Comment by mattmanser
2 months ago
It's worse than previous series, I've noticed myself zoning out a few times, but the entire Stranger Things schtick is that it's a homage to the 80s. It's story lines are cliched, that's the point. They're predictable because you have seen them before.
They even highlight and play with it themselves in the show, introducing the big bad via the D&D table in the first episode of each season, referencing the films they're doing, sometimes including the same actors from the films they're riffing off (Sean Astin as Bob, Robert Englund as Victor Creel).
Season 1 : Aliens/ET
Season 2 : Goonies, The Exorcist
Season 3 : Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Blob
Season 4 : Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser
Season 5 : So far we've seen Home Alone, Lost boys, Terminator
Saying it's predictable and cliched is just saying they've done their job well! And missing one of the main points of the TV show. My friend was almost giddy that they'd used Technicolor in the Holly/Max world.
I tend to refer to this as a Mixtape versus Remix spectrum distinction. A Mixtape plays the "hits" in about their original form, just in a new order. A Remix might sample the hits, but adds in new original content and takes it in a new direction.
Personally, I bounced out of Stranger Things S1 pretty hard because it seemed far too much like a Mixtape and not enough like a Remix than I wanted. The part that hit me was a feeling that entire monologues were lifted from the originals nearly verbatim with maybe a couple Proper Nouns swapped Mad Libs style. That can be incredibly fun (one that worked for me: William Shakespeare's Terminator the Second, was a creative mixtape of Shakespeare dialog reordered to retell Terminator 2), but at least for Stranger Things I kept having too many moments pulling me out of the story with "I've heard this before" because of the worse follow up feelings of "I'd just rather watch the originals, because they did it better" or "This isn't really adding much new or original to this moment".
But I realize there are a lot of opinions in the Mixtape versus Remix spectrum and also a lot of opinions on where something like Stranger Things falls. If it feels more like a Remix to you, that doesn't necessarily change that I found it too much like a Mixtape. (And vice versa, just because I find it too much of a Mixtape doesn't mean that I missed things that others felt made it a useful Remix, just that maybe my opinions on Mixtapes are stronger.)