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Discuss the past, present, and future of Netflix's Stranger Things! An upcoming Third Season has just been given a release date for Independence Day 2019, and here's its first poster:

Stranger-Things-3-Poster.jpg?q=50&fit=cr

Plus, here's an announcement teaser showcasing both the Third Season's title card and episode names...

...and here's Netflix's date announcement teaser:

 

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Anyone want to talk about the show? I watched both box sets in the past couple of weeks. Season 1 was fairly strong but Season 2 relied on passing around the idiot ball. What does everyone else think?

In the coming season I'm looking forward to Billy and the middle-aged mothers, as well as Steve in his sailor outfit.

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1 hour ago, jimmynick said:

Anyone want to talk about the show? I watched both box sets in the past couple of weeks. Season 1 was fairly strong but Season 2 relied on passing around the idiot ball. What does everyone else think?

I myself checked out both the first and second seasons for the first time last fall. While I found the first season to be pretty much perfect, I wasn't so keen on the second's "Mind Flayer" antagonist, as I kinda wished they'd keep the Upside-Down's flora and fauna exclusively relegated to being non-intelligent organisms. I mean, I feel there could've been other ways of keeping the show interesting moving forwards without needing to resort to some sorta Cthulhu-like "boss" figure. But, besides that nitpick though, the second season did offer a lot of great character moments dynamics for its protagonists, though my primary interest in the show is still more invested in its sci-fi lore rather than its protagonists arcs.

Speaking of such, does anyone here have their own theories on what the "Upside-Down" is exactly? :classic:

Edited by Digger of Bricks

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I think the Mind Flayer was an interesting direction in which to take the show - but what I had hoped for was some more info on how it relates to the creatures (but of course they seem to do the Big Bad's bidding). I think we'll learn more about that relationship (as well as its relationship to the Upside Down) in the next season, since the trailer implies that it got stuck on "this" side of the gate after they exorcised Will.

Not sure how I thought about the introduction of Eight. I mean, the standalone episode with her and Eleven was a great story, but I worry that this storyline will take the series too much in the direction of Orphan Black, which lost my interest early in the third season because they heaped plots on top of plots with no end in sight.

As for the ontology of the Upside Down, I'm perfectly happy with what we're given. It's some sort of parallel dimension and Eleven brought her world into contact with it. If they tell us any more about the sci-fi physics of it, it will bog down the story. I'm less interested in what it is and where it came from than I am in how the kids (and Steve, Joyce & Hopper) deal with its existence.

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6 hours ago, jimmynick said:

As for the ontology of the Upside Down, I'm perfectly happy with what we're given. It's some sort of parallel dimension and Eleven brought her world into contact with it. If they tell us any more about the sci-fi physics of it, it will bog down the story. I'm less interested in what it is and where it came from than I am in how the kids (and Steve, Joyce & Hopper) deal with its existence.

My personal theory on the Upside-Down is that it's instead a interdimensional realm, a "space in between spaces" if you will, hence the seemingly thin boundaries between the two. To put that hypothesis into perspective, just think of the Mind Flayer & Company as insects and rodents living within the walls of the Multiverse analogised as a house, with individual rooms within that house representing different realities. :shrug_oh_well:

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What do you mean by "interdimensional", though? The Upside Down seems to be a place in and of itself, rather than some liminal location. If the Upside Down is interdimensional, what would be extradimensional?

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41 minutes ago, jimmynick said:

What do you mean by "interdimensional", though? The Upside Down seems to be a place in and of itself, rather than some liminal location. If the Upside Down is interdimensional, what would be extradimensional?

Well, for a number of observable reasons, the Upside-Down always seemed to me to be more akin to liminal plane rather than a distinct alternate reality. I mean, remember Will in Season 2 analogising to Mike his phasing in-and-out from the Upside-Down to being like a View Master reel being stuck between slides? Though he may not have been explaining the nature of the Upside-Down, the View Master analogy does seems appropriate for explaining such, as inanimate objects and structures in Upside-Down mirror their real-time placement on the other side. Plus, sound from the "normal" side is faintly audible in Upside-Down, but not the other way around. 

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Interesting... to me the parallels between the two worlds are just that, and they are physical realities unto themselves. Like Pete's World in NuWho. We see the physicality of the Upside Down when the tunnels extend underground, and when little gates crop up here and there. If anything in the series is a liminal space, it's Eleven's dark watery headspace - and in the chronology of the story, that place is where we first see anything (the Demogorgon) from the alternate reality.

5 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Plus, sound from the "normal" side is faintly audible in Upside-Down, but not the other way around.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting quite what you mean but there are instances when sound from the Upside Down crosses the gap to the real world - in particular I think of the scene where Jonathan and Nancy try to find each other in season 1.

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7 hours ago, jimmynick said:

Maybe I'm misinterpreting quite what you mean but there are instances when sound from the Upside Down crosses the gap to the real world - in particular I think of the scene where Jonathan and Nancy try to find each other in season 1.

Unless I've got it all wrong, Jonathan seems to only hear Nancy from the though the "gateway" at the base of that tree she crawled through, whereas Nancy can faintly hear Jonathan's echoing calls surrounding her rather than from one particular outlet. If sound did travel either direction, Joyce could've audibly heard Will just as he could hear her speaking to him, hence there being no need for the Christmas lights and all.

 

7 hours ago, jimmynick said:

We see the physicality of the Upside Down when the tunnels extend underground, and when little gates crop up here and there.

I'm pretty sure those tunnels were instead the Upside-Down's ecosystem making its way into our world on the other side from Hawkins Laboratory. 

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Nancy's and Jonathan's voices both get the same echo when we hear them from the other side so I think it's reasonable to attribute the same cause ot the same effect: namely sound traveling across dimensions, rather than through the gate in the tree. Another example of sound traveling from the Upside Down to the real world is the scene where Joyce discovers Will in the wall - though it's arguable whether he is behind a gate and she simply does not break through to him fast enough.

It's not that there's no need for Christmas lights - rather, it's the first means of communication that Joyce discovers. Additionally, Will has an incentive to stay silent when he's hiding, so we don't hear from him very often.

2 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I'm pretty sure those tunnels were instead the Upside-Down's ecosystem making its way into our world on the other side from Hawkins Laboratory. 

Exactly - it's a real place in its own right.

Edited by jimmynick

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A third thru episode one and just wanted to pop in...

Nah. 

The garbage I've seen so far better not continue for the whole damn season.

I feel it won't, but still, gross.

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I do believe we are back to normal by episode three!

There's like six or more different "group vantage points". Kind of overwhelming. :sceptic: I rewatched season one and two as a recap, and It feels like this season is moving at a much faster rate compared to the first two seasons, which is probably due to all the different vantage points that they have going on. :hmpf:

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I finished binge-watching season 3 a bit ago. Overall I liked it. Hopper acting like a petulant kid got old though. 

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Just finished binge watching myself. Not bad. 

Just make sure you watch the last episode to the end. Two things there you won't want to miss.

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I binged this season yesterday but I have never re-watched it so I don't know if I like it better than the other seasons.

Personally, I like the ending of this season particularly the last scene outside Byers' house.

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Shocked at Hopper's death, which was a surprise shortly after Billy's more or less predictable expiration. Whatever will I do without Indiana Jones daddy?

2 hours ago, Trekkie99 said:

Just make sure you watch the last episode to the end. Two things there you won't want to miss.

 

Hop had better not be "the American" in Kamchatka after all of these feelings I've had.

The use of Russian in this season was pretty decent - I was laughing my megablocks off at the "fat Rambo" joke, and Murray repeating in English only made it funnier.

8 hours ago, Trekkie99 said:

I rewatched season one and two as a recap, and It feels like this season is moving at a much faster rate compared to the first two seasons

I felt that Season One was nice and compact, whereas this and Two had much more to tell. That said, this season did get going much faster than Season Two, in which nothing much happened until Will was possessed.

7 hours ago, Paradosis said:

Hopper acting like a petulant kid got old though. 

Yeah, definitely - in the first few episodes I found myself wondering "where did this megablock come from?"

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4 hours ago, jimmynick said:

Shocked at Hopper's death, which was a surprise shortly after Billy's more or less predictable expiration. Whatever will I do without Indiana Jones daddy?

I was a little pissed that Hopper died because he was stranded in a room with an exploding machine, and not going out doing something heroic. but with the "American" thing in the last scene, I feel (or maybe just hope!) that he'll be back. 

Honestly my favorite scene was where Billy saves El. The villain I hated the most ended up having the saddest death. We see that him and Max had been step siblings for awhile, and perhaps she got to know him before he turned into a monster hence her sorrow at his death, and her concern when he's locked in the sauna.

12 hours ago, Paradosis said:

Hopper acting like a petulant kid got old though. 

Yup. :hmpf:

 

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Another annoying thing is that we didn't learn anything further about the upside down. Maybe if you look hard you can rule out some theories, but nothing obvious, which means they're gonna dump it all on us in season 4, which might make for a rushed ending? :sceptic:

 

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The other character moments I really enjoyed were El & Max's growing friendship and Will's pain at feeling left behind while his friends are growing up... very real emotions there. Shame those ideas disappeared when the monster story reared its head.

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On 7/4/2019 at 11:44 PM, makoy said:

I binged this season yesterday but I have never re-watched it so I don't know if I like it better than the other seasons.

I myself have just finished the second half of the season last night, and I feel like I'll end-up doing the same before drawing any conclusions as to how this season as a whole measures-up alongside the previous two. Don't get me wrong, this season definitely had a boatload of great moments, character dynamics, and new plot directions it took; but, it is a very different season tonally compared to its forebearers. One thing for certain, the fanservice and callbacks revolving around various character dynamics is definitely quite strong this time around, which was fun to see executed in the ways they'd had, even if many of those moments were pretty on-the-nose. Now, for as much as I wished for further fleshing-out of the Upside-Down mythos from this season, the lack thereof was kinda made-up for with the newly-introduced "Soviet" element (something which they took to some crazy lengths that brought me much glee to be honest). :thumbup: :shrug_oh_well:

On 7/4/2019 at 11:44 PM, makoy said:

Personally, I like the ending of this season particularly the last scene outside Byers' house.

Agreed, that melancholy mood and mid-autumn setting it established really got to me. :cry_sad:

On 7/5/2019 at 1:55 AM, jimmynick said:
On 7/4/2019 at 5:45 PM, Trekkie99 said:

I rewatched season one and two as a recap, and It feels like this season is moving at a much faster rate compared to the first two seasons

I felt that Season One was nice and compact, whereas this and Two had much more to tell. That said, this season did get going much faster than Season Two, in which nothing much happened until Will was possessed.

The first episode in particular felt rather rushed in a montage sort of way, but I suppose it was just for the sake of summarized catch-up. :shrug_confused:

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4 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Now, for as much as I wished for further fleshing-out of the Upside-Down mythos from this season, the lack thereof

Hey! It showed us that the Upside Down does have people in it, which were missing from that hellscape in Season One :wink:

4 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

The first episode in particular felt rather rushed

The first episode this time at least has something happen: the Russian transmission. Miles better than the last season, where we spent several episodes watching Will get a little bit creeped out.

As for rewatching, I'm taking it slow this time. 

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17 hours ago, jimmynick said:

Hey! It showed us that the Upside Down does have people in it, which were missing from that hellscape in Season One :wink:

Um, you talking about the projected army of Billy Hargrove duplicates? :shrug_confused:

17 hours ago, jimmynick said:

As for rewatching, I'm taking it slow this time.

For the sake of assessing this season in comparison to the previous two, likewise, probably one episode at a time. 

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I was a kid in the 80s so I'm naturally drawn to the nostalgia factor of this show...  but it really erks me how the creatures are modern CGI. 

If the the producers want to be authenticate to the period, the beasties should be executed using puppetry and physical models.

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