Stranger Things

[The NZA]

season 2 confirmed for 2017!

[Mr. Hakujin]

I love that S2 teaser that's out. And it's also reassuring to know the Duffer Bros. had plans for S2 all along. There are some really interesting titles there. Glad we get a "bonus" episode nine in S2 as well since we're apparently getting four new characters introduced.

 

And did anyone know the actress playing 11 was British? And she was already in some series called Intruders on BBC America back in 2014? I had no idea. It was canceled after only one season, but I'm definitely gonna watch it to check out her performance.

 

Also, there is this bit of fun...

 

 

And Orange is the New Bitch according to Barb

 

 

Edited September 2, 2016 by Mr. Hakujin
Tell 'em, Barb!

[Visitant]

Yeah so basically, If I remember the article correctly: 11 is British, her family pretty much sold their life to take her to Hollywood and make her a star (at her request, not theirs). They moved out to Hollywood, basically got shitfucked by the system, lost all their money, had to move back to the UK when she finally got the call to come play 11 and now = $$$

[crimsonfire]

Haven't seen a show this good in a long time. It was what Super 8 should have been.

 

I know Winona Ryder has gotten some bad press in years gone by but I really liked her performance in this. She portrayed the mother-who-isn't-perfect-but-is-doing-her-damndest perfectly. I also liked the older brother of the kid who went missing (the names escape me). I could really relate to this character.

[Da Cap'n 2099]

A creepy weirdo? I can see that.

[crimsonfire]

Shots fired.

 

I like how he's a bit of social retard but keeps a level head when it comes to the important stuff.

[Little Nemo McFly]

I keep seeing this name everywhere - in headlines n' little side-blurbs - after flipping around Netflix and not finding anything cool, I thought I'd give this a shot.

 

I'm sure everyone has already praised the 80s aesthetic (I haven't perused this thread yet), it was very cool. I really felt like I was taken back and watching an 80s made-for-tv King adaption - w/ a twist of Spielberg. I honestly got taken aback when '2016' appeared in the series-info when I had to click on the next episode - LOL! Like, an absolutely stellar job in recreating that vibe n' feel. Outstanding.

 

Content? Eh. Too many leaps in logic and just...dumb moments that took me out of the whole thing.

 

I was totally in during the first 2-3 episodes - then around the 5th, it just started to feel like this was aimed at...a younger audience? It just felt really thin n' weak. Way too many 'How did they connect those dots?!' moments. It felt way too formulaic, to the point where I was dictating scenes as they happened. It became frustrating around the 5th episode, where I just threw in the towel.

 

 

 

I had been teetering, but the moment where that girl just went inside that treehole - w/out letting her monster-hunting 'partner' know or w/out any gear or w/out any trepidation...I just couldn't recover. The whole thing just turned into a bunch of stupid, for me.

 

I finished it, hoping the ending / answers would justify the 5-star rating it has on Netflix - but, nope. I didn't understand what the monster was - where it came from (yeah, an alternate dimension(?) - but, how was Will able to hide from the monster, but others couldn't? How was he able to communicate? There were cars n' buildings in the 'Upside Down'...if a car moved in our dimension, does it move there too? They must be connected, but...wtf, I didn't even understand 11's connection to the place.

 

So, the 'bad guys' won? Will puked up a worm at the end? What does that mean? Up to my imagination, I guess...an utterly unsatisfying ending.

 

Great performances, but the dialogue was cringey at times and the script felt...really thin...stretched out? This could've been a movie, if it had an ending and defined antagonists.

 

"My mom says she can hear Will's voice...so Barbara could still be alive."

 

Ugh.

 

 

 

It was okay - but ultimately kinda hollow. A shame - 'cuz it had the potential to be something great - if it had content. The aesthetic n' tone (attributed to honestly, good performances) was really the star. Extremely awesome.

 

btw - I know who I'm casting as Dave when I film my adaption of Maniac Mansion.

[crimsonfire]

I keep seeing this name everywhere - in headlines n' little side-blurbs - after flipping around Netflix and not finding anything cool, I thought I'd give this a shot.

 

I'm sure everyone has already praised the 80s aesthetic (I haven't perused this thread yet), it was very cool. I really felt like I was taken back and watching an 80s made-for-tv King adaption - w/ a twist of Spielberg. I honestly got taken aback when '2016' appeared in the series-info when I had to click on the next episode - LOL! Like, an absolutely stellar job in recreating that vibe n' feel. Outstanding.

 

Content? Eh. Too many leaps in logic and just...dumb moments that took me out of the whole thing.

 

I was totally in during the first 2-3 episodes - then around the 5th, it just started to feel like this was aimed at...a younger audience? It just felt really thin n' weak. Way too many 'How did they connect those dots?!' moments. It felt way too formulaic, to the point where I was dictating scenes as they happened. It became frustrating around the 5th episode, where I just threw in the towel.

 

 

 

I had been teetering, but the moment where that girl just went inside that treehole - w/out letting her monster-hunting 'partner' know or w/out any gear or w/out any trepidation...I just couldn't recover. The whole thing just turned into a bunch of stupid, for me.

 

I finished it, hoping the ending / answers would justify the 5-star rating it has on Netflix - but, nope. I didn't understand what the monster was - where it came from (yeah, an alternate dimension(?) - but, how was Will able to hide from the monster, but others couldn't? How was he able to communicate? There were cars n' buildings in the 'Upside Down'...if a car moved in our dimension, does it move there too? They must be connected, but...wtf, I didn't even understand 11's connection to the place.

 

So, the 'bad guys' won? Will puked up a worm at the end? What does that mean? Up to my imagination, I guess...an utterly unsatisfying ending.

 

Great performances, but the dialogue was cringey at times and the script felt...really thin...stretched out? This could've been a movie, if it had an ending and defined antagonists.

 

"My mom says she can hear Will's voice...so Barbara could still be alive."

 

Ugh.

 

 

 

It was okay - but ultimately kinda hollow. A shame - 'cuz it had the potential to be something great - if it had content. The aesthetic n' tone (attributed to honestly, good performances) was really the star. Extremely awesome.

 

btw - I know who I'm casting as Dave when I film my adaption of Maniac Mansion.

 

 

I dunno, man. I think you're beating it with the wrong stick. It's certainly flawed plot-wise but I accepted very early on that the plot was just a vehicle for the character development. It became ten times more enjoyable after that.

 

It was an experience for me, not a story if that makes any sense. A pleasantly rustic distraction. The innocence of it was refreshing too. Entertainment now seems stuffed to bursting with grit and realism which I've largely bought into but it's nice to have some fun with a show once in a while.

[Mr. Hakujin]

Shots fired.

 

I like how he's a bit of social retard but keeps a level head when it comes to the important stuff.

Oh, I thought it was more how he hid in the woods and took pics of people at a private pool. But, yeah, that other stuff fits you, too. I suppose.

[Little Nemo McFly]

It was an experience for me, not a story if that makes any sense. A pleasantly rustic distraction. The innocence of it was refreshing too.

 

 

 

 

LOL!

 

 

 

Yeah, I totally agree. It did totally feel like an experience - I was completely transported. They did a magnificent job of taking you back to another time / bringing you into a different kind of movie than you see nowadays. For me, though - I got invested in the story. I enjoy good stories.

 

 

 

Since the premise was introduced - I wanted to know what happened to Will? How was it that he was still alive? How is this kid managing to communicate? What is this other world? These are natural questions I had that I expected...answers for - that's typically how good storytelling works? Conflict / resolution? I mean, jeez - Goosebumps has more satisfying stories - LOL! This just felt like a beautiful thing w/ 'moments'...a shit-ton of 'homages' woven together to form a narrative (very fuzzy n' well done - btw).

 

Fantastic aesthetic n' performances - but it was shockingly devoid of...definition / completion / conclusion. It's not that it just...left on a cliffhanger or it simply left a door open for a sequel - I was literally left like, 'so what the fuck happened?!' and I wrestled w/ 'wait - seriously?! How did they come to that conclusion?!' throughout. Ironically, if this had come out in the time it's representing (1983), I can see critics calling it 'sloppy'. Today - well, I just gotta go online and read theories and interviews w/ the creators for answers...which all consequently lead to, 'wait for Season 2'.

 

Um, no...I can smell that the simple answers to (what I think are) basic plot-points, are gonna be stretched out into 2 more seasons. Yeah, I remember Lost being heralded as the best thing ever made, too. I'll just get off here.

 

 

 

Before I get labeled a hater - LOL - I totally give it credit where credit is due. As a fan of this genre, I just felt cheated story-wise - which is more important to me than being 'full of brilliant homages'. People have differing opinions / tastes. I can handle it...

 

 

LOL!

[Da Cap'n 2099]

Will you watch season 2 though?

[Little Nemo McFly]

 

LOL!!! Oh, wait - (clears throat) you're serious...

 

Um...naaaaw. I think Season 1 is as special as something like this is gonna get. These serialized things don't hold my attention for long. (I'm not into those long, melodrama character shows like Lost, House of Cards, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones - like, years-long growing stories) Walking Dead, for instance - first 2 - 3 seasons were different n' interesting...then it just became a soap-opera. Done.

 

I know people like the years-long character stuff and the drip-feed of puzzle-pieces. I mean, people are calling the show a phenomenon. I can already see the Stranger Things theory / discussion vids after every season becoming a staple.

 

I gave this a shot 'cuz I love the genre, I am a straight-up nostalgia-slut and was curious about all the buzz...plus, that Drew Struzan thumbnail - LOL Absolutely lovely homage / love letter - but honestly, for me - it's bereft w/ a 'stay tuned for this to make sense' thing going on. Pass.

 

Maybe if they billed Season 2 as the final entry - yeah, I guess I'd give it a click and try investing again. (shrugs) Stranger Things the series? Naw, I'm good. I wonder how many years they can go before they repeat an 'homage'?

[Mr. Hakujin]

Uh, well, sorry it didn't hit you in the feels like it did for so many others, Nemo. Personally, even if I didn't love S1, I'd still tune in to S2 to see how shit panned out for Will and 11 at the very least. But then again, I stuck with Fear TWD. so what do I know.

[Little Nemo McFly]

 

 

Yeah, I'm honestly surprised no one else in here brought up or was equally bothered by the fact that they never explained the show's original premise. I must've missed something, but I'm pretty sure they never explained how Will was communicating or was able to stay alive and hide from the undefined monster. If they did and I missed it - let's discuss!

 

 

 

It did hit me in the 'feels'...I think (I've never heard the term 'feels' until I came to Hondos) I was so pumped w/ the first 2 - 3 episodes...then it just got me shaking my head, one too many times. I'd still give this show an award for what it accomplished in terms of transporting you to another, familiar world. If you know n' love the films it 'homages' so hard - it achieved the fuzzies very well. I need / want more, tho.

 

EDIT: Woops - should've spoilered dat...

Edited September 5, 2016 by Little Nemo McFly

[Mr. Hakujin]

Yeah, I'm honestly surprised no one else in here brought up or was equally bothered by the fact that they never explained the show's original premise. I must've missed something, but I'm pretty sure they never explained how Will was communicating or was able to stay alive and hide from the undefined monster. If they did and I missed it - let's discuss!...

Yeah, they set up early on that Will was "good at hiding" and once the creature was able to spread further out and find other victims it wasn't pursuing Will as much. Although...

 

am I misremembering or didn't the monster actually catch Will in the last or second to last episode? Mom and sheriff rescued him from the library, right?

 

I also feel like the electrical charges were explained, too. In the Upside Down you effect/interrupt electrical currents in our world. Will's mom figured this out and set up the X-Mas light codes. I can't remember if the monster had this effect too or if it was just people who crossed over from our world that interrupted the electricity. I think it's the latter.

 

[Little Nemo McFly]

 

 

Yeah - they said he was good at hiding - but shit, was it a super-power? There was that scene where he was at the wall at his house, reaching out to his mom and she told his ass to "RUN!" and the monster was breathing down his neck...he's that good of a hider? I had the impression that the monster had some psychic abilities...I mean, he flicked the lock at the beginning of the show when he was hunting Will. That monster had bodies in that hive of his...how is this one kid avoiding capture and surviving in a place that requires a suit to enter? He just is?

 

Yeah, from the Upside Down - you can effect the lights. I think (?) it was the part where the mom n' sheriff were running around the Upside Down that they showed they were affecting the lights in our world - but, I don't think they could actually see the effect they were having. Will was communicating very specifically to his mother - as if he was in the room w/ her (Alphabet, one for yes, two for no) I wasn't able to wrap my head around the Upside Down. Are cars moving there? Knock a wall down here - it falls there, too? Can he actually see a ghost image of his mother - christmas lights appearing over materializing letters on a wall? He's just...communicating through lights...

 

 

Nobody else got hit? Seriously? I'm the only one?

 

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by Little Nemo McFly

[Visitant]

"Silent Hill is the one most people have picked up on," said Ross. "Because that's the least subtle one, with the look of the Upside Down and with all the fog and the forest dripping. Obviously we were really looking at that game for visualising this other world, so that's a big one".

 

"We're huge, huge fans of the Dark Souls games, and there's something about when you're playing Dark Souls," said his brother, Matt. "Immediately when you're in that world, it was to do with the imagery, it has to do with the sound design, and you're just immediately very uncomfortable and on edge. We wanted you to feel that way when you're in the Upside Down".

 

I think it's not too far a stretch to look to Silent Hill when talking about how the upside down operates in terms of its affect on reality. Things can be manipulated on one and have effects on the other etc.

[The NZA]

agreed, but did you also feel like it was the first SH film that played that up a bit more? in the games - at least, the Team Silent ones - i don't recall as much focus on making sense of the "other" and it's relationship with reality, like it was supposed to be blurry

[Visitant]

Right. So basically the way the "other" worked in the games was more a reflection of the person - so any changes made in the other were made because something inside the person has changed. That's not the easiest thing to really try and put into film (aside from Jacob's Ladder) so the movie really tried to tie the worlds together more by showing that one could influence the other which allowed for things like - plot progression and allowing for an understanding of the other world through our "normals" eyes.

 

...So while they may site the game as a big influence, it's hard not to see that their interpretation does come more heavily from the movie and it makes sense that it would, as it makes it less of an abstract concept than it already is.

 

 

(I could really keep going, I just don't want to bore people to tears)

[The NZA]

you know you're always welcome to talk SH here, man

[Dag]

I have went back and forth and whether I should post on this topic. First, I loved the show. It was a lot of fun and very full produced.

 

I would like to talk a little bit about the government projects that they mentioned on the show. They mention MK-ULTRA, which is well known since Congress found out about it during the Nixon administration. While the CIA and other organizations shredded most of the documents on the project, more than 27,000 pages were still obtained by Congress (a small fraction of the total documents on the project). MK-ULTRA was a program investigating mind control, not psychic powers. The sensory deprivation tank was developed by Dr. John Lilly and has uses in this type work. Sensory deprivation can break people psychologically.

 

The most famous test case subject involved in MK-ULTRA was Ted Kaczynski. He was a 16-year-old math major at Harvard and some of the experiments were conducted there by a psychology professor. Before MK-ULTRA, the project was called BLUEBIRD and then ARTICHOKE. This is all heavily documented public knowledge.

 

The majority of the psychic research was called Project Stargate. There have been several books written on Stargate by actual participants in the program. Project Stargate was a multi-decade project. Many of the people that were involved as 'psychics' in the program claimed to encounter extra-dimensional intelligences when they were involved in looking for Soviet targets.

 

In occult terms, the shadow world encountered in the show is more like what is described as the lower "astral," for whatever that is worth. One is said to bleed into the other.

 

If you are interested, in anything in particular I could post more. Anyhow, I think the writers were queuing into these ideas.

[Little Nemo McFly]

Oh, man - I bet we would have very interesting conversations, over a brew. I find those topics fascinating. I've got a few books that delve into that stuff.

 

"Do you need a drink of water?" LOL

[Mr. Hakujin]

Yeah, I heard of MK-Ultra before but only through mention in documentaries and movies. Wasn't Jacob's Ladder based on it? And I never saw it, but that film Men Who Stare At Goats (I think it was called that) had something to do with government attempts at documenting psychic phenomena.

[Visitant]

Yeah, I heard of MK-Ultra before but only through mention in documentaries and movies. Wasn't Jacob's Ladder based on it?

 

That is one theory - and as like Silent Hill (which takes A LOT from Jacob's Ladder), it's mostly left to the viewer to consider - rather than force it down their throats.

 

With that said, I'm happy that this movie got people talking about programs like MK ultra...

 

...because all that shit i used to read about obsessively when I was younger can now be vomited out in their direction

[Dag]

Oh, man - I bet we would have very interesting conversations, over a brew. I find those topics fascinating. I've got a few books that delve into that stuff.

 

"Do you need a drink of water?" LOL

 

I love the Uri Geller picture. I would definitely love to get a drink with you, Haku, and Bindy (or any of you for that matter).

 

They bring up in the show that LSD was used in the MK-ULTRA experiments. That has been documented. In fact, Dr. John Lilly who I mentioned invented the sensory deprivation tank, actually dosed dolphins with LSD in an attempt to communicate with them.

 

People that take psychedelics commonly report 'telepathic' experiences while on the drug. Since Dr. Lilly had taken LSD, I can only assume that this was the reason he gave it to the dolphins. The Nixon administration actually shut down all of the dolphin experiments after some of Lilly's work. I have a very close friend who is a tenured track professor that told me about an experience where he was doing mushrooms and he along with the friends he was tripping with said that they shared a telepathic experience. He said it really freaked them out. I have read in non-conspiracy/historical and psychological texts about these reports.

 

Oddly enough, I'm finishing up reading Peter Levenda's Sinister Forces which talks about all of the projects that have been mentioned so far in this thread. Levenda is probably most famous for being the alleged author of the Simon Necronomicon (he mostly definitely did write it in my opinion). I read his book Unholy Alliance: Nazi Involvement in the Occult some years ago. It is an excellent read that is well footnoted, just as Sinister Forces is. He talks about and documents his trip to Colonial Dignidad in Chile in the 1970s, which was an enclave of escaped Nazis that had setup a small town and worked as torturers for the Pinochet government. The author is almost killed there and is kicked out of the country. When Levenda returns to the U.S., he said that he was met by FBI agents and questioned about his trip. Colonial Dignidad was later written about by other authors and is well documented. Good stuff.

 

I find it funny that I am reading about some of this stuff now from Levenda's book since he so shamelessly took from Lovecraft (the Nec is basically a merging of Lovecraft and ancient Sumerian demons and diety rituals) and there is a Lovecraftian type monster in Stranger Things.

 

I am usually quick to dismiss a lot of the conspiracy theory noise, but Levenda's books are so heavily researched and footnoted that I really like them. Plus, he doesn't necessarily make the leaps of logic that other conspiracy writers make. He presents the info with documentation and leaves it up to the reader to draw their own conclusions. The only conclusion that he puts forth is that there is some sort of non-physical intelligence connected in some way with the things he writes about.