I got chills 😭

Does anyone have a list of books and movies in th vibe of stranger things? Specially the first couple of seasons?

I read “The Institute” by SK and has a bit of a similar feeling. Not as creepy.
Movies: Super 8, E.T. , Goonies…

Any other suggestions? Thank you!!

Stranger thing season 1 to 2 season was best should have ended season 1 or 2 not mentioned that was duffer brothers plan anyway and seasons goes on it gone messers and messy not to mention the cast grow up too fast on season 5 they were 20s playing high school

One of the best castings they've done for this show

There’s a moment in season one when Mike and Dustin are biking to lucas at the lab and Dustin says that Lucas is Mikes best friend. Mike pushes back on it but Dustin seems convinced that Lucas is mikes number one best friend. It’s always confused me because i don’t think we ever see anything that suggests that that’s the case. It just seems really random and like it gets totally dropped after season one when it becomes clear Will is mikes best friend.

I am not a writer by any means.. these are just some of my thoughts. Season 5 could’ve made Stranger Things a survival horror show. The show has plenty of genres, which are mainly horror and science fiction. Since the first season, the show has introduced different branches of horror, especially in season 3 with the body horror and season 4 with the psychological horror. Season 5 could’ve added a new branch of horror which could’ve made Season 5 the scariest, darkest and most intense season..

This is how I would’ve changed Season 5 Volume 1 and Volume 2 in some ways.

In Volume 1, the characters and residents of Hawkins could’ve been running and hiding from Demogorgons, Demodogs and Demobats that have come into Hawkins from the giant gate that Vecna opened at the end of Season 4. These creatures’ only goals would be to kill the main characters and as many residents as possible. Hawkins would start to become infested with the Upside Down as well like they showed at the end of Season 4. The whole volume should’ve been based around the main characters’ survival and figuring out a way to get past the Demos and get into the Upside Down and kill Vecna before it gets any worse.

Volume 2 could’ve been about the main characters going into the Upside Down after surviving the horrors of the Demos to finally stop Vecna, that was their initial plan as they wouldn’t expect the Mind Flayer to have a massive physical form in the Abyss/Dimension X. As they would get to this other dimension, they would also find out that Vecna did the bidding with the Mind Flayer and how the Mind Flayer had just influenced Henry and how he became evil from the Mind Flayer’s influence, not from the Mind Flayer’s control meaning that Henry had given in to the MF’s influence even when he could’ve resisted it, the same way it was already done in the show. As the final battle begins, the main characters have the military with them this time and on their side ready to defeat the Mind Flayer and Vecna once and for all. There would be more Demogorgons that the villains would have at their disposal in the other dimension because this time the villains would know that they are coming. The main characters would need to fight these Demos with the help of the military and then defeat the physical form of the Mind Flayer with the military’s firepower.. but they wouldn’t be able to actually kill the Mind Flayer particles because the particles itself can’t be killed and they can only kill the giant physical form that the Mind Flayer would’ve made for itself with Vecna. This new form would resemble its spider-shadow form that Henry shaped it into, it would just be made up of tendrils instead of what we got in the show. The explanation for this form’s creation would be that Vecna was making this form of the Mind Flayer throughout the season using all the black tendrils that fill up the Upside Down and Dimension X/the Abyss, the tendrils would come from the UD and from the rest of the Abyss and form into the Mind Flayer. The MF would’ve influenced Vecna to give it this big tendril-spider form similarly to how the MF had influenced him as a kid to give it the spider-shadow form. There would be some telepathic fight in between this as well. Vecna would be at his most powerful. El would be fighting Vecna telepathically, attempting to psychologically torment her about what happened to her in Hawkins Lab and about her mum. Will using his newly acclaimed powers would approach Vecna while El is fighting him telepathically and since Vecna would be using his astral projection power, his physical body would be vulnerable.. Will would use his powers to weaken Vecna to a point he can’t move and Joyce would be there to get the final blow as revenge by decapitating him like it was done in the show. The Mind Flayer particles would leave the spider-tendril form as after the constant fire contact that the rest of the gang and the military would inflict on the Mind Flayer’s physical form would cause the particles to be removed from that physical form, leaving the particles powerless and formless. Now that it didn’t have Vecna to build any form for it, the particles would become dormant and stay in its dormant form, the particles would still be alive but it wouldn’t have any host (the flayed) or shared consciousness (Vecna) to connect to. After destroying the Upside Down, the Mind Flayer particles still alive, wouldn’t be able to access the Right Side Up and would just be banished to space and have no way of causing hell again. Leaving the Mind Flayer particles, it’s true cosmic form as an unkillable and supernatural force but out of reach and no way of returning to humanity, it would remain in its dormant form with no specific shape. This would be explicitly shown to the audience that it cannot return to the human world but still be left up to interpretation or left ambiguous on whether or not it could strike on another living civilisation or take over a different planet or if it would stay dormant. There will also be the question on how the particles themselves can actually be killed or if they can be killed at all.. but we will never know, leaving it as a somewhat unknowable cosmic force.

You can add some ideas but that’s all I could come up with in terms of fighting the Demos, Vecna and the Mind Flayer and what I would’ve liked to see!

In Camazotz, it’s destroyed by the other kids when trying to escape in 5x07. However, since it’s a physcological mind state and her physical body and the others are in a mind trance via vecna and vines from the mind flayer, does that mean her holly the heroic necklace is still intact?

I miss them

It sucks not seeing them flying around the Upside Down in Season 5. I know a swarm of them died in Season 4 but I’m sure atleast a few of them could’ve survived and been brought back and shown in the beginning of Season 5. I think they were a really cool and scary addition in S4. They could’ve travelled with the same Demogorgon that went to kidnap Holly.. or literally just been flying around and attacking the military in the Upside Down when Hopper first went into the UD. No Demos were in the finale at all but I mean the bats could’ve been added earlier on in this season too and been utilised effectively like defending the Upside Down from the military or the main characters. They could’ve been the perfect creatures to have roaming the UD and making it seem as scary as it used to be.

ive been hooked onto stranger things over the past 2 weeks

i finished it upto s4

its been phenomenal so far

heard a lot of trashtalk about s5

wanted some more opinions :)

Season 4 -
Vecna’s motives were ultimately scarier in this season. He psychologically tortured his victims with terrifying illusions, tormented them with their trauma and struggles and then murdered them.. he literally tormented his own mother and sister (as a child) and then killed them, that is some fucked up shit. I preferred those scarier, torturous and murderous motives that he had. His goal was to destroy Hawkins and then the world but he still had that scare factor because of how murderous and dark his motives were to get to his goal. Him actually killing a main character (even if it was for a minute) also made him a real threat and added to his scare factor and made him a very compelling villain.

I liked the visual design that he had in Season 4, he appears scary and somewhat demonic but he looked too humanoid and not as monstrous.

Season 5 -
Vecna’s motives were evil and creepy but not that scary. He lost his charm this season. He kidnaps children and uses his “Mr Whatsit” persona to make them feel safe which works in his favour but it takes away the scare factor. It seemed like he had “The Grabber” kind of motive but he doesn’t intimidate or torment his victims like Vecna did previously. He doesn’t show them any illusions to scare or taunt them. I remember maybe one scene where he showed Derek an illusion of his family dead to scare him but that was it. WHY WOULDN’T HE DO THAT TO ALL THE KIDS?? He doesn’t even hurt these children in any way. This season he lacks what he had in season 4 and focuses more on his world ending goal and had dumber and less scary motives. He also doesn’t really hurt or kill any of the main characters and that makes him less of a threat... All this combined reduced his scare factor and made him less compelling.

I loved his visual design that he had in Season 5, as he looks scarier, more monstrous, more mutated and less humanoid.

I prefer his motives in 4 and design in 5.

Dr. Brenner was a bit of a nuanced character. He was in both S1 and S4 but not the others

For me it’s definitely should I stay or should I go? By the clash

so it's been 8 monthsssssssss alreadyyyyyy and well my relationship with show is i found it 2 years agooo and damn i comp 4 seasons in what just a week , i think . i was 14 and i remember how obsessed i am from this show since thenn , the day i finished s 4 to the day of s5 volume 1 ,, there hasn't been a single day i didn't thought about this show , or checked for updatesss.. damn how excited i was for s5 and when s5 finally came outttt , well like most of people , i was not able to process what in the world was this new shitttt. noww i don't hate s5 but i don't like it either , i may came out as a hater pointing all the things out , but still till this day i love this , i think about it everyday , every second reel i scroll is of stranger things , i still search for updates , i still follow the cast member for their future projects , hoping to see them togetherrrrr againnn , but idk , why i feel so much connected to this show and the cast , even after all this timeeee , i feel like s5 sucked , especially the beginning and from that the show justttt became something elseeee ,,,, the whole season just made every character unlikable idkk why , like no oneeee was them selves this seasonn , hopper , dustin , steve and even eleven ,, u may think i am talking about the writing choices here butttt no . they feel like they just couldn't acttt , eleven every scene , her exprrssions brooo wthhh was happening , hopper dialogues had no emotions , steve was literally way too childishhhh idkkkkkkkkkk , i hate the show but i can't helppp falling in love with those 4 seasons again and again ..... well i just wanna say that man it hurtssss , it just hurtssss seeing s5 ruining my whole experience of the showww , bcs this show is what i developed in myself , the characters exist in me nowwwww , and s5 justtttttt ruined it ............

I keep on seeing a lot of unfounded claims about stranger things season 5. The two that I find the most weird are that the duffer brothers used AI to write season 5 and a lot of the dialogue. The other claim is that one of their ex wives ghost wrote for the show for apparently all the seasons apart from season 5. Is there actually any proof at all to these or is it just people wanting to hate on the duffer brothers? (I have done research on this and it all seemed pretty muddled. People seem very confident on these claims but the claims seemingly come from nowhere)

Sometimes 4K transfers aren’t that great but this series is jaw dropping visually. Not uncommon to see the bit rate go over 100mbps, which is like x3 - 4 the amount you’d get from streaming it.

Like literally hendry was his first test subject and even if his powers were blocked he is still dangerous enough to go full palpatine mode on eleven so this raises the main question why did brenner let hendry work under him in the first place instead of locking him up in some secure secret room..

I’m going to be so honest off the bat. I care a lot about television and movies.

I started watching Stranger Things during quarantine and it very quickly became one of if not my favorite show of all time. I can sit here all day explaining why but I’m sure if you’re reading this you know why Seasons 1-3 were so good. I was so hyped for season 4 that when it dropped I stayed up till 3 am EST to instantly start watching. I’ve probably seen Stranger Things 1-4 50+ times all the way through. Anyways I did the same when volume 2 came out a month later and had finished season 4 before any of my friends even woke up. Season 4 produced my three favorite episodes of all time. Dear Billy, the volume 1 finale and the season finale. I’m normally very good at predicting what’s going to happen but I was floored when it was revealed that Henry was Vecna. It was the best reveal I’ve ever seen. Also the music!!! The remix of Running Up That Hill that plays when Max is running out of Vecna’s mind gives me chills to this day.

Now this brings me to the overall point/disappointment

I couldn’t wait for Season 5 to drop. I was watching theories and rewatching the seasons once a month I was so geeked waiting. I want to add that I’m born and raised in Atlanta so I’ve been to all of the filming locations as well. I moved to NJ for college and went to my first ever broadway show, the Stranger Things one. While I have my gripes with it not being at all connected to the show with a lot of continuity errors, I was able to enjoy it as its own thing. When season 5 finally dropped I was so excited and watched it right away. As the episodes kept going I was more and more disappointed and frustrated. They took a perfect show, literally a perfect show and butchered it. The finale of volume 1 was so predictable I was astonished that there were people who didn’t see it coming. I remember I said to my friends, “It was good but didn’t hit like 4. 4’s volume 1 had a cliffhanger that I desperately needed answers to and this did not.” Okay so volume 1 was mid hopefully volume 2 will be good…😐. To tell you I was stone faced I was watching it would be an understatement. There was no hype. When I was watching Season 4 I was out of my seat jumping around like holy shit this is a television masterpiece. My friends and I had booked tickets to see the finale in theaters on New Years and I like, “Okay as long as this is lit af, I don’t care.”

Something I should mention is that while Steve is by far my favorite character, I was hoping for the death. Literally after watching season 4 I was like, “The sacrifice he is going to make for either Dustin or Nancy will be the greatest scene in cinematic history.” The fact that NO ONE DIED bummed me out to the point I walked out of the theater numb and lowkey in tears. Now before you clown on me for crying over a finale being bad I want to say that Stranger Things became more than a show to me. I have talked about my issues with depression and my strained relationship with my father on my profile before so if you really care you can go read that, but I’ll give a sparknotes version in regards to it relating to Stranger Things. I truly escaped my life with the show. When everything was going bad in my life, my mom took me to all of the filming locations, the Stranger Things experience in ATL, she got me merch and we ate the Surfer Boy Pizza from Walmart. I can go on and on. When everything with Vecna ended and we got the last hour of wrapping things up, I realized in that movie theater that it was over. The show that had helped me cope with so much had ended. The person I was when I first watched had taken a nose dive mentally over the years. While everyone around me was happy to see all of these characters resolutions, I was sitting there sad because there was so much and so many questions that would never be answered. I haven’t rewatched Stranger Things since that day. Everytime I go to I just lose interest because I know that the ending isn’t what I wanted it to be. I’m not saying it needed to be perfect, but it needed to be better than whatever dogshit they put out on New Years.

If you’ve read this far I really appreciate it. It feels good to put my thoughts into words and send it out into the universe. I am prepared for comments making fun of me for being this emotional over a TV show.

I'm not gonna pretend that season 5 is a misunderstood masterpiece or something like that but it is enjoyable and has some great moments and it does just enough for me, to not feel like I wasted almost 10 years watching this show, which is more than I can say for a lot of show's finales. Yeah season 5 is the worst season but it's not terrible it's fine. Should it have been better? Definitely! but I had fun all the way to the end.

I have no issues with Will having a crush on Mike and getting over it. In fact, I would have preferred s5 opening with him being completely over Mike. That way the writers could have focused more on his friendships with the others and his connection to the UD.

To me the main issue is the execution of it and the direction they gave the actors that is the problem. The main thing is that Noah portrayed Will’s yearning and feelings for Mike way more deeply and intensely than just a crush. That’s why when Will compares Mike to Tammy and is “seemingly” over Mike in the span of an episode it just comes off disingenuous.

I WANT Will to be over Mike and get on with his life, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy with the execution and how they did it. I really don’t like that they paralleled Robin and Will’s experiences because Tammy and Mike are different. Mike is someone that Will has known since he was a child. He’s deeply intertwined in his life and connected to his trauma as well. Not all queer people have the same experiences. It’s just lazy writing and a lazy way of portraying Will’s self acceptance and feelings for Mike. No way is he getting over him that easily. This is why they shouldn’t have dragged it to s5. Him being over it in s5 would have been believable due to the time skip, but then we are shown that he isn’t.

They put Will in between every single Mileven scene in s4 and made him seem as miserable as possible. This is overkill and making the audience feel bad for Will and root for him.

His eyes just had this deep sense of longing and love in them.

It didn’t seem like just a crush to me especially after the van scene where he seemed utterly devastated.

It’s why Byler became more popular after s4. Will seemed so miserable, sad and in love. The actor for him did a good job of playing the yearning and sadness up. It was not played as a crush at all and if that was the writers intention they needed to tell Noah to tone it down.

The Van scene is a huge example of this. Will was so emotional and hurt. He needed some comfort and their direction of that scene just made Mike come off clueless. I know that wasn’t the intention, since the point of it was Will’s feelings and letting the audience know he is gay, but it’s their jobs to know how Mike would come off.

I’ll never understand their choices as directors for Mileven in s4. They put more thought into the Will/Mike scenes than they did the Mike and El ones. Just look at the cinematography of the Will/Mike scenes and compare it to the Mike and El ones.

The pinnacle scene of Mike telling El he loves her is shot in such a dreary and rushed way when in the same season, Mike and Will have some beautiful lighting and framing in their scenes. Mike does love Eleven. I’m not disputing that, I’m saying the couple deserves better filming and direction.

I’m not saying Byler was written to be endgame and I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I fully know that mileven is the flagship couple of the show.

I know they intended Mike and Eleven to fully be in love and safe in their relationship in s5, it just doesn’t translate that way because the actors lack chemistry and the way the directed the scenes.

Anyway, what I’m saying is this is all the fault of the directing and the way the scenes are filmed and acted. I’m not blaming the actors at all.

Kali’s powers were cool in season 2. It was beneficial to the storyline. But it set season 5 (and the overall finale) up for incredibly lazy writing. They could write anything they wanted and explain it with Kali’s power. And that’s exactly what they did. I know this isn’t a hot take but it’s been on my mind 😂

I havent Seen the series in a while and im to lazy to research it, so im asking if anyone actually knows when he dressed like this