Stranger Things

It's mean to say this about a kid but Mike's demeanor or even face really bugs me. There's this like prodding, over-excited puppy head bobbing thing he's always doing. It's probably just how they shoot him for this show because I didn't mind him in IT.

  On 11/2/2017 at 2:21 PM, Amen Warrior said:

The more I think about it, the whole Chicago gang episode was some of shittest telly I've watched in years. The rest was ok.

I was waiting for the punks to start singing while running in circles on rollerblades

  On 11/8/2017 at 5:58 AM, o00o said:

 

  On 11/2/2017 at 2:21 PM, Amen Warrior said:

The more I think about it, the whole Chicago gang episode was some of shittest telly I've watched in years. The rest was ok.

I was waiting for the punks to start singing while running in circles on rollerblades

flol EXACTLY

Watched it, was a'ight. The soundtrack was quite lush in some ambient sections. The title sequence is still the best part though, and the '2' makes it even better!

Sean Astin is such a cute rolly polly bear now.

Yeah it was fine. Enjoyed.

 

I too thought that tape recorder business was dumb as fuck. Some high security military place like that, searching people on entrance would be a matter of course.

^ The whole secret government lab business is what bugs me the most. Paul Reisner explaining everything happening to civilians is pretty ridiculous. That shit would never happen, and Hopper, winona, Bob, kids would have never been seen again. "Hey we are a secret base, but sure, I hate keeping secrets...let me tell ya there's some major shit going down. You guys won't say anything to anybody right...pinky swear?...JK! fuck it...we all friends here. Have an access badge. no restricitions. We have Jean Fridays btw."

The most absurd part was connecting those papers into that "map" all over the house. Like...if you draw big black lines from one end of a page to another, and make like 1000 of them, you cab literally connect them in any way you want. How the fuck would you know which piece goes where?? Winona's running from room to room with a page that looks exactly the same as every other one like "This one goes.....here!" And the angles and shit are just so perfect that Bob just immediately gets it when he walks in haha.

 

I dunno why that's the one thing that stuck out to me but fuck that's a ridiculous scene.

it really is ridiculous. But, I have a soft spot for it anyway.

the  Hunter S. Thompson guy in the bunker felt out of place as well. didn't really fit into the rest of the story

Edited November 8, 2017 by o00o

  On 11/8/2017 at 2:52 PM, NI64 said:

The most absurd part was connecting those papers into that "map" all over the house. Like...if you draw big black lines from one end of a page to another, and make like 1000 of them, you cab literally connect them in any way you want. How the fuck would you know which piece goes where?? Winona's running from room to room with a page that looks exactly the same as every other one like "This one goes.....here!" And the angles and shit are just so perfect that Bob just immediately gets it when he walks in haha.

 

I dunno why that's the one thing that stuck out to me but fuck that's a ridiculous scene.

Haha yes

  On 11/8/2017 at 8:07 PM, xxx said:

He's supposed to be "funny".

 

 

Well, this keeps true to the 80s movie tradition that sequels are always worse.

well i'm glad for the opinions expressed here, because i also find the second season sloppy and bland. it has some good stuff here and there, but a lot of the magic of the first is gone now. fucking sequels. everyone i've talked to so far thinks the second season is the best yet. 

  On 11/8/2017 at 4:42 AM, sweepstakes said:

It's mean to say this about a kid but Mike's demeanor or even face really bugs me. There's this like prodding, over-excited puppy head bobbing thing he's always doing. It's probably just how they shoot him for this show because I didn't mind him in IT.

no i feel you. he'll probably grow out of it. same shit happened to me with daniel radcliffe in harry potter 4, he does this weird open mouthed pursed lips thing that just bugs the shit out of me for no goddamn reason.

 

i didn't like mike this season because he was so one note. which would have been fine if the writing was better but out of all the good things about this show, the writing is definitely not one of them.

  On 10/29/2017 at 2:14 PM, RSP said:

 

  On 10/29/2017 at 10:57 AM, eugene said:

i only really enjoyed about 5 minutes in this 9 hour run, the bit where the huge shadow thing brutally penetrates the sickly, gay looking kid with intermittent flashbacks of fat hobbit giving advice on how to confront fear and bullies. it was an amusing mix of horror, cynicism and self aware gleefulness. besides that, it was mostly all those trite and worn out portrayals of teenage difficulties of getting to kiss girls/fight poorly conceived cgi dogs/deal with parents etc with 80's presets. a lot of time wasted on secondary stories/sequel preparations with that x-men girl story and that pointless romance+conspiracy stuff with the indie geek and the girl with a scrawny face.

overall, it's the very rigid formularity of writing/production that pisses me off. you can see clearly the purpose of every move and scene and predict perfectly how it'll develop and how it'll interlink with other things or become important later on. it doesn't even feel like writing of actual people, more like following some kind of handbook, ticking the checkboxes and meeting expectations of some statistical average of the viewer base.

That's how I feel about most things made in the last couple decades. I think screenwriting software, with its systems for managing characters and narrative arcs and things, isn't given enough blame for the cookie cutter state of mainstream screenwriting today. It' like how back in the 90s you could look at advances in curved surface modelling and the next year every new car model would look like it was the result of an exercise to learn the previous year's new modelling tools. Especially when Rhino 3d left beta, it was like a joke.

 

Not that technology hasn't always influenced art and vice versa (and not that cookie-cutter formulaic screenplays haven't been a big part of the film world since the beginning - probably the majority of studio films made at any given times are like that, we've just forgotten them over time) but it's different since computer technology made it possible to micomanage and automate the creative process for efficiency (i.e. minimizing costs) to such an unprecedented degree. I've talked to a few small-time screenwriters about this over the years and they've all agreed, for what that's worth.

 

And at least the CGI doesn't look as anachronistic and disappointing in this one, even if the images it's used to create aren't as interesting.

 

There's virtually no real character development in this season, even with the new characters, and that's the biggest issue I think. What made the first one work so well was that it was actually a very character driven narrative hidden under what should have been an annoyingly heavy-handed "80s retro" cash in piece but completely transcended that on strength of its characters.

I feel like that's also true of a lot of synth gear being sold lately. If you look at what some of the most popular synths-of-the-minute are capable of, there's so much that automates complexity (trig conditions, etc). And that's fine, if you're good at using such a thing to create something worthwhile and original, but all I've seen it do is produce hoards of young males posting their samey sounding "synth jams" on YouTube or SoundCloud with way too many step multipliers, on-the-fly effects added and just an extremely dull, overdone sound in general. This technology is making is really easy to churn out large amounts of people who just buy gear to buy gear and flood the "market" (the listening market, we all only have so much time to listen to new tracks) with mediocre music.

 

(I can't help but think that a lot of this culture started springing up after the show first aired, come to think of it. Not that that adds to my point, but it is interesting.)

 

There's been a lot of gear fetishizing it seems. Maybe there always has, but look at how shit of a synth that Bastl Softpop is. Sure, it's a fun (and overpriced) novelty for someone who doesn't know modular very well, but to me it sounds incredibly shit and boring. It's like someone who overdoes erratic drum programming. If you can't balance it with the rest of your sound you just become Flashbulb.

 

Stranger Things is basically the TV equivalent of Flashbulb. Sure, the people behind it are all talented and whatnot, but it's getting marred by its own desire to hold true to some aesthetic or pastiche. I think the show could have been better if they had just moved onto another cast of characters and storyline as originally planned.

Edited November 9, 2017 by drukqs

  On 11/9/2017 at 12:14 AM, agaricus said:

well i'm glad for the opinions expressed here, because i also find the second season sloppy and bland. it has some good stuff here and there, but a lot of the magic of the first is gone now. fucking sequels. everyone i've talked to so far thinks the second season is the best yet. 

finished it last night,and thats exactly how i felt,every twist was so obvious,and the story felt really rushed,even tho it took forever to get going,but with the majority of people loving it it seems,better brace yourselves for another 4 seasons,although puberty might have a say in this

 

  On 11/8/2017 at 8:07 PM, xxx said:

  On 11/8/2017 at 3:07 PM, o00o said:

the Hunter S. Thompson guy in the bunker felt out of place as well. didn't really fit into the rest of the story

That was Brett Gelman. He got the ball rolling on destroying Million Dollar Extreme on Adult Swim by saying he would never associate himself with the network again if they kept it. He's supposed to be "funny".

Hes like a crappy off brand paul giamatti

Edited November 11, 2017 by joshuatx

  On 11/11/2017 at 11:15 PM, joshuatx said:

He's like a crappy off brand paul giamatti

lel

 

Was trying to put my finger on why I felt like he could have been better. Still a good character though, probably one of the better parts of the season.

I just watched the Chicago episode, fuck that shit. If this is some sort of set up for the next seasons I'm definitely out. Thoughts on the rest of the season so far; it's been somewhat enjoyable as fan service but I wish they'd just kept it at one season.

 

It's just more of the same shit you already saw, but the second time round it's lost much of its charm and mystique, it's way more transparent and everything just seems calculated as fuck if I know. I guess it's alright, but there's nothing inside the pretty box.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Gocab

The most nerve-wracking part was Dustin trying to get a dance.

  On 11/19/2017 at 10:39 PM, Gocab said:

I just watched the Chicago episode, fuck that shit. If this is some sort of set up for the next seasons I'm definitely out. Thoughts on the rest of the season so far; it's been somewhat enjoyable as fan service but I wish they'd just kept it at one season.

 

It's just more of the same shit you already saw, but the second time round it's lost much of its charm and mystique, it's way more transparent and everything just seems calculated as fuck if I know. I guess it's alright, but there's nothing inside the pretty box.

Yeah, I really don't know how or what they could do with Season 3 - Season 2, while mostly good, reminds you why this was originally conceived as a single one-off story, with completely different characters and story for subsequent seasons (ala anthology series).

 

I'm sure others have said this upthread but I can't be bothered to look.

Yeah, they're just dragging it out. The worst thing you do with a series is try and fool the audience. This ran out of steam about half way through series one.

i think the duffers should 1. not try to destroy their reputation by dragging this shit out and attempt to do something else (which they will probably fail at and then totally destroy their rep) and 2. after that, change their name to something that sounds better than 'duffer'

So weird/interesting. Had a very counter experience with this season versus the first season. . . my wife hated the first season because, in her words, "nothing fucking happened." I didn't hate it as much and appreciated it for the aesthetic/nostalgia factor - thought it was quite good (but not mindblowing).

 

Guess I came into the second season with low expectations. . . maybe BECAUSE there was so much hype. Really enjoyed it, felt like things moved along well, definitely tickled the nostalgia factor, like the acting and the characterization (feel like, having spent one season building characters, they actually had more room to spend time exploring them). *shrugs*

 

Oh. Except that Chicago episode. yeah, FUCK THAT. It'd be the episode you'd show someone if you wanted to convince them that Stranger Things is the worst show ever made. 

 

PS I live in NC so also got a kick out of all the local references, Jordan Lake, Mr. Sinai Road, etc. . . .

s1 > s2 imo

 

but i still enjoyed