You know, it is really strange that I spent the 80's waiting for it to be over. I had a good time, and I was still this miserable son--of-a-so-and-so because the things that were happening didn't seem all that exciting. Maybe it was because on some level the 70's NYC experience was so much more formative than the 80's Sydney experience. All I know is that I've had this feeling of trying to find my way back to a feeling I had when I was younger. A fleeting moment here, a remembered emotion there. We all grow up even when we resist it as hard as us Gen-X have tried; time marches on inexorably and the inevitable crust and barnacle forms on your soul. You forget who you were a long time ago, even when you feel like you haven't changed all that much.
And then you discover other people are trapped by the past as well. The past is haunting. It's never what you remember it to be, and it's even weirder when you see somebody else's fiction about it. 'Stranger Things' is exactly that kind of TV series that evokes a lot and makes you remember the things you once yearned for, but it also reminds you of what is no longer there. It's funny, but it's also deeply tragic.
Spoiler alert, because it would be unfair if I didn't tell you now.
What's Good About It
It's like watching a mash-up of 80s movies. There are moments that come straight out of things like 'Stand By Me' and 'E.T.', while other moments are snatched from 'The Thing' and 'Gremlins' with a deep nod to 'Alien'. The whole thing is made up of fiction piled one on top of the other. The references in the dialogue echo 'Star Wars' and 'The Empire Strikes Back' while the tropes of a sleepy town Sheriff going on a search in to the woods is Stephen King. Somehow it all stays together without spinning out of control.
Indeed, the series is full of homages to films long past. Even 'The Wizard of Oz'. Eleven is Dorothy in a strange Oz and the boys are respectively Tin Man, Scarecrow and the Lion. When they walk along the train tracks in search of the Gate to theVale of Shadows, the quartet echo the quartet of 'Stand By Me', who walked along the rail tracks. When the kids are on the run from government agents' cars, as they ride their bicycles, they are Elliot and E.T. - but instead of them flying over blockades, Eleven flips a government van instead. At one point Sheriff Hopper finds himself in the Vale of Shadows, looking into a going husk of a large egg, a clear visual homage to 'Alien' - and he should know better than to peer in because Alien came out in 1979.
The kid actors are great in this series. There is nothing to top the sense of adventure in adolescence and the domain of the mind. It is a potent combination of intuition and imagination. The entire series of events hinges on the understanding the kids have of otherworldliness. Much like 'Stand By Me' and 'E.T.' before it, the adventure centre around the concept of the world as seen from kids. They're very well cast, not for them are the good looking boys of Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, of 'Stand By Me'. This bunch looks more likely as future candidates of Frank Zappa's band where ugly was not a problem.
David Harbour's Sheriff Hooper is strongly reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's look in 'The Shining', which adds to to the Stephen King thing going on. There are plenty of 80s tropes to pick at and laugh about so it's generally mirthful.
What's Bad About It
I wouldn't say it's bad, but I did wonder about Winona Ryder's performance. She's the lone actor in this series that comes with a high profile even though she's been out of the headlines since her days as the 90s It Girl for creepy movies. You take one look at her and you know it's all a certain kind of fiction, and it makes harder the wilful suspension of disbelief.
I waster so I can spot the anachronism well enough. Most of the production design is spot on but the wardrobe and makeup lapse into problems. Just because it's satin 1983 doesn't mean everything is from 1983, at the same time, the most likely things to be up to date are teen fashion and makeup, and there are some clunkers there. The blue eyeshadow here, the wrong kind of hairdo there, it's the little things that occasionally poke out as being not quite right.
What's Interesting About It
It's actually quite Proust-ian with a Gen-X makeover. Instead of a madeira cake that evokes a lifetime of memories, it's a lifetime of memories tugged at through the idiosyncratic counterculture of kids. Instead of the whole story strung along on great themes of literature, it's strung up along Dungeons and Dragons. The monster in question comes straight out of the pages of 'the Monster Manual', it is the Demogorgon - and I must add it is one of my favourite monsters in the Manual:
Yes, that's him the Prince of Demons, and while the monster doesn't look like that in this series, it is unmistakably of Dungeons and Dragons. Why does one like certain monsters in the Monster Manual? I know my DM loved Owlbears, the "product of cruel genetic experiments" as per the Monster Manual. The rich Gary Gygax text provides hours of interesting meditation on civilisation. Somehow it is informing the abstract in this series.
This isn't 'Hook' where Spielberg condescends to understanding the culture of Gen-X kids - this is how the other kids not Elliott were living 1983.
Government Conspiracies
The show leans heavily on the conspiracy theories, and giving them more credence than one normally would. But here's the thing: Conspiracy Theorists rightly or wrongly get ridiculed. The problem with that is ridiculing Conspiracy Theorists is exactly what the CIA want you to do. The truth is, whether you believe it or not, the US government has always been doing things in secret involving lots of people. That, is the working definition of conspiracy so, it's not surprising it spawns speculation.
One of the more out-there bits of conspiracy theory way back when was that the US Government was secretly manufacturing the LSD that found its way into the West Coast counterculture. This is a claim that was documented at the time, and even Philip K. Dick uses it in 'A Scanner Darkly' as the central plot problem that gets uncovered by protagonist Bob Actor. Of course, it turned out MKULTRA was real, and the CIA were experimenting with LSD on people for purposes mind control.
This a certainly level of discomfort watching the bits to do with the Government agency running crackpot experiments on kids, but at the same time what would the world fiction be without governments doing nefarious experience on people? Information was hard to come by in the 1980s. It was easy for governments to keep people in the dark. The discomfort of watching it was a reminder that when sitcoms to the flow of information, maybe the 80s were closer to the dark ages than the current internet age.
The character of Eleven is far-fetched, but not as far fetched as we might have believed 1983.
Paranoia Has A Name And It Is Lando Calrissian
At the business end of the story when the boys go in hiding from government agents and they are contacted by Sherif Hopper, they immediately suspect the Sheriff has been compromised. They base this on the part of 'The Empire Strikes Back', where Lando Calrissian betrays his friends Han and Leia to Darth Vader. It's an interesting construction because the kids are right to suspect. They quote the Star Wars mantra "I have a bad feeling about this", and then make a leap of faith to trust Sheriff Hopper.
The world around the boys is filled with ambiguity in a way that Dungeons and Dragons eschews. In D&D, the world is divided into alignments, and the alignments dictate one's actions. The strange blurring of Government into what can only be described evil affects not only the boys but even the adults around them. The reference Lando Calrissian then is not just about betrayal, but the undecidability in the face of ambiguity.
The Rule Of Law And The Adventurer's Code
At one point the gang falls apart in dissension. It is the toothless boy Dustin who re-asembles the group by the dint of the adventurer's code and the strict adherence to the code, stating it is the Rule of Law. It's actually a strangely moving moment. Dustin cites the times the party is preyed upon by monsters simply because they did not stick together. Sticking together a the party is how to survive adventures. Splitters perish. The lessons of the game inform Dustin's forceful argument that Mike offer the hand of peace to Lucas. When Mike refuses to countenance, Dustin thunders it is the Rule of Law, that he who draws first blood in conflict must atone for the act first.
What's interesting is that Dungeons of Dragons does provide players with this insight. Carnies should stick together for the same reason parties should stick together. Disunity is, as the ALP found out, death. Certainly Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten et al. would have benefited greatly from this wisdom, and tarred and feathered Tony Burke.
If there are two observations to be made about what Dungeons and Dragons offers players is the insight that life is speculative and statistical, while our response to it needs to be tempered impartial as the law dictates. Sticking to party its rules saves lives in the game. Sticking to the impartiality of the rule before law renders possible all the things we hold dear.
It is therefore the crowning moment of the series when the three boys reconcile themselves and with Eleven. It is about as profound as anything in the annals of literature. The party should always stick together.
The Music
Gee y'know? That's exactly the music that made the 80s musically unbearable. Little did I know back then that things were only going to get worse. :)
The faux John Carpenter synth music as the theme however, is nothing but unmitigated coolness.
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