Stranger Things, which returns to Netflix for Season 2 on October 27th, masterfully incorporates familiar visuals from iconic films, novels, characters and tropes. By doing so, the Duffer brothers speak to our nostalgia for a past time while creating a modern story that feels fresh for any generation.
Watch Part 1 here: https://youtu.be/W3hscQ_CONU
Watch Part 2 here: https://youtu.be/VU9QftScl5U
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
00:01
Matt Duffer places the kids in a Stephen King novel. The children are the
00:06
ones most directly aware of the supernatural threat, and dealing with
00:10
defeating the monster. The show’s logo resembles the typeface used for the
00:16
paperback books of Stephen King. The Duffer brothers based the design of
00:20
their Stranger Things lookbook on the style of a vintage Stephen King novel to
00:24
help sell their show. In the police station we see an officer reading a book
00:27
with a picture of Stephen King on the back cover.
00:30
[I love that book.That’s a nasty mut.]
00:32
Although we don’t see the
00:33
title, we can assume that it’s Cujo. Later Terry Ives’s sister asks
00:38
[You read any Stephen King?]
00:39
when they see a mobil of clowns that recall the movie and King novel, It. Lucas tries to kill
00:44
the monster with a slingshot, the same way the kids in It try to kill Pennywise.
00:48
[The wrist rocket.]
00:50
[You’re gonna take out the Demogorgon with a slingshot?]
00:52
[First of all, it’s a wrist rocket.]
00:55
Even though this doesn’t actually work, a
00:57
slingshot — going back to the biblical story of David defeating Goliath — is a
01:00
symbol of the small and pure-hearted underdog defeating the powerful
01:04
oppressor. Nancy’s hand coming out of the tree looks like Carrie’s bloody hands
01:08
coming out of the grave in Brian De Palma’s Carrie, based on the novel by
01:12
King. 11 also reminds us of Carrie in that she’s a mistreated outcast with
01:16
dangerous telekinetic powers. When Steve and his friends slut-shamed Nancy this
01:20
also reminds us of how Carrie is bullied for getting her period. During auditions
01:24
the Duffer brothers had the boys reenact scenes from Stand By Me, which is based
01:29
on Stephen King’s The Body. The series also makes homages to when the Stand By
01:33
Me kids walk on train tracks and the bullies attack with a switchblade. Stranger
01:37
Things includes an homage to one of The Shining’s most iconic scenes of Jack and
01:42
the axe, when Joyce axes one of her living room walls only to discover that
01:46
there’s nothing on the other side. Likewise, The Shining’s Overlook Hotel is
01:49
full of impossible characteristics like windows that shouldn’t be there. For Mike,
01:54
Dustin, Lucas and Will in Stranger Things
01:56
the iconic role-playing game isn’t just a hobby, it’s how they see the world and
02:00
how they interpret everything that happens after Will gets taken by the
02:03
monster, which the kids refer to as the Demogorgon even though it doesn’t strictly
02:07
speaking look like the traditional D&D Demogorgon. Dungeons & Dragons is a
02:11
metaphorical system for developig the characters and themes of Stranger
02:15
Things, as well as explaining the complicated upside-down world.
02:18
[The veil of shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world.]
02:23
El places
02:24
Will’s character — the wizard Will The Wise — next to the demogorgon to illustrate that
02:29
he’s in another dimension with the monster. The black underside of the board
02:32
also resembles the parallel universe El enters through the sensory deprivation
02:36
tank. When we open the D&D game it’s Will’s term, and he’s in danger.
02:41
The monster surprises Will, just as it does in the following scene. Will chooses
02:45
a fire bomb instead of protection, but he rolls a 7, too low to defeat the demogorgon.
02:49
So he’s vulnerable to the monster.
02:51
[The demogorgon, it got me.]
02:54
Later Jonathan casts a
02:55
fireball to injure the monster. The kids also correspond to D&D archetypes: Mike
03:03
is the Paladin; Dustin is the bard; Lucas the ranger; and El is the sorcerer; while
03:09
Will is a sorcerer in-game. In the show he also aligns with the rogue or thief
03:14
as he is able to stealthily hide from the Demogorgon. They also mentioned
03:18
the Lost Knight, Hopper.
03:19
[Something is coming. Something angry, hungry for your blood. It is almost here.]
03:25
The final D&D game of the season introduces a new
03:29
monster — the thessalhydra. This could foreshadow the monster of season 2.
03:33
The Goonies is another classic 80s film full of kids acting like kids, riding bikes
03:38
everywhere and living lives totally unknown to their parents
03:50
Stranger Things recalls this vision of childhood, and fan
03:53
favorite Dustin is similar to the Goonies’ Chunk especially when Dustin
03:56
looks for chocolate pudding in the school cafeteria.
04:03
Just like how Chunk looks for ice cream.
04:09
But he’s also got the smart mouth of Mouth, who always says the funny thing,
04:13
[Accident or not, admit it, it was a little awesome.]
04:20
and tries to hit on older girls.
04:26
Another fan favorite, Barb, looks
04:28
just like Steph from the Goonies. And Jonathan’s protective instinct for Will
04:32
also comes from the older brother in the Goonies. Stranger Things also embodies
04:36
the spirit of Explorers, another 80s movie that shows a bunch of kids,
04:40
including a young Ethan Hawke going on fun adventures while seeking out
04:43
supernatural forces. Will and his friends are fans of comic book characters like
04:48
Mr. Fantastic and Professor X. Will says he wants X-Men comic No. 134. This
04:54
comic introduces Dark Phoenix, who takes over Jean Grey who like El is a
04:58
telekinetic woman. In 134 Jean Grey uses her powers to slam the monster against
05:03
the wall like El does in the season finale. In X-Men Jean Grey comes back
05:07
giving us a hint that El in season 2 will also return. And of course the boys are
05:14
obsessed with Star Wars, making references to Jedi powers to describe
05:18
11’s abilities.
05:22
Mike talks about Yoda’s ability to move things with his mind. We
05:25
see several Star Wars toys including a Yoda figurine and a Millennium Falcon
05:29
model that 11 levitates. There are tons more references to
05:33
80s pop culture, that recall the time period generally and are just good fun.
05:37
Casting two adult leads who were young 80s stars, is itself an 80s
05:42
reference. When Lucas goes off by himself he raps a bandana around his forehead
05:46
like Rambo. The talk of drawing first blood is also a Rambo reference.
05:51
[I drew first blood so.]
05:52
[They drew first blood not me.]
05:54
Wynona Rider wanted her hairstyle modeled after Meryl Streep’s hair in
05:58
Silkwood. Jonathan and Steve’s sprawl resembles the fight sequence in this
06:02
1989 action movie, in the way the boys go on punching for almost a humorously
06:06
ridiculous length of time. The way 11 quietly identifies Will in a photo is
06:11
closely based on the scene from Witness, when a young boy Samuel identifies the
06:15
murderer with a newspaper clipping. The scene when Lucas packs before
06:18
investigating by himself resembles the scene in Commando, when Colonel John Matrix
06:23
prepares his weapons before a fight. The Stranger Things poster was designed by
06:27
artist Kyle Lambert, but it mimics the style of Drew Struzan, who designed posters
06:31
for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and over a hundred other films. The very first scene
06:36
echoes 1986’s Aliens. The visuals of the lab technicians and cocoons take
06:41
after the original 1979s, Alien. The way the monsters face opens up in four
06:46
directions also looks like the alien eggs opening. In Chapter 8
06:50
Hopper finds Will in the upside down with a reptilian tube attached to his
06:53
mouth. It looks like the face hugger version of the xenomorph in Alien, which
06:57
pushes a tube-like nose down the mouth to implant an alien embryo. This could be
07:02
what is happening to Will. We later see him cough up a bug like critters
07:05
suggesting that he’s been taken over by some monster implantation. Will’s cough
07:09
also recalls King’s cough before the alien creature bursts out of his chest.
07:15
The trooper who finds Will’s body is named O’Bannon, an allusion to Dan O’Bannon who
07:19
wrote the movie Alien. The demogorgon bears a resemblance to the child-eating pale
07:24
man from Pan’s Labyrinth. Nancy enters the upside down through a tree similar
07:28
to how Ophelia enters the tree to find the toes grotto. Both have portals that
07:33
can access a different world through a wall, and use a tether as someone enters
07:37
another dimension. Stranger Things’ young girl moment, reminiscent of Close
07:41
Encounters, also resembles the behind the child shot in Poltergeist. Again this is
07:46
a symbol of the child’s awe in encountering dangerous supernatural
07:50
forces of much greater power than the child can imagine. The Stranger Things
07:54
monsters human-like torso and claws and its mouth all look like the monster in
07:59
Predator. 11’s scenes in the sensory deprivation tank take after scenes in
08:04
Altered States, Minority Report, Under The Skin, and Firestarter. Both 11 and
08:09
Firestarter’s Charlie are young girls with telekinetic powers involved with a
08:13
secret government agency. That film also stars a young drew Barrymore, like in
08:17
E.T. 11 doesn’t quite explode heads in the Scanners fashion, but she uses telekinesis
08:22
to squeeze the heads of government agents until blood starts coming out of
08:25
their eyes. El’s nosebleed, suggesting her powers cost her harm, is also similar to
08:30
Scanners, Firestarter, Chronicle, The Fifth Element, and Heroes. The world of Stranger
08:35
Things takes after David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, with its wholesome small-town
08:39
Americana surface and dark supernatural undercurrents. The uncertain ending with
08:43
Will looking in the mirror parallels the final scene in Twin Peaks
08:46
season 2. Stranger Things has a lot in common with beloved sci-fi series
08:51
Twilight Zone, which had been running since 1959. But it also is particularly
08:55
like the third segment of Twilight Zone, the movie, in which a young kid with
08:59
magical powers is welcomed into a regular family. A flashback shows Hopper
09:06
reading Anne of Green Gables to his sick daughter
09:09
[“Well I don’t know,” said Matthew.
09:11
“It just makes me feel glad to be alive. It’s such an interesting world.”]
09:16
The book is about an orphan girl joyfully experiencing, belonging to an adopted
09:21
family — a story that sounds like 11’s. 11 is also partially inspired by the
09:25
anime character Elfen Lied, whose story is like a violent version of ET. Both
09:29
Elfen and El are given numbers instead of names at a government
09:33
Institute led by an evil father type, who carries out tests on the girls’ mental
09:37
abilities. Both girls escape and befriend a boy. When Jonathan takes a picture of
09:43
Nancy and Barb, he accidentally takes a picture of the demogorgon. This may be
09:47
an homage to Blow-Up, in which a fashion photographer discovers that he’s
09:51
photographed a murder in a park. Jonathan’s pictures of Nancy through the
09:55
window also recall the voyeuristic movie Body Double, which features using a
09:59
telescope to peer at a woman and seeing a murder. Stranger Things even contains a
10:03
few similarities to more recent pop culture. Through mixing up these iconic
10:06
films, novels, characters, and tropes, the Duffer brothers speak to our nostalgia —
10:11
for a past time, while creating a modern story that feels fresh for any
10:15
generation. The technique of mashing up familiar visuals and stories allow
10:18
Stranger Things to capture deeper truths of being a kid or a parent in any era.
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This post was previously published on Youtube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video