Just finished it. I wanna give it a few days for my impressions to settle but I really liked it. It strikes a nice balance between expanding what the show is while keeping what people like about it. I’ll pop back with some more thoughts in a day or two.
Does anyone who didn’t actually live in the 80s like the show? I mean, it’s great by itself, but it hits me so hard in the nostalgia zone that I wonder how much it is great by itself…
I’ve only watched the first episode and I already know who the monsters are. It’s Mike’s parents, Karen and Ted. They took away his Atari! Grrrrr!
:mad:
Yep. I was almost exactly the age of those kids in 1984, and was noting today how comfortably familiar everything was, like I could step back in there and run any of the tech like the past 33 years had never happened.
I did at one point notice one non-featured bit of tech that I thought was a bit achronistic, but I’m not able to rember what it was.
Binged all 9 episodes today.
Binged the whole season today. Didn’t intend to at first, but we got into it and just kept going. I loved it - just as good as the first season, IMO. The new cast members, especially Astin, Gelman, and Reiser, were all great.
I just finished the last episode. Wow, I was not disappointed! Much bigger in scale than season 1, but still had all the things I loved about the first season.
I liked some of the new characters. Having Astin and Reiser in their roles was a nice nod to their 80s cred. ‘Max’ was cool, too–a good addition to the team.
The kid who plays Will did a great job. In season 1, he was of course MIA until the end. This season he is front and center much of the time and I thought he carried it well.
I teach high school and a lot of my students are really into Stranger Things. I think you could set this show in the present and the story would be just as compelling. I get what you mean about the nostalgia zone, though. I was just about the same age in 1984 as these kids, so this show really takes me back. I feel like the 80s nostalgia was even stronger somehow this season. Maybe more detail in the sets? I don’t know, but they do a great job of evoking the period, while not making it seem like a gimmick. Most of the time. The Ghostbusters stuff may have been laying it on a bit thick.
I just finished the last episode. Wow, I was not disappointed! Much bigger in scale than season 1, but still had all the things I loved about the first season.
I liked some of the new characters. Having Astin and Reiser in their roles was a nice nod to their 80s cred. ‘Max’ was cool, too–a good addition to the team.
The kid who plays Will did a great job. In season 1, he was of course MIA until the end. This season he is front and center much of the time and I thought he carried it well.
I teach high school and a lot of my students are really into Stranger Things. I think you could set this show in the present and the story would be just as compelling. I get what you mean about the nostalgia zone, though. I was just about the same age in 1984 as these kids, so this show really takes me back. I feel like the 80s nostalgia was even stronger somehow this season. Maybe more detail in the sets? I don’t know, but they do a great job of evoking the period, while not making it seem like a gimmick. Most of the time. The Ghostbusters stuff may have been laying it on a bit thick.
Has anybody watched “Beyond Stranger Things”, the after show? We binged all those last night. Very well done, even though it sometimes devolved into kid-babble. They bicker IRL just like they did in the show, LOL.
They ask this question in one of the “Beyond Stranger Things” episode. The Duffer Brothers’ response is is a definite NO. Their rationale, once you think about it, is very interesting.
I personally think you could pull it off in the present but the kids’ movements would have to be re-choreographed and the parents (save Joyce) would have bigger roles.
One of the better reason to set things in a different era is to not have cell phones. Isolation is important in storytelling, and cell phone ubiquity really hampers that plot device these days, hence the “no signal” or “dead battery” clichés. An earlier era solves that.
I know both my kids love it. My son said many of his friends really like it too. Helps he’s a geek like I was. Might have more to do with that then the time period and nostalgia. Or it just might be a great show easy for anyone that enjoys 80s Spielburg movies to enjoy this.
I think requiring spoiler tags, which I thoroughly hate, is kind of ridiculous since anyone who hasn’t seen the show can just avoid the thread (and will probably have to avoid about 80% of the Internet that now appears to be filled with analysis, criticism, and outrage), but since that has been established I’ll confine my comments to general observations and no specific plot developments that weren’t introduced in the first show or trailer.
[spoiler]In general, I enjoyed this series at least as much as the previous one (all the moreso for not having to watch as much of Joyce being hysterical and Hopper boozing his way through PTSD and depression), but there was a lot more padding in this series, and the entire “Lost Sister” episode felt like a setup for another show entirely. (Not that it would be a bad thing–I think the Duffer Brothers could do a better take on rebooting the X-Men franchise than the current effort–but it added almost nothing to the main storyline.) I’d have to say that there was a lot more contrivance in this series than the previous, both in making the parents and most of the adults even more of archetypical absentee/obtuse 'Eighties movie parents to the point of being outright jokey about it, and allowing the characters to escape even though they’re clearly outmatched by this newer, more pervasive threat. With the clear fact that Eleven is for all practical purposes the only character in the show who can do anything to even forestall the threat from the Upside Down, much of the story was dedicated to sidelining her for various reasons. It is necessary in order to give all of the characters something to do while making the threat implacable by authorities, but for the most part their actions are just so much just running about out the clock until Eleven is able to take it on directly. David Harbour’s Hopper remains the anchor of the story, keeping it grounded and centered on the threat even when the other characters are off on various pointless side plots, and of any character his begs for more backstory and development. Winona Ryder had more to do than just screech and wail, and does it well enough, but despite being the top billed character this isn’t her story and she doesn’t have that much to do other than worry over Will.
Several of the new characters seem to have been added as transparent and fairly patent foils or to be red shirted to highlight the threat without sacrificing a main character, but I thought Max was actually played out fairly well when she could have been the token girl-who-can-also-do-boy-stuff, and her metatextual review of the previous story made me laugh out loud. Both Steve and Nancy, on the other hand, are characters I can continue to progressively care less about and that are played in a flat fashion, although Steve is at least transiently amusing in his new role as mentor on all things fashion and wooing women. (Why Nancy is considered the school’s queen bee is beyond me, and having a late 'Nineties wavy cut in the midst of the “big poofy hair” era seemed very out of place in what was otherwise a nearly flawless rendition of mid-'Eighties middle-of-nowhere Indiana townie life.) I also like that Lucas specifically called out not being given much of a role in the previous series (in his explicit refusal to be the token black Ghostbuster) and given a much expanded role and home life; while he’s not the best actor of the kids (Gaten Matarazzo’s Dustin still takes the prize with his hammy embracing of Early Period Geekdom) he does very well in the more tonally somber scenes. Sean Astin’s Bob was clearly written as some kind of pastische of various Patton Oswald characters and exists primarily as a plot device. On the other hand, I was pleased that Paul Reiser’s character wasn’t just developed in the obvious fashion I was expecting. Murray Bauman and his whole storyline didn’t really have much of a point other than to create a side quest and I hope they’re not bringing him back for another series.
In the end, though, the show is about two things: callbacks, subtle or otherwise, to 'Eighties shows and movies (hence the thematic necessity of being set in the period), and Eleven being the only thing standing between our world and the hellspawn of the Upside Down (and by analogue, the underbelly of the subconscious of 'Eighties horror icons Steven King, Clive Barker, and John Carpenter). Which means the next series, which is obviously happening, is probably going to be topically similar and runs the risk of becoming repetitious and self-referential. I’m not sure what the Duffer Brothers can do without breaking convention that would make the next series seem more fresh, but while the production is as good or better than The Americans at reproducing the look and feel of the early 'Eighties, I suspect it is going to get increasingly harder to go back to the well and get more story and unique references from the genre of 'Eighties horror that was already pretty thin material.
I’ll look forward to the next series, but I suspect Max will be making some snide comments about having done all of this before. Hopefully Nancy and Steve will both be gone at college and can be dispensed with some offhand reference, and the story can be advanced without making Eleven impossibly powerful and completely overshadowing all other characters.[/spoiler]
Stranger
I haven’t gotten caught up enough to risk the spoilers by reading this thread, but is it just me or does Millie Bobby Brown bear a striking resemblance to Benedict Cumberbatch?
Heh, that never occurred to me.
I was surprised, though that she, the actor playing Will’s brother, and the actor playing Max’s stepbrother all have British accents. They don’t hide them on the “Beyond Stranger Things” episodes.
Yep, the Duffers pointed that out, among other things.
While the lack of ubiquitous cell phones makes it easier to keep characters from communicating with each other to inform them of easily avoidable hazards and mistakes, this story is at its core a very 'Eightes genre horror/adventure tale with obvious references to E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, The Goonies, and Stand By Me (even though the latter was set in flashback in the 'Fifties it deals with a lot of topics that were timely in being discussed the contemporary period such as family abuse, bullying, childhood fear of mortality, et cetera). It would actually seem anachronistic to have it set in the current time because it is hard to image presumably responsible parents letting their kids ride around the town without supervision or this Department of Energy lab doing mysterious experiments with missing children and creating giant electromagnetic disturbances without being besieged by conspiracy theorists and media investigations, notwithstanding that there is a deep underlying paranoia about the Soviets fostering a willingness by adults to overlook some pretty shady government activities.
Also, if it were set today in small town Indiana, Joyce Byers would be an opiod addict, Jonathan would probably be selling heroin and meth to pay for camera equipment and college tuition, the town storefronts would be boarded up with everyone working at the Wal-Mart, and there would be so many phone videos of the demigorgon that he’d have his own Instagrm feed and YouTube channel. Also, the horrors visited on this forgettable town would be overtaken by whatever insane thing shatted out on Twitter by some celebrity or political figure, and we’d all welcome the new Shadow Monster as at least an honest and capable force of evil versus the current regime. It may be worth it to accept the denizens of the Upside Down if we could feed Mike Pence and Betsy DeVos to them in exchange for some temporary measure of peace and sanity.
Stranger
My two main criticisms of this season are:
- Keeping Eleven apart from the other kids for so long. It makes sense to have her separate at first, but I really wanted her back with the gang earlier.
At the end of that episode, I thought to myself that it felt like Netflix had an unused Sense8 script lying around and they tossed it to the Duffer Brothers and said, “Here, use this. But leave out the musical montage/orgy scenes.”
2. The Dustin/Dart subplot. Some of it worked, and I appreciate the use of a horror trope, but little Dart looked very CGI/fake and seemed to clash with the aesthetic of the show. Maybe better effects would have helped. It also felt a little out of character for Dustin to be impractical about keeping him–especially once he knew it was connected to the Upside Down.
We’re only 4 episodes in , but so far the D’art scenes remind me a lot of Evolution
Nevertheless, please use them unless the thread title says “open spoilers”, because we do have some people watching season two currently or who want to read about discussion OF IT, in general, but not about any specific plot points…who are reading this topic.
So I’ve spoiled your post.
Dacre Montgomery is actually Australian, not British. Millie Bobby Brown and Charlie Heaton are British, though.
I disagree so much. Aside from potentially making Mike less slappable*, having El rejoin the party earlier would not have improved anything about the season. El’s arc would have been screwed and it seems unlikely that Max would have been brought into the party.
And the Duffer Brothers have responded to criticism of Lost Sister. Spoilers within, of course.