Author Topic: Stranger Things  (Read 9629 times)

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Stranger Things
« on: July 26, 2016, 11:08:45 AM »

Offline Donoghus

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Did anybody else binge watch this over the past weekend?

Netflix series that is heavily influenced by late 70s/early 80s Spielberg movie & Stephen King novels.  Can also see the influence of Goonies, Explorers, Firestarter, among other 80s relics. 

Thought the show as extremely entertaining.  Only 8 episodes and I didn't really find any of them to be filler at all.  Great storyline and thought Winona Ryder was pretty awesome.


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Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2016, 11:20:01 AM »

Offline ABOS (A bit of Sanity)

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Did anybody else binge watch this over the past weekend?

Netflix series that is heavily influenced by late 70s/early 80s Spielberg movie & Stephen King novels.  Can also see the influence of Goonies, Explorers, Firestarter, among other 80s relics. 

Thought the show as extremely entertaining.  Only 8 episodes and I didn't really find any of them to be filler at all.  Great storyline and thought Winona Ryder was pretty awesome.

Yes it was quite good. The Male lead David Harbour was fantastic. Also very good performances by Winona Ryder and numerous child actors/ actresses.

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2016, 11:43:28 AM »

Offline fairweatherfan

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Watched it over a few nights last week.  Extraordinarily well-made.  Hit a lot of thematic references to older work without really seeming derivative.  Characters were very well-written and -acted and their motivations almost always made sense.  Anybody on the fence about this should definitely check it out. 

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2016, 12:59:09 AM »

Offline LB3533

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This new show on Netflix is superb.

Well acted by the younger cast, experienced actors and actresses performing top notch characters excellently. Was that really Winona Ryder?

I really liked the sound track / score / music etc.

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2016, 01:12:49 AM »

Offline Csfan1984

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4 out of 5
Great show. Well done by netflix. Felt like it was early 80s but modern special effects. Makes me wonder if some one just updated the effects of say *ET*, "the last star fighter" or other 80s sci-fi if those movies would become attractive to modern viewers as period set sci-fi stories. I know a lot of people will never watch them due to special effects looking bad by modern standards but there were some great sci-fi movies back then.

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2016, 01:37:16 AM »

Offline LarBrd33

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Did anybody else binge watch this over the past weekend?

Netflix series that is heavily influenced by late 70s/early 80s Spielberg movie & Stephen King novels.  Can also see the influence of Goonies, Explorers, Firestarter, among other 80s relics. 

Thought the show as extremely entertaining.  Only 8 episodes and I didn't really find any of them to be filler at all.  Great storyline and thought Winona Ryder was pretty awesome.
I liked it a lot.   I think it was Stephen King himself who said it was like walking a "Best of Stephen King ... in a good way".   I agree.  It was like watching a "Greatest Hits" DVD of all our favorite 80s movies, but they weave it all together really well and because the story is semi fresh, you get to relive some of that same excitement you felt seeing those movies early on.   

Found this video showing the scenes side-by-side with their inspirations:  https://vimeo.com/175929311

I wonder how they are going to do season 2, though.  So much of the best 80s movie moments have already been used up.   What is left for them to mine?   Maybe they can do it as a semi spin-off about a group of elderly folks living in a beach town who get a bunch of large furry sea critters roaming around... and sample "Cocoon, Jaws and Gremlins" this time around?  Lol. 

Then one of the elderly guys die, but they dress him up and take him around town regardless... oh and one of the elderly guys is actually a 13 year old boy trapped in an elderly body, because he wished for it at an Arcade... oh and also they are all fighter pilots... one is a swashbuckling archeologist... One of them has a teenage friend who turns into a wolf at night when he's not having a wild day off with his quirky mismatched group of detention classmates...  and they invent a time machine together to travel to the past to stop a cyborg killing machine with an Austrian accent. 

"Stranger Things 2" ... coming soon.

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2016, 02:11:29 AM »

Offline max215

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I thoroughly enjoyed it. Best new show I've watched in a while.
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Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2016, 03:43:16 AM »

Offline OldSchoolDude

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I watched the first two episodes yesterday.  so far so good.

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #8 on: August 31, 2016, 09:52:44 PM »

Offline Eja117

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Just watched the first episode. Possibly the best first episode of any show ever. Very few competitors. Maybe Game of Thrones

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #9 on: September 01, 2016, 12:31:25 AM »

Offline Timdawgg

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For me it is the best show ever.  There is something about it that draws me to it like crazy.  I was the same age in the 80's.   I loved E.T. And stand by me and it feels like those movies.   The kids are so likable and do a great job acting.   I like scifi and 80's horror, the music is amazing and the beginning music is intoxicating.  so it's perfect. 
« Last Edit: September 01, 2016, 12:38:37 AM by Timdawgg »
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Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #10 on: September 01, 2016, 12:31:32 AM »

Offline LarBrd33

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Just watched the first episode. Possibly the best first episode of any show ever. Very few competitors. Maybe Game of Thrones
I'm not even sure it was the best first episode of a show to debut that week.

The first episode of "The Night Of" was pretty amazing.  The rest of the series didn't totally live up to the excellence of the pilot, but overall it was solid.

As a whole, I loved "Stranger Things".

There was a discussion on Reddit back in March about which TV show had the best first episode.  Looks like "Lost" got the most votes:  https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4953uz/which_tv_show_has_the_strongest_first_episode/  .... There's a bunch of other rankings online and Lost is consistently listed in the Top 3.  I think it was the most expensive pilot episode in history at the time.  Twin Peaks, Breaking Bad, Arrested Development, Mad Men, and Sopranos seem to appear at the top of those "best pilot episode" lists often too.

"Game of Thrones" doesn't typically get praise for it's pilot.  It introduced almost too many characters and initially just seemed like a typical fantasy show.  I needed to pull up a family tree to understand what was going on.  A lot of people didn't get totally hooked until around episode 9 when they realized the show was unique.   I remember a lot of people having to say, "Stick with it... trust me... just stick with it.  It gets great".

A little known fact...Chad Ford's annual tier article actually had the "Boardwalk Empire" pilot in a higher prospect tier in 2010 than the "Game of Thrones" pilot in 2011.   Obviously, Thrones reigns surpreme now, but at the time scouts/GM's were very high on Boardwalk Empire and Ford's tier article reflects that consensus.  If both were coming out at the same time, it's fair to speculate that the "Boardwalk Empire" pilot would be drafted ahead of the "Game of Thrones" pilot. 
« Last Edit: September 01, 2016, 12:59:42 AM by LarBrd33 »

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #11 on: September 01, 2016, 05:45:10 AM »

Offline pearljammer10

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Just finished it last night. What an amazing show. Consistently got better and better with each episode. So many brilliant scenes stick out in my mind from throughout the season.

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #12 on: September 01, 2016, 07:57:18 AM »

Offline Celtics4ever

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Maybe Game of Thrones

I think the pilot was one of the worst episodes and I love the show and have read all the books.

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #13 on: September 02, 2016, 03:07:07 PM »

Offline Eja117

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Maybe Game of Thrones

I think the pilot was one of the worst episodes and I love the show and have read all the books.
Callin you all out for revisionism. Just the opening theme with the stuff that pops up was insane. Then they killed a major character in the first ten minutes but he survived. Plus you had Tyrion for the first time ever doing what Tyrion does.

Re: Stranger Things
« Reply #14 on: September 02, 2016, 04:13:12 PM »

Offline dannyboy35

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I liked it but I couldn't tell if that was it for this story or they will continue with the same characters and the story continues on. Does anyone know? T reminded me of " Dark Room" from the 80's but ofcourse a fuller story. It's not one of my faces of Netflix but I thought it was cool. I'm addicted to Bloodline.