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Stranger Things

Brock Beauchamp

By Brock Beauchamp
in The Sports Bar

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Mike Sixel Cooperstown

Mike Sixel

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Meh. I think I would have preferred them going with a whole new story and characters. Most of the characters in season 1 had their stories tied up pretty well where they could have went either direction for season 2. 

I'm worried they may have just caught lightning in a bottle and they won't be able to follow up on their success with a direct sequel. 

 

heroes, I'm calling it now.....Heroes....

 

edit: haven't seen this yet, looking forward to it....

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Vanimal46 MVP

Vanimal46

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I hope it's not another Heroes situation, but it very well could happen. Lots of shows start off hot then go right off the rails.... Let's hope Stranger Things doesn't go on that path. 

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Brock Beauchamp GOAT

Brock Beauchamp

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I think it's different than Heroes in that Heroes was clueless from the start. It had no direction and given the environment, it was only possible to tell one story and they told that story in the first season. After that, it went to hell in a handbasket.

 

Heroes had three universe-breaking characters: Sylar, Peter Petrelli, and Hiro. The mere existence of those characters told me the creators had no plan going forward (and later, they admitted as much). Once the initial story was told, the showrunners paused and said... "Well, ****. What do we do with a character who can jump time, a character who can absorb every power through proximity to another person, and a third character who absorbs power through killing characters?"

 

Uh, the answer to that is "Nothing. You guys ****ed up and should have seen this coming."

 

True Detective is a much closer parallel to Stranger Things. The amount of care and craftsmanship in the details of each show - not to mention the standalone nature of the stories - makes it difficult, if not impossible, to turn them into a once a year series.

 

I don't understand why they're making a sequel. Blech, American television.

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TheLeviathan All-Star

TheLeviathan

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I don't know if that's the best 8 hours of television I've watched in awhile, but I know it's my favorite 8 hours.  That was phenomenal.  

 

If Millie Brown doesn't become the River Phoenix of this series I'll be shocked.  The acting performance she put on was incredible.  Ryder and Harbour were great too.

 

Wow.

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BeenHazy College Ball

BeenHazy

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Finished the series. Even though it's not really my genre of show, the 80s retro was done so, so, so well! Glad I read the reviews here as I likely would have passed over this without reading here.

+1.  I thoroughly enjoyed going out of my genre comfort zone.  

 

A tip for anybody who is going to re-watch the series:  Halfway through, I started imagining all of Lucas' lines as read by a 12-year old Chris Rock.  My wife asked me what the heck I was laughing about, so I told her...and it worked for her too.  

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Badsmerf Cedar Rapids Kernels

Badsmerf

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This series was awesome. From the great eighties theme, to the creepy story that isn't too creepy.

 

I disagree with the premise there can't be a sequel. I think there is enough at play in that story to do another round. They only had 8 episodes. Or, they could take it in a completely new direction and completely new story. Then we'd have to guess how the rest plays out. A lot of stories and books ended like that in the nineties.

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Mike Sixel Cooperstown

Mike Sixel

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I just finished.

 

1. It was very good, but maybe not up to the HYPE.

2. I can easily see several paths for a sequel that can still be good. If the writing stays focused on the characters (or even some new ones) and their growth as humans, with all the strange stuff in the background, great with me. If it becomes just another show about strange things, not so great.

3. I really enjoyed how the little kids were really little kids, not 20 year olds that were clearly not little kids. That really helped a lot.

4. I enjoyed the flashbacks, I don't often type those words, but they really worked here.

5. I might re-watch the show, but I doubt it. Still, if it was the old days where you surfed to find something to watch, and it was on? I'd stop for sure.

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Vanimal46 MVP

Vanimal46

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In honor of Halloween weekend, here are some amazing Stranger Things themed costumes:

http://images.halloweencostumes.com/blog/990/stranger-things-cosplay-1.jpg

 

http://images.halloweencostumes.com/blog/990/stranger-things-cosplay-2.jpg

 

http://images.halloweencostumes.com/blog/990/stranger-things-diy.jpg

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Mr. Brooks Cedar Rapids Kernels

Mr. Brooks

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Just finished this.

 

Agree, the nostalgia was awesome.

Also agree that the girl playing Eleven could become a big star someday.

 

The final episode was unexpectedly sad and heartbreaking. Both El sacrificing herself, and the sherrifs flashbacks with his daughter.

Although, finding out that El isn't actually dead puts some of that toothpaste back into the bottle.

 

I hope season 2 doesn't lose any luster.

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Brock Beauchamp GOAT

Brock Beauchamp

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I just worry a bit we have another Heroes on our hands, great story for a season.....oops, people want more, now what?

 

I don't think it will be that bad, heck, I actually think it will be good again. But there is this nagging memory back in the back of my head....

Dunno, it's very possible.

 

Though I'd argue any failing of Stranger Things would be more along the lines of True Detective than Heroes.

 

True Detective had a fantastic idea for the first season and they simply couldn't repeat that quality on a tight schedule for a second season. It took seven years to pen the first season of True Detective, there was no way the writer could repeat that effort in six months.

 

Heroes had multiple universe-breaking characters because the writers were lazy and went for flash over tempered longform content. All the **** they caught for the second season was deserved, as their own failures in the first season directly resulted in the second season.

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nicksaviking All-Star

nicksaviking

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I just worry a bit we have another Heroes on our hands, great story for a season.....oops, people want more, now what?

 

I don't think it will be that bad, heck, I actually think it will be good again. But there is this nagging memory back in the back of my head....

 

I only wanted one season back when it ended as I had these fears, but now I miss it. I have a lot more faith in non-network shows making this work. Perhaps Heroes season 2+ could have been better had the show runners had the time they needed to craft a better project but surely NBC would have never allowed a programming delay considering how much of a hit it was.

 

I said the same thing with Fargo, but they came back with a good season 2, FX didn't rush anyone. Hopefully this Halloween release date was more than enough time for the folks making the show.

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Brock Beauchamp GOAT

Brock Beauchamp

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It's not fear, so much as PTSD from Heroes, as it were....

I'm not worried about it, really. Any failing of Stranger Things will be due to the writers not having good ideas. There isn't a technical limitation to writing a second season, such as "Everyone's favorite character is a time traveler who breaks everything so we have to write him into feudal Japan because we don't know what else to do with him. The audience will love that story."

 

As a long-time comic book reader and fan, I saw the problems with Heroes as they sprang up in the first season because I've seen comics fail and fail again using those same ideas.

 

Time traveling does not work in an ensemble cast unless everyone else is also a time traveler.

 

Characters who can steal/take/whatever superpowers only work when they're the villain and that villain needs to die/go away. It has to be the story arc of the series because that power in untenable in a hero.

 

Basically, Heroes was a comic book show that felt like it was written by a person who never read any comic books. Those problems weren't new; all one has to do is look at the raging cluster**** that became the Clairemont X-universe to see why one shouldn't play with time traveling on a whim. It breaks everything.

 

That's why good time traveling stories tend to fall into three categories:

 

1. The audience follows the time traveler exclusively, which allows the writers to ignore just how ridiculous time traveling is and how it really doesn't work if you think about it too much. Doctor Who is a good example of this type of story.

 

2. A limited story with a clear conclusion. That way if there are larger, over-arching problems that can't be resolved, you get the hell out and, again, don't let the audience think about it too hard. Looper is a good example of this story.

 

3. You remove the ability to time travel, using it as a story delivery mechanism but only access it from an outside perspective after that point, a kind of deus ex machina. The Netflix show Travelers works in this fashion.

 

Teleportation barely works in storytelling, much less time travel. Look at Star Trek: they have to write the transporters out of 20%-ish of the episodes because it's so easy for teleportation to break a conventional story.

 

So much atmospheric interference in Star Trek. It's amazing everyone isn't dead because the transporters are so bloody unreliable.

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