Stranger Things Season One: Review

• This is a NON-Spoiler review for Stranger Things.

• Plot Summary: "When a young boy vanishes, a small town uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces, and one strange little girl."

• Some things I'm going to say in this review I may have heard from another reviewer. The show has been out for a year, I can't avoid it saying something that hasn't been said already so just deal with it. Anyway, The Duffer Brothers went to network after network and were either rejected or were told to change the story and to focus on only one the character plotlines. In comes Netflix. And as far as we know, Netflix gave The Duffer Brothers all the creative freedom they wanted. I think what Netflix is doing is awesome. It seems like they give a lot of creative freedom and they're pumping out a lot of great content. And it's changing the business.

• Christopher Nolan (my favorite director of modern movies) released this statement "“I think they’re missing a huge opportunity. I think the investment that Netflix is putting into interesting filmmakers and interesting projects would be more admirable if it weren’t being used as some kind of bizarre leverage against shutting down theaters. It’s so pointless. I don’t really get it." I see where Nolan is coming from. I agree with him that Netflix is a threat to movie theaters. Movie theaters dying out is a nightmare to me. I would never want to see movies like Star Wars or Dunkirk at home. But movies like Martin Scorsese's Silence would have done much better on Netflix. So yes it is a bit of threat to movie theaters. But I think it's a great studio that gives filmmakers a different platform that might fight their story better as far as distribution.

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• But enough about Netflix. I LOVE this show. I've watched the entire series probably 6 times. I am pumped about Season Two. I love the classic 80s style of movies like ET, Alien, ‪The Goonies‬, The Thing. The biggest complaint I've heard from reviewers is that the show is too reliant on nostalgia. I disagree and I think it's perfectly balanced. It's a beautiful, sci-fi, horror, character-driven, 80s style, hodgepodge. I honestly think this is a perfect show. This show has my favorite opening theme and title of all time. It stole the title from Taxi. This show has an awesome AWESOME score from freaking first-time composers. I don't want to overhype it. I've heard people complain about stuff being overhyped and they're disappointed when they finally watch. I don't have that problem ever. So when you watch this show (and you definitely should), try not to remember all the hype and just watch it with new eyes.

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• The Duffer Brothers have said that the idea for this show came from them trying to imagine what it would be like if Steven Spielberg directed a gigantic Stephen King novel. I think they succeeded in that and put their own flavor into it at the same time. If you love 80s movies about kids going on an adventure like ‪The Goonies‬, you're going to love this show. There's a group of outcast kids named Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin. They ride their bikes all around the town and go pretty much anywhere they want. The characters and the actors are all really funny and charismatic and have fantastic chemistry.

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• The entire cast is amazing. In a lot of shows, there's that one character that you just couldn't care less about (Ann Perkins in Parks and Rec). That character doesn't exist in this show. Any character who has any significance is interesting. And the same goes for the actors. Nearly the whole cast brings their A-game and has a moment to shine. Millie Bobbie Brown, Winona Ryder, and David Harbour are all OUTSTANDING and are the biggest standouts of the show. Millie Bobbie Brown is one of the most talented 13-year-old actresses probably ever. As you probably already know, she plays a character named Eleven who has psychokinetic abilities. Her performance is very emotional, very tortured, very broken, very quiet, and yet very very powerful. She's fantastic.

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• I can't get into too much as to why David Harbour's performance is great until I get into spoilers later. Winona Ryder is the most important performance of the whole entire story. Her performance is the reason you get pulled into the show. If her performance doesn't work, the show doesn't work. Will is the kid who disappears in the first episode. Winona Ryder plays Joyce who is Will's mom. Winona Ryder's performance is very scared, very desperate, and very emotional. You want Will back SO MUCH. She is the person who buries the jumbo size hook into your very soul. The writing is fantastic. It's got a lot of great and funny dialogue. There's a lot of great emotional or intense scenes. It always stays tonally consistent. It's got AWESOME characters. And you care about all the significant characters and their motivations. The script has you completely. But it also takes it's time to build up the characters. It doesn't ever feel rushed at all. It's a bit of a slow burn in some aspects. But with a great studio like Netflix, it has the freedom to take time to build the characters.

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• I think the only real flaws are a couple of technical things. The CGI isn't great. I completely forgive that because of the budget they had. The show does what Jaws and Alien did which is hiding it so that the bad effects aren't noticeable and it makes it much scarier. And there are a couple of spots where the editing wasn't perfect. Who cares? But the sound design and the set designs are great. The visuals and the cinematography are great. I hate when movies like Transformers have scenes with scientists walking down a hallway saying science stuff and math to give us bad exposition about the supernatural things going on. This show doesn't do that. All the weird things happening is from the perspective of the people of the town. It's never confusing and the show never really makes you want a scientific explanation. You're seeing it through the perspective of the town people and the kids. You're too busy being hooked on the story to ask questions. I care more about what the monster is doing than I do about where it came from.

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• The horror elements are really great. It's scarier than the latest Alien movie. I love the great and creative sci-fi that this show offers. Obviously, there's a lot of inspirations from other classic stories but again balance. A lot of people complain about there's nothing original in Hollywood anymore. I disagree. I think that we do need more a balance between the two. I love original movies but I also love returning to some characters and other worlds. I think Stranger Things is a great balance between returning to things you love but at the same time giving us something new. It even uses some 80s nostalgia or cliches to surprise you. I love it when stories use cliches to manipulate the audience. Stranger Things is a fantastic, really funny, incredibly emotional, and really intense and fun show. My grade for Stranger Things is an A+

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• I will be doing more Stranger Things stuff. I definitely want to get into some spoilers soon. I might even do some speculation for Season Two. But look, you should definitely watch this show. But PLEASE gage your expectations. If you go in expecting a life-changing experience, you're over-hyped. When you think about it, Star Wars is over-hyped. If you haven't seen Star Wars (God help you) then you're over-hyped. Just PLEASE watch Stranger Things with fresh eyes and an open mind and I think you'll love it. Look forward to more Stranger Things stuff from me this week.