News Stranger Things - Season 5

[camdudetenger2018]

The Duffer brothers talked extensively with Entertainment Weekly about this trailer and what to expect in the final season, and there are a lot of great teases...

Will's role in the season and how it all ties back to the beginning:

According to Ross, the key to understanding Vecna’s line to Will lies in season 2, episode 6, “The Spy,” when the Byers boy was brought to Hawkins Laboratory for evaluation. He calls it “the most important episode,” teasing, “Will was really working, in a way, for the Mind Flayer.”​

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Now in season 5, Ross adds, “We start to learn more about what happened and what the connection is to all of this and Vecna.”​

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The trailer reaffirms that Will is crucial to the conclusion of this story that began nine years ago when the show premiered on Netflix. “Because the story really began with Will and his disappearance, it felt, in order to go full circle, it needed to really end with him in so many ways," Matt says. "In the last couple seasons, we hadn’t really centered much of the show on Will. So there was so much to explore with him from a character perspective and plot perspective."​

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Stranger Things first introduced Vecna/Henry Creel/One in season 4, while Will was off in California, but the character returned to Hawkins in the finale — a distinction that yielded “really rich territory to explore their connection and relationship,” Matt adds.​

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It’s also why the final season begins in the fall of 1987, near the anniversary of Will’s disappearance in the Upside Down. “So much of the season was built around the idea of coming full circle, answering many of the questions that were posed all the way back in season 1,” Matt continues. “I think the two biggest questions that we didn’t really answer in season 1 that we do answer this season is ‘what is the Upside Down, truly?’ and ‘why was Will taken?’”​

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Seeing a lot more of the Upside Down:

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“These gates have opened up. We have a full military present in Hawkins and it’s under quarantine,” Ross comments. “I will say, of course the military is doing stuff in the Upside Down, but it really is a mystery to our characters and the audience for the beginning of the show.”​

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Matt chimes in: “A lot of the season takes place in the Upside Down. If I have to look at one more visual effects shot, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. We will never make anything else with floating anything. Snow, spores, ash, I’m done with all that.”​

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And what about floating islands? Another snippet from the trailer shows someone falling from the sky in the Upside Down as hovering masses of land bob around the clouds. That’s another piece the Duffers decline to talk much about. “As you start to discover more about the Upside Down, that’s when that imagery comes into play,” Ross says.​

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“We reveal really everything about the Upside Down, all of which was planned out in season 1,” Matt adds. “It was fun to finally pull back the curtain on all of that.”​

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How much of each episode is seen in the trailer:

Among the shots the Duffers don’t want to say much about just yet is that red energy pulse emanating from a giant antenna. “It plays a very important role on the show,” Matt comments. “You're not gonna see that in Volume 1, either. It’s in Volume 2.”​

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The first four episodes of the final season will be released as Volume 1 on Netflix on Nov. 26, while the next batch of three will release as Volume 2 on Christmas Day. Then on New Year’s Eve, the series finale will screen simultaneously in movie theaters and on Netflix.​

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From the trailers released so far, Matt confirms the footage has mostly been from Vol. 1. However, “There are shots from every single episode, including the finale.” This new one in particular “has something from [episodes] 7 and 8. So I think every episode is accounted for,” Ross says. “The marketing team actually hasn't seen the finale, but we did send them a couple shots that we thought could work. They're in there, but I'm not gonna tell you which shots.”​

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Not taking death lightly:

Ross does concede, however, “It’s a brutal season, I will say that.”​

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“Yeah, it's very brutal,” Matt continues. “It's violent. The stakes are higher than ever. Because you're hurtling through the end, a lot more is on the table, I will say. Hopefully it's surprising and earned, what's happened. We weren't going for shock value.”​

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The Duffers don’t take death lightly. Exploring the death of a main character often felt "so heavy," Matt admits. "It feels like it completely changes what the show is. So we're just very careful about when we do it and who dies.”​

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For example, the loss of Eddie, who died from Demobats in the season 4 finale, “affects the entirety of season 5," Matt notes. “There is no season 6, so we need to make sure, if and when there are deaths, that it makes sense in terms of where we want our characters to end up at the end of the show. That was a lot of the discussion this year.”​

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Those are the biggest highlights but the whole article is worth reading.

Damn, I'm super excited. Just a few more weeks!

i wonder if stranger things season 5 will have a record breaking nominations at the emmys and golden globes

 

[The Nth Doctor]

After the Emmys failed to nominate Sadie Sink for "Dear Billy," I'm not holding my breath for any nominations for the final season, even as a victory lap a la Return of the King.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

After watching the final trailer, who among us changed their major character death predictions?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I think the only change I would make is now I wonder if Mike will die. In fact, I would be surprised if no one from the original party doesn't die and he makes the most sense.

 

[camdudetenger2018]

I think the only change I would make is now I wonder if Mike will die. In fact, I would be surprised if no one from the original party doesn't die and he makes the most sense.

if mike aka trevor from ghostbusters 3 and 4 dies then nancy will have a atomic breakdown and its most likely that nancy along with eleven will be the ones who goes face to face with number 1 aka henry aka vecna and both kill him or at least nancy will assist eleven in the killing of henry aka vecna with a 80s action movie catchphase

 

[JD]

I think you'd actually avoid a lot of the craziness in the cinema.

The problem is it would probably be ending around 10 or 11, and that's when things really star on NYE.

i wonder if stranger things season 5 will have a record breaking nominations at the emmys and golden globes

I doubt it very much, it takes a lot for those snobs to ever nominate a genre show, and I don't know if Stranger Things is gonna be the kind of show they go for.

 

[tomalak301]

I'm pretty much done with my season 2 rewatch (I'm at the scene where they just arrived at the School Ball) and watching these episodes pretty quickly, the episode about the lost sister is one of the most important episodes of the series. This is where El understood her powers and it allowed her to basically save the entire town. I know it's not really well liked in the fandom, but it wasn't a bad episode, and it was very important to the overall mytharc. That, and I hated El's look up to that episode, and then after that episode, it was incredibly badass.

 

[theenglish]

I'm pretty much done with my season 2 rewatch (I'm at the scene where they just arrived at the School Ball) and watching these episodes pretty quickly, the episode about the lost sister is one of the most important episodes of the series. This is where El understood her powers and it allowed her to basically save the entire town. I know it's not really well liked in the fandom, but it wasn't a bad episode, and it was very important to the overall mytharc. That, and I hated El's look up to that episode, and then after that episode, it was incredibly badass.

I remember not liking Season 2 all that much went it came out. It seemed like a rehash of the first season, but on subsequent rewatches of the series I grew to appreciate it more. Now it seems like that season contains key elements to the conclusion of the series.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I've always been a big fan of "The Lost Sister" and I've long since wanted Kali to return. I always thought we would see more children with different psychic powers. However, season four made it clear that Brenner had one goal in mind: Replicating Henry's particular abilities as a result, all other test subjects had varying levels of the same capabilities. Kali turned out to be the outlier and that's my singular disappointment with season four.

I get why this happened. There was such a backlash to "The Lost Sister" that the Duffers have admitted that they changed course after season two. Yes, they've had a general outline of how the rest of the show would play out at that point, but clearly they initially intended to show more variation in psychic abilities. It's a shame they were spooked by the backlash but I get it.

Considering the set-up for the final season, it's highly unlikely Kali will return at this point and it would likely even feel forced if she did. I've made peace with never seeing her again, but it's still a bummer.

 

[theenglish]

I've always been a big fan of "The Lost Sister" and I've long since wanted Kali to return. I always thought we would see more children with different psychic powers. However, season four made it clear that Brenner had one goal in mind: Replicating Henry's particular abilities as a result, all other test subjects had varying levels of the same capabilities. Kali turned out to be the outlier and that's my singular disappointment with season four.

I get why this happened. There was such a backlash to "The Lost Sister" that the Duffers have admitted that they changed course after season two. Yes, they've had a general outline of how the rest of the show would play out at that point, but clearly they initially intended to show more variation in psychic abilities. It's a shame they were spooked by the backlash but I get it.

Considering the set-up for the final season, it's highly unlikely Kali will return at this point and it would likely even feel forced if she did. I've made peace with never seeing her again, but it's still a bummer.

I didn't know any of this. That was actually one of my favorite episodes from that season and I feel it is such a loss to the series not to have followed up on it.

 

[tomalak301]

I've always been a big fan of "The Lost Sister" and I've long since wanted Kali to return. I always thought we would see more children with different psychic powers. However, season four made it clear that Brenner had one goal in mind: Replicating Henry's particular abilities as a result, all other test subjects had varying levels of the same capabilities. Kali turned out to be the outlier and that's my singular disappointment with season four.

I get why this happened. There was such a backlash to "The Lost Sister" that the Duffers have admitted that they changed course after season two. Yes, they've had a general outline of how the rest of the show would play out at that point, but clearly they initially intended to show more variation in psychic abilities. It's a shame they were spooked by the backlash but I get it.

Considering the set-up for the final season, it's highly unlikely Kali will return at this point and it would likely even feel forced if she did. I've made peace with never seeing her again, but it's still a bummer.

That's a shame. I barely remember anything about Season 4 (Running Up That Hill and Max's story is probably the main thing) so I'm looking forward to revisiting the Vecna parts. Seemed like a missed opportunity to not bring back Kali, especially post season 2.