Stranger Things — a Netflix Original Series with Amblin-Styled Scares and Wonder

I don't see the excessive nostalgia grab. It's there, yeah, the Dragon's Lair bit probably wouldn't have shown up otherwise, but it's really not as extreme as you're making it out to be.

Excessive nostalgia grabbing would be the characters incessantly dropping references to a ton of 80s things. Having them be in a world full of the 80s things...while being kids from the 80s who would be into the things that are brought up...it's pretty normal. To me it seems like a movie set in the late 90s having things like a PS 1 hanging around.

The thing that might be considered odd is the fact that none of these kids seem to be into things that were flash-in-the-pan and then just sank without a trace.

You have a point, but the odds are that a modern audience wouldn't have heard of those things because of their 'flash-in-the-pan' nature, so either it would confuse people or more likely just not register.

I can see the argument for the trailer being a nostalgia grab, though I don't really agree (the use of Thriller doesn't sit right with me though, it just strikes the wrong tone), but I doubt the show will be the same way.

It does to me since it's mostly focusing on the kids. The kids are in a Goonies or a Gremlins kind of movie. If it was focused on Hopper or the Teens I would agree that Thriller would be wholly inappropriate.

I do not know, it just feels very narm-y. But I'm not particularly fond of 1st season (it's not bad, but it's just shameless Cliché Storm without any original, unique elements of story, characters etc.), so make it what you will.

Or maye I'm just grumpy "Stop Having Fun" Guy.

It seems like you don't really like the premise. Which is fine, you don't have to, but the things you don't like are pretty much the whole draw. The show's a love letter to an era.

Nothing is completely original anymore. Get used to it. ;)

Stick that VHS cassette into the VCR and listen to this thing while you pop some popcorn and wait for the featured presentation to start.

Annnnnnnd, Season 2 is out now. Rad. Only up to Episode 3, but really enjoying it.

Meh. Same old, same old.

Haven't seen any of the new season, but I'm excited. I hope the show keeps its emotional core and doesn't veer off too deep into the 80s stuff—keep things realistic within the context of the premise. I'm always worried they're gonna go way overboard with the "hey, remember this from the 80s?"

Gonna watch it today; I'm expecting greatness.

I think I'm unfairly annoyed that all the love triangles are two guys over a girl. Would it kill for a bit of variety?

Well, finished it. I personally thought it was pretty nice.

I thought it was really enjoyable, but suffered a bit due to the lack of mystery compared to S1.

I enjoyed it a lot, especially Eleven's arc. Especially the scene with Eight training her to use her powers more effectively. I loved that it was basically a perfect inversion of the Magneto-Xavier scene from X-Men First Class, with a telepath encouraging her to harness her anger into using her powers.

Introducing a whole new mystery in addition to tying off the loose ends from Season 1 would have required much more plot space, and I tend to prefer stories that are willing to back off the plot a little to give more space for characterization.

Max was cool. I was annoyed for the first few episodes that we were only seeing her from the boys' perspective, as "mysterious cool outsider", but it got a lot better once we got to see Max from her own perspective. Her brother was a rather flat antagonist, though.

I actually thought it was better than the first season. The lore was expanded, the characters had more to do, the stakes were higher, and the faster pace made everything more exciting. I can safely say that I genuinely like all of the characters in this show, but Joyce, Dustin, Hopper, and Eleven feel like the best characters overall.

There were some problems I had with it. For one, it took way too long for Eleven to be incorporated into the group. Mike being turned into an angsty teen was expected, but not exactly enjoyable to watch. Although, I'm glad Luke became the nice one this time around. Max and her brother were okay for new characters, but neither one of them were particularly interesting. However, the way everyone treated Max for the entire season was terrible.

Just finished season 2. It's really good. Loved the expansion of the lore, and I always say that any show can be improved with the addition of a giant monster. The character growth was strong, and I liked how the thing that really mattered in the epilogue was one of the smaller plots.

I have a bit of a theory about the Upside-Down, tell me what you think: it's not actually a mirror world. It's a parallel dimension, identical to the main one, except the virus/fungus/whatever invaded and took over the planet, killing everyone in the process. As we saw with Will, it needs humans to breed new Demogorgons, and there was only one Demogorgon in Season 1 because it was the last of them alive after humankind was wiped out.

This explains why all the same buildings exist in the Upside-Down: it's because the invasion happened relatively recently, after those buildings had already been built.

Watched (most of) all two seasons at once. I saw the first few episodes of the first season a few weeks ago, but binged the whole thing at once when the second

I'm looking forward to seeing how they top the eternal walk through the supernatural abyss that is Will Byer's life in the next season. Maybe he'll outright turn ''into'' the Demogorgon next time, or he'll get zapped a thousand years into the past and end up fighting deadites or something. For if there's one constant to the Stranger Things universe, it's that Will must suffer, while everyone else stumbles around trying (and failing a few times) to save him.

Also, El/Jane is totally an X-Man now. She can't wear that comic book movie getup and possibly earn herself an Evil Counterpart in the last few episodes (well, not completely evil now, but well along a darker path and poised to get worse in the future) and not be Professor X any more.

Speaking of which, for two characters ( and members of the party) so heavily thrown into the darkness and lore around them, it's kind of funny that the first time Will and El could ever conceivably meet is at the end of Season 2.

Anyone else think Dustin's going to be a douchebag after the timeskip to the next season?

I dunno. The buildup of it being an eldtritch extension of our world is too consistent so far.

edited 30th Oct '17 3:11:34 AM by KnownUnknown

I hope not. Dustin's my favorite out of the four boys. Turning him into an awful teenage boy would really suck for the next season.

You'll feel my pain then, I rather liked Mike the most of the four boys last season [Hopper was my fav until Maxy showed up]...but here...he was a bit Unintentionally Unsympathetic regarding his treatment of Max, and his "apology" was a bit hollow, and the whole "El is out there" came off as a bit Wangsty.

Agreed. But I think it would be worse for Dustin. Mike had numerous reasons for acting out, while Dustin turning douchey wouldn't make much sense within the context of the show.

I'm kind of shocked this thread has so few posts.

Is it just me, or are many of the adult actors in this people who were in popular movies from the 80s?

Yeah, what gives? Not even a hundred posts for two seasons and a third of them is from people who don't give a shit about it.

Anyway, just finished the second season. It was pretty solid but not as great as the first one, which is really an excellent piece of television. Here's my reasons: the 80s references are far too blatant this time (and these weren't exactly subtle the first time around), too much stuff going on at once (they could have removed a couple subplots), and they gave less screen time to some interesting characters because of the new ones, which aren't as compelling the awesome science teacher does pretty much nothing this time (and Dustin even mocks him!), while the new psychic girl 008/Kali is cool but ultimately irrelevant and Californian stud Billy is an useless antagonist. The new menace is much cooler and eviler however.

All in all I liked it. Also, if you enjoy retrogaming, you need to play the official game!

TV Tropes forums base must be well out of sync with popular culture on this one. Odd, as I'm a longtime troper who loves the show. I'm also burned out on comicbook stories but I guess not everyone else.

Billy and Max were basically a lot of setup this season. TBH Lucas kinda was in Season One as well, he didn't do much except some minor antagonism towards Eleven, so I look forward to them having more important roles next season.

The Pittsburgh episode should have only had Kali, and mentioned the gang was somewhere offscreen to set them up. There was not enough time to develop them and they felt very one dimensional as a result, which isn't good when you're alienating the audience with a unusual episode.

edited 2nd Nov '17 11:54:01 AM by occono

I'm surprised this thread is so short, too. There's definitely tropers watching the show, since the pages have filled up with info from season 2 as quick as you'd expect. And on that topic, I have a question: whoever wrote on the pages seems quite convinced that the slug Will threw up at the end of season 1 is D'Artagnan. Is that actually confirmed anywhere? It strains belief that a creature that went from fist-sized to dog-sized in three days took a year to go from the size of your thumb to the size it was when Dustin found it. They're obviously related, but are they in fact the exact same thing?

edited 2nd Nov '17 3:22:39 PM by shigmiya64