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My thoughts exactly. This was the world-ending threat? It got it's shit pushed in by a bunch of teenagers. With fucking spears and a flare gun. Only Nancy had serious firepower. 
Television Stranger Things 4 (New Trailer)
- Thread starter MescalineDreams
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Do we know where El ended up? For some reason I thought of Iceland when I saw the three waterfalls.
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It wasn't perfect by any means. Some of the scenes felt like filler in an already bloated run time. Vecna and the Mind Flayer went out like Cans. And the world-building stumbled a bit; at some points it became difficult to know, or even care, exactly where the characters are. The Upside Down and the Abyss aren't fully explained. The audience is expected to just go with it.
On the plus side, all the cast gave their best performances of the show. There are some genuinely moving scenes, and a real sense of closure by the time the final credits roll. Hopper and Joyce moving to Montauk was a nice shout out; that was the original name for the show the Duffers came up with.
Not great, but orders of magnitude better than the abortion that was Game of Thrones final season.
7.5/10
On the plus side, all the cast gave their best performances of the show. There are some genuinely moving scenes, and a real sense of closure by the time the final credits roll. Hopper and Joyce moving to Montauk was a nice shout out; that was the original name for the show the Duffers came up with.
Not great, but orders of magnitude better than the abortion that was Game of Thrones final season.
7.5/10
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First 2 seasons were greatness
2rd was meh at best
4th - pretty meh but for me the whole Master of Puppets bit saved it some.
5th - started good first 4 eps. Middle 3 - went nowhere really and tbe finale seemed they wanted to just make sure they tied it up - better than 3 but barely
Season 5 was a mirror of season 2 Arcane it started good tben got progressively worse an worse till I struggled to finish it.
First 2 seasons were great i
2rd was meh at best
4th - pretty meh but for me the whole Master of Puppets bit saved it some.
5th - started good first 4 eps. Middle 3 - went nowhere really and tbe finale seemed they wanted to just make sure they tied it up - better than 3 but barely
Season 5 was a mirror of season 2 Arcane it started good tben got progressively worse an worse till I struggled to finish it.
First 2 seasons were great i
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I know this show requires a suspension of disbelief, but I hated what happened at the end with the military storyline.
The team kills dozens of soldiers and thwarts a major military operation, but they are free to go to resume their regular life?
Makes no sense.
The team kills dozens of soldiers and thwarts a major military operation, but they are free to go to resume their regular life?
Makes no sense.
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Did you prefer Vecna from season 4? I kind of miss how menacing he was in that season. He fucked with people's minds way more. I love how he would hover his long hand over someone and then lift them into the air twisting their limbs. In fact the best part of the finale is when Vecna messed with Hopper. First time I felt scared for a character in a while. I think Vol3 should have been two episodes. Felt like we got End Game without the Infinity War. Needed the heroes to get their asses kicked and make them doubt themselves coming into the finale.
But I still really like the show, might rewatch it all in a few years. Can't say the same for Game of Thrones. That ending really killed all desire to rewatch it.
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They never missed there
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I think first season was great. Second one had the sequel problem of basically feeling like a remake of the first one but also trying to make it bigger, but it does feel like a continuation of the first (Halloween 2 vs Halloween).
After that the feeling of the characters being kids was lost and I think they never really captured that sense of a gang of buddies again, they also started making the characters being too good kinda like how the Fast and Furios crowd went from Point Break to Mission Impossible in the later films.
Interistingly enough the charcater of Eddie Munsun is probably one of the few times a character that is introduced in the later seasons actually works. He was just more fun that what all of the original gang evolved into.
After that the feeling of the characters being kids was lost and I think they never really captured that sense of a gang of buddies again, they also started making the characters being too good kinda like how the Fast and Furios crowd went from Point Break to Mission Impossible in the later films.
Interistingly enough the charcater of Eddie Munsun is probably one of the few times a character that is introduced in the later seasons actually works. He was just more fun that what all of the original gang evolved into.
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Vecna S4 was creepier, partly because we knew so little about him in the beginning. His methods were gruesome; breaking his victim's limbs, blinding them and finally caving in their skulls while they were still alive. And that was only after torturing them for days with visions of their worst secrets. No wonder they cast Englund to play his father: S4 Vecna was doing some straight-up Freddy Kruger shit.
In S5, the mystery has gone, but if anything he's more powerful and dangerous. The way he kidnaps and grooms the children is uncomfortable to watch. It clearly plays out as a metaphor for sexual assault. The scene where he massacres the troops is one of my favourite Vecna moments. He tears them apart without breaking a sweat. And given what the soldiers were part of, I was actually cheering on Vecna at that point.
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Bald Eagle FTW!
Murrey is smart enough to gather evidence about what the Army is really doing in Hawkins - which violates everything from Posse Comitatus to Federal Law on kidnapping, torture, murder and illegal human experimentation. And he's paranoid enough to leave copies with someone he trusts, probably a lawyer. Or more likely, several lawyers, who have instructions to send the evidence to major newspapers and TV stations should Murrey ever die, vanish or be jailed.
Add to this the fact that, with El, "dead" and the Upside Down destroyed, the entire operation is a wash. Kay might want to punish the heroes, but her superiors will probably be pragmatic enough to cut their losses. As long as they keep their mouths shut about what actually happened, the Party are free to get on with their lives.
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Apparently that scene was Haifoss waterfalls in Iceland. But I prefer to believe it was the fictional Paradise Falls (based on Angel Falls in Venezuela) shown in the movie Up.
Bald Eagle FTW!
Murrey is smart enough to gather evidence about what the Army is really doing in Hawkins - which violates everything from Posse Comitatus to Federal Law on kidnapping, torture, murder and illegal human experimentation. And he's paranoid enough to leave copies with someone he trusts, probably a lawyer. Or more likely, several lawyers, who have instructions to send the evidence to major newspapers and TV stations should Murrey ever die, vanish or be jailed.
Add to this the fact that, with El, "dead" and the Upside Down destroyed, the entire operation is a wash. Kay might want to punish the heroes, but her superiors will probably be pragmatic enough to cut their losses. As long as they keep their mouths shut about what actually happened, the Party are free to get on with their lives.
Come on guys, you're overthinking this. There are bigger plotholes not the least of which is the "what happens in Hawkins stays in Hawkins" rule in effect since S1, even when the entire town is engulfed in ominous dust clouds like Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown, with red lightning and giant shadowy spider creatures roaming around, but no one else in the country or world is aware.
Military portrayals in TV and movies are always hilariously stupid, overdramatic, nefarious, overpowered or all of the above. The clowns in S4 and S5 don't even know how to salute properly, follow radio procedure or basic rifle marksmanship. Cleanest explanation is these are 3rd string National Guard forces the likes of which the gov't sends in to quell homeless vagrants in Jerkwater, USA.
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I thought this was bad.
If you watched the show for 5 seasons, then you're obviously okay with being open minded about the story, but this was just too far and too dumb in too many directions.
The whole arc with the military just felt pointless. Vecna was a pussy. And the ending with El.....wtf? For them to go through all of the trouble that they go through for each other for it to end like that made no sense.
There was too many moments that it just felt like they were trying to make these moments bigger instead of just letting them naturally happen. It made a lot of the dialogue and scene/acting feel unreal.
Steve and Dustin have an argument, and Steve says the craziest shit about Eddie, and it just felt totally not real. lol Like only a complete monster would say some shit like that. to someone about their dead friend.
There were some good moments, but, it could've been easily better. It was Game of Thronesesque in the worst ways.
If you watched the show for 5 seasons, then you're obviously okay with being open minded about the story, but this was just too far and too dumb in too many directions.
The whole arc with the military just felt pointless. Vecna was a pussy. And the ending with El.....wtf? For them to go through all of the trouble that they go through for each other for it to end like that made no sense.
There was too many moments that it just felt like they were trying to make these moments bigger instead of just letting them naturally happen. It made a lot of the dialogue and scene/acting feel unreal.
Steve and Dustin have an argument, and Steve says the craziest shit about Eddie, and it just felt totally not real. lol Like only a complete monster would say some shit like that. to someone about their dead friend.
There were some good moments, but, it could've been easily better. It was Game of Thronesesque in the worst ways.
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I'm surprised the season finale didn't get it's own mrgathread.
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Charlie Heaton looks like he could play Edward Furlong in a biopic.
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When did this show turn into a Mexican soap opera? I don't think there was a single 5-minute stretch in this last season without one of the main cast members adopting a deeply pained, glassy-eyed expression that made me long for Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights to walk out and scream at them.
You don't have to be a soppy drama queen about every goddamn little thing. I'm amazed how they had any energy left to fight the big baddie considering how much they must have spent in their marathon of fighting back tears.
You don't have to be a soppy drama queen about every goddamn little thing. I'm amazed how they had any energy left to fight the big baddie considering how much they must have spent in their marathon of fighting back tears.
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One of the major issues was the Duffer's unwillingness to kill off members of the main cast. By the end, their Plot Armour made an Iron Man suit look like tinfoil. I'm not saying they should have turned the last season into the Red Wedding, but when you pretty much know that no one important is going to die, there's very little to get you invested.
In spite of the Duffer's trying to hedge their bets, it's bloody obvious that El survived and moved to the Land of the Ice and Snow.
In spite of the Duffer's trying to hedge their bets, it's bloody obvious that El survived and moved to the Land of the Ice and Snow.
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It’s a tough one. I had no real issue with this and I think of it often as Sopranos and GoT sort of muddying the waters where now any series where death happens with any degree of regularity has to deliver shock or surprise deaths of significant characters. There’s really nothing that says things have to play out that way.
But I could see why it can be a source of criticism because the Duffers did sort of want to have it both ways. The Goonies had the threat of violence but nobody watched that movie thinking Astin and co. were in mortal peril (as opposed to Astin in Stranger Things…). ET had some nefarious types who wanted to dissect his cadaver and who were menacing overall but I wasn’t worried that Elliot and Gertie and Michael were going to have something terrible befall them.
So you could say that if those sorts of adventure or coming of age stories are the main Duffer influence, then it makes sense they would keep their main characters plot armored. Except it’s notably different because they went more into a horror paradigm where vicious stuff DID happen to quite a few ancillary or single-season characters. Which creates that odd dynamic where you know those sort of shocking things can happen but they won’t happen to any of the leads.
That didn’t hurt my investment in the resolution but I could see how it could be a point of contention.
