Over the years, Netflix has produced countless hit dramas. Such as the recent “”Love, Death & Robots Season 3″”, last year’s “Squid Game”, the game adaptation “The Witcher”, and the earlier “House of Cards” and so on.
Unfortunately, their popularity often only lasts for a while. In contrast, “Stranger Things””can be called the “hot” evergreen in Netflix series.
“Stranger Things” has a total of four seasons, with a top 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and an average of 8 points on IMDB.
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There are not many American dramas that can achieve such a stable quality, which makes this series have a large number of fans even in China. On Douban, the rating of each season is stable at around 8.9, and there are hundreds of thousands of rating viewers.
Speaking of which, when the first episode of “Stranger Things” aired, no one could think that the show would be popular.
It is said that this drama was filmed at that time because the big data calculation showed that the audience wanted to watch this type of drama, so a forehead investment was launched.
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This whole shooting plan highlights a simple casual.
This can also be seen from the configuration of the actors. The protagonists are children who are not well-known, and the most famous is the mother of the protagonist’s little girl, Winona Ryder (Depp’s ex-girlfriend). There are no more works.
Although he was also one of the most famous superstars in Hollywood at the time, she was amazingly beautiful during his love affair with Depp, but her appearance fell to an ordinary person later.
The reason why only Winona Ryder is a well-known actor can be imagined, that is, this is a project that is not valued by investors. To put it bluntly, the crew is poor.
And we all know the story behind it. The increasingly brave “Stranger Things” even broke Netflix’s own broadcast record as soon as the third season aired.
After that, the crew was able to turn around and brought the series into the fourth season with an investment of 270 million US dollars. The cost of a single episode was 30 million, which exceeded the classic American drama “Game of Thrones”, which is also known for burning funds. “.
This is inseparable from the excellent quality of “Stranger Things” for several years: good at laying suspense, the horror atmosphere is in place, the nostalgic details are perfect, and the characters are detailed and realistic. The same goes for the fourth season.
But before we talk about the fourth season, let’s briefly talk about “what is this show about” for friends who have never been in contact with the show.
In a small town called Hawkins in Indiana, USA, the protagonists are four teenagers. They are typical good children. They don’t know sports and love science. They are often bullied by school bullies. The biggest fun is to play “Dungeons & Dragons”.
From left to right: Lucas, Will, Mike, Dustin
One day, Will disappears near a top-secret government laboratory. And on the same night, a girl with the ability to remotely manipulate objects, Xiao Shi, appeared in a small restaurant in town. She had escaped from the government laboratory.
In the process of looking for Will, the Youth League met the fleeing girl Xiao Shi.
The story takes place in the 1980s, so it also has a strong period color. Little Eleven is a biochemical weapon made by the United States in order to fight against the Soviet Union. It has super powers. Specifically, he can control objects with his mind, and he can also close his eyes to perceive another world.
Underneath the town, there is a “reverse world” that mirrors each other. It is a dark and terrifying country, and all kinds of mysterious monsters grow on the desolate land.
As the passage between the two worlds is inadvertently opened, monsters begin to invade the human town.
Will is not missing, but is trapped in another world and can’t get out, and the rest of the friends decide to rescue their friends with Will.
A rescue operation in a world full of monsters is certainly not enough for a little girl with super powers.
And that’s one of the biggest highlights of “Stranger Things”—everyone has a playful and appropriate highlight in this kid-centric show.
For example, Dustin, who seems to be missing his front teeth, can find out the abnormality of the compass and find the location of the gate to another world; Lucas went to the Hawkins National Laboratory to investigate and found the disguise of Dr. Brenner’s team.
And these settings are very in line with the ability of a primary school student. Unlike Conan’s juvenile detective team, only Conan and Haibara Ai are responsible for IQ, and most of the others are engaged in various things.
All “Stranger Things” can play a role, react quickly and work together to find Will.
At the end of Season 1, Little Eleven “perished” with the devil in order to save his friends. Joyce and Hopper also rescued the dying Will from the reverse world, but Will’s connection with the other world was not cut off.
So the story continues in Season 2. First of all, Little Eleven has been resurrected. At the same time, with the passage of time, the little friends have entered adolescence, and the proportion of girls of the same age such as Nancy and Mike has greatly increased.
Little Eleven worked hard to learn to integrate into normal society. She recognized the sheriff as her father and also made a boyfriend.
From the low-cost adventure theme of Season 1 to the next two seasons, it is not difficult to see that “Stranger Things” is still following the traditional long-form American TV series. on various issues.
However, in this “everyday”, “Stranger Things” has never lost its “non-daily” foreshadowing.
In the seemingly peaceful life on the surface, the part of the other world is actually eroding and expanding a little bit, including the appearance of the octagonal octopus monster, including the introduction of some Cthulhu elements, and even the Soviet Union that appeared in the underground of the town. base.
Although at the end of the story of the third season, everyone still saved the town together, but Nancy’s brother died at the end, and the sheriff’s father of Little Eleven was also secretly led by the Russians in the smoke bomb of “death on the spot”. In Alaska, this leaves plenty of room for an “expansion” of the show.
And now, the story is in its fourth season. The young actors have grown up, especially Will and Mike, who have grown up suddenly and have changed significantly.
(These are the ones that have changed a lot)
The protagonists go to high school and college one by one, and their former companions are separated from each other, and a more general plot contradiction begins: If childhood playmates grow up and go their separate ways, can they maintain eternal friendship? ?
The story is also divided into several independent main lines: in California, Little Eleven endures school bullying, and at the same time has to deal with the loss of superpowers and the pain and sadness of his father Harper.
Jonathan and Nancy maintain a long-distance relationship, but also face the life choice of graduating and going to college.
And my mother Joyce was dealing with a new job of buying an encyclopedia, but one day she received a mysterious package from the East…
At Hawkins, Mikes and Lucas parted ways because of the death of his brother and the divorce of his parents.
Lucas, who entered the basketball team and became a “cool boy”, wanted to make a name for himself in the school basketball team, so he hoped that his friends would come to watch his game.
But the friends just want to play their D&D in the old places.
The clips of the basketball game at the end of the first episode and the ending of the board game are quite tense and exciting
It can be seen that the first two episodes of the fourth season have two main functions: one is to follow the relaxed rom-com daily tone of the third season, and the other is to introduce new characters, new environments, and new states of old characters, so watch this part. The experience is relatively slow.
But what makes the fourth season better than the first two seasons is that there are actually a lot of follow-up plots and reversals of character attitudes hidden under these shots:
To give a few examples, the memories of the Little Eleven California line include a scene of rampage and murder, and a scene in the laboratory, so that the cracks in the wall at first glance are “Little Eleven’s abuse of superpowers” to cause damage.
But in the seventh episode, we will find that this rift is a foreshadowing that has been buried for a long time.
(It’s likely to be overlooked at first glance)
Another example is that Lucas seems to be leaning towards the basketball team, and the change in the expression of his former friend still reveals his inner thoughts, which paved the way for his later reversal.
At the same time, on the other side, a student of the same school died mysteriously, breaking their quiet town life:
Every season of “Stranger Things”, countless hints are made in the early stage to pile up the weird and terrifying atmosphere little by little.
For example, in the third season, the mouse exploded inexplicably, and the refrigerator magnet lost its magnetism for no reason.
In the fourth season, the teenagers first had hallucinations, seeing a clock embedded in a tree, or suddenly swarming Black Widow spiders.
Afterwards, the Demon King used the fears in the memories of the teenagers to continuously defeat the mental will of the teenagers.
Using blurred outlines and partial close-ups, the horror atmosphere is constantly pushed to a climax
In terms of the plot, starting from the third episode, it progresses layer by layer. The core Hawkins main line focuses on the development of the story, the rebirth of the crisis, and the protagonist group explores the reasons; the California branch focuses on the growth of characters and the self-identity crisis of everyone.
Little Eleven’s emotional out-of-control and self-doubt in the face of bullying, Jonathan’s anxiety and confusion in the face of a long-distance relationship crisis, and Will’s confusion and doubts in the face of friend alienation.
In the fourth episode, under the tense atmosphere of the life of one of the protagonists, Mike S., the last fifteen minutes ushered in the climax of the first half: cursed by the devil, plunged into the inverse world of horror and despair, at the last moment of being swallowed up , She kept flashing back the warm memories of the previous seasons.
The calling and singing of her friends made her burst out with a strong desire for life, friendship, and hope; the last paragraph of breaking out of the cage and running towards the light, the catharsis and release of the flow was very thorough.
In the subsequent episodes, Lucas and the others found the door to enter the Demon King’s reverse world, while the little Eleven on the other side gradually recovered his superpowers.
Little Eleven’s self-growth in the laboratory and the young man’s attack on the devil in the small town are two irrelevant storylines, which are well connected through the reversal of the previous foreshadowing.
They give a plausible end to the divergent strands and uncover the truth about the demon king raging in Hawkins in the climax of episode seven.
And this truth is slowly emerging in the eyes of Nancy, who has fallen into the devil’s trap…
Looking at the whole, the suspense of Season 1 is recovered, and the tone of horror is very well created. Many core settings have been revealed and filled in, which has brought the drama’s worldview and discussion of characters to a higher level. in-depth level.
Although it also has its downsides, such as Mom’s rescue sheriff’s line in Alaska is a bit slow, it doesn’t prevent it from being a good quality sequel.
Another intuitive feeling is that this season is very long and full. And this season is indeed the longest season of the entire show, not only has nine episodes, but each episode is more than an hour long.
And there is news that the last episode (the ninth episode) has two and a half hours like a big movie, which is really intentional.
It’s just too hard to wait a month (July 1) to watch the last two episodes.
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