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Just Chamber posted:Based on everything he witnessed the guy was fully in the right to believe there was some satanic cult going on that killed his GF and was about to do the same to Max. Someone itt I think said it but I'd loved to have seen him realize towards the end they weren't lying and he teams up with the gang. Actually an ending where he has this realization and fights alongside Eddie and they both fight and die side by side would have been pretty cool, the head jock and the counter culture kid going out swinging together. Yeah, the jock was obviously written as a villain but from his perspective there was clearly something weird going on. None of that excuses his immediate turn to vigilantism or pulling a Hold My Beer at that town meeting and being allowed to incite mob justice while the mayor and the entire police force just stand around helplessly like he's holding the loving Speaking Pillow or something  Maybe they wanted to treat his end a little differently so it wasn't an actual copy/paste of Steve in S1?
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Jul 9, 2022 00:43
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His zealous fervor would have been easier to swallow if it turned out he was secretly popping trucker's speed or something. Like, he hadn't slept in 72 hours and was fully psychotic.
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Jul 9, 2022 01:15
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Bible thumping hate is a hell of a drug.
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Jul 9, 2022 01:34
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As someone who grew up in small town Indiana the jocks religious hatred and blindness to Eddie's panic in front of his eyes is 100% realistic. As well in that environment because he's the star athlete he's arrogant from never having to face any consequences for his actions. The school and cops would have always looked the other way. So losing his girlfriend and facing that he might be wrong about her would break his mind Edit: though that's probably me reading more into him from my childhood experience rather than really stated in the show. duck trucker fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Jul 9, 2022 |
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Jul 9, 2022 01:47
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Just Chamber posted:Based on everything he witnessed the guy was fully in the right to believe there was some satanic cult going on that killed his GF and was about to do the same to Max. Someone itt I think said it but I'd loved to have seen him realize towards the end they weren't lying and he teams up with the gang. Actually an ending where he has this realization and fights alongside Eddie and they both fight and die side by side would have been pretty cool, the head jock and the counter culture kid going out swinging together. It would be a bit of a narrative retread of Steve. TOOT BOOT fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jul 9, 2022 |
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Jul 9, 2022 01:55
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Oasx posted:They made an insanely successful and popular tv show, I would hardly call that failing upwards just because a few people on the internet disagreed with their creative descensions. This isn't the sum total of evidence, mind, but it is amusing: while the show was still airing, I couldn't walk down the street with my white German shepherd without somebody yelling "DIRE WOLF!" or "GHOST!" at us. It happened at least twice a week for a year-and-a-half. It stopped immediately. Edit: Pic for reference. 
LividLiquid fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Jul 9, 2022 |
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Jul 9, 2022 03:40
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SweetMercifulCrap! posted:Overall, a good season. There were SO many individual moments that were ridiculously awesome. But, goddamn, do they need a better editor because it just felt like total overkill by the end. The episodes being all an hour+ long was a pretty big negative for me.. You're not wrong. I was rewatching some scenes and the Running Up That Hill scene is so good. Not just the great use of the Kate Bush song, but the suspense, the way it's shot, the incredibly striking image of Max levitating above the kids, the bright window to the real world in the sky of Vecna's mind palace, the flashbacks montage. It's so focused and exhilarating and feels like they should have realized this is it, this is our season climax, and worked around that. It's fresh, it's new, it's exciting and it rules. Instead we meander on forever and get the Final Big Vecna Showdown, which has cool moments but ultimately struggles under the weight of this underedited screenplay as they try to give EVERY character a big setpiece and rehash stuff like the "Max's happy moments" montage. It's predictable and overstuffed and ponderous.
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Jul 9, 2022 05:55
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I like to think Jason's douche friend who got clowned on by Erika was also lying unconscious where the gate was opening up and suffered the same fate
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Jul 9, 2022 06:53
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I dunno man, remember that Vecna VERY QUICKLY kills the victims, even though the show originally makes it seem like the leadup was taking a long time. So, from Jason's point of view, his girlfriend was a normal, straightedge teen. She had only been hallucinating/having nightmares for like 4 days. Her dead body being at the local druggies house all hosed up and the guy having fled kinda points to him doing it? And then when he confronts him his friend also gets all hosed up. Other than whip people up into a fervor Jason didn't actually DO anything to anyone outside of roughing up the band, and he was actually concerned for Max. He asks Lucas to 'undo' what happened to Max, and Lucas is just (standard 'misunderstanding' dialogue here) "I can't do that"/"You don't understand"/"we don't have to do this". I actually thought when Lucas started saying stuff like "I should never have knocked" it was actually Vecna getting into Jason's head and tearing him down emotionally and then Jason would realize Lucas was right... but instead it was just a 'popular kids suck and I shouldn't have tried to be one' speech. Disappointing to me, but I get it, cause it would have been another Steve I suppose.
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Jul 9, 2022 10:35
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It could be interesting if the thesis of the whole show becomes "Normal is a raging psychopath", given both Lucas and Vegna seemed to come to a similar conclusion (the ruling parties are total poo poo) - like maybe by the end of the show, the Upside Down and the Right side Up have fully merged, all that's normal is in ruins but it ends up better that way because the systems in place keeping everyone down and stoking religious fervours have been stamped out.
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Jul 9, 2022 20:41
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Takes No Damage posted:Make it a comedy/sketch show with recurring host bits and inventions like The Red Green Show and I'm on board! “And remember… if women don’t find you hentai, they should at least find you handy.” CainFortea posted:Nah. gently caress that guy. The fact that his death is ignoble and meaningless is the only death he deserves. He IS a footnote. He thinks he is king poo poo but all he does is gently caress things up and then die like a useless turd. His speech about how all those people who died in Hawkins (in S3) died as part of his story, where he leads the basketball team to victory, was a totally cringeworthy example of how he thought he was the hero and everyone else’s existence was constructed around their roles in his story. With his girlfriend clearly, clearly the primary example. I half expected to see more parallelism between him and General “Take the shot” but his story is pretty clearly continuing next season.
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Jul 9, 2022 20:48
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Why is there no water in the Upside Down?
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Jul 9, 2022 22:21
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Onomarchus posted:Why is there no water in the Upside Down? It's quite simple. In the Upside Down it never rains... it spores.
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Jul 9, 2022 22:24
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Did Henry spend a bunch of time remodeling the upside down to look like Hawkins? Or does the entire upside down just instantly radically shift every few years when someone opens a gate? What happens if the doorway he's standing in warps to being closed inside him?
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Jul 9, 2022 23:19
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Kaedric posted:I dunno man, remember that Vecna VERY QUICKLY kills the victims, even though the show originally makes it seem like the leadup was taking a long time. So, from Jason's point of view, his girlfriend was a normal, straightedge teen. She had only been hallucinating/having nightmares for like 4 days. Her dead body being at the local druggies house all hosed up and the guy having fled kinda points to him doing it? And then when he confronts him his friend also gets all hosed up. You're missing the point. If he wasn't an rear end in a top hat with Main Character Complex, then why would Crissy go to Eddie's house for drugs if she A) doesn't normally do drugs and 2) only sort of kinda knows Eddie?
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Jul 10, 2022 01:39
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In episode 6 when Eden tells them where to find Suzie she definitely says "third floor, second floor on your left" instead of "second door" and it is now stuck in my head.
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Jul 10, 2022 01:51
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It’s weird in a season full of bloated unnecessary scenes, we have a villain who only needs to kill four kids and they show nothing of what he does to mess with the basketball player prior to the kill.
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Jul 10, 2022 03:47
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CainFortea posted:You're missing the point. If he wasn't an rear end in a top hat with Main Character Complex, then why would Crissy go to Eddie's house for drugs if she A) doesn't normally do drugs and 2) only sort of kinda knows Eddie? Because even if he’s an okay dude Chrissy is having super loving awful hallucinations in a time where mental health is in an even worse place than today in terms of treatment? Also she’s specifically decided drugs are the answer because she wants to stop hallucinating bad stuff. Going to Jason doesn’t stop the hallucinations she is hiding. He is however an unobservant self centred guy, that is the point, but that doesn’t make his experience of the scenario incorrect internally. She didn’t actually go to his house initially, she just wanted to buy from him at school and Eddie had to explain that no he can’t do that.
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Jul 10, 2022 03:50
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Dr. Clockwork posted:and they show nothing of what he does to mess with the basketball player prior to the kill. You mean that kid that tried to go all John McClaine on them? I thought Luke wound up kicking his rear end, and he just wound up getting killed by that last big portal that opened.
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Jul 10, 2022 04:13
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Vietnamwees posted:You mean that kid that tried to go all John McClaine on them? I thought Luke wound up kicking his rear end, and he just wound up getting killed by that last big portal that opened. There's another guy on the basketball team who was getting beaten by his father at home, he gets murdered by Vecna in the lake while they're chasing Eddie.
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Jul 10, 2022 04:42
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Given how heavily this show cribs from its sources and given that Dream Warriors came out in 1986, I’m extremely disappointed that Vecna doesn’t call anyone bitch before killing them.
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Jul 10, 2022 04:43
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I AM GRANDO posted:Given how heavily this show cribs from its sources and given that Dream Warriors came out in 1986, I’m extremely disappointed that Vecna doesn’t call anyone bitch before killing them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMdi0VlPJ0o 
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Jul 10, 2022 06:09
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Fred (Greg? The Nerdy kid who hit n ran) gets over his fear, and helps the illusion version of his victim in the car. Vecna's just like "Huh. Good for you. Didn't expect you to get over that fear...." To clarify he still kills him, just is a bit impressed and a bit disappointed that he didn't get him to run to the open grave part of the illusion.
BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jul 10, 2022 |
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Jul 10, 2022 06:20
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I really dislike 1/Venca being the main bugaboo that is behind everything. It's too neat and tidy and it dispels the cool cosmic horror vibes the show had going for it.
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Jul 10, 2022 07:23
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Also the retcon that Vecna essentially sprang up from nothing, and then they used his blood to create eleven and the others, instead of it being a result of MKUltra.
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Jul 10, 2022 07:27
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Kaedric posted:Also the retcon that Vecna essentially sprang up from nothing, and then they used his blood to create eleven and the others, instead of it being a result of MKUltra. Henry mentions his mother knew the Doc already so I highly doubt he "sprang up from nothing"
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Jul 10, 2022 07:28
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Penitent posted:I really dislike 1/Venca being the main bugaboo that is behind everything. It's too neat and tidy and it dispels the cool cosmic horror vibes the show had going for it. Yeah, I like Vecna as a villain but was disappointed that he's the one who appears to have given the Mind Flayer form and HE was the guy basically giving will/direction as part of the hive mind of the Upside Down. There's a couple of scenes earlier in the season showing the tentacles attaching themselves to Vecna and he gives a kind of uncomfortable/pained grunt that made me think he was powerful but still subordinate in some way to the greater will: in a way he is, there is clearly a cost to tapping himself in/making himself part of an alien hivemind, but him being the driving force for me kind of diminishes the greater threat. It's just some other dude with powers now as opposed to an alien, unknowable and horrible will that can't really be understood.
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Jul 10, 2022 08:01
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socialsecurity posted:Henry mentions his mother knew the Doc already so I highly doubt he "sprang up from nothing" They had just moved to Hawkins. Simply knowing the doctor does not imply that he had anything to do with Henry's capabilities since they would not have been near the Hawkin's lab years previously (I assume).
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Jul 10, 2022 11:14
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Onomarchus posted:Why is there no water in the Upside Down? for the same reason beds explode in the Upside Down when you try to use them.
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Jul 10, 2022 11:18
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Something I did love in the finale was just before Jane makes her move, after she tries the pineapple pizza then she and Argyle try to force Mike to try it with Jane using Argyle's catchphrase "Don't deny until you try!" It was an amusing bit of levity before things got darker, and honestly something she needed herself. Just a little time to joke around with her boyfriend before having to fight for her life.
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Jul 10, 2022 12:48
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Kaedric posted:They had just moved to Hawkins. Simply knowing the doctor does not imply that he had anything to do with Henry's capabilities since they would not have been near the Hawkin's lab years previously (I assume). We don’t know when or why Brenner came to Hawkins, and we don’t know why the Creel family moved there either, exactly. It is strange that she would have just happened to have met a parapsychologist specializing in psychics at the grocery store or somewhere. It’s possible she’s the reason he set up there in the first place.
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Jul 10, 2022 16:39
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Also where does he say they use his blood to create the rest of them?
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Jul 10, 2022 17:02
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Mkultra happened in the '50 IIRC so, age wise, Henry could very well be the product of a similar program. Reminds me of the movie "Beyond the Black Rainbow" where a hippie lab creates a kid with superpowers by letting people on mind breaking dosages of exotic psychedelics have sex.
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Jul 10, 2022 18:01
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Beyond the Black Rainbow is definitely an influence on Stranger Things, though way more in the tradition of Dario Argento and Ken Russell than Spielberg or King. It’s basically a perfect recreation of the experience of watching the last 2/3 of an old horror movie on cable late on a hot summer Saturday night when you’re 12, where you can kind of tell what’s going on but still you’re missing enough plot information for everything to make sense.
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Jul 10, 2022 18:09
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CainFortea posted:Also where does he say they use his blood to create the rest of them? I think the implication is that Brenner used what he learned by studying Henry to then figure out how to induce similar powers through various MKUltra drug shenanigans. The success rate was super low by the numbers and inconsistent in terms of power level until 11, for whatever reason. That said, I don't get why the evil army guy let Brenner get shot. Even if he thinks 11 is compromised by the commies surely they would want to be able to make more psychic child soldiers in the future. Owens can't or won't, so killing Brenner (and all the NINA scientists) cuts off the supply forever. Also Brenner invented an inhibitor chip that took away Henry's powers once, seems like he could've done it again or at least cobbled together something that would diminish Vecna.
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Jul 10, 2022 20:41
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I think I'm at the acceptance phase of the show's issues. Like it's definitely entertaining and good by average TV standards. But so many things fall under just a little bit of scrutiny. It's got a lot of ambition, and there's clearly genuine love and passion for the 80s, but the passion was lacking for tightening the writing and character development. I agree with the majority of little issues people have pointed out. Which is ok overall, but I'll probably look back at it as a show I enjoyed but didn't LOVE. That's probably on par with a lot of movies and shows from this past decade anyway.
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Jul 10, 2022 21:43
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iamsosmrt posted:I think I'm at the acceptance phase of the show's issues. Like it's definitely entertaining and good by average TV standards. But so many things fall under just a little bit of scrutiny. I gotta rewatch season 1 sometime and see how it holds up. I remember being struck by how well the small personal stakes of Hop's arc worked, saving Eleven as part of his working through the grief of losing his own kid. It was tight and focused and told a complete story, at least in my recollection.
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Jul 10, 2022 21:56
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CainFortea posted:Also where does he say they use his blood to create the rest of them? I'm not able to dig through all the transcripts, but it was either heavily implied or outright stated by Brenner at some point.
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Jul 10, 2022 23:25
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When Argyle puts the pizza in the oven it's clearly already cooked! The dough is stiff!
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Jul 10, 2022 23:40
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Tender Bender posted:I gotta rewatch season 1 sometime and see how it holds up. I remember being struck by how well the small personal stakes of Hop's arc worked, saving Eleven as part of his working through the grief of losing his own kid. It was tight and focused and told a complete story, at least in my recollection. I highly recommend doing this even though I liked S2 more especially because of S1's tightness, something the series increasingly loses. Love S2 as I do, it's where it first let dross in, in The Lost Sister. ST wears many hats, tries to be all things to all people, but it definitely works as serious psychological drama. It's just that people will put up with horror more often than genuinely depressing stuff, and you need to go low one way or another if you want to feel meaningfully uplifting. Helps to get people in the chapel before you can preach to them. But you kind of mistakenly alluded to something involving a dropped thread from S1 I wish the show had taken up but likely can't or doesn't need to. Thing is, in S1 he was working through his own PTSD from his lost kid by finding Will, and he beat the breath back into him with the anger and pain of the loss of his daughter. But he didn't pivot to saving Eleven because of coincidence or because he discovered himself as some "finder of lost children" in general. He sold her out to Brenner to save Will. The show spends so much time developing Joyce as this nearly crazy woman who would do anything to save Will and won't let go, even having Jonathan of all people tell her to move on at one point I think, but then there's something she won't do. She won't trust Brenner and sell out Eleven to save Will. Hopper does. And the kids back at the school when the G-men show up know someone sold them out. Dustin even says "Lando." Never gets mentioned again, though it easily could have been dealt with off-camera. By now they're all such a caring family unit the reveal would wash off them. Anyhow, S1 plus Hopper and 11 in S2 is what makes the Hopper-Joyce union we finally got in the S4 finale work, and it's based not just on attraction but on wanting to parent each others kids and owing their own kid a small or large measure of atonement that the other partner can cover for. Genuinely well written and not found in any alluded-to other story I'm aware. Anyhow, there's got to be more reveal on Vecna, for one or two reasons that may be the same reason. Have we found out what the sad and angry memory Vecna uses to drive his powers? We don't know which one it is or if we haven't seen it yet. And there is certainly more about Vecna's past that hasn't been revealed yet, though I don't know if it's because he's an unreliable narrator or leaving things out deliberately. There's something I missed on the first time through. Vecna wasn't driven crazy or evil by his Brother-Justin-like power to see the worst in others or confront them with it. He didn't awaken to his powers till after the spiders and after the move, before meeting Brenner. But it was before the move to Hawkins he didn't fit in and teachers and doctors thought he was broken, and that's why his family moved him to Hawkins. Could just be because he was a loner with a morose disposition, sure. But there's some memory of trauma or difficulty fueling his powers, and I bet it's before the move or the very move itself. Since this is ST and everyone must by law have a theory... Noam Chomsky posted:Said the same thing to a friend today, so yeah. I hunted this post down because that exact thought about Vecna occured to me, once I started seeing if it worked to reimagine ST as always being about queer issues based on where it's going. I concluded it's too much to say that about Vecna at this point, but it is certain that Vecna is briefly Will-coded, at two points. (And we know more about Will now). The first is just brilliant misdirection in Freddy Kruger's flashback, when the writers are trying to keep you from solving the mystery of who Vecna is. In addition to glossing over how young Henry went into a coma instead of just dying, you get this brief shot of Henry with crayons looking Will-like with this voice-over calling him sensitive. Makes you think he's just another innocent victim of an upside-down monster the way Will was, twice. The second is the bonechilling shot, maybe the best in the whole season, where it reveals the Mind Flayer was designed and invented by Vecna as a child making the same drawing Will later reproduced. There's really not enough info to go on at this time, but if I had to guess: they thought he was broken because he was queer whether he really was or not at the time, he had a Mike, and they intentionally moved him away from his Mike, which screwed him up. There's your sad and angry memory, and your real origin story trauma. This also ties into his mother calling in Brenner to fix him after they moved to Hawkins. In the 1950's if you want to get a doctor to commit your kid and take him off your hands, even if you think your kid has powers, do you tell the doctor that? There's a much easier way to accomplish your goal. I kind of like Brenner for some talentless quack who got his start in the 1950's trying to fix queer kids and maybe other noncomformists, then only later out of luck stumbled onto something real and became a mad scientist proper.
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Jul 10, 2022 23:59
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