I binged the whole thing on advice of my friends, family and colleagues
I got through the first 5 episodes thinking ‘this is really good’ and then realised soon afterwards that it wasn’t. Then you just keep watching hoping for things to get better and it never does. To be fair, season 4 has been slightly better than season 2 and 3 which were both diabolically mind numbingly bad
The only payoff that will make the show better is that know it all, smug, arrogant priiiiick Dustin getting eaten alive, slowly and painfully
1 Star because you still refuse to use the TV and Movies board
There is going to be a season 5, so sheep like Vlad need to prepare themselves to watch another 10 hours or more of something they hate just because that’s what other people are doing.
How can they drag another season of this trash ffs
I wonder what Eleven will conveniently remember next season for the convenience of the plot. Or how many life saving songs will be discovered. Or how long all those idiots will keep everything a secret for their own safety even though the people saying to keep it on the QT were brutally murdered in season 2. Such a dumb show
comment by Son Of Gunnersaurus a.k.a SoG (U1310)
posted 17 hours, 42 minutes ago
Hope that annoying jock gets whats coming to him
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cheerleaders, a college scholarship and an unearned VP role at his dad’s mate’s software company?
comment by And... Rosso... Though its... Yeah and... That... (U17054)
posted 21 minutes ago
comment by Son Of Gunnersaurus a.k.a SoG (U1310)
posted 17 hours, 42 minutes ago
Hope that annoying jock gets whats coming to him
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cheerleaders, a college scholarship and an unearned VP role at his dad’s mate’s software company?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosso, surely you’ve seen enough movies to know he ends up working as a car salesman at his own dealership selling pick up trucks and the customers who come in want to be regaled by tales of that one throw which won the Cornbowl world local championship etc and he smiles and they drive off with a gas guzzler while inside he feels sad and empty and longs for the carefree days of his youth when it all seemed to mean so much more back then.
comment by Vladimikel Artutin - committing war crimes against football since 2019 (U18355)
posted 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
I wonder what Eleven will conveniently remember next season for the convenience of the plot. Or how many life saving songs will be discovered. Or how long all those idiots will keep everything a secret for their own safety even though the people saying to keep it on the QT were brutally murdered in season 2. Such a dumb show
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Your rants a quite bizarre.
You have cherry picked two plot devices that you assume will be used time and again... Yet they have only been used in s4 (repressed memory and music connecting to the real world). It's not like these are movie cliches.
comment by Ji Sung Park's Cousin - It's Beekers! (U2958)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Vladimikel Artutin - committing war crimes against football since 2019 (U18355)
posted 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
I wonder what Eleven will conveniently remember next season for the convenience of the plot. Or how many life saving songs will be discovered. Or how long all those idiots will keep everything a secret for their own safety even though the people saying to keep it on the QT were brutally murdered in season 2. Such a dumb show
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Your rants a quite bizarre.
You have cherry picked two plot devices that you assume will be used time and again... Yet they have only been used in s4 (repressed memory and music connecting to the real world). It's not like these are movie cliches.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Seems to have misunderstood in the case of the music too - it wasn't a 'magic song', but a song that was personally important to the character. Moreover, the premise that music can penetrate our unconscious mind in a way that words can't seems at least as real-world plausible (given what philosophy and psychology tells us about music) as it needs to be in the supernatural fantasy genre.
More generally, Stranger Things isn't making any claims for itself as high art. It's expensively produced popcorn, shamelessly channelling 80s nostalgia while playfully blending tropes from and explicit references to the horror, fantasy and high school / coming of age films of that decade. None of that is supposed to be truly original. Some of the plotting is self-consciously preposterous. But what I think it does really well, and in fact better than anything else I can think of, is maintain both the lightness of the character-based comedy at the same time as giving us moments of genuine horror and spookiness.
Yep, seems to me a case of someone disliking something that is popular, just to be contrary.
Of course, everyone has the right to dislike something... They don't usually invest countless hours making sure they dislike it though!
comment by Ji Sung Park's Cousin - It's Beekers! (U2958)
posted 11 minutes ago
Yep, seems to me a case of someone disliking something that is popular, just to be contrary.
Of course, everyone has the right to dislike something... They don't usually invest countless hours making sure they dislike it though!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in similar genres with far worse dialogue, characterisation, and concept. And there's a lot of stuff that takes itself far more seriously while failing to deliver. So I think the main crime of Stranger Things must be its popularity.
What i really like about it is they cater really well for a very broad audience... The nostalgia element brings in people like us, who remember the 80s movies, books, culture etc... But it also needs to be modern enough to attract the teens and early 20s market, that I assume make up a lot of Netflix's audience.
Not many shows could pull that off and they really have. We were discussing ST at my in-laws this weekend and three generations of the family all loved it.
As you say, it is not trying to be anything more than it is, which is well written, well produced entertainment. Not every bit of dialogue or subplot will land with every watcher, but overall, it's been a blast.
comment by Ji Sung Park's Cousin - It's Beekers! (U2958)
posted 7 hours, 52 minutes ago
Yep, seems to me a case of someone disliking something that is popular, just to be contrary.
Of course, everyone has the right to dislike something... They don't usually invest countless hours making sure they dislike it though!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Being contrarian for the sake of it is no better than shamelessly embracing pop culture just to fit in with anyone else. I dislike the show because it’s trash, I keep watching the show because I want to be wrong about it being trash. As I said in an earlier post, season 4 has been much better than the previous 2 but there is still so many glaringly obvious plot holes.
Why is this a facking secret??? There wouldn’t be a witch hunt for Eddie Munson and a warrant for his arrest if all these morons went to the authorities and explained what is going on. They initially wanted to keep things a secret because of the deal they brokered with incompetent morons but they are all dead now so why is it all a secret???
Why is the most important moment in Eleven’s life a suppressed memory? Why, of all the things she would forget in that hellhole where she was treated like an animal, would she forget the one good thing she did down there?
How did Hopper survive? We saw all the Russians who were miles away from that machine get instantly vaporised but Hopper who was right next to get walked away with no injuries?
Why is Steve a ‘jerk’? Literally every single episode we are reminded that Steve used to be a ‘jerk’ but from the very first episode he appears in, he’s done nothing to suggest he was a bad guy and throughout the entire series he’s only ever done selfless acts. Yet because he’s good looking and women love him we are meant to just accept that he was a ‘jerk’.
It’s literally only for the convenience of the plot. These are the moments that people watching the show look back on and think ‘oh wow that’s amazing’ but it’s complete BS.
Also Hopper being alive completely takes away from the one moment in the show that felt real and not so blatantly forcibly scripted (when Eleven read his letter after he died).
If they removed all the swearing from the script and just made it a PG show, then I’d accept it for the cheesy Goonies remake featuring evil monster that it is, but the target market is for adults
You seem to lack any kind of lateral thinking.
Why would police listen to a bunch of kids saying a monster did it, not the known drug dealer she last was seen with?
El used her full power for the first time to send 01 to the upside down, maybe even created the upside down... Who knows what that would do to the mind of a kid?
I haven't seen any recent episode where Steve is talked about or even hinted at being a jerk.
Hopper surviving is your only valid point, let's see if it ever gets explained.
You seem guilty of both over thinking and under thinking it at the same time!
They don’t have to tell the police, the US Government know about the monster and covered up what happened at that shopping mall in season 3. Yet for some reason those dumbasses still decide that keeping things a secret, putting their own lives and the life of a completely innocent Eddie Munson in jeopardy is the best thing to do.
And you must not be paying attention if you haven’t noticed Steve’s dark past being brought up in basically every episode. But I don’t really blame you for not paying attention to painfully bad dialogue. I mean people are only really watching the show now to see how Eleven is going to kill One/Vecna/new character introduced for plot convenience
Having found Stranger Things was starting to get boring during the second series and even more so in season 3, I think season 4 has been an improvement. They went darker which is a bonus, and while they've still stuck with the Upside World, they've at least focused on a new and more intimidating foe. There have still been things in it that are dull and stretched out but it's definitely interested me more than the third series. This should be the last series though, and hopefully some main..ish characters die. If it was up to me the forced comedy characters would be the first.
comment by FFS Mike. (U1170)
posted 14 hours, 59 minutes ago
There is going to be a season 5, so sheep like Vlad need to prepare themselves to watch another 10 hours or more of something they hate just because that’s what other people are doing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Very odd, can't imagine hate-watching a show, desperately trying to convince yourself it's terrible.
Season 4 has been undeniably excellent. Hopefully the Duffer brothers can deliver a satisfying conclusion to this season (the finale trailer looks insane), and eventually the series.
As to the question of which main characters are at risk, not sure I'd miss Nancy, Jonathan, or Mike, so they're probably going to be ok.
I'd like to think Max is safe given the epic way she survived in episode 4 ...
comment by Vladimikel Artutin - committing war crimes against football since 2019 (U18355)
posted 2 days, 13 hours ago
They don’t have to tell the police, the US Government know about the monster and covered up what happened at that shopping mall in season 3. Yet for some reason those dumbasses still decide that keeping things a secret, putting their own lives and the life of a completely innocent Eddie Munson in jeopardy is the best thing to do.
And you must not be paying attention if you haven’t noticed Steve’s dark past being brought up in basically every episode. But I don’t really blame you for not paying attention to painfully bad dialogue. I mean people are only really watching the show now to see how Eleven is going to kill One/Vecna/new character introduced for plot convenience
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. The US Government security apparatus is shown to be divided between one agency/faction that suspects Eleven is the cause of the problems and another that suspects the truth, and the two are in active conflict with each other. I don't see why you would expect either the security agencies to be transparent with the local law enforcers or the kids to trust any of these authority groups to usefully intervene. Moreover, isn't this one of the conventions of the fictional universe Stranger Things is playing with: kids are fated (due to incompetence or malevolence of adults) to resolve matters for themselves.
2. RE: Steve, he was initially introduced as a bit of a jerk in season one before his character's redemption. However, I'm seeing no preoccupation with Steve's "dark past" in season four. We have good-natured Odd Couple needling in his scenes with Dustin and unresolved romantic history with Nancy.
No spoilers until everyone has had a chance to watch, but chapter 2 was very good and adds up to the best season of ST of them all. Well done Duffer Bros!
comment by Ji Sung Park's Cousin - It's Beekers! (U2958)
posted 14 hours, 55 minutes ago
No spoilers until everyone has had a chance to watch, but chapter 2 was very good and adds up to the best season of ST of them all. Well done Duffer Bros!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It was very good and very sad what happens to one particular character. Quite depressing really.
Was always on the cards really. Didn't think the writing around that was particularly great either.
Some very good scenes elsewhere though!
We'll revisit on Monday once the others have caught up.
What a clusterfack that was come on, if you get past the fact that yes it was tense and gripping, you’ll see that it was extremely stupid. The plot armour on the main characters is so thick that it removes any suspense in the show. The whole Russia storyline was completely pointless. The death of one particular character was pointless and they made that character stupid for no reason. Then there is another death that has to happen for the plot to advance but is instantly reverse because you know, another character suddenly realises they have a new power, again because the plot needs it and also plot armour. I did generally enjoy the ride but it’s just such a stupid show.
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StrangerThings ** Finale **spoiler thread
Page 3 of 5
posted on 27/6/22
I binged the whole thing on advice of my friends, family and colleagues
posted on 27/6/22
I got through the first 5 episodes thinking ‘this is really good’ and then realised soon afterwards that it wasn’t. Then you just keep watching hoping for things to get better and it never does. To be fair, season 4 has been slightly better than season 2 and 3 which were both diabolically mind numbingly bad
posted on 27/6/22
The only payoff that will make the show better is that know it all, smug, arrogant priiiiick Dustin getting eaten alive, slowly and painfully
posted on 27/6/22
1 Star because you still refuse to use the TV and Movies board
posted on 28/6/22
There is going to be a season 5, so sheep like Vlad need to prepare themselves to watch another 10 hours or more of something they hate just because that’s what other people are doing.
posted on 28/6/22
How can they drag another season of this trash ffs
I wonder what Eleven will conveniently remember next season for the convenience of the plot. Or how many life saving songs will be discovered. Or how long all those idiots will keep everything a secret for their own safety even though the people saying to keep it on the QT were brutally murdered in season 2. Such a dumb show
posted on 28/6/22
comment by Son Of Gunnersaurus a.k.a SoG (U1310)
posted 17 hours, 42 minutes ago
Hope that annoying jock gets whats coming to him
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cheerleaders, a college scholarship and an unearned VP role at his dad’s mate’s software company?
posted on 28/6/22
comment by And... Rosso... Though its... Yeah and... That... (U17054)
posted 21 minutes ago
comment by Son Of Gunnersaurus a.k.a SoG (U1310)
posted 17 hours, 42 minutes ago
Hope that annoying jock gets whats coming to him
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cheerleaders, a college scholarship and an unearned VP role at his dad’s mate’s software company?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosso, surely you’ve seen enough movies to know he ends up working as a car salesman at his own dealership selling pick up trucks and the customers who come in want to be regaled by tales of that one throw which won the Cornbowl world local championship etc and he smiles and they drive off with a gas guzzler while inside he feels sad and empty and longs for the carefree days of his youth when it all seemed to mean so much more back then.
posted on 28/6/22
comment by Vladimikel Artutin - committing war crimes against football since 2019 (U18355)
posted 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
I wonder what Eleven will conveniently remember next season for the convenience of the plot. Or how many life saving songs will be discovered. Or how long all those idiots will keep everything a secret for their own safety even though the people saying to keep it on the QT were brutally murdered in season 2. Such a dumb show
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Your rants a quite bizarre.
You have cherry picked two plot devices that you assume will be used time and again... Yet they have only been used in s4 (repressed memory and music connecting to the real world). It's not like these are movie cliches.
posted on 28/6/22
comment by Ji Sung Park's Cousin - It's Beekers! (U2958)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Vladimikel Artutin - committing war crimes against football since 2019 (U18355)
posted 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
I wonder what Eleven will conveniently remember next season for the convenience of the plot. Or how many life saving songs will be discovered. Or how long all those idiots will keep everything a secret for their own safety even though the people saying to keep it on the QT were brutally murdered in season 2. Such a dumb show
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Your rants a quite bizarre.
You have cherry picked two plot devices that you assume will be used time and again... Yet they have only been used in s4 (repressed memory and music connecting to the real world). It's not like these are movie cliches.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Seems to have misunderstood in the case of the music too - it wasn't a 'magic song', but a song that was personally important to the character. Moreover, the premise that music can penetrate our unconscious mind in a way that words can't seems at least as real-world plausible (given what philosophy and psychology tells us about music) as it needs to be in the supernatural fantasy genre.
More generally, Stranger Things isn't making any claims for itself as high art. It's expensively produced popcorn, shamelessly channelling 80s nostalgia while playfully blending tropes from and explicit references to the horror, fantasy and high school / coming of age films of that decade. None of that is supposed to be truly original. Some of the plotting is self-consciously preposterous. But what I think it does really well, and in fact better than anything else I can think of, is maintain both the lightness of the character-based comedy at the same time as giving us moments of genuine horror and spookiness.
posted on 28/6/22
Yep, seems to me a case of someone disliking something that is popular, just to be contrary.
Of course, everyone has the right to dislike something... They don't usually invest countless hours making sure they dislike it though!
posted on 28/6/22
comment by Ji Sung Park's Cousin - It's Beekers! (U2958)
posted 11 minutes ago
Yep, seems to me a case of someone disliking something that is popular, just to be contrary.
Of course, everyone has the right to dislike something... They don't usually invest countless hours making sure they dislike it though!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in similar genres with far worse dialogue, characterisation, and concept. And there's a lot of stuff that takes itself far more seriously while failing to deliver. So I think the main crime of Stranger Things must be its popularity.
posted on 28/6/22
What i really like about it is they cater really well for a very broad audience... The nostalgia element brings in people like us, who remember the 80s movies, books, culture etc... But it also needs to be modern enough to attract the teens and early 20s market, that I assume make up a lot of Netflix's audience.
Not many shows could pull that off and they really have. We were discussing ST at my in-laws this weekend and three generations of the family all loved it.
As you say, it is not trying to be anything more than it is, which is well written, well produced entertainment. Not every bit of dialogue or subplot will land with every watcher, but overall, it's been a blast.
posted on 28/6/22
comment by Ji Sung Park's Cousin - It's Beekers! (U2958)
posted 7 hours, 52 minutes ago
Yep, seems to me a case of someone disliking something that is popular, just to be contrary.
Of course, everyone has the right to dislike something... They don't usually invest countless hours making sure they dislike it though!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Being contrarian for the sake of it is no better than shamelessly embracing pop culture just to fit in with anyone else. I dislike the show because it’s trash, I keep watching the show because I want to be wrong about it being trash. As I said in an earlier post, season 4 has been much better than the previous 2 but there is still so many glaringly obvious plot holes.
Why is this a facking secret??? There wouldn’t be a witch hunt for Eddie Munson and a warrant for his arrest if all these morons went to the authorities and explained what is going on. They initially wanted to keep things a secret because of the deal they brokered with incompetent morons but they are all dead now so why is it all a secret???
Why is the most important moment in Eleven’s life a suppressed memory? Why, of all the things she would forget in that hellhole where she was treated like an animal, would she forget the one good thing she did down there?
How did Hopper survive? We saw all the Russians who were miles away from that machine get instantly vaporised but Hopper who was right next to get walked away with no injuries?
Why is Steve a ‘jerk’? Literally every single episode we are reminded that Steve used to be a ‘jerk’ but from the very first episode he appears in, he’s done nothing to suggest he was a bad guy and throughout the entire series he’s only ever done selfless acts. Yet because he’s good looking and women love him we are meant to just accept that he was a ‘jerk’.
It’s literally only for the convenience of the plot. These are the moments that people watching the show look back on and think ‘oh wow that’s amazing’ but it’s complete BS.
Also Hopper being alive completely takes away from the one moment in the show that felt real and not so blatantly forcibly scripted (when Eleven read his letter after he died).
posted on 28/6/22
If they removed all the swearing from the script and just made it a PG show, then I’d accept it for the cheesy Goonies remake featuring evil monster that it is, but the target market is for adults
posted on 28/6/22
You seem to lack any kind of lateral thinking.
Why would police listen to a bunch of kids saying a monster did it, not the known drug dealer she last was seen with?
El used her full power for the first time to send 01 to the upside down, maybe even created the upside down... Who knows what that would do to the mind of a kid?
I haven't seen any recent episode where Steve is talked about or even hinted at being a jerk.
Hopper surviving is your only valid point, let's see if it ever gets explained.
You seem guilty of both over thinking and under thinking it at the same time!
posted on 28/6/22
They don’t have to tell the police, the US Government know about the monster and covered up what happened at that shopping mall in season 3. Yet for some reason those dumbasses still decide that keeping things a secret, putting their own lives and the life of a completely innocent Eddie Munson in jeopardy is the best thing to do.
And you must not be paying attention if you haven’t noticed Steve’s dark past being brought up in basically every episode. But I don’t really blame you for not paying attention to painfully bad dialogue. I mean people are only really watching the show now to see how Eleven is going to kill One/Vecna/new character introduced for plot convenience
posted on 28/6/22
Having found Stranger Things was starting to get boring during the second series and even more so in season 3, I think season 4 has been an improvement. They went darker which is a bonus, and while they've still stuck with the Upside World, they've at least focused on a new and more intimidating foe. There have still been things in it that are dull and stretched out but it's definitely interested me more than the third series. This should be the last series though, and hopefully some main..ish characters die. If it was up to me the forced comedy characters would be the first.
posted on 28/6/22
comment by FFS Mike. (U1170)
posted 14 hours, 59 minutes ago
There is going to be a season 5, so sheep like Vlad need to prepare themselves to watch another 10 hours or more of something they hate just because that’s what other people are doing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Very odd, can't imagine hate-watching a show, desperately trying to convince yourself it's terrible.
Season 4 has been undeniably excellent. Hopefully the Duffer brothers can deliver a satisfying conclusion to this season (the finale trailer looks insane), and eventually the series.
As to the question of which main characters are at risk, not sure I'd miss Nancy, Jonathan, or Mike, so they're probably going to be ok.
I'd like to think Max is safe given the epic way she survived in episode 4 ...
posted on 1/7/22
It’s time 👻👽☠️👾💀🎃😈
posted on 1/7/22
comment by Vladimikel Artutin - committing war crimes against football since 2019 (U18355)
posted 2 days, 13 hours ago
They don’t have to tell the police, the US Government know about the monster and covered up what happened at that shopping mall in season 3. Yet for some reason those dumbasses still decide that keeping things a secret, putting their own lives and the life of a completely innocent Eddie Munson in jeopardy is the best thing to do.
And you must not be paying attention if you haven’t noticed Steve’s dark past being brought up in basically every episode. But I don’t really blame you for not paying attention to painfully bad dialogue. I mean people are only really watching the show now to see how Eleven is going to kill One/Vecna/new character introduced for plot convenience
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. The US Government security apparatus is shown to be divided between one agency/faction that suspects Eleven is the cause of the problems and another that suspects the truth, and the two are in active conflict with each other. I don't see why you would expect either the security agencies to be transparent with the local law enforcers or the kids to trust any of these authority groups to usefully intervene. Moreover, isn't this one of the conventions of the fictional universe Stranger Things is playing with: kids are fated (due to incompetence or malevolence of adults) to resolve matters for themselves.
2. RE: Steve, he was initially introduced as a bit of a jerk in season one before his character's redemption. However, I'm seeing no preoccupation with Steve's "dark past" in season four. We have good-natured Odd Couple needling in his scenes with Dustin and unresolved romantic history with Nancy.
posted on 1/7/22
No spoilers until everyone has had a chance to watch, but chapter 2 was very good and adds up to the best season of ST of them all. Well done Duffer Bros!
posted on 2/7/22
comment by Ji Sung Park's Cousin - It's Beekers! (U2958)
posted 14 hours, 55 minutes ago
No spoilers until everyone has had a chance to watch, but chapter 2 was very good and adds up to the best season of ST of them all. Well done Duffer Bros!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It was very good and very sad what happens to one particular character. Quite depressing really.
posted on 2/7/22
Was always on the cards really. Didn't think the writing around that was particularly great either.
Some very good scenes elsewhere though!
We'll revisit on Monday once the others have caught up.
posted on 3/7/22
What a clusterfack that was come on, if you get past the fact that yes it was tense and gripping, you’ll see that it was extremely stupid. The plot armour on the main characters is so thick that it removes any suspense in the show. The whole Russia storyline was completely pointless. The death of one particular character was pointless and they made that character stupid for no reason. Then there is another death that has to happen for the plot to advance but is instantly reverse because you know, another character suddenly realises they have a new power, again because the plot needs it and also plot armour. I did generally enjoy the ride but it’s just such a stupid show.
Page 3 of 5