July Netflix Series - Stranger Things (1 Viewer)

[benbess]

Loved the show. Had fun watching it with my kids, ages 14 and 20.

 

[Citizen87645]

This show is what Super 8 should have been.

 

[trevanian]

This show is what Super 8 should have been.

This show is to SUPER-8 what Kodachrome 40 was to Polavision stock (anybody who ever shot S8 will appreciate the distinction -- one is bold and wonderful and colorful, and the other wasn't worth loading into a camera.)

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The surviving members of Tangerine Dream have uploaded their take on the Stranger Things theme to SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/tangerinedreamofficial2015/without-glitch

 

[EliAmador]

Here's a nice video showing many of the 70's and 80's references in the show.

I would add that an early scene of Hopper filling out a missing person's report is similar to the scene in Jaws where Brody fills out the report about the first victim. They both have close ups of the typewriter filling in the important parts.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Season Two Casting Announcement:

• Joe Keery, who plays Nancy Wheeler's boyfriend/Jonathan Beyer's frenemy Steve, has been promoted to series regular
• Noah Schnapp has also been promoted to series regular. The disappearance of his character, Will Byers, drove the plot of the first season.
• Sadie Sink (below left) has been cast in the role of MAX, a tough and confident girl whose appearance, behavior and pursuits seem more typical of boys than of girls in this era. She has a complicated history and is generally suspicious of those around her.
• Dacre Montgomery (below right) has been cast in the role of BILLY, Max’s hyper-confident, and edgy older step-brother. He steals girlfriends away from their boyfriends, is great at drinking games, and drives a black Camaro. But lurking under his apparent charisma, is a violent and unpredictable nature.

Sink was a standout on NBC's short-lived "American Odyssey", in which she played the fierce young daughter of Anna Friel's character. I don't know anything about Montgomery, except that he's starring as the Red Ranger on the big screen Power Rangers reboot.

Still no word yet as to whether or not Millie Bobby Brown will be back as Eleven.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The official Stranger Things Twitter feed posted a photo from the table read featuring the entire youth contingent of the cast, confirming that Millie Bobby Brown will indeed be back as Eleven:

On the adult side of the cast, Season 2 is adding two more eighties icons and one fresh face:

• Sean Astin (The Goonies) will play Bob Newby, a kind-hearted former nerd who went to high school with Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper (David Harbour) and now manages the local Hawkins RadioShack.
• Paul Reiser (Diner, Beverly Hills Cop, Aliens) will play Dr. Owens, a high-ranking member within the Department of Energy on a "clean-up" assignment who is tasked with containing the events of last year.
• Danish star Linnea Berthelsen will play Roman, an emotionally damaged, magnetic young woman who suffered a great loss as a child. Although she does not live in Hawkins, she is mysteriously connected to the supernatural events at the lab. In her early twenties, she represents somewhat of a departure from the original casting call for this role, which sought "a male or a female of any ethnicity between the ages of 30 and 38."

 

[Scott-S]

I know I am late to the game but I was off all this week and decided to binge this show. I really liked it but I did have a few things that bugged me:

My biggest was Winona Ryder's over the top acting. It was just getting on my nerves. This is hard for me because I had such a crush on her back when we were much younger.

I didn't really dig the ending. I am not even positive that "papa" got killed. Was he killed at the School with the rest?

I also did not like Steve. I don't understand how he ended up a "good guy". I guess he just creeps me out.

Now for the things I liked:

I loved how it felt like a "darker" Goonies movie. Or, like some had mentioned, a better Super 8.
I loved the music.
Loved how they cast "regular" looking people. Made it feel much more real to me.

I am looking forward to another season. It will be interesting to see how the "big bad government" tries to explain the events at the school. I also want to find out where Hop went in the car with the G-men.

 

[DaveF]

My biggest was Winona Ryder's over the top acting. It was just getting on my nerves. This is hard for me because I had such a crush on her back when we were much younger.

I understand, and at the start I was anxious about her performance. But for me, I found she successfully walked the edge of hysterical, overwhelmed mother -- and a trope of fantasy / sci-fi is that people react with blasé to the impossible. Winona's performance was in some ways the most realistic. And she pulled it off without falling into complete camp or melodrama. I would speculate that she and the showrunners worked intentionally to take her performance right up to the precipice and keep it there the full season.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Watched it. Loved it. Can't wait until Season 2!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

First photo from Season 2 (via Entertainment Weekly):

Netflix has purchased a Superbowl spot teasing the second season, which is rumored to premiere on 9/8/2017.

 

[joshEH]

Awwwww, they're wearing Ghostbusters outfits because of course they are.

Has this show already disappeared up its own ass? This show's references are so blindingly on-the-nose, it should be called "Booger Things."

My biggest was Winona Ryder's over the top acting. It was just getting on my nerves. This is hard for me because I had such a crush on her back when we were much younger.

Agreed. Winona sucked. She was shockingly mediocre and at times outright-bad in this. This show is simultaneously supposed to be her comeback, and is also proof positive that she's kinda lost it, and needs to both hang it up and probably sort some shit out in her personal life.

Best way I can put it is, Winona Ryder in this show is what many people were afraid Carrie Fisher was going to be in The Force Awakens.

 

[DaveF]

Some of you saw a different show than I did. You're not watching from the Upside Down are you?

I re-watched Ghostbusters I and II the past couple weeks. I was delighted to see the promo image of the kids in the 'busting costumes. This show hits my nostalgia buttons pretty much perfectly.

 

[joshEH]

To clarify...less iconography, more storytelling.

My complaint about the first season was they seemed to misunderstand the difference between being influenced by something, and working it organically into the narrative and wearing those influences on your sleeve so the show becomes a constant game of, "Spot the '80s References."

I think the fact that the show takes place in the '80s is plenty. There have been films that have successfully pulled this off without pandering to a nostalgic fanbase. Heck, the recent Black Mirror episode "San Junipero" pulled this off brilliantly. It was nostalgic without being a greatest-hits montage.

I think the hardest curve Stranger Things needs to make is making me think this series should continue past that anti-climatic ending of Season 1. Where exactly do these characters need to go? What's the hook, outside Upside Down popping back into existence on a whim?

Other than that, it manages to rise above its faults, and the show works, for the most part. I just hope they don't take peoples' enthusiasm for the '80s-ness of the show and run that shit into the ground. I don't mind a reference here and there, but I would like them to take their foot off the, "I luv the 80s!" throttle a little, and just tell a compelling story with the great characters they've developed. The show has tons of potential.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I thought "Stranger Things" was much more organic about incorporating its influences than, say, Super 8 was.

 

[DaveF]

The thing about Stranger Things was it wasn't about 'spot the references' amidst an other generic set. It didn't have COCA COLA can sitting on a table surrounded by generic tableware. Rather, it was a spot-on representation of that time period with specific song and movie references used to both fit the period and fit the emotions of the moment.

Stranger Things isn't my favorite show ever. The hype was too high and I was a little let down in the moment. But what killed me -- and discussed this with my oldest childhood friend -- is that it was my childhood, only better. I was that age in 1983. I was a nerdy kid with two other nerdy friends. Going to junior high school in a small town in Indiana.

I can't speak for anyone else who doesn't have that life experience. But for me, I wasn't getting fan service with '80s pop references. I was getting the full force of nostalgia, and reliving the childhood I had, only better. Because I could only wish I understood friendship as those kids did.

I don't want a new season of spot-the references. I want to see 1984 re-created. I want my childhood taken another year forward. For me, there was a terrible accident in '84; I nearly lost my leg perhaps. I'm looking forward to Stranger Things moving forward as it tells the story of the life I never had and yet lived as a child.

 

[Citizen87645]

For me, I'd like to see fewer Star Wars, and more Mork and Mindy references. [emoji16]

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Season 2 Superbowl Spot:


The second season will go live on Halloween.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Love that show, glad to see the SB spot.

 

[Citizen87645]

Reminds me I need to get a John Carpenter CD.