of this season - we're already watching it.

I’m rewatching from the beginning before the final S4 episodes come out. While the attention to period detail is mostly very well done — they even got the 1984 candy wrapper designs right! —there’s a 1986 Corolla that keeps showing up in 1983-84 and it’s making me IA.

never seen this show but am thinking about watching it, but ... well ... "graphic child death" doesn't sound like something i'm super stoked to see. what are we talking about here? can someone give me a brief description? might be a deciding factor for me.

in S4 there is a flashback scene of a lab with a bunch of kids who have been killed in the hallways and various rooms. the deaths have pretty much all already happened, so you just see their bodies. i didn't think it was really necessary.

the first couple of seasons are a bit tamer with that sort of thing iirc.

i just watched S4E4 and it would have really been an all-time episode if it hadn't been for the laughably long exposition from victor kreel in prison, and the really quite too long trip to the underworld from max. otherwise it really was excellent. i love will. the hawkins kids are great. TIL: the incredibly crush-worthy actress who plays robin is THE CHILD OF ETHAN HAWKE AND UMA THURMAN

Also, to be fair, the whole show from the start more or less hinges on children in peril. In the '80s movies they reference, kids of this/their age very rarely are subjected to the kind of horror and trauma and pain that they experience in this show. That to me ... I can't decide if it's subversion of the formula or cynical adaptation to current trends/tastes by leaning into violence and gore. S3 kind of shocked me with its pretty impressively ott body horror, not just because of the graphic blood and guts but because I'm not used to seeing it in what is essentially on its face a family show, or at least a show for young teens. Then again, I know families that watched "Walking Dead" together, and that show is pretty gnarly, too, so who knows.

i think it's leaning into current trends - the lab scenes feel more akin to something like Last Of Us than anything in the past - but also a way of giving themselves a bigger palette of nostalgia references to draw from i.e. poltergeist, exorcist - stuff i was totally not allowed to watch when i was the age my kids are now

The Thing, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scanners ...

i really like how it’s quite explicitly about ptsd and suicide without getting too after-school special about it

max: trauma witness, abusive stepdad
napolean dynamite: survivor’s guilt
chrissie: ?? did her boyfriend abuse her? is she bulimic? the scene in the toilet suggests that

I’m enjoying Jason’s “grab the microphone and seize the moments” far too much, keep expecting him to turn to the camera and wink

The persistent flashbacks to the dead kids in the Hawkins lab is tough, but the scene which really stood out for me was in E6 (I think) - the suddenly vicious gun battle and the dude dying in the back of the van, Reservoir Dogs style. A lot of the violence is cartoonish but this seemed in another level of horror.

Also, to be fair, the whole show from the start more or less hinges on children in peril. In the '80s movies they reference, kids of this/their age very rarely are subjected to the kind of horror and trauma and pain that they experience in this show. That to me ... I can't decide if it's subversion of the formula or cynical adaptation to current trends/tastes by leaning into violence and gore. S3 kind of shocked me with its pretty impressively ott body horror, not just because of the graphic blood and guts but because I'm not used to seeing it in what is essentially on its face a family show, or at least a show for young teens. Then again, I know families that watched "Walking Dead" together, and that show is pretty gnarly, too, so who knows.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 16 June 2022 12:03 (one hour ago) link

The spirit of this post is similar to my thoughts on Star Wars. What it is vs. the demographics it targets.