Stranger Things Netflix series catch-all

Pages

Shades of Super-8, ET, etc. Definite Steven Spielberg vibe here. Me likey.

A couple of the etc being some Goonies and Poltergeist mixed in. You got the first two down. It's seriously borrowing from E.T. They even got the Greg character including the ball cap.

I'm really looking forward to this.

It's funny how this second trailer really pushes this as a Spielbergian adventure with young friends while the first trailer pitched it as a Stephen King-like horror story.

You forgot to mention the Explorers influence!

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm really looking forward to this.

It's funny how this second trailer really pushes this as a Spielbergian adventure with young friends while the first trailer pitched it as a Stephen King-like horror story.

Opening up with them playing DnD was extremely nostalgic (both for ET and my RL childhood)

I'm all in on this one!

I had no idea what this was or that it existed until I pushed play on that video at the start of the thread and now I can't wait for the 15th.

Bravo to the producers of that series for casting 44 yo Winona Ryder as the mother of a 12 year old. Most movie moms are in their 30s, and women over 40 may as well be dead.

It's out now. Hoping to get some time this weekend to dive in.

Wait, wait, wait, wait...

Spoiler:

...talking's a free action, dammit!

Poor Benny. He was just trying to help.

Rat Boy wrote:

Wait, wait, wait, wait...

Spoiler:

...talking's a free action, dammit!

Freaking house rules.

That first episode is so good! I have no complaints. I was a repressed child of the 80s (thanks religion ), so it's fun to watch these types of stories that have my sorta twisted dream childhood.

I binged on all eight episodes last night (took till 3am but it was worth it). Total love-letter to eighties Spielberg with a sprinkling of Stephen King or Dean Koontz. Bring on Season 2!

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm really looking forward to this.

It's funny how this second trailer really pushes this as a Spielbergian adventure with young friends while the first trailer pitched it as a Stephen King-like horror story.

Heh! I wrote the above before reading this But generally you're spot on with both those assessments

A slow burning homage to everything I loved about media during my childhood.

What is the generally accepted amount of time before we can talk specifics without spoilers?

Spoiler:

did not like the monster design. For some reason faces that look like Venus fly traps are silly to me, not scary.

I also binge watched the whole thing last night, because I just couldn't stop. Just fantastic. My favorite moment:

Spoiler:

When Nancy goes into the portal in the tree. She doesn't hesitate - just dives in. The scrawny, straight-laced nerd with the soul of a warrior. :)

It may just be that I only just finished it and it's all still fresh and new but right now in the moment this is my favorite thing Netflix has ever done.

Going to let it simmer for a bit and see if that holds after a few days of thought and some time, but it feels pretty solid.

Aetius wrote:

My favorite moment:

Spoiler:

When Nancy goes into the portal in the tree. She doesn't hesitate - just dives in. The scrawny, straight-laced nerd with the soul of a warrior. :)

This had me trying to figure out what my favorite moment was but I'm having real trouble picking.

Thin_J wrote:

It may just be that I only just finished it and it's all still fresh and new but right now in the moment this is my favorite thing Netflix has ever done.

Yeah, I'm feeling the same way right now. It completely exceeded all of my expectations. Absolutely amazing from start to finish.

As for favourite moments, I'm gonna go with

Spoiler:

Eleven saving Mike at the quarry.

Though I also loved all the Demogorgon references. They were even using an actual old Demogorgon mini! They could have just made something up but instead they went with a legit old school D&D reference.

This show is a straight up homage not to the 1980s, but the childhoods people had in the 1980s. From the references to D&D mentioned above to callbacks to ET, Poltergeist, and The Goonies, but framed through a modern lens. I until last night had no idea who the Duffer Brothers were, but I'm very much looking forward to their next project.

Silly, happy fun, and a great homage to the films and books of the early '80s.

I was not far off in age from those kids in the early '80s. I wonder if younger audiences will be as charmed by its nostalgia and as forgiving of it's very '80s tropes and weaknesses.

The 1980s have now become their own specific type of retrofuturism.

I gotta say, I laugh every time that Monkey Massacre logo clip comes on after the credits.

No spoilers in this post, just something unrelated to the story.

I've only seen the first episode, but the nostalgia is STRONG in this one. So many details that I must re-watch it to catch more. For example: Tony Vaughn, the actor who plays the school principal, doesn't just look similar to the government agent from E.T. ("Get out of the vehicle, son.") He's also dressed almost exactly like that character. With all of the other carefully crafted details, I couldn't help seeing that even if it's a coincidence.

Binged it with my brother yesterday. My parents joined in around episode two and they got sucked in until they had to go to bed after episode six. Everyone had a good time with it. My initial response is that the Duffer Brothers saw Super 8 and said "Yeah, we can do it better".

And they did.

In regards to the 80's detail and to answer someone's question about younger audiences: I was born in '85 so my memories of the 80's are restricted to vague recollections of '89. However, there was stuff that we owned that we saw in the show, such as a VHS case that I think is still in my parents' garage, and Mike's basement lamp that resembled one my grandparents had (it wasn't the same, but damn did it look close). But even if you weren't alive at that time, there is an authenticity that they were going for in this show, be it in hair and fashion styles, to the look of the products, to the vehicles being driven, to the shows on television, etc. Most of what I picked up were posters in the background and such, but they did a good job of recreating the aesthetic of the 80's without overly fetishizing it.

Same goes for its clear inspirations. Sometimes it was a bit clunky. For example, name-dropping "Poltergeist" in the same episode that they damn near recreated moments from the show. However, there were other moments where you'd just see a single camera shot and think "E.T." It's not blatant and it's not a literal recreation of a Spielberg shot, but it quite clearly acts as an homage.

I'll be honest in saying I feel the story would be better as just a single season one-off, but understand that we're still in an age where TV shows gotta keep it going as long as it remains profitable.

Aetius wrote:

I also binge watched the whole thing last night, because I just couldn't stop. Just fantastic. My favorite moment:

Spoiler:

When Nancy goes into the portal in the tree. She doesn't hesitate - just dives in. The scrawny, straight-laced nerd with the soul of a warrior. :)

Wow, really? Because while I was willing to accept that for dramatic purposes, I couldn't help but wonder how she managed to fit the idiot ball in with her. It was one scenario where bravey was quite blatantly stupidity.

Which leads me to some of my more minor gripes and more specific praises:

Spoiler:

In that part of the season, it really felt like Jonathon and Nancy started making stupid decisions for no reason other than moving the plot a certain direction. For example, imagine how much more expedited select plot points would have been if they just took the photo to Jonathon's mom immediately and were like "Is this what you saw?" But they come up with some "She's dealt with enough" bullsh*t that allows them to both go out in the woods alone, separate, and then after she saw this inhuman thing swipe away a deer and is unarmed, she's gonna be like "Guess I'll go into this Narnian Hellscape to find my friend ho ho ho!"

When I had a character do that in Until Dawn y'know what happened? They died. Because that's what happens when you split the party.

Speaking of her friend, I found it interesting that they did subvert one horror trope. Instead of killing any of the frisky teenagers breakin' morals and gettin' it on, they killed the chaste and responsible one. Which, honestly, I think is a good thing because it actually has you feeling bad about the death. I think we only actually witness the demise of three people, two of them red-shirt government folk (the guy at the show's start, the guy that walked through the Narnian Hellscape, and ...Barbara? Was that her name?), and hers allows us to feel for Nancy.

In fact, there's really no pointless plot stop in the entire season. The death wasn't there just for the sake of killing someone. It was there to spur Nancy away from her typical high school drama and into her true potential. Which makes it a bit of a shame that she ends up going with high school pretty boy in the end, but I also like that the typical Cobra Kai type douche turned out to have sympathetic qualities. Yes, he's friends with assholes and is small-minded and selfish, but he actually cares about Nancy and tries to make up for some of his own wrongs. I was expecting him to just be playing "the long game" to get in her pants, and it was rather nice that they didn't go so stereotypical with his character, that his presence had purpose, and that while he and Nancy are together in the end, you can see in her expression that she has doubts. He's a nice enough fellow, but not right for her (though I'm not certain Jonathon is, either).

I do not feel the same about the pair of bullies that torment Mike and his pals. Their presence feels incredibly manufactured every time. Granted, my brother had bullies like that, a lot of them, and I recall middle school experiences where insults and torment seemed to come out of nowhere as well. But these two kids were always placed in so conveniently, to the point where suddenly appearing in the woods with a knife can only be rationalized as an homage to random encounters in D&D (and I don't even know if there were rules for such things at the time as my first D&D was 3rd edition). I appreciate that the kid's arm breaking served to bring characters together for the final push, but the implementation felt too cheap a tool.

My last gripe is that Nancy and Jonathon's fight with the Monster turned out to only be half-useful. It did allow the Sheriff and Jonathon's Mom to find Will, but there were no signs of burning or injury on the thing when it began fighting in the school. It didn't entirely rob the kids of the power of their victory, but it certainly reduced it.

All of that said, this is definitely a show that I enjoyed watching a great deal and am now tempted to watch more Netflix originals. This is the first I tried aside from the Marvel shows and I'm glad to see that the quality is consistently good between them all. However, that Daredevil season two was disappointing in comparison to the tightness of season one has me on edge about both this and Jessica Jones getting follow-up seasons. I'm hoping that the fact that Daredevil lossed its showrunner early on and had a new one for season two will explain why the sudden shift there and that Stranger Things and Jessica Jones will be better in quality by maintaining the same showrunners.

We shall see.

ccesarano wrote:

I'll be honest in saying I feel the story would be better as just a single season one-off, but understand that we're still in an age where TV shows gotta keep it going as long as it remains profitable.

I agree in a way. What I really want, given everything going on at the end (no spoilers) is that the series picks up with some of the same themes but set in the 90s, or something on the origins of it in the late 60s/early 70s. Make each season that decade's take and use the media stylings and tropes from that decade.

Binged the whole thing today - brilliant.

If you like the soundtrack to Stranger Things, check out The Knick soundtrack:

It's got that same synth sound but is a bit more exciting. It also works better with the show it's paired with because it's so out of place.

I love the Stranger Things soundtrack, but it just makes me want to listen to The Knick soundtrack. As far as licensed music goes, I'm halfway through Stranger Things, and I really loved the use of Peter Gabriel's Heroes.

That bit turned out really good.

I also watched all 8 episodes today and just rolled credits on the final episode before coming to type this. Aside from some very minor nitpicks, I thought it was fantastic.

My favorite moment:

Spoiler:

The assembly scene in the gymnasium. After 11 stops the bully and makes him piss his pants, she gives a quick wipe of her nose with her jacket sleeve, and then turns and walks away like a total bad-ass.

Had to finish up another show yesterday but started this tonight. Very interesting first episode. Guess this will take up the rest of my week.

This gives me a fontgasm:

IMAGE(https://addictedtohorrormovies.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/stranger-things-banner.jpg)

MeatMan wrote:

I also watched all 8 episodes today and just rolled credits on the final episode before coming to type this. Aside from some very minor nitpicks, I thought it was fantastic.

My favorite moment:

Spoiler:

The assembly scene in the gymnasium. After 11 stops the bully and makes him piss his pants, she gives a quick wipe of her nose with her jacket sleeve, and then turns and walks away like a total bad-ass.

Spoiler:

My brother commented very fondly on the nose-wipe as well. A very, very nice touch.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

This gives me a fontgasm:

IMAGE(https://addictedtohorrormovies.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/stranger-things-banner.jpg)

I know! The whole opening credits and episode title sequence is like they ripped it off a book one might have bought circa 1987.

Pages