Spoilers Stranger Things - Season 5

[FPAlpha]

I thought the finale was okay. It was much longer than it had to be. At one point, I had paused it to get up when I thought I was near the ending, and it had 20 more minutes to go.

My wife who had made it much further through her reread of A Wrinkle in Time was surprised by how much material from the book was used in this last season. I'll comment more on that when I finish up my reread of the novel.

I am curious about the spin-off as they clearly end the series in the summer of 1989, so any new spin-off is going to be a 90s show. This should be interesting.

Doesn't have to be, a prequel is also a possibility and they left a pretty big story opening for it.

I would hate it if they retread the ground, built up a new villain from the Abyss or somewhere else and a new gang has to basically repeat the whole show. That would be a major disappointment given how well the DB's envisioned the show and how good it was written.

 

[bdub76]

Doesn't have to be, a prequel is also a possibility and they left a pretty big story opening for it.

I would hate it if they retread the ground, built up a new villain from the Abyss or somewhere else and a new gang has to basically repeat the whole show. That would be a major disappointment given how well the DB's envisioned the show and how good it was written.

Vampires became really popular in the 90s, so that's another approach they could take. I remember Forever Knight and Vampire: The Masquerade both being big deals in that decade. The Duffer Brothers do appear to be Stephen King fans as well, so seeing more horror in the next series seems possible since they have backed away from the SK adaptation.

 

[Mojochi]

My overall impression: It had good moments, which I think, more than anything, was the basic goal. They focus on writing moments, & that makes for good feelings, in the moment, but it's empty calories relevant to a fulfilling overall narrative, that TBH stretched out a story you could condense into a 5-6 hour trilogy, to a ballooned 43 hours screen time.

Its heart was in the right place, though. I just continued to find the writing (as I have the entire show) a bit facile, maybe even slightly sophomoric, leaning heavily on nostalgia, 1st from a time when its adult viewers, actors, & creators were children, & now even nostalgia for when its central cast were still children, 10 years ago.

It's imho something of a pleasant diversionary trifle overall, which boggles my mind that over 10 years, it had $950 million spent to make 42 episodes. (43 hrs run time) averaging out to over $22 million per episode & per hour of screen time. I don't dislike this. It was fun, but WOW that's a lot for what is basically kids stuff, that takes a lot of liberties with its story & audience.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

I think you could compare the Mike reveal of what he thought happened to Eleven kind of like the end of the Dark Knight Rises and the debate as to whether Bruce Wayne did survive and if what we saw was just what Alfred hoped/would have liked to have happened.

Or from Black Sails several years back, when Silver tells a story about Captain Flint's fate that may or may not be true. Did he survive? Did he not? You decide. In my household, I've chosen one ending and my wife has chosen the other. We're both content with our versions of make believe.

 

[bdub76]

It's imho something of a pleasant diversionary trifle overall, which boggles my mind that over 10 years, it had $950 million spent to make 42 episodes. (43 hrs run time) averaging out to over $22 million per episode & per hour of screen time. I don't dislike this. It was fun, but WOW that's a lot for what is basically kids stuff, that takes a lot of liberties with its story & audience.

It appears that they flew Millie and crew all the way to Iceland to shoot a scene that lasted only a couple of minutes, so I'm not surprised by the cost.

Of course, there were scenes, where the finale looked really cheap with the wax like substance looking like icing that had hardened. These sets looked unnecessarily cheap.

 

[eschaton]

I wouldn't have called it bad but it was a bit of a stretch. As i and you have said to bring down the Mindflayer with the firepower they had looked and felt a bit ridiculous even if they tried to explain it away with the Hivemind concept.

It would have been more believable if the military also got into the Abyss somehow, saw what they were up against and went Broken Arrow in a panic calling everything in so that the Army could engage with actual real heavy firepower given our heroes an opportunity to sneak past somehow and engage Vecna himself.

I think making Kay & company uneasy allies following the events of Episode 4 would have made the end run much more interesting. Gives Linda Hamilton more to do, and as you said, gives them the firepower to maybe take the Mind Flayer down more realistically. Then they could've turned on the gang after Vecna was dead (or tried to "save" Vecna to be an experimental subject), which could result in Eleven still having roughly the same ending.

Though I can understand, from a character standpoint, the desire to have the endgame involve everyone on the team working together in the victory. Still, they didn't need to kill the Mind Flayer - they could've just trapped it in the Abyss (leaving the option of it out there for a sequel). I think a pitched battle between the group and like a half-dozen demos and demodogs would've worked better.

Ultimately, the team only had one bona-fide superhero in El. Kali died early in the encounter, and Will's powers didn't end up being as dramatic as Episode 4 proved. I wish he tried to hack the Mind Flayer rather than just doing a limb snap trick with Vecna again. Maybe he could've found the super-secret weakness, which then all the gang tried to hit? Basically making it a Death Star? I feel like going into the attack with finesse and intelligence rather than a big dumb battle would play more to their nerdy strengths.

Doesn't have to be, a prequel is also a possibility and they left a pretty big story opening for it.

The Duffer Brothers explicitly said a sequel, not a prequel, and that something in the epilogue hints at it. That pretty much means it's one of:

• Joyce and Hopper in Montauk (with the Byers popping in from time to time).
• Steve, Jonathan, Nancy, and Robin getting into (mis)adventures.
• The new kids (I think this is the least likely).

I would hate it if they retread the ground, built up a new villain from the Abyss or somewhere else and a new gang has to basically repeat the whole show. That would be a major disappointment given how well the DB's envisioned the show and how good it was written.

Remember the Duffer Brothers originally wanted to do an anthology show until Netflix shoved piles of cash at them. I think they would like to do a sequel as disconnected from the original Season 1 premise as possible.

 

[FPAlpha]

Remember the Duffer Brothers originally wanted to do an anthology show until Netflix shoved piles of cash at them. I think they would like to do a sequel as disconnected from the original Season 1 premise as possible.

Anything but a simple retread of the original concept.

And i'd be careful with DB statements like these, they have been known to misdirect publicly I figure we'll know soon enough once they and Netflix are ready to release some substantial information, which could well be a year or even two away and probably at a time when it's become an open secret when casting calls are going out and production crews are being put together.

 

[Mojochi]

You know, Max's tour thru Henry's highschool memory paints a picture of Joyce, Hopper, The Wheelers, and probably Steve Harrington's dad all being there with Henry in the 50s highschool, at a time that would've been some years after he'd gotten infected by the alien substance from the briefcase, as a young boy scout, & apparently some time before he became Brenner's science experiment, and yet I don't recall ANY of them ever even mentioning they knew a Henry, who more than likely would've already been being pretty weird, if he was about to draw the attention of nefarious military scientists. So much of this narrative was just washed over

By the time Eleven thrashes Henry into having to become Vecna, it's been like 25-30 years since he'd gotten the power, most of that time, living in Hawkins

 

[bdub76]

You know, Max's tour thru Henry's highschool memory paints a picture of Joyce, Hopper, The Wheelers, and probably Steve Harrington's dad all being there with Henry in the 50s highschool, at a time that would've been some years after he'd gotten infected by the alien substance from the briefcase, as a young boy scout, & apparently some time before he became Brenner's science experiment, and yet I don't recall ANY of them ever even mentioning they knew a Henry, who more than likely would've already been being pretty weird, if he was about to draw the attention of nefarious military scientists. So much of this narrative was just washed over

At some point, the scientist discover Henry's blood. No idea as to the particulars for that.

The military magically disappearing at the end was a big much.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Though I can understand, from a character standpoint, the desire to have the endgame involve everyone on the team working together in the victory. Still, they didn't need to kill the Mind Flayer - they could've just trapped it in the Abyss (leaving the option of it out there for a sequel). I think a pitched battle between the group and like a half-dozen demos and demodogs would've worked better.

I think people are overexaggerating the mind flayer's demise. It's natural state has always been portrayed as particles, not flesh. And the particles still looked animate enough to me when they were expelled from the kids' mouths. Seems to me this flesh suit was no different than the one from season 3, except being much larger, so I don't see any reason to believe it's any more dead now than it was then. All they've done here is kill Henry and completely severe the connection between Earth and the Abyss.