Stranger Things - new Netflix series

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R0GUE
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I enjoyed it for what it was. Not my favorite thing Netflix has done by a long shot. Great mood and style, not so great story and ending.
phatbc
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quote:
I enjoyed it for what it was. Not my favorite thing Netflix has done by a long shot. Great mood and style, not so great story and ending.


Como?
VanZandt92
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Liked it
texican08
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AG
Someone had mentioned it earlier but I really thought they tried to give a nod to Indiana Jones with Hopper towards the end. The low voice, hat and some of his entrances into doorways reminded me of Spielberg shots from IJ.
Btron
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AG
quote:
Someone had mentioned it earlier but I really thought they tried to give a nod to Indiana Jones with Hopper towards the end. The low voice, hat and some of his entrances into doorways reminded me of Spielberg shots from IJ.

I thought that too and also his one punch knock outs in the govt building.
Brian Earl Spilner
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AG
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Blonde wig, bikes, hiding alien - ET
Not to mention the divorced mother, the bad guys in hazmat suits, and D&D.
spanky
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AG
quote:
quote:
Someone had mentioned it earlier but I really thought they tried to give a nod to Indiana Jones with Hopper towards the end. The low voice, hat and some of his entrances into doorways reminded me of Spielberg shots from IJ.

I thought that too and also his one punch knock outs in the govt building.
This pretty much happens in every TV and movie. Fights that result in folks getting knocked out cold. Nothing but heavyweight fighters being casted I guess.
R0GUE
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AG
quote:
quote:
I enjoyed it for what it was. Not my favorite thing Netflix has done by a long shot. Great mood and style, not so great story and ending.


Como?
I had a number of problems as they were moving through the story. First and foremost, everyone seemed to be fixated on Will and no one except Nancy gave two ****s about Barb, and even she gave up on Barb about halfway through it seemed. I understand she wasn't the "focus" of the story, but her fate seemed cruel, like she was placed there just to show what the "bad result" would be. Which is fine, except, like even the police and the sheriff stopped investigating her and only put their resources into Will.

Also, the behavior of Mike and Nancy's parents was bizarre. Look, I'm a kid of the 80's and I realize parents were a lot more lax about letting their kids go out and do whatever back then, but their rules about curfew and going out were all over the place. In the beginning of the show they all had tight curfew and the mom was really strict about them not going out. But by the end of the show it seemed like the kids could go where ever the hell they wanted whenever they wanted. Also, the parents seemed completely incapable of worrying about both kids at the same time. They were either concerned about Nancy or Mike, but never both at the same time, despite the fact that both were off running around doing their thing. Like the scene where the mom makes blueberry pancakes. They only care that Nancy has run off, even though Mike just did the exact same thing.

Then I was hoping for a little more from the ending, like maybe that Elle had been psychically creating the monster as a projection of her fears or something. It was a stretch for me to believe you just happened to have a kid with psychic powers AND a crazy dimension-hopping monster in the same town for reasons that were totally unrelated. I just wanted something that tied the two together a little more or at least explained their existence. It felt very "Lost" to create these supernatural forces in an otherwise normal town, and never explain how they came to be.

Lastly, I was told by tons of people, "oh this isn't really horror, you'll like it" and that's why I dipped into the show. And I admit it wasn't gory or overly scary. But the thing it had in common with horror, was the crappy ending most characters received. You have Elle and Barb dead, Will is infected with the shadow-plane and coughing up slugs (this part was the worst), even Nancy and Steve got back together. I just would have preferred a more optimistic result I guess.

Edit:
Just want to reiterate that I did like it for the most part. But I think I was mostly being overwhelmed with nostalgia and references. If this had been set in the modern day, with no nerdy or musical references, there's no way I would have enjoyed it as much.
Dro07
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AG
Ells not dead bro... Waffles.
R0GUE
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Ells not dead bro... Waffles.
Ok, lost then.
hph6203
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AG
quote:
quote:
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I enjoyed it for what it was. Not my favorite thing Netflix has done by a long shot. Great mood and style, not so great story and ending.


Como?


quote:
I had a number of problems as they were moving through the story. First and foremost, everyone seemed to be fixated on Will and no one except Nancy gave two ****s about Barb, and even she gave up on Barb about halfway through it seemed. I understand she wasn't the "focus" of the story, but her fate seemed cruel, like she was placed there just to show what the "bad result" would be. Which is fine, except, like even the police and the sheriff stopped investigating her and only put their resources into Will.
Only Hopper is aware of the Demogorgan. Barb's car was left at Steve's house, but was relocated to a bus/train station by the government agency prior to the police finding it. They chalked it up to her running away, so the town and the police have no reason to look for her. Barb is seen by Hopper and Joyce in the "Upside Down", so there's no need to keep searching and they can't tell her parents about it, because they'll think they're crazy. Let them think she's a runaway and leave it at that. Nancy shows regret over her death during the hospital scene, and she holds out hope for Barb until the last episode. Her story is resolved, but the central narrative is the monster/research institution. They're not going to follow the rest of the police force tracking down leads for a runaway that the viewer already knows is not a runaway.


quote:
Also, the behavior of Mike and Nancy's parents was bizarre. Look, I'm a kid of the 80's and I realize parents were a lot more lax about letting their kids go out and do whatever back then, but their rules about curfew and going out were all over the place. In the beginning of the show they all had tight curfew and the mom was really strict about them not going out. But by the end of the show it seemed like the kids could go where ever the hell they wanted whenever they wanted. Also, the parents seemed completely incapable of worrying about both kids at the same time. They were either concerned about Nancy or Mike, but never both at the same time, despite the fact that both were off running around doing their thing. Like the scene where the mom makes blueberry pancakes. They only care that Nancy has run off, even though Mike just did the exact same thing.
Mike was mostly doing his running around during the day after or during school The during school day its chalked up to his friend being missing and ultimately found dead, which answers the other half of "why did the curfew rules change?" Because Will is found dead due to an accident, and Barb is a runaway not a homicide investigation; there's suddenly no reason for them to be hyper strict about the curfew.


quote:
Then I was hoping for a little more from the ending, like maybe that Elle had been psychically creating the monster as a projection of her fears or something. It was a stretch for me to believe you just happened to have a kid with psychic powers AND a crazy dimension-hopping monster in the same town for reasons that were totally unrelated. I just wanted something that tied the two together a little more or at least explained their existence. It felt very "Lost" to create these supernatural forces in an otherwise normal town, and never explain how they came to be.
The dimension-hopping monster is due to the girl with psychic powers poking around in the dimensional rifts trying to locate Russians to spy on. During her spying activities she comes into contact with the monster, screams and exits the dimensional rift, upon learning of this the head of the research team orders her to make contact with the monster. Upon touching the monster it opens up a dimensional rift between the town and the Upside Down and now you have a psychic girl and a monster raining terror upon the town. It's not a coincidence, it is one thing resulting in the other. Psychic girl comes first, monster follows due to her actions.


quote:
Lastly, I was told by tons of people, "oh this isn't really horror, you'll like it" and that's why I dipped into the show. And I admit it wasn't gory or overly scary. But the thing it had in common with horror, was the crappy ending most characters received. You have Elle and Barb dead, Will is infected with the shadow-plane and coughing up slugs (this part was the worst), even Nancy and Steve got back together. I just would have preferred a more optimistic result I guess.
The horror genre's primary aim is to scare you, that is not the case with this show. You have a misunderstanding of what horror is. This would be classified more closely with a thriller and sci-fi genre than horror. Barb dies to give weight to the story, otherwise its a kid that The whole point of the slugs coming out of Will is to set up the potential for a continuation of the series if it received a positive reception. Netflix isn't putting money into a series with the intention of it being a one shot deal, unless its a documentary.


Most of the issues you listed were explained through the narrative.
FL_Ag1998
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AG
Spot on.
Btron
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Spot on.

Cheerio!
OCEN99
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AG
We just finished the series yesterday, and I really dug it.

Also, Steve Harrington = Jean-Ralphio Sapperstein.
Teddy Perkins
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AG
Looks like next season will be a sequel and not a spin-off a la True Detective.

http://www.slashfilm.com/stranger-things-season-two/
R0GUE
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AG
I'm just telling you the vibe I got through the whole series is no one gives a crap this other girl went missing, and Mike and Nancy's mom and dad are terrible parents. You can set up the logic behind why that might be the case, but those things bugged the hell out of me.

If you are choking up slugs, I see it as a lot less sci-Fi and a lot more horror. Alien is sci-Fi but it's also horror, because aliens come popping out out of chests. I'm just saying this show wasn't for me, and I was given bad advice. No one was coughing up slugs at the end of ET or Goonies.
Teddy Perkins
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AG
Here's a good interview with the Duffer Brothers discussing Barb, season 2, influences, and how certain arcs developed during shooting.

quote:
There's a lot there we don't know or understand. Even with 'The Upside Down,' we have a 30-page document that is pretty intricate in terms of what it all means, and where this monster actually came from, and why aren't there more monsters we have all this stuff that we just didn't have time for, or we didn't feel like we needed to get into in season one, because of the main tension of Will. We have that whole other world that we haven't fully explored in this season, and that was very purposeful.

We leave these dangling threads at the end. If people respond to this show and we get to continue this story we had those initial discussions of where we might go with it. If there was going to be a season two, we would reveal more of that 30-page document, but we'd still want to keep it from the point of view of our original characters

hph6203
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I'm just telling you the vibe I got through the whole series is no one gives a crap this other girl went missing, and Mike and Nancy's mom and dad are terrible parents. You can set up the logic behind why that might be the case, but those things bugged the hell out of me.

If you are choking up slugs, I see it as a lot less sci-Fi and a lot more horror. Alien is sci-Fi but it's also horror, because aliens come popping out out of chests. I'm just saying this show wasn't for me, and I was given bad advice. No one was coughing up slugs at the end of ET or Goonies.
Mike breaks curfew... twice? And his parents were unaware of the first incident when El was found and the second incident is when El kills the monster. Nancy supposedly does it three times (including monster death), but she's at least 16 and the second time is debatable as Barbara's disappearance is explained to the non-main characters as a runaway and Will's death was determined to be an accident potentially removing the stricter curfew. They may be inattentive, but they're not inconsistent in their dolling out of punishment/reprimands. They can only reprimand what they're aware of.

Barbara not having a ton of people caring about her disappearance is totally understandable when you consider that her case is assigned to Hopper's deputies and Nancy is the only one with a direct relationship to her. Everyone has a far more vested interest in the well-being of Will because they are his mother, brother and three best friends. Nancy,on the other hand maintains her search for Barbara until she is found dead in episode 7 at which point she shifts her focus to killing the monster. If you expect a ton of canvassing other towns and calling up other police departments to occur on screen, then I don't know what to tell you. That's not something our main cast would be doing.


I understand that the show didn't really strike the tone you were looking for, and I'm not trying to shout you down, but your criticisms are built around the fact that you're not separating our knowledge as an omniscient observer of this universe with the knowledge that the characters posses within the story.
VanZandt92
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Its sci-fi. And a little horror. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Scifi doesn't have to be a space movie.
AgHawkeye
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AG
You guys are a little rough. I absolutely LOVED the show and have recommended it to everyone and also thought Barb kinda got the shaft. While watching we were joking about 'where was her school assembly?'

It just didn't fit into 8 shows and don't think it ditracted from my enjoyment.
Some Junkie Cosmonaut
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also thought Barb kinda got the shaft. While watching we were joking about 'where was her school assembly?"


she was a ginger so they just rolled that bad boy into the next pep rally.
SeattleAgJr
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I'm just telling you the vibe I got through the whole series is no one gives a crap this other girl went missing, and Mike and Nancy's mom and dad are terrible parents. You can set up the logic behind why that might be the case, but those things bugged the hell out of me.

If you are choking up slugs, I see it as a lot less sci-Fi and a lot more horror. Alien is sci-Fi but it's also horror, because aliens come popping out out of chests. I'm just saying this show wasn't for me, and I was given bad advice. No one was coughing up slugs at the end of ET or Goonies.
Wow, you must have had a sheltered childhood. When I was the age of the characters in the show, we always took off on our bikes to go to the park, friends, etc. And we always stayed over at each others' houses.
All of my friend group's parents were very close and kept in touch with each other.
SeattleAgJr
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quote:
quote:


Then I was hoping for a little more from the ending, like maybe that Elle had been psychically creating the monster as a projection of her fears or something. It was a stretch for me to believe you just happened to have a kid with psychic powers AND a crazy dimension-hopping monster in the same town for reasons that were totally unrelated. I just wanted something that tied the two together a little more or at least explained their existence. It felt very "Lost" to create these supernatural forces in an otherwise normal town, and never explain how they came to be.

SHE OPENED THE ****ING PORTAL THAT LET THE MONSTER INTO OUR DIMENSION. HOW MUCH MORE CONNECTION DO YOU NEED.

Lastly, I was told by tons of people, "oh this isn't really horror, you'll like it" and that's why I dipped into the show. And I admit it wasn't gory or overly scary. But the thing it had in common with horror, was the crappy ending most characters received. You have Elle and Barb dead, Will is infected with the shadow-plane and coughing up slugs (this part was the worst), even Nancy and Steve got back together. I just would have preferred a more optimistic result I guess.

REAL WORLD IS NOT ALAWAYS GRINS, AND MOST MOVIES HAVE CONTRIVED HAPPY ENDINGS.

Head Ninja In Charge
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You guys are a little rough. I absolutely LOVED the show and have recommended it to everyone and also thought Barb kinda got the shaft. While watching we were joking about 'where was her school assembly?'

It just didn't fit into 8 shows and don't think it ditracted from my enjoyment.

There was a funeral for Will. Barbara was thought by the community to have run away, right? No assembly for runaway teens.

Either way, just finished it last night. I give it a B+. There were some A+ scenes and moments, but it wasn't perfect. Highly enjoyable though.
Sex Panther
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quote:
quote:
quote:
quote:
I enjoyed it for what it was. Not my favorite thing Netflix has done by a long shot. Great mood and style, not so great story and ending.


Como?


quote:
I had a number of problems as they were moving through the story. First and foremost, everyone seemed to be fixated on Will and no one except Nancy gave two ****s about Barb, and even she gave up on Barb about halfway through it seemed. I understand she wasn't the "focus" of the story, but her fate seemed cruel, like she was placed there just to show what the "bad result" would be. Which is fine, except, like even the police and the sheriff stopped investigating her and only put their resources into Will.
Only Hopper is aware of the Demogorgan. Barb's car was left at Steve's house, but was relocated to a bus/train station by the government agency prior to the police finding it. They chalked it up to her running away, so the town and the police have no reason to look for her. Barb is seen by Hopper and Joyce in the "Upside Down", so there's no need to keep searching and they can't tell her parents about it, because they'll think they're crazy. Let them think she's a runaway and leave it at that. Nancy shows regret over her death during the hospital scene, and she holds out hope for Barb until the last episode. Her story is resolved, but the central narrative is the monster/research institution. They're not going to follow the rest of the police force tracking down leads for a runaway that the viewer already knows is not a runaway.


quote:
Also, the behavior of Mike and Nancy's parents was bizarre. Look, I'm a kid of the 80's and I realize parents were a lot more lax about letting their kids go out and do whatever back then, but their rules about curfew and going out were all over the place. In the beginning of the show they all had tight curfew and the mom was really strict about them not going out. But by the end of the show it seemed like the kids could go where ever the hell they wanted whenever they wanted. Also, the parents seemed completely incapable of worrying about both kids at the same time. They were either concerned about Nancy or Mike, but never both at the same time, despite the fact that both were off running around doing their thing. Like the scene where the mom makes blueberry pancakes. They only care that Nancy has run off, even though Mike just did the exact same thing.
Mike was mostly doing his running around during the day after or during school The during school day its chalked up to his friend being missing and ultimately found dead, which answers the other half of "why did the curfew rules change?" Because Will is found dead due to an accident, and Barb is a runaway not a homicide investigation; there's suddenly no reason for them to be hyper strict about the curfew.


quote:
Then I was hoping for a little more from the ending, like maybe that Elle had been psychically creating the monster as a projection of her fears or something. It was a stretch for me to believe you just happened to have a kid with psychic powers AND a crazy dimension-hopping monster in the same town for reasons that were totally unrelated. I just wanted something that tied the two together a little more or at least explained their existence. It felt very "Lost" to create these supernatural forces in an otherwise normal town, and never explain how they came to be.
The dimension-hopping monster is due to the girl with psychic powers poking around in the dimensional rifts trying to locate Russians to spy on. During her spying activities she comes into contact with the monster, screams and exits the dimensional rift, upon learning of this the head of the research team orders her to make contact with the monster. Upon touching the monster it opens up a dimensional rift between the town and the Upside Down and now you have a psychic girl and a monster raining terror upon the town. It's not a coincidence, it is one thing resulting in the other. Psychic girl comes first, monster follows due to her actions.


quote:
Lastly, I was told by tons of people, "oh this isn't really horror, you'll like it" and that's why I dipped into the show. And I admit it wasn't gory or overly scary. But the thing it had in common with horror, was the crappy ending most characters received. You have Elle and Barb dead, Will is infected with the shadow-plane and coughing up slugs (this part was the worst), even Nancy and Steve got back together. I just would have preferred a more optimistic result I guess.
The horror genre's primary aim is to scare you, that is not the case with this show. You have a misunderstanding of what horror is. This would be classified more closely with a thriller and sci-fi genre than horror. Barb dies to give weight to the story, otherwise its a kid that The whole point of the slugs coming out of Will is to set up the potential for a continuation of the series if it received a positive reception. Netflix isn't putting money into a series with the intention of it being a one shot deal, unless its a documentary.


Most of the issues you listed were explained through the narrative.


SeattleAgJr
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Do not forget....

We are following Will, Mike, the others, not Barb. She is a tertiary character.
If this was like other cities, the kids go to elementary school and the high schoolers go to high school.

Who is to say the high school did not have a ceremony for Barb.

R0GUE
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AG
I'm ****ing sorry I said anything. Heaven forbid you say you didn't think something was the greatest thing ever on this board.
SeattleAgJr
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you are reading way too much into replies.
FL_Ag1998
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AG
This is a discussion board and that's what people are doing...discussing the show, including countering the points you made about it. Nobody was a jerk about it or got personal. In fact, the responses were extremely reasonable for Texags.

Please don't ever venture over to Old Rivalries.
Brian Earl Spilner
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AG
Coppell97
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Just finished it last night. Thought it was fantastic.
Philo B 93
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Great series. This could have been bad, but they took A LOT of 80s movies material and threw all the right parts together in the right way and created a show that had something other remakes are missing: Soul. Also, in spite of being so, so derivative, the show somehow seemed...... original?...

We could spend a lot of time talking about the derivatives, but the one that I liked the most was the ET / Eleven relationship. I.e. she is hidden in the house from the mother (was the father anything more than a cardboard cut out?), she sports the blonde wig, she has levitation powers, she's learning to speak english, and the gang takes her out on the back of a bike in a group ride. The show stopped short of having all of them ride through the air over the cars of the Bad Men.

We've seen a lot of shows and movies take the ingredients from other movies and try to make something great. Most of the time they make a **** sandwich. And we've seen a lot of remakes that are completely forgettable with no soul (name 2 actors from the new Footloose).

Stranger Things got it right.
aggiegrad01
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AG
Really liked it; thought it even had an '80's tv series vibe - like "Tales from the Dark Side".
boboguitar
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AG
Season 2: The return of barbs parents from vacation.
boboguitar
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AG
Also the most unrealistic thing about that show is the final boss of a 10 hour campaign being 1 shotted by a fireball.

That or will is a terrible DM.
 
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