They really sold that relationship. Everything that came from that was highly effective and emotionally solid.
I loved the Russia stuff too. It was a nice change of pace and my man Murray tore shit up.
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Stranger Things S4 | OT | Every ending has a beginning (Open spoilers)
- Thread starter Conditional-Pancakes
- Start date
- Entertainment Video/Streaming OT
Just finished the finale and that was great.
Too bad the wait will be until 2024 sometime. Especially since I'm sure they'll try and top this season in terms of length. Or maybe not since the cast and their plotlines should be spread out less.
Genuinely shocked they went through with the consequences of the vision. Thought they would maim Vecna and prevent it until the next season. But I'm glad since this is a more exciting status quo shakeup going into the next season.
Not sure how I feel about Vecna shaping the Mind Flayer into what we know. I like the Upside Down having a personified voice in Vecna/One but I think I preferred the idea of having the mysterious eldritch entity being behind Vecna rather than the other way round. But that could always change as they inevitably explain more about the Upside Down next season.
Eddie got some good moments in these episodes. Stranger Things continues to be one of the best shows at introducing characters into the cast and making them feel like they were always there. The scene with Dustin and Eddies father got me.
Not sure how I feel about Vecna shaping the Mind Flayer into what we know. I like the Upside Down having a personified voice in Vecna/One but I think I preferred the idea of having the mysterious eldritch entity being behind Vecna rather than the other way round. But that could always change as they inevitably explain more about the Upside Down next season.
Eddie got some good moments in these episodes. Stranger Things continues to be one of the best shows at introducing characters into the cast and making them feel like they were always there. The scene with Dustin and Eddies father got me.
Too bad the wait will be until 2024 sometime. Especially since I'm sure they'll try and top this season in terms of length. Or maybe not since the cast and their plotlines should be spread out less.
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lol!
I do like how it was done here, though. El could somehow get Max's body to work again, but she's now in a vegetative state. Her mind is gone, possibly to Vecna, and even if she wakes up from her coma she'll most likely be paralyzed and blind ("I can't feel or see anything"). I like the impacts, it's different than just killing the character.
I do like how it was done here, though. El could somehow get Max's body to work again, but she's now in a vegetative state. Her mind is gone, possibly to Vecna, and even if she wakes up from her coma she'll most likely be paralyzed and blind ("I can't feel or see anything"). I like the impacts, it's different than just killing the character.
Oh one more thing I wanna say before I forget. The only problem I had with the last few episodes...Is sometimes there were Anime levels of monologuing and character dumps. For instance. Two characters are running out of time in a certain situation..they have a deep meaningful conversation.. slow what important life saving shit they are doing..to sit down and have a long talk about stuff..and then get interrupted out of nowhere when an important idea, or thought or action is about to occur. This happened a bunch of times and I just kept shouting at my TV and girlfriend,. "Where is the urgency??!" You are literally running in hell, ya'll aren't afraid of random monsters in the trees? Or Someone is about to die or suffocate unless you do something??
Since this is my only real nitpick it shows how good the rest of the show was. I hope we get some Gravity Falls levels
Since this is my only real nitpick it shows how good the rest of the show was. I hope we get some Gravity Falls levels
of Weirdmaggedon shit coming out of those cracks.
Not bad but we see that when Henry first comes to the Upside Down that Demogorgons/Demodogs already exist so their design/existence/behavior has nothing to do with Will or D&D.
Not to mention that The Party's ideas of D&D power scaling are all fucked up when you consider that in D&D terms, Demogorgon is an unknowable, basically undefeatable dark god, Mindflayers are regular trash mobs, and Vecna is a final boss-level lich.
Their D&D terminology basically comes from a bunch of kids who read the Monster Manual once and didn't retain a lot of information from it aside from cool-sounding names.
Just finished watching episode 7, and I really hope they don't everything about 11 x Vecna, even the start of the Upsidedown lol
Loving the season so far, although I wish they'd toned down the horror elements, the ending of the first episode was creepy as fuck, unlike anything that came before and after. I know why they did things that way, but idk, i don't like horror and ST was very bearable until this lol
Loving the season so far, although I wish they'd toned down the horror elements, the ending of the first episode was creepy as fuck, unlike anything that came before and after. I know why they did things that way, but idk, i don't like horror and ST was very bearable until this lol
Yeah there's definitely a lot of awkward story dumps in this season given the stakes in those moments. Or people posing for hero shots instead of using their weapons immediately like a normal person.
Man, as soon as El went to go 'train' her powers...
Overall I really liked this season, though it needed a LOT of editing to be really great.
Anyway, like I said i enjoyed most of the season, just a lot of really bad decisions and poor editing/pacing holding it back from being really great. The overly long episodes added nothing except padding and bad pacing imo.
||I knew that they were going for a loose ESB plot. She's going to leave before she's ready because her friend are in trouble. They'll lose in the end to end on a sad note heading into the final fight.||
Overall I really liked this season, though it needed a LOT of editing to be really great.
||Russia was mind numbingly stupid and in the end didn't actually tie into anything. A lot of overly long scenes and plot lines that really didnt amount to anything. Eddie's death was the lamest death yet (tho everything leading up to it was amazing, him just playing a guitar solo int he upside down was stupid fun.). Aside from it being the predictible newbie death that loses its effectiveness when it's happening again in the 4th season... it didnt' even do anything for the plot or characters. In fact in the end you could have written out his whole character from the season and no one would have blinked. No one even cares about him except dustin and that's just cuz he was there at the end it feels like. Also, the editing choices surrounding it were horrible. Like logically he's running back into the swarm of bats to buy the kids in the house more time, but in show-time those kids have been being choked out for about an hour now (lol, another weird pacing thing), so you don't really feel like he's doing anything at all other than randomly deciding to run into a swarm of bats to go die. Then they place it literallyt he scene before the shit with max which is ACTUALLY surprising and affects the main plot and storylines of the main characters, but for me I was still too busy rolling my eyes over eddie's death to be fully invested in what was happening with max. Plus two deaths back to back, you know something's up, one of them isn't sticking.||
Anyway, like I said i enjoyed most of the season, just a lot of really bad decisions and poor editing/pacing holding it back from being really great. The overly long episodes added nothing except padding and bad pacing imo.
That's exactly what I told some friends yesterday about this.
It's so sad seeing him sad tho.
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That's interesting!
(The article has spoilers for Volume 2)
variety.com
(The article has spoilers for Volume 2)
Millie Bobby Brown Cried Seeing Vecna on ‘Stranger Things’ Set: ‘She Wouldn’t Look at Me’
Millie Bobby Brown cried seeing Vecna on set of "Stranger Things 4."
variety.com
Oh wow, the Star Wars OT parallels make sense
Since I believe the military will take away Max's body to figure things out about Vecna/UD, Max is basically Han Solo in carbonite. So if we had to guess based on Star War's plot, they'll have a mission to save her in S5, and the end of S5 will be El VS Vecna but there will be a sort of Emperor character telling her she has to do something or her friends will perish, and Henry-inside-Vecna will ultimately have a turn-around and kill the Emperor with El or some such. Maybe the Emperor will be the military general, or the real "thing" that contacted Henry to begin with.
Not saying that will happen, but I could see something like that.
eh I can't really believe this. it's a film set, it's not gonna be scaryThat's interesting!
(The article has spoilers for Volume 2)
Millie Bobby Brown Cried Seeing Vecna on ‘Stranger Things’ Set: ‘She Wouldn’t Look at Me’
Millie Bobby Brown cried seeing Vecna on set of "Stranger Things 4."
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I can believe it. Acting can be very emotional work at times. Also, Millie Bobby Brown was brought on set in a bound position. It can emotionally be very upsetting, no matter if it's a film set and how many times it was rehearsed.
Thought while rewatching ep8
You think these Wheelers are gonna die next season? The seed has been planted, we don't see it but Nancy says she saw her Mum, Holly and Mike in her vision, she stops before saying dead but clearly what she was getting at. That part of the vision could just be Vecna scaring her but the stuff we saw came true
I think this tweet is making a mountain of a sublte nod back. All I took this as "while posessed will drew the same thing vecna did"
They started doing this in Season 3 and it was so glaringly bad with the Neverending Story scene
Finished it yesterday. I really need to rewatch S1, but this felt on par or equal to that first season to me.
Eddie: A great addition to the cast. While his end was tragic, his final act of courage and last words were really fitting.
Steve: Glad he's still alive and kicking.
Max: When that arm crumpled, I remember putting my hand over my mouth and kept it covered during the entire scene of what Vecna did to her. I really thought she was safe after Ep 4. They fooled me!
Lucas: He got a better arc than what was happening with Team Mike & the Pizza Bros, even if it was short.
Jason: I watched the finale with a friend and we both clapped when the piece of shit got split in half.
Mike: I found it interesting Mike compared himself to Lois Lane, but a worse version. He's not wrong (because he's terrible), and I do think it plays into stereotypical gender roles being flipped. Mike is the damsel in distress and cheerleader for the hero. He's a trope and I think he's okay with with that notion, but unsure how he can be more than a stereotype and have a purpose. I do think Will's reassurance helped show Mike he can be that role and more. I doubt we'll see that growth in S5, because Mike sucks no matter what you do with him.
Jonathan: Nancy needs to dump his ass.
Will: I love Will. I think he got the short end of the stick in S3, but I was fine with it, because after what happened to him in S1-S2, the character deserved a break. I feel like this season, Will is used as a form of dramatic irony that we the audience know is going on with him, but everyone is so oblivious and stupid, especially Mike, that they can't figure it out. Even when Jonathan can see it, the best conversation he can strike up with his flesh and blood is a bit with Will having a LEGO piece stuck up his nose. The whole personal drama build around Will I thought was corny, and it was nothing at fault set by him, but rather the cast characters around the guy the entire season. The hint they dropped in the very last scene makes me hope Will gets a stronger part in S5 and not just a Mike tag along partner.
Nancy & Robin: Best Team Up. Dustin and Eddie get 2nd place. My friend and I went "holy shit" at the same time in the end when we realized Nancy of all people was the one to beat Vecna. I found it comical that Robin was attracted to someone very similar to herself in personality. Also, I need an 80's style sitcom with Robin and Steve as roommates.
The Russia plotline: It felt like pure filler. My biggest complaint about the whole thing was Hopper's foot. None of that made any sense. Dude's foot was halfway falling off. He should be in an insufferable amount of pain. But this guy is running through snow barefoot, while taking on the Russian army + Demodogs and Demogorgons and never once complains about the foot that's barely attached. In fact, he decides to fix up his arm over his foot in that last episode. Whatever, I had to suspend disbelief on that whole foot scenario. Also, Yuri sucks. Enzo was cool though. Each season I warm up the concept that is Murray.
Papa: Doc cranked the gaslighting up to an 11(👀), and didn't stop, even on his deathbed. Talk about sticking to the gimmick. Holy shit.
Argyle: Couldn't get into the character. I saw the salt thing coming a mile away, and that was where it hit me that this character was created as a means of transportation for Mike & Company and salt for Eleven. Just…bad.
Eddie: A great addition to the cast. While his end was tragic, his final act of courage and last words were really fitting.
Steve: Glad he's still alive and kicking.
Max: When that arm crumpled, I remember putting my hand over my mouth and kept it covered during the entire scene of what Vecna did to her. I really thought she was safe after Ep 4. They fooled me!
Lucas: He got a better arc than what was happening with Team Mike & the Pizza Bros, even if it was short.
Jason: I watched the finale with a friend and we both clapped when the piece of shit got split in half.
Mike: I found it interesting Mike compared himself to Lois Lane, but a worse version. He's not wrong (because he's terrible), and I do think it plays into stereotypical gender roles being flipped. Mike is the damsel in distress and cheerleader for the hero. He's a trope and I think he's okay with with that notion, but unsure how he can be more than a stereotype and have a purpose. I do think Will's reassurance helped show Mike he can be that role and more. I doubt we'll see that growth in S5, because Mike sucks no matter what you do with him.
Jonathan: Nancy needs to dump his ass.
Will: I love Will. I think he got the short end of the stick in S3, but I was fine with it, because after what happened to him in S1-S2, the character deserved a break. I feel like this season, Will is used as a form of dramatic irony that we the audience know is going on with him, but everyone is so oblivious and stupid, especially Mike, that they can't figure it out. Even when Jonathan can see it, the best conversation he can strike up with his flesh and blood is a bit with Will having a LEGO piece stuck up his nose. The whole personal drama build around Will I thought was corny, and it was nothing at fault set by him, but rather the cast characters around the guy the entire season. The hint they dropped in the very last scene makes me hope Will gets a stronger part in S5 and not just a Mike tag along partner.
Nancy & Robin: Best Team Up. Dustin and Eddie get 2nd place. My friend and I went "holy shit" at the same time in the end when we realized Nancy of all people was the one to beat Vecna. I found it comical that Robin was attracted to someone very similar to herself in personality. Also, I need an 80's style sitcom with Robin and Steve as roommates.
The Russia plotline: It felt like pure filler. My biggest complaint about the whole thing was Hopper's foot. None of that made any sense. Dude's foot was halfway falling off. He should be in an insufferable amount of pain. But this guy is running through snow barefoot, while taking on the Russian army + Demodogs and Demogorgons and never once complains about the foot that's barely attached. In fact, he decides to fix up his arm over his foot in that last episode. Whatever, I had to suspend disbelief on that whole foot scenario. Also, Yuri sucks. Enzo was cool though. Each season I warm up the concept that is Murray.
Papa: Doc cranked the gaslighting up to an 11(👀), and didn't stop, even on his deathbed. Talk about sticking to the gimmick. Holy shit.
Argyle: Couldn't get into the character. I saw the salt thing coming a mile away, and that was where it hit me that this character was created as a means of transportation for Mike & Company and salt for Eleven. Just…bad.
No idea if it will be true but I do believe that Nancy will take actions under the belief that it might happen, I don't think this is going to be left out of the plot.
O yea, rhea was fire in the latest season but these Emmys are defined by moments and there's no singular moment from the most recent season of BCS that was better than Rues breakdown or max at Billy's grave.
I really don't like the character either, I also feel he doesn't really fit as an 80s character, feels more like a late 90s type. I guess the goth babysitter will show up in S5 and they'll be a thing, they already established that the parents have no control over their kids and they didn't add an older sister for nothing, it's to justify she will leave her home and join Dustin and co IMO. As I said in my S5-guess post I think his role will again be the "guy comes up with solution to immediate need", this time to grow food for
their survivalist base camp which will be Hopper's home that they started fixing up.
It happens. When they filmed The Descent they kept the designs of the monsters from the rest of the actors until they had scenes together and it scared the shit out of them, and those were adults.
There's a Shaun of the Dead blooper where he's up on a car surrounded by zombies and he gets genuinely freaked out.
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I's funny to me how Eden is referred to as "the goth babysitter" without any mentions of the main inspiration for the character.
It's clear to me it was all a nod to The Breakfast Club, it's part of why I like her so much.
It's clear to me it was all a nod to The Breakfast Club, it's part of why I like her so much.
I's funny to me how Eden is referred to as "the goth babysitter" without any mentions of the main inspiration for the character.
It's clear to me it was all a nod to The Breakfast Club, it's part of why I like her so much.
I also think she looks like a tiny Fairuza Balk.
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Some common complaints that I believe have pretty firm and understandable answers to that are being overlooked
I think the finale has some faults, but these points seem to be commonly referenced in the finale discussions I've been reading around the internet so I felt like addressing them specifically.
- Eddie choosing to die for "no reason"
- In the moment, Eddie the character has no clue what the stakes are or where the others lie in regards to their tasks. If he retreats as well, the bats continue to swarm into the trailer, as they were shown to do, and then go through the portal and likely kill both him and Dustin and many more people in Hawkins. The entire season his character was built on the concept that he "runs away" from everything, so his final climactic moment is becoming the person he wants to be and doing what he can within his control, by distracting them from the people and town he cares about. When he fell off the bike, people seem to be wondering why he didn't hide or continue running, which obviously is because of the aforementioned point relating to his entire arc and character motivations. He completes his arc, stands his ground and becomes the person he wants to be in that moment. It was meaningful and heartbreaking to see. Whether you assume his sacrfice was meaningless in the grand scheme (where it only looslely can seem that way with hindsight and the knowledge of what everyone else in the group was doing), the moment was far from meaningless in regards to his arc.
- El being able to "bring Max back to life" with a "new power" or without a precedent for it
- I found this to be pretty clear. The scene has El holding her hand up to Max's heart and you heart a consistent heartbeat noise over the scene. It's pretty clear that El is just using her powers to do compressions on Max's heart to kick start it back up. She didn't do any crazy new magic or pull any new bullshit powers, she just used the powers she's clearly had since Season 1 to apply them in a new and fairly straightforward way, not to mention El has also had to have her heart restarted before as well, so she is aware of this process.
- El using "the power of friendship" to beat Vecna
- Earlier in the season we clearly see El beat Vecna using good memories of her mother over memories of hatred like One had tried to teach her to use. There was a clear prescedent for a powerful positive memory enhancing her powers immensely, and her finally hearing Mike being completely open and heartfelt with her is as good as any of a memory to give her powers the gas they need. Now, if you maybe want to argue her powers being enhanced by good memories is cheesy in of itself and as a concept is something you just don't like tonally, then sure, but these powers are all revolving around mental states and mental abilities, so it's pretty logically consistent to tie them to how the user is feeling at any given time.
I think the finale has some faults, but these points seem to be commonly referenced in the finale discussions I've been reading around the internet so I felt like addressing them specifically.
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Hate to say it, but add me to the chorus of voices that didn't care for this storyline at all. For one, it didn't really seem to heat up in any meaningful way until the last few episodes and as great as that Hopper/Demogorgon fight was, the stakes for that group were just so much lower than everyone else.
Had they kept Hopper being alive a secret for longer, I think there could have been more of a payoff here.
Had they kept Hopper being alive a secret for longer, I think there could have been more of a payoff here.
Adding to this...
Positive emotions was always the key to beating Vecna. It was literally how Max escaped the first time and managed to keep him at bay for so long in final episode. He feeds off negativity and despair, so it's thematically correct for El's positive emotion to be the thing that causes his downfall.
This again emphasizes to me how Vecna is a Darth Vader stand-in
Max was asked "do you have a good memory", and she says yes. Did Henry ever have "a good memory"? I guess the answer is no, and hence how he ended up as he is as Vecna. I know I am annoying with the Henry redemption thing but this show is about children and their innocence. I really don't think the story will conclude with Henry just having also been evil, there's something hidden in his past that combined with his exposure to the paranormal force prevented from him freeing himself from its grasp, unlike the other kids who have good memories/friendship, and set in place his view that he must become some sort of ruler over everything.
So Max is Han in carbonite, gonna be taken away to a military base early in S5, the gang will go to save her, and later on in the season child-Henry will find or develop a good memory retroactively that will allow him to "defeat" Vecna.
Where Brenner should have actually helped Henry form connections with other kids, he treated him like a lab rat.
I really don't think the show can end with "Henry was a weird kid and weird kids are sometimes unsalvageable and there's no explanation as to why they became what they are sometimes they're just evil".
So Max is Han in carbonite, gonna be taken away to a military base early in S5, the gang will go to save her, and later on in the season child-Henry will find or develop a good memory retroactively that will allow him to "defeat" Vecna.
Where Brenner should have actually helped Henry form connections with other kids, he treated him like a lab rat.
I really don't think the show can end with "Henry was a weird kid and weird kids are sometimes unsalvageable and there's no explanation as to why they became what they are sometimes they're just evil".
Who knows though.
It's going to be Steve, Robin, Dustin and Erica going across America in a camper van in the early 90s solving supernatural mysteries.
It would break all the Netflix records.
I do think whatever it is will probably involve Dustin, he's a fan favourite but due to his condition he's going to have a harder time getting decent roles than the rest of the kids so would be cool to give him an opportunity if he wanted it.
I actually floated this idea a few weeks ago after volume 1 came out, but with volume 2 having Steve mention his dream of travelling the US in a camper van with his kids I now feel even more vindicated in my powers of pseudo-prophecy.
Interesting, hadn't caught on that Steve bit as being a likely hint. Summer Camp with Argyl and the Goth Babysitter and her nerd sister and Dustin seems likely to me. Steve as a summer camp supervisor makes total sense.
What condition does Dustin's actor have?
If she's
Han in carbonite, nope, she's just going to be saved from a military-base she's taken to to be experimented on in a rescue mission early in S5.
I mean it probably won't be, it's just pure guesswork / what I want to see lol.
Dustin has the condition his character has. Cleidocranial dysplasia. Basically no collarbones, teeth that don't grow in properly, and a bunch of other bone issues. In a perfect world that wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately it's not very Hollywood.
Henry drew that as his vision of a perfect predator. From what I can tell from his big exposition dump villain speech, he basically found the hivemind source and used his powers to force it under his control. Essentially, Vecna IS / created the Mind Flayer.
Cleidocranial dysplasia
Dustin the character is also written to have it, it's referenced in a Season 4 scene when he yells jokingly at Steve about not having collarbones.
The most popular and iconic character now after season 4? Fat chance
I see. I thought he had just a lisp or some such. In any case I think all the kids are going to want to keep on doing this show as it is usually difficult for child actors to have long-lasting careers. Since the show has been such a success, with the characters and actors ultimately being the real interest (not the "lore" like some other shows), I see them sticking to this show and spinoffs for years still.
But Dustin just feels like a good fit, his character can grow older while still always being "Dustin", which isn't the case for all of the characters.
