Spoilers Stranger Things - Season 3

Great Scott!

 

So where do I pick up my trophy?

Seriously though. We've already dipped our toe outside of that town, & this plot has very broad reaching impact, with Russians, & numbers one thru ten out their in the bigger world, & potentially possessing powers like Eleven's. They gotta keep growing the premise in some ways

I'm really hoping that we get some concrete insight into the upside down finally. What are we actually dealing with here? Even some small hints would be gratifying enough, but it's possible they don't want to get too specific. Frankly, that's bad form in sci-fi. Keeping it vague keeps your doors more open, but I can always hope lol

 

That's why I keep hoping for Hooper being transported to the Upside Down instead getting killed. We'll get to learn more about it with him over there.

 

Now that it's confirmed that the show is expanding in scope we can expect to learn much more, especially because the show had a finite lifespan from the start and the Duffer Brothers had the complete story planned out.

With seasons 1-3 it was really local, the cast were locals reacting to an unknown danger and discovering little things bit by bit. In contrast the government organisations have to have much more information or they would not have caused the entire thing in the first place so i expect them to spill some details sooner or later. Now that the show is one of crown jewels of Netflix i also expect them to properly fund it so maybe we will get a big ass showdown in the show finale of all psychic kids (by that point perhaps even young adults) vs the Mindflayer for the safety of Earth - go out with a bang.

Now i only hope we won't have to wait for too long.. i really am starting to hate to watch shows in their original run, especially binge shows, because they tend to let you wait for a year or more for a new season.

 

Gotta say, my least favourite season so far. I had a good time with some individual episodes but the plot as a whole was just less impressive or memorable than the first two seasons. Not interested in their little teaser at the end, not sure if I'll even bother watching season four.

 

I'd say the show is such a hit, they could easily negotiate a feature film deal, the way Walking Dead or Breaking Bad did. With what can realistically only be maybe 1 or 2 more seasons, at the current rate, maybe they'll wrap it up with a big cinema production. If they go past a 5th season, these kids won't be kids anymore. It might just be best to think about the out around then.

 

That hasn't been my impression at all. The US govt. obviously has information about the program that created Eleven but season 1 seemed pretty clear on the fact that they discovered the upside down/demogorgon by accident through Eleven and then forced open the gate mainly out of arrogant curiosity. The events of season 2 pretty much confirm the govt. has no real comprehensive information about the mind-flayer or what it can do (and the MF is a massive part of the Upside Down, so you obviously can't understand that without understanding it) beyond simply what they learned from Hopper, Eleven, et al, and the basic stats that come from monitoring the gate. And season 3 seemed pretty clear on the fact that Russia found out the US was playing with dimensions and had to try it out themselves because Cold War.

I'm sure you'll get to see more info as we go, but I highly doubt it will be some big reveal of things that the govt. knew all along.

 

Yeah, I feel like the govt. peeps are just as much stumbling upon all this upside down stuff as are our main characters & now the Russians

However, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that their secret supernatural experiments on the kids is somehow connected to the entire thing, and that their meddling with the natural world has somehow been the catalyst for this whole thing, maybe even the existence of the upside down & Mindflayer themselves are a result of something they did

I'm still not dissuaded from thinking the upside down might not be an alt-reality at all, but maybe just the future, & stuff happening during the show's timeline creates that crazy place some time down the line... maybe even our time... The early 21st century

Then again. That could all be just a lot of malarkey lol

 

I read an article a while back about one of the most recent Stranger Things comic, which is focused on Six, one of the kids before Eleven, and it apparently shows her opening gateways to The Upside Down before Eleven. The only thing is I'm not sure if any of the people from the show are involved in the comics, so I don't know if this is definitely a part of the show's backstory, or something the people behind the comic came up with by themselves.

 

I don't know how "canonical" the books or the comics are, but in Suspicious Minds (about Terry's experiments at Hawkins Lab), we get inside Brenner's head multiple times. It seemed to me had no clue of the existence of the Upside Down and his main goal was expanding his subjects's minds and turn them into weapons for the government.

 

I hope not. Its a small scale series with its appeal being the relationships between the kids while dealing with the fantasy material.

Season 4 should be the last. How long can this group continue to fight government experiments/monsters before it raises a few eyebrows how they (the kids--and their families) avoid being taken into custody (knowing too much), or something darker? Despite the Duffers' influences, this is not The Goonies, and as the kids face--what we can assume will be greater threats--I think the audience will find it hard to see everyone walk away clean for yet another year.

 

The Duffer brothers said the show would end after the fourth or fifth season. Considering the fourth season wasn't announced as the final season, I'm guessing it'll be five and done. I'm good with that.

 

Yeah, five seems like a good place to stop.

I'm not sure how aware of the Upside Down stuff the characters in the comic were. In the article, it was on either CBR, Io9 or IGN, they showed a panel where one of the kids was practicing with their powers, and then when they leave the room a small gateway opens, and a hand reaches through. So from that it looks like there is a chance the people at the lab might not be aware of the Upside Down yet at that point. This was the first issue and they're up to #4 now, and I haven't seen any other recap articles, so I'm not sure what's happened since then.

 

The thing is, in today's market, there's no saying they can't do it that way. The Breaking Bad movie looks like it's just a glorified tv movie, ala the tv show. I'm not sure what TWD has planned, but an extended length finale for Stranger Things is probably going to happen anyway, & they could easily get as much clamor for it in theaters as either of those other two

That said, I do feel like things are going to grow some from here on out. You don't have to lose the intimacy of the character relationships, just because you grow the world or expand the plot. The whole reason you have that intimacy is because it's a good root that holds the expansion together. It'll always come back to those kids, no matter where they take it or how big

 

The Evil Dead? oh, right....

 

I see that as a problem; unlike the 1970s where the producers of House of Dark Shadows or Star Trek - The Motion Picture in the 1970s, wanted to grow the universe to take advantage of anything they could not do on their respective TV series, many TV-turned-movies since that time just look like that which you describe: a glorified TV movie. That was a large part of the issues with Serenity, which did not really help the legacy of Firefly. In fact, some thought it was just unnecessary or forced--"bigger" just beacuse. That's what I fear would happen in a Stranger Things movie, where its normally small setting (even if they go to another city in season 4) would be expanded to be something "bigger" when the TV series structure (of the main action, not the Russia scene) never really demands it.

I just wonder how they will get them together again, and if Eleven has lost her powers (or they're not restored when S4 begins), what would make her get involved again? More than any of the other kids, she was near petrified in "The Battle of Starcourt" at the MF. Audiences will question how the producers will avoid plot convenience and have the "B" characters like Steve, Robin and Erica believably find themselves in the chaos--again.

 

Yeah but Serenity isn't a Netflix movie. It's a different time, from even that now. The fact is, the divide between tv & cinema has never been so blurred as it is right now. See David Fincher deliberately going to the Netflix series format over theatrical for his Mindhunter, & being just as good as anything he's ever done. My point was, the finale of Stranger Things, whenever it happens, is probably going to be a feature length production anyhow. There is just so little difference at this point.

Then again, they may not go that route, & I'm ok with that, but there's no reason why they couldn't, in today's game. It wouldn't have to be overblown, like Serenity was, & it doesn't need a full length theatrical tour either, like El Camino set up, a quick theater run & then land on Netflix. It's a VERY experimental time, for new methods of production, & distribution.

There's lots they could do. One thing maybe, is it not just migrating to a new city with Joyce, but the whole show becoming multiple locations. It already was, in subtle ways. There's other people with powers out there, that we've seen, & I imagine Eleven's will make a triumphant return too. I'd personally like her mom to miraculously factor back in somehow

I doubt Hawkins being a linchpin of upside down activity will change. We've got people in Russia now, new characters introduced in other places, & people on the move, & that's where we'll be with them all... on the move. Dustin's ham radio wasn't a one-off, I'm sure

Heck, now that Murray is in the mix, being a conspiracy sleuth, (Even keeping Joyce in the loop with that phone message) If anyone in Hawkins is staying involved, my money is on him... & journalist Nancy... It ain't going to be that hard to pull everyone back in, if Hopper ain't dead, the Mindflayer keeps hunting Eleven & things escalate like that. What you have to remember about season 3, was that the cast was already splintered. It's not that big of a move to do it more so.

The problem I have is in how they plan to have it get so escalated, without drawing the realistic amount of attention, & authoritative involvement. It's a tough sell that these small town characters... and ONLY those characters will yet again be the sole actors on a plot so fantastic that it's gone international now. THAT will take some finagling, if they plan to keep it that way. Hopefully they know better, or plan to grow up those characters, to be more potent... Rocky wasn't anything like a champ, until he was, & then that was the story too. So maybe it's time these small town folk start being bigger than that

 

Yeah, I'm thinking we'll start off with at least three groups of character in different places, with Hopper in Russia and/or The Upside Down, Eleven and the Byers wherever they moved to, and the rest still in Hawkins. Depending on how far ahead they jump, I could maybe see some of the older kids like Steve, Robin, and Nancy having moved on to other places.

 

They could have more characters move on to other places, but I imagine they'll stay pretty true to their timeline of jumping ahead to some time in 1986, where the kids are somewhere in their next year of growth, just as they kind of have been keeping in step with the actor's age growth

which means if Hopper is still alive, then he'll have spent some quality time in the Upside Down, & we'll get to see David Harbour with his grizzly hobo beard

If we ever see Hopper again, expect him to look like this guy right here lol

 

I'm all for the grizzly hobo beard!