Stranger Things (Season 1)

[Dukefrukem]

https://addictedtohorrormovies.files.w ordpress.com/2016/06/stranger-things-banner.jpg

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/20/590x/secondary/Stranger-Things-595257.jpg

[Dukefrukem]

This soundtrack is unreal.

[Dukefrukem]

Four episodes in and this is damn good. Love this 80s vibe and the soundtrack is stellar.

Has a Wayward Pines, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and vintage Spielberg feel.

[Mara]

Oh this is interesting. And the nostalgia is strong... I totally feel at home in this dumpy midwestern mid-80's world.

[Mara]

I don't know when this went from atmospheric to terrifying but it happened. So freaked right now.

[Dukefrukem]

I'm only two episodes in, but:

This feels like a mish-mash of references, made by people who only experienced the 80s through pop media. Everything about it is slightly inauthentic. (I had a similar problem with Amazon's Red Oaks). The musical cues are mostly anachronisms. The hair styles, clothes, and slang are all off.

I do agree with this.

[Mara]

I agree that there's a retro-pastiche vibe (it isn't about the 80's so much as it is about films *from* the 80's) but I don't think that's inherently bad. I'm digging it so far. (Through ep 4.)

[[ETM]]

Yeah, Mara is right, I thought it was beyond obvious what they are going for.

[Mara]

I mean. We paused the action to do a makeover montage.

If this show ends in a dance-off I'm gonna be so pleased.

[Mara]

Aw, they're in Indiana! I lived in Indiana around 1987. We even lived near a terrifying quarry.

Where did they find a twelve-year-old without front teeth? Even I'd lost my front teeth by then and I was absurdly late with my teeth. (I didn't lose a single tooth until I was nine and the dentist had to pull two baby teeth when I was thirteen before I could get braces.)

[Mara]

fuck you government, these kids have BIKES

[[ETM]]

You have way too much time on your hands

[Irish]

These little comments you make ... are they supposed to make me feed bad or you feel good?

[Dukefrukem]

You bring up a lot of great points Irish. I somehow was able to ignore all of those points, which now pisses me off, and still be able to enjoy the hell out of this. Much more than I did say, Daredevil S2 or Jessica Jones.

The one thing that pissed me off the most though, was this.




The climax does the opposite. Once the groups finally do meet and trade information, they inexplicably split up again. This feels like it was done in service of rough plot mechanics. With everybody split, there can now be two or three big action climaxes instead of just one.

[Irish]

Thanks, Duke. I wish there were some aspect of it I could have grabbed onto and enjoyed, which would have enabled me to ignore all the other stuff (I had hoped it would be Winona; I was excited to see her in a lead role again).

Turns out though that you're not in bad company:

754699429047836672

https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/754699429047836672

[Winston*]

Does the Netflix model of releasing shows turn anyone else off from watching them? Like, I would probably give this a go if they released it one episode at a time, but since all of a sudden there's a whole season out it feels like a chore and I probably won't.

[Mara]

I can see how this show could definitely be divisive. Either what it's attempting jives with you or it doesn't.

But I finished up the season and I enjoyed it all the way through. I was worried about how they were going to end, but I felt like they tied up enough ends that it felt satisfying while in true horror movie tradition it set up a "sequel" season.

[Dukefrukem]

Does the Netflix model of releasing shows turn anyone else off from watching them? Like, I would probably give this a go if they released it one episode at a time, but since all of a sudden there's a whole season out it feels like a chore and I probably won't.

No. Quite the opposite.

[[ETM]]

These little comments you make ... are they supposed to make me feed bad or you feel good?

Neither, actually. I'll probably have more time to talk later, but I had just that one thing to say after being confronted with the wall of text when I opened the thread. :D

[Mysterious Dude]

Does the Netflix model of releasing shows turn anyone else off from watching them? Like, I would probably give this a go if they released it one episode at a time, but since all of a sudden there's a whole season out it feels like a chore and I probably won't.
It definitely benefits those who binge over those who don't. I don't like to watch multiple episodes of the same show in one day. I've seen one episode so far. I liked it, but I feel a bit left out when some have seen the whole show already.

[Russ]

One of the worst acted series in recent memory. I think Irish has kinda alluded to this.

[slqrick]

Holy shit, love the soundtrack although it's almost too perfectly great, which I know is a weird thing to say. Lots of ideas taken from established properties but I was never a big Spielberg kid so it could bother me less. Felt just as much vibes from stuff like Lynch movies, It Follows, etc. I didn't really feel like I was beat over the head by the time period like I was when watching Super 8, and the kids all did pretty good I thought. Lol Winona Ryder was batshit but great. The show definitely caught me by surprise.

[[ETM]]

I didn't really feel like I was beat over the head by the time period like I was when watching Super 8, and the kids all did pretty good I thought.

The kids did so much better than those in Super 8, it's hardly even a comparison.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I feel weird for jiving a bit more to Irish's points than to the overall positive response here. Like... it was all fine, but it all felt very transparent to me, and there were elements that felt actively wrong, like the way that the "flea" is ultimately just there and doesn't feel like it means anything; it not only lacks any kind of personality on its own, it doesn't seem to refract the anxieties of the heroes in a meaningful way. I'm no expert on Silent Hill, but my experience with Shattered Memories was that the ghouls and environments were reflections of your character's psychological state. By comparison, the flea's most potent value is when Eleven states that she's the monster, but I didn't buy that as a meaningful statement, because it's more or less dropped after it's raised (unless I'm forgetting something). It's reminiscent of the dog-man-beast from Koontz's Watchers, in that it might as well be anything at all, because all it is is plot catalyst.

In terms of storytelling, the thing also reminded me uncomfortably of how I felt watching Jurassic World and The Force Awakens - that I was watching someone trying to gratify me by giving me the exact thing I enjoyed once, but with no real sense of adventure or upending expectations or getting at the thrumming engine at the center of those experiences.

I've mostly said I thought it was good when talking to others, in part because it's struck such a nerve for so many and I have no enthusiasm for getting into those kinds of conversations (the ones that re-light the emotional passion of childhood entertainment experiences), but also because I didn't hate the series or anything. It's "fine" for me in the same way The Force Awakens was "fine." In that I can enjoy it moment by moment and later, on reflection, have the strange feeling that I was used.

Sidebar: every goddamn time the opening credits started, it took all I had to not whisper, "I'm Garth Marenghi... author... dream-weaver..."

[Dukefrukem]

Related

http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?3901-Movie-Figures-Collectables-and-Memorabilia/page5&p=558962#post558962

[Dukefrukem]

In terms of storytelling, the thing also reminded me uncomfortably of how I felt watching Jurassic World and The Force Awakens - that I was watching someone trying to gratify me by giving me the exact thing I enjoyed once, but with no real sense of adventure or upending expectations or getting at the thrumming engine at the center of those experiences.


So what are you comparing this to when you say this.

[Dead & Messed Up]

So what are you comparing this to when you say this.

I don't understand the question.

[Dukefrukem]

I don't understand the question.

You say when you were watching this, you felt like you were "watching someone trying to gratify me by giving me the exact thing I enjoyed once"- Presumably because when you were watching Jurassic World, you were thinking of Jurassic Park and The Force Awakens >> A New Hope.

So what source material was the comparison you drew while watching Stranger Things? Was it one IP? Many? Or just an overall sensation?

[Milky Joe]

This was awesome.

[Dead & Messed Up]

You say when you were watching this, you felt like you were "watching someone trying to gratify me by giving me the exact thing I enjoyed once"- Presumably because when you were watching Jurassic World, you were thinking of Jurassic Park and The Force Awakens >> A New Hope.

So what source material was the comparison you drew while watching Stranger Things? Was it one IP? Many? Or just an overall sensation?

Oh, got it. The most predominant ones were probably Firestarter and E.T. and Stand By Me/The Body/It.

As an example, King's "Shop" and "Arrowhead Project" in general felt like touchstones for the villainy of the film. But it didn't feel like there was anything new here. No greater sense of their purposes, no real sense of Modine's character ambitions beyond the most obvious (he wants foreign intel or whatever), nothing specific. It was so broad. Bad guys bad, white-haired guy leader (even E.T. gave dimension to Peter Coyote). Why not take the opportunity to tweak it? Is this group actually mysterious in a meaningful way, or are they just obscure? (As I recall, King's "Shop" was pretty lame.) The only creative thing about the group is Cronenberg-Gate, a nifty rejection of shimmery special effects portals.

As another example, like I said, the monster chasing people didn't feel interesting. It felt like a post-Giger, post-Cloverfield aggregation of basic creature design. Slick and grey and all mouth. The series goes to great pains to nod to Silent Hill and Pan's Labyrinth, but when push comes to shove, its monster is just a set of jaws, whereas those stories had monsters that felt more symbolically/psychologically exciting and engaging. They meant something important to their stories. And it's like this series decided, "Yeah, we should have a monster too!" but never quite tied it to the story on any deeper level. Again, it's catalyst.

[Dukefrukem]

Fair criticisms.


https://vimeo.com/175929311

[TGM]

;558920']The kids did so much better than those in Super 8, it's hardly even a comparison.

I was actually thinking the exact opposite while watching this. Those kids in Super 8 are sooo much better than the kids here. :P

[Dukefrukem]

That makes me want to watch Super 8 again.

[number8]

Fun thing I heard the Duffer Brothers say. I think everyone recognizes the references to Spielberg, Carpenter, and King as they run across the entire series like a big salad bowl, but the brothers actually specifically wanted the three generations of characters to not only have separate stories, but play out in different '80 universes that are tonally different from one another. So they tried to do that by writing each of them distinctly as a specific homage to one of those '80s giants.

So the adults are in a Spielberg movie (very specifically Close Encounters, I think), where flawed individuals come into contact with an extraordinary event that forces them to hold onto the optimism and hope that they've lost. The teenagers are in a slasher movie, where the themes of high school and sexual frustration are juxtaposed with the supernatural and you see the virginal girl having to become a fighter to violently beat a monster. And the kids obviously are in a Stephen King coming-of-age novel where friendships are tested in an adult manner they've never experienced before when they have to rely on each other to take down an overwhelming evil.

[[ETM]]

I was actually thinking the exact opposite while watching this. Those kids in Super 8 are sooo much better than the kids here. :P

I watched them back to back, and I really didn't care much for the kids in Super 8, except for Fanning, of course, who is superb. It's not the kids' fault, either. It's just that the story is so paper thin and pointless that it barely registers emotionally, at least for me.

[Henry Gale]

Alright, finally got around to finishing it, and as much as I feel it's definitely entertaining stuff, it mainly just made me want to re-watch Close Encounters, The Goonies, The Guest (especially for the SURVIVE-scored bits since they did all the music here), A Nightmare On Elm Street, E.T., Under The Skin, Alien, Beyond the Black Rainbow, The Visitor, The Monster Squad, and even Midnight Special, which I didn't love but felt like it's a strong spiritual companion to this. Those are just the first things that came to mind, too.

I think the first three episodes (which I watched when they were first released and then went away without internet for a bit and subsequently got too busy to continue immediately after) are the strongest, Episodes 4 to 6 are pretty sluggish and wheel-spinning, and then the last two are solid enough to tie it all together neatly enough, but ultimately proving to me there's not much for me to grab onto emotionally beyond the clever pastiche.

By the end of the season it also did very little to convince me that the Nancy/Steve/Barb storyline adds anything meaningful to the overall story beyond providing the sort of '80s romance / slasher texture that 8 mentioned. Also if Modine's character is truly dead, then what a waste of an actor and character.

I'll gladly watch another season and I do love the score and think a lot of the characters and little elements are very charming, but ultimately, I can't pretend I love it or say I think there's much originality going on here, and it makes me wonder if the people come across both in real-life and online who're ecstatic about it have seen or truly value the movies I mentioned above.

At least we can agree this is the best thing Shawn Levy has ever had a hand in directing?

[Morris Schæffer]

Episode 4. This thing is becoming more goosebumpy by the minute. One thing that irks me.

4 episodes in and no one has actually had the bright idea to talk to the Dr. Brenner (Modine) character.

[megladon8]

This was wonderful, the only real weakness of note being Winona Ryder, who was bloody awful.

Superb story telling. I want more. Lots more.

[Dukefrukem]

I thought Winona Ryder played a very good concerned parent.

[number8]

Winona's great. Her character's bad.

[megladon8]

I felt like I could see her acting.

[Morris Schæffer]

I felt like I could see her acting.

I too think she's overdoing it a little bit. If this was a movie released in December, one might be forgiven for thinking she's after something.

[Sycophant]

On the other hand, I thought she was out-acting a lot of her scene partners. Especially the guy who played her ex husband.

[Scar]

On the other hand, I thought she was out-acting a lot of her scene partners. Especially the guy who played her ex husband.

Definitely agree.

[Ivan Drago]

4 episodes in. The one problem I have is that the characters just feel like references rather than actual characters. But here's hoping they remedy that in season 2. I love everything else from the story, to the science fiction elements, to the phenomenal score and soundtrack.

[Henry Gale]

I too think she's overdoing it a little bit. If this was a movie released in December, one might be forgiven for thinking she's after something.

As much as its popularity is at insane levels right now and Netflix is very good at getting their shows nominated, I still feel like the series is possibly too genre to be recognized widely by things like the Emmys next year, but I can easily see Ryder be the one big representative nominee for the show. A winner, even, since there's a nice comeback nature to it all.

I do agree that there isn't very much to Joyce on paper but that she brings a lot more to her with the actual performance. The moments she's left alone on screen without dialogue is when she's the most compelling.

[Dukefrukem]

They agree with Meg on Winona Ryder at 11:30


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lMOsdHhqio

[transmogrifier]

David Harbour needs to be in more things. Dude's good.

[transmogrifier]

Overall: pretty good. I liked all the characters and actors with the exception of Ryder, who I thought was shrill and annoying, not necessarily by design. I liked the tone and atmosphere, but the sloppy plotting really got to me in the end: the blood theory which makes no sense when you have a semi-important character walking around with blood all over his face unmolested, show-horning Ryder into the search for Will in the underneath, just so she could scream hoarsely some more, the Modine character in general, inept government agents who cannot catch a bunch of kids on shoddy bikes from like 20 yards away, how many times the "Eleven steps in to save the day" card was played etc...

One more pass at the screenplays would have made a world of difference.

[Dukefrukem]

As if there was any doubt


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

[amberlita]

Are we supposed to know what those names/titles are referencing?

[Henry Gale]

Are we supposed to know what those names/titles are referencing?

Oh, aren't those all the Season 2 episode titles?

Which would mean nine episodes instead of eight this time around. Hope it only improves with the extra time!

[amberlita]

Oh, aren't those all the Season 2 episode titles?

Nine episodes instead of eight this time around. Hope it can only improve!

Oh. I thought they hadn't written Season 2 yet so assumed they wouldn't have episode titles.

[Dukefrukem]

I didn't think they wrote Season 2 yet either.

That seems oddly convenient.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Netflix generally orders two seasons of a show, not one, so showrunners are encouraged to think big, but they withhold the Season Two announcements depending on reception to Season One.

I think.

[Irish]

Netflix will spend $5 billion on content this year.

Everything they produce is guaranteed multiple seasons.

[amberlita]

That's ridiculous. $5 billion?! Seriously? They make that much money without ad revenue? Didn't I remember reading that Netflix operates at a net loss or something? Because of all the money it has to pay for studio rights and bandwidth.

Edit: apologies if this reads terribly naive but I know nothing about this.

[dreamdead]

We finished this out over the past week. It hurts itself in that it continuously applies "maybe we should do this or think of the monster this way" logic and they're always right. That sort of takes away from the overall fantastical nature of the show. If they'd have been wrong about the upside down, or been wrong about the creature's attraction to blood--anything to suggest that there's a danger to over-literalizing one of their predictions, I'd have been more of a fan of this world.

As it stands, Harbour's excellent in it, and the world does remind me of King's It-world. My annoyance is the overwhelming sense throughout the show that King's gigantic text had far more complexity and heart to it than is exhibited here.

Hopefully the show doesn't bother to try to save Barb or any other silliness in season two but goes elsewhere.

[number8]

That's ridiculous. $5 billion?! Seriously? They make that much money without ad revenue? Didn't I remember reading that Netflix operates at a net loss or something? Because of all the money it has to pay for studio rights and bandwidth.

Edit: apologies if this reads terribly naive but I know nothing about this.

Highly recommended reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/magazine/can-netflix-survive-in-the-new-world-it-created.html?_r=0


Finally, the pessimists point out that Netflix makes very little profit: In the first quarter of this year, for instance, Netflix had nearly $2 billion in revenue but only $28 million in profit. Despite the significant moves by Netflix into original programming, Wall Street still values Netflix more like a platform company — a business that uses the internet to match buyers and sellers, like Uber — than a content company, like a studio or a network. Its valuation is currently $5 billion more than Sony, for example. Hastings, who has been very blunt about the company’s strategy of plowing money back into the business, has promised bigger profits sometime in 2017. Whether he can deliver on that promise will be a significant test of investors’ faith in him.

[Irish]

That's ridiculous. $5 billion?! Seriously? They make that much money without ad revenue? Didn't I remember reading that Netflix operates at a net loss or something? Because of all the money it has to pay for studio rights and bandwidth.

Short answer: Netflix is swimming in cash and can afford to overpay for original content.

They have around 40-50 million subscribers in North America alone. That's upwards of $500 mil revenue per month with no retail supply chain taking a cut. Streaming an HD movie at scale costs pennies, around 7¢ per. They have a small number of employees and their other overhead is limited.

[Sycophant]

I enjoyed this and will of course eagerly watch a sequel, but I'm a little concerned that with the more or less satisfying resolution of season one, the only thing left will be to dig into the existing premise in ways that will dismantle its charm.

The way they treated Barb in the first season is def a concern, as a lot of critics have voiced. A hard overcorrection on that could be a pain to watch, though.

Netflix is putting out some pretty awesome content. I am a bit dismayed about their ever-weakening library of licensed films though. If it converts itself to a predominately original content service, I can see myself reducing my subscription to a few months out of the year to catch up rather than an always-there source of new and old things to watch.

[Dukefrukem]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF7qb6Y3GJE

[Grouchy]

I feel in complete agreement with DaMU. The show is not really bad, but it's like someone got their recollections of E.T. and The Goonies and made a pastiche of Greatest Hits from it - which in itself is not wrong, but on this case it has no soul and pretty much no original ideas of its own. I also felt like the show was designed to appeal to everything I, as a nerd, will like (AD&D, government conspiracies, Lovecraftian monsters) and I found that kind of artificial as well.

Unlike many people on this thread, I found Winona Ryder a big motivation to keep watching. Her character is not great but her performance makes it much more compelling than it should be. That and a few classic Horror scenes in the first half of the season (such as the one where they kill Barb in the swimming pool with the teens screwing upstairs) were my favorite parts.

[Morris Schæffer]

Paul Reiser and Sean Astin join season 2. Cool!

[MadMan]

I thought this was fantastic. Every TV show has plot holes and issues. Also they did address Barb if people were paying attention.

[Ezee E]

I don't have much to add to to the discussion, but I'm a little over halfway through this. It's enjoyable enough with the fun soundtrack and a story that's not often done for TV.

With that, if this is the 2000's generations' "Are You Afraid of the Dark," well... They win.

Always funny when physics are explained on paper plates (also Interstellar).

[Ezee E]

Also, I like the Duffer Brother talk about King/Spielberg/horror... Although to me, it's more like three Goosebump books.

[Dead & Messed Up]

This was the best thing to come out of the show:


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

[D_Davis]

This was the best thing to come out of the show:


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

Nah. The best thing to come out of the show is the show. It's fantastic.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Nah. The best thing to come out of the show is the show. It's fantastic.

Disagree! It's a diverting pastiche and little more.

[D_Davis]

Looks like we have a classic disagreement on our hands!

[Dead & Messed Up]

Looks like we have a classic disagreement on our hands!

Oh, boy, what an impasse we've run into!

[D_Davis]

Oh, boy, what an impasse we've run into!

Should we fight, or talk it out?

I'm OK with just agreeing to disagree.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Should we fight, or talk it out?

I'm OK with just agreeing to disagree.

Me, too. I don't have the energy.

[Sycophant]

This is truly Match Cut's 2017 season.