Earlier in the week, Conklederp and I finished watching the Netflix series Stranger Things, and being only eight episodes long, it did not take us too long, although we only watched two episodes a night so as to not blow through the entire series in a single day, which is entirely possible, but it's not something that I frequently like to do.
Without giving too much (hopefully) away, I will say that the kid actors did an amazing job. It is pretty easy for kids who may not have a lot of acting experience turn out to not be great, or at least not directed very well, which could lead a studio to hire older actors who have more experience, which presumably is how you end up with 20 year old actors playing early high school students, or in the case of Beverly Hills: 90210, casting a 29 year old Gabrielle Cateris as 16 year old Andrea Zuckerman. But the four principle "child" actors, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Millie Bobby Brown, and Noah Schnapp were all amazing. Wynona Ryder also gave a great performance as the separated mother whose younger son goes inexplicably missing. Sorry, spoilers. . .sort of.
Moving on from how well X number of the actors did, I'm going to stick with impressions and things that I really liked about this series. The first was how well the writers integrated early Dungeons & Dragons into the story, how it kept coming up in the story, and how I never felt that it was made out to be this cheesy game that a bunch of nerds played. Granted it is a game that a lot of people perceived as nerds play, but that is not the point. The point is, is that it reminded me a lot of playing D&D for hours upon hours when I was 12 with Dr. Potts and Dellaños. There were plenty of visual references to other movies including The Goonies, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Stand By Me and Alien. The camaraderie of the kids going through some horriblness reminded me a lot of Stephen King's stories that involve kids (The Body, IT), that the way the kids react to the events around them seem somewhat normal for being a work of fiction. None of these films or books you would have had to have watched or read in order to enjoy this series, it is just that certain scenes looked and felt appropriately familiar; also nothing was given away by recognizing these potential references either.
I mean, just look at that poster! That art style is straight out of the 80s done with some modern flare. Another thing that I loved, was that the primary kids all rode bikes. Having grown up in a semi-smallish town (population was only 39,000 in 1990, up from 30,000 in 1980), I rode one of many bikes to get anywhere in town. After getting my first bike in. . .1st grade I think, I rode a bike to school practically everyday through my senior year in high school. Most times Dr. Potts and I would hang out, one of us would ride our bikes to the others house, if our parents were not already going to be going over for a visit already. My older sister did not even get a car until after graduating from high school, so again, it was primarily on bikes that we got anywhere. And if I remember correctly, there were only two principle high school characters in the show who drove cars; sure there were more, but not every 16 year old kid had their own car is my point.
With the series only being eight episodes, I was a little sad that it did not go on any longer, but at the same time, the story that was told in the eight episodes seemed about right and that the story itself was wrapped up in that amount of time. Offhand, I cannot think of anything that was mentioned in earlier episodes that was not wrapped up by the end of the final episode, and if there was, then I must not have been paying attention because of how engrossed I was in the overall story. And did I mention the acting? Because the acting from the main kid actors was phenomenal.
Earlier in the week, Conklederp said that Stranger Things was renewed for at least another season, and that it would include the main actors from the first season, which honestly I was a little sad about. The end of season one felt pretty good closure-wise and I was kind of hoping that additional seasons would be done in an American Horror Story type fashion, which new stories involving new characters that all happen at least in the same world. To me at least, it would be like if Steven Spielberg had made an E.T. The Extraterrestrial 2: Phoning Home, or something along those lines. What I am now hoping for is that the characters from season one will be passing the torch onto new characters and the original characters will only be present in the first episode. That might be harsh, but that is what I am hoping for.
In closing, I highly recommend Stranger Things and major kudos to Netflix for green-lighting this project. I look forward to more projects by the Duffer Brothers and the other actors as well.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
P.S. Conklederp also pointed out that Finn Wolfhard, the actor who plays the lead Mike Wheeler will be playing Richie Tozier in the remake of Stephen King's IT, which I think is pretty great.
And I think we may have to start watching Intruders simply because of how amazing Millie Bobby Brown was in Stranger Things. That kid is going places, let me tell you.
P.P.S. If you are at all concerned about the content of the show, I would say that an 11 or 12 year old would be perfectly fine watching this show as there is no language that a kid would not hear watching a PG movie from the mid-late 1980s, although there is a bit of blood and some possibly unsettling imagery. So basically Older Sister (aka Shrimp), Flan could watch this, but probably not the littlest one.
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