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Stranger Things 2
- Michael Barnes
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Legomancer wrote: I remember thos 80s things!
Truth.
I liked Stranger Things a lot, however I do knock it a star for relying too much on nostalgia. Oddly enough this comes from the guy who's a big synthwave fan.
What I mean with ST2 though is that a lot of the hype is because they're showing us, up front and center, stuff we already love. Dragon's Lair, Ghostbusters, Thriller...those of us of that vintage are going to get hyped. It's, as they say in the wrestling business, a cheap pop.
The new Thor is also relying very heavily on future retro sights and sounds. But where I rate the Thor trailer higher is that it is using the stylings of that era to enhance new material. Outside of Banner wearing a Patrick Nagel/Duran Duran shirt at about the :34 mark, there isn't anything here I've already seen before. Even that shot is sort of casual and not all in your face like the ST2 nostalgia bits.
So, to me, it feels that ST2 is relying on all that I already like to draw me in...not much new here. Whereas the Thor trailer is using the aesthetics of that era to build something new....if that makes any sense.
EDIT: An expanded thought. If my son and I were to both watch ST2...we would have different levels of attachment because I come prepackaged already with love and familiarity to a lot of the material and he wouldn't. With Thor, as shown in that trailer, it seems we would both have the same level of enjoyment because it's all new to both of us. +1 for Thor.
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- Michael Barnes
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Michael Barnes wrote: It's like Stand By Me for kids of the 80s.
Wouldn't that just be Stand By Me?
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I'm not going on a long walk to see some dead body when there's NES that needs playing
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- Michael Barnes
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1960s- Hey man, want to drop acid and see a DEAD BODY?
1970s- Hey man, want to get high and see a DEAD BODY?
1980s- There's a DEAD BODY out there but I'm playing Contra instead.
1990s- OJ Simpson killed a DEAD BODY out by the train tracks!
2000s- Let's film a guy dying with our phones and put it on MySpace!
2010s- Let's film a guy dying with our phones and put it on Facebook!
Stand By Me was a film nostalgic for things 30 years in the past- it was referencing the 1950s in the 1980s. Likewise, Stranger Things is referencing stuff 30 years in the past. GOD DAMN IT, I feel old. That is a real mind-melter, that the things in Stand By Me that were referenced were, at that time, as old as the things that Stranger Things is referencing now. So, like when you heard "Lollipop" in that movie, it is temporally equidistant from today and Dragon's Lair.
The thing about the trailer is that the stuff it shows REALLY WAS central to being that age at that time. Thriller was a CONSTANT. Across all classes, sexes, religions, whatever. So was Ghostbusters and arcade games. The only thing that feels inauthentic to me is the Ghostbuster costumes. There were no costumes that good in 1984. You got one of those horrendous vinyl suits that induced sweating and it had like a picture of the Ghostbusters on it. It probably had a one-sided plastic mask with a terrible likeness of Bill Murray on it. You didn't have cosplay-perfect replicas like that.
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- Michael Barnes
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I also had that exact devil and Vader too. I guess my parents really had it in for me.
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Michael Barnes wrote: Stand By Me was a film nostalgic for things 30 years in the past- it was referencing the 1950s in the 1980s. Likewise, Stranger Things is referencing stuff 30 years in the past. GOD DAMN IT, I feel old. That is a real mind-melter, that the things in Stand By Me that were referenced were, at that time, as old as the things that Stranger Things is referencing now. So, like when you heard "Lollipop" in that movie, it is temporally equidistant from today and Dragon's Lair.
Yep. last year. I went to a festival that had: The Specials, Social Distortion, The Descendants, The Misfits, Morrissey, etc. a good 30 years past their prime. It was like old folk in the 80's going to a festival or cruise with a bunch of 50's acts. Total Oldies Revue.
The generation before us had a 10-15 year run of nostalgia media...Wonder Years, Stand by Me, Back to the Future, ThirtySomething...this era probably ended with Forrest Gump. After that flick...not much looking back to the 50s. These folks are straight up OLD now.
It feels like we're in the midst of one of these cycles for the 80's kids. Every property turned into a boardgame or netflix cartoon, music and aesthetics from the era are having a little resurgence, etc. The question is...when does 'our' celebration pass and we officially age out?
Regarding ST2...again... very much liked ST. They just don't have to try hard. Throw up any old thing we had or saw as kids and we're in. Thor...on the other hand took a franchise I cared nothing about (hadn't even seen the first two movies) injected some beats I'm sensitive too...and now I'm in. The Thor crew had to put in some effort. Also ST2 is very much backwards facing while Thor looks to take inspiration from what we loved and make something new. Something relevant now. Maybe that helps me come to grips with my era officially passing....the hope that it can actually continue?
Yeah...those Ghostbusters costumes do sort of take you out...
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- Michael Barnes
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I do agree with you about them trying a little too hard in ST, and if you go back and read my old timey post about it last year I mentioned that. There are some points where I think the fact that they are actually a little AFTER that actual generation shows. Like how he has a Thing poster in his room. Not that he wouldn't have liked/seen it, but having a poster for it at that point would have been really rare. Also his music...for a kid in that place at that time to be into something like Television would have been very, very rare. Unless he had friends from NYC or had lived in NYC, or was really into music journalism at the time. And The Smiths, who were BARELY known in the US at the time, and no records would have been down at the local Turtles/Peaches/Record Bar yet, except maybe as extremely expensive imports.
The thing is, the stuff they get the MOST right isn't really about that messy, wonderful web of pop culture detritus. It's about riding around on your bike with walkie talkies, playing D&D with your friends, and wondering what the hell is up with that high school dude with the perfect hair and penny loafers.
I still hold that they captured quite possibly the single most heartbreaking, painful moment of everyone's childhood in that show. The part at Steve's party where Nancy decides to go up to his room and she tells Barb "just go home"...and Barb is like "this isn't you." That little piece of writing is just devastating, who hasn't been in that EXACT situation...where you have a childhood friend that suddenly does something very adult and it's like there is suddenly this line dividing you from them, and leaving you completely alone. So powerful.
My son auditioned for a small role in season 2 so I've read a whopping two pages of the script...probably not supposed to say anything about it, but there is a scene where these dudes rob this bank and they are wearing He-Man Halloween masks. "Mom! Look! It's He-Man!"
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- Michael Barnes
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"DO YOU LIKE BASGHETTI?"
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