"Stranger Things" on Netflix

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by davidshirt, Jul 15, 2016.

  1. Rufus McDufus

    Rufus McDufus Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Started season 3 last night and really enjoying it. For some reason I just didn't warm to season 2 at all and really struggled to watch all the way through, though weirdly both my wife and I liked the episode everyone else hated (s02e07?). I found the pacing and bombardment of music early on in season 3 a little hard to get used to but soon got over it.
     
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  2. mds

    mds Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    Just watched episode 1, not sure if I am liking it. Acting is not natural, everything seems exaggerated and forced as though it is turning into a spoof on shows of this ilk. Does it smooth out as the episodes go on or does it keep this style up? I did not think Seasons 1 and 2 were written and acted this wooden and spoof like. The macho lifeguard and the married women at the pool was almost embarrassing. How the old characters were reintroduced did not seem natural but as though they had turned them into cartoons of themselves. The mall scene with the young girls calling the boys nerds just wasn't needed, we already knew they were nerds, that was the charm. The rebel without a cause from last season wearing the silly sailor's suit trying to pick up ever girl who comes into the ice cream store was embarrassing also. I am sure they could have done this a little more subtle.

    I will give it a two more Episodes to see if I settle in to the new season and how they are handling the maturing of the characters but so far not so good and that Russian scene in the beginning was really cheesy.
     
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  3. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Same here. It's not that S2 wasn't enjoyable, it's just that is seemed like a rehash of S1. Sorry, but ep 2x07 was the worst of the worst in so many, many ways! Little wonder none of those events had any callbacks in S3.

    I alluded in a previous comment that the premise of the alternate world was wearing thin and was the least interesting aspect for me in S3 - the character interactions being the main draw, along with the homage to all things '80s. I really hope they do something different regarding the monster realm next season, though going by the post credit sequence, I won't hold my breath.
     
  4. Spaghettiows

    Spaghettiows Forum Resident

    Location:
    Silver Creek, NY
    Just watched the first 2 episodes. The music represents a fairly good cross-section of what was popular on the radio and MTV at that approximate time, in addition to a few late 70s song thrown in like "Cold As Ice".

    I was not a mallrat in the 80s, but the suburban mall really was the center of the universe for many teens. Depicting a fully active, thriving shopping mall really is a kick. Most malls now that are still operating are surreal ghost towns. Plus the fact that they stuck a Ground Round and Waldenbooks in the mall made it look very period authentic. Surprised there was no Thom McCann.
     
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  5. GreenDrazi

    GreenDrazi Truth is beauty

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    They used Gwinnett Place Mall, a mostly dead mall north of Atlanta, by sectioning off a part of the mall, updating finishes and installing period storefronts.
     
  6. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    Just finished S3 last night. This season was great, more characters (I really liked Robin as a foil for Steve), much more plot (even though it's generally the same stuff as before), and it looks like the creators had a ton of more money to work with and it shows onscreen. I liked this season far more than S2 which just felt like a retread of S1.

    Wonder how much longer the show can continue at this level of quality. The kids are also aging up rapidly and everyone looks far taller here.

    I think you covered a lot of them, but S3 also seems to feature nods to the The Terminator (with the unstoppable Russian that keeps coming after Hopper), to even something as recent and non-80's as Under The Skin (every time Eleven does her remote viewing thing in the inky blackness reminds me of the very underrated Scarlet Johansson film).
     
  7. NickCarraway

    NickCarraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gastonia, NC
    What sounded different? I thought they sounded like the originals. Of course the Cutting Crew tune wasn't released in the US until 1987 so maybe that was an unreleased demo version :D
     
  8. NickCarraway

    NickCarraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gastonia, NC
    There's a line in S3 where Eleven appears to not recognize "Illinois", despite having gone to Chicago in The Episode That Shall Not Be Named.
     
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  9. MikaelaArsenault

    MikaelaArsenault Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    They just didn’t sound like the original versions.
     
  10. NickCarraway

    NickCarraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gastonia, NC
    S4 will be its last. Yeah, Will and Mike are both taller than their mothers.
     
  11. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    Has this been confirmed? 4-5 seasons seems to be all a non-situational comedy show can bear anyhow.

    You can be damn sure Netflix will coax a Stranger Things spinoff show of some kind, though.
     
  12. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    Nice Philip Glass / Koyaanisqatsi moment at the end of episode 6.
     
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  13. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    Liked her character Robin a lot as well. Looked up the actor, and it turns out she’s the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, and now I can’t unsee her resemblance to both.
    EDIT: I see now her lineage was already discussed a few pages back already. :hide: So I’ll just add: she’s pretty hot.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2019
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  14. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing

    Location:
    Nashville
    I noticed that too. The Foreigner ones were definitely recent re-records, and the Madonna track sounded weird but I’m not enough of a fan to tell whether it was the original or a soundalike. (I know she never re-recorded her old songs)

    They’re presumably a lot cheaper to license, since they can license a Kelly Hansen-sung Foreigner track that the band owns far cheaper than going through their old label. That’s the whole reason so many bands (Kiss, Alice Cooper, Squeeze, Toad the Wet Sprocket, etc) have done it.
     
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  15. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    To my ear it sounded like the original recording. I'm a huge fan of early Madonna pop songs and her's were some of the first CD albums I bought at the time (along with Cyndi Lauper, The Cars, Eurythmics, Dire Straits, et al).
     
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  16. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing

    Location:
    Nashville
    Okay. It just didn’t sound like her voice, but I’m really only familiar with a few later hits and the Ray of Light album.
     
  17. BluesOvertookMe

    BluesOvertookMe Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston, TX, USA
    Unfortunately, yes he was.
     
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  18. violarules

    violarules Senior Member

    Location:
    Baltimore, MD
    I think "Material Girl" might have been a contemporaneous re-mix from the era. The background vocals said certain lines twice ("Okay, Okay") instead of just once. I think I have heard that version somewhere, but not sure where.

    Edit: Just checked and it is the single version with the repeated background vocals. The album version does not have them. Haven't heard that since I had the 45 in 1984.
     
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  19. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yeah, I felt like everybody was just SHOUTING their lines and it was devoid of any real, human performance. Very forced and over-the-top. The only two characters I thought who were well-performed were Max (Sadie Sink), the little red-haired girl introduced last year, and Robin (Maya Hawke), who I thought were consistently excellent and believable. Everybody else looked like they were just reading off cue cards. Millie Bobbi Brown in particular seemed really dull and wooden, which is not good for somebody making reportedly $350K per episode (almost $3 million for this past season).

    I worked on the music video for "I Just Died in Your Arms" for director/producer Jerry Kramer, and it was definitely done in late 1986 (my memory is around Xmas), which is well after the time of the show (summer 1985). That's a big anachronistic error. It sounded like the hit to me.

    It's being discussed. Netflix is keenly aware that the kids are growing up very fast, and they put pressure on the Duffer Brothers to shoot seasons 3 and 4 back to back, but they refused, saying that it was hard enough just to get 8 scripts done for season 3 and they didn't want the quality of the show to suffer. If I were them, I would've hired a bunch of writers and had them hit the ground running so they could go into production on season 4 maybe by this October, so the kids won't get too much older. Another producer revealed there was a plan to wrap it all up in five seasons, but I dunno if that's still on the table.

    BTW, the show looked absolutely dynamite in 4K HDR. Stunning look all the way through.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2019
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  20. JohnG

    JohnG PROG now in Dolby ATMOS!

    Location:
    Long Island NY

    Millie Bobbi Brown was awful in the new Godzilla movie, she is a cutie but not a great actress.
     
  21. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Yeah, she came across rather bland/anodyne. She was far more interesting and enigmatic in the first season when she was younger and had very short hair. Also, in S3 she didn't have much to do other than walk around in a black, flooded room, stick her arms out, do magic stuff and get a thousand nosebleeds!

    I think by the end the writers realized that she needed to lose her powers to make her a more interesting character in the next season (though I bet she regains those powers just in the nick of time to save the day).
     
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  22. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    I'll take your word for it, but LOL, it's not like she was cast in a Shakespearean production! :D
     
  23. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    Didnt much care for this season 3. The charm, sentimentality and weirdness of the first season was really nostalgia lightening in a bottle that was super cool. But, I think it was played out that first season.
     
  24. NickCarraway

    NickCarraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gastonia, NC
    Yes the song was released in the UK late '86 and in the US January '87. There were two videos, one for the UK and one for North America.
     
  25. Darrin L.

    Darrin L. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Golden, CO
    Yeah...this third season is actuallyr embarrassingly bad. I've stopped, after the 2nd Episode. Far too many cringe-inducing moments.
     
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