Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Stranger Things (Netflix)
- Thread starter b0fh666
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
its my favorite show ever. reminds me of of a kid watching star wars, ET, close encounters of the third kind, and breakfast club for some reason. i watched goonies too, but i dont' really remember itFinished up Season 1, eight short episodes, thumbs up, stay right side up. .
It has been my highlight of 2016 so far. Exceptional.
Really? The Goonies was among my all time favorites when I was a kid. I practically wore out the VHS tape watching it.
For an added bit of trivia, I swore up and down that I saw a cut of the movie on TV that had a few extra scenes that weren't in any other releases. It confused the hell out of me, because I had watched it at least 30 times by that point, and never remembered seeing them. For the longest time afterwards, I thought I might've just dreamed them up or something.
Years later, I found out that the Disney Channel had rights to a special cut that they only aired a handful of times, and I had just happened to catch it during one of those times before it forever disappeared into the vapors.
...they actually do fight an octopus in it.
lolol, ive never heard of that. thats interesting
i'm pretty sure i was sick when i watched it so maybe i didnt pay full attention. also theres probably gaps in my memory from that time. its like when i watched 2001 the first time in high school at like 1 am and i had a fever and i felt loopy and honestly i didn't follow much of it especially during the stargate sequence. anyway i rewatched in college and now its my probably my favorite movie from an artistic point of view. a few 80s movies in my top 10 though and mostly due to the spielbergs sentimentality. which ironically is the opposite of a lot of kubrick films, yet they are 2 of my favorite directors.
although spielberg, recently, hasn't done a lot of "edgy" stuff. i mean compare war horse or bridge of spies to saving private ryan and schindlers list.
That had to be a surreal experience, since 2001 plays out somewhat like a fever dream to begin with.
Spielberg has always been consistently good. Even at his worst, here's still good, only mediocre by his own standards.
Though I'd say he reached his absolute peak sometime in the late 90's. The 80's were him at his most entertaining, the 90's at his most realistic. It was probably around the time AI came out, a merely good movie, despite it's pedigree, that he started to plateau, in my opinion.
Last edited:
I agree. all his movies are good and if they're "bad" by his standards they're really just medicore. I thought AI was an interesting movie; i'm not sure why critics didn't like it. It did feel kind of off. It felt like spielberg trying to imitate kubrick trying to do a spielberg movie. i guess sometimes the wonderish kid mentality didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the movie.
the ending seems happy, but honestly i found it pretty bleak. needless to say the movie raises a lot of questions and i think the script was more a kubrick one than a spielberg one. the whole project is interesting seeing as my 2 favorite directors both worked on it. to be honest it felt more kubrick's style with some spielberg thrown in (like the flesh fettish part). however, the movie was missing a textbook part of kubrick's directing: various classical music at different parts of the film and I think this was more of a spielberg decision. (not saying its bad)
another spielberg movie i really liked that i think is underrated was tintin. i know its a european cartoon, but this movie was pretty awesome and really fun.
i still have yet to see some of his recently films like terminal or older ones like empire of the sun but i will eventually. i hope him and scorsese are still making movies for a while.
Speaking of Spielberg, War of the Worlds (2005) dispite the simplistic nature of the conclusion which the story is saddled with by the author, was a supurb retelling, fantastic special effects and tempo, the projection of chaos, even with Tom Cruise
, along with the impressively cinematography, the seemless inside-outside the van sequence, although the Matrix reloaded did something like that 2 years earlier.A.I. (2001) impressed me because of the perspective from which this story is told, the feelings generated by an AI, it's search for answers, it makes you question what it is to be human. The conflict, human resentment for this kind of technology, along with the bleak ending, (if you care about the human race),
along with just one day with someone special. It made me sad on several levels.
Last edited:
The show was OK. Not great. OK. 3/5
I could have done without the nostalgia hook, as there are 1000 other places to find all that stuff in the year 2016. The creators of this show were born one year after the show was set, so the 80's nostalgia is like that of a cover band covering another cover band's version of a song - twice removed from the actual experience of the original thing. I think that was apparent to anyone alive and a child at the time (I was seven in 1983). NO kid would have been caught dead riding a banana seat in 1983.
There were some outright plagiaristic elements that sort of offended me and showed the low level of creativity involved in the show's production (the in-between-world is a DIRECT rip from the film Under the Skin). The soundtrack did not leave any impression on me. I can't recall a single sound. I am a fan of synth wave...so very particular. I would have rather had someone like Steve Moore or Anthony Paterra be involved - true masters of the style. The creature was a bit of a let down. Practical effects would have been more suited to the theme. Not a fan of the obvious CGI that was used.
I am curious how this show moves to a second season. How many more referenctial scenes will they be able to pull from the past? Maybe they will start mining Friedkin and Coppola.
I could have done without the nostalgia hook, as there are 1000 other places to find all that stuff in the year 2016. The creators of this show were born one year after the show was set, so the 80's nostalgia is like that of a cover band covering another cover band's version of a song - twice removed from the actual experience of the original thing. I think that was apparent to anyone alive and a child at the time (I was seven in 1983). NO kid would have been caught dead riding a banana seat in 1983.
There were some outright plagiaristic elements that sort of offended me and showed the low level of creativity involved in the show's production (the in-between-world is a DIRECT rip from the film Under the Skin). The soundtrack did not leave any impression on me. I can't recall a single sound. I am a fan of synth wave...so very particular. I would have rather had someone like Steve Moore or Anthony Paterra be involved - true masters of the style. The creature was a bit of a let down. Practical effects would have been more suited to the theme. Not a fan of the obvious CGI that was used.
I am curious how this show moves to a second season. How many more referenctial scenes will they be able to pull from the past? Maybe they will start mining Friedkin and Coppola.
That was kind of the whole point[?] I dug on the ~33 years removing a few plot mechanisms like cell phones, digital cameras, the internet.
Hahaha, well, I think that was done by design, consider the type of kids, those bikes were made through '84, and it was only Mike the other kids have BMX style. Most people wouldn't be caught dead playing D&D, but they don't care, his bike is an extra throwback, it even looks like it's pretty beat, I bet it's supposed to be a few years old.
It's hard for me to find a good picture. I am counting two banana seats and two BMX-style.
(Will's BMX bike not pictured)
I was a D&D-playing, fringe-interest kid. Not a nerd, but not cool, either. D&D we played inside. NO ONE I knew would be seen outside riding in a seat like that. NO ONE.
Oh yeah, you're right, hahaha, Caleb has the hybrid going, banana seat with some BMX style handlebars
Oh you were definitely a nerd, regardless of what your Mom said
Oh you were definitely a nerd, regardless of what your Mom said
Oh you were definitely a nerd, regardless of what your Mom said
Yeah, probably...
Speaking of Spielberg, War of the Worlds (2005) dispite the simplistic nature of the conclusion which the story is saddled with by the author, was a supurb retelling, fantastic special effects and tempo, the projection of chaos, even with Tom Cruise
A.I. (2001) impressed me because of the perspective from which this story is told, the feelings generated by an AI, it's search for answers, it makes you question what it is to be human. The conflict, human resentment for this kind of technology, along with the bleak ending, (if you care about the human race),
i remember watching war of the worlds in theaters. i liked it, but i didn't really analyze most of the movie at the time.
and yeah AI was pretty introspective. as a corollary to your point of "what it means to be human" another question i saw was "at what point do people stop perceiving others to be human" my reasoning for this was during the flesh fettish thunderdome thing, the crowd didn't care about the adult robots but when they saw the kid was a robot, they all felt bad for him. additionally the question of what is it to be human i feel was left kind of ambiguous (as is usual with kubrick works), because i think in one scene, the husband mentions that the kid is programmed to respond as how a loving child would. and i think the mother responded better to when the child acted in that way. but she never really loved him like her human son.
i was a tad confused to the circumstances of the couple's real child. At first I thought he was dead, which makes the wife wanting a robot child understandable. But their human child actually isn't dead; seems as if he just has a motor neuron problem. so then she decides to keep the robot child because she longs to hear or interact with a child acting as if it is loved? honestly i found her character slightly selfish, but its interesting to note that from other scenes, having these "mechas" was a normal part of life for people so i guess her wanting to have him around the house makes a little more sense in context. in any case, i don't particularly think that the robot kid knew how to love (even though they programmed it that way). i think that his reactions were that of how a loving child would respond and react to things and his search (lasting 2000 years) is just him responding to the environment after he was "programmed" by the wife to be imprinted (which again isn't actually a human thing)
also seeing manhattan (and the two towers) under water was pretty weird.
Well, David imprinted on his Mom, a programmed way to shortcut a process that takes time to develop. He loved as best he could. When there was that little misunderstanding at the pool, she felt like he was a threat to her son despite the fact her real son provoked him, and she felt bad for him so my impression is she turned him lose, versus turning in back in to be reprogrammed, although getting a fresh start might have been a better option. I think a lot depends upon the viewer sees these mechs, just like you would view Data from STNG. Does he really have feelings or are they a programmed response? And humans, are we programmed?
The total irony of this particular story (hidden for anyone who has not seen it):
is that it's the A.I. that prevails, with intelligence that far surpasses humans, and it's the biological humans relegated to the dustbin of history. Which leaves the viewer asking, are their feelings and perceptions any less valid and precious than our own?
This is the most thought provoking aspect of any A.I. based story, which bleeds over into the subject of religion/souls. Maybe outside the purview of the Community Forum, but when the soul is removed from the equation, any reasoning intelligence regardless of it's origin could be just as valid as we are. And in contrast, with souls, they might be able to latch onto any physical mechanism that allows them to perceive and interact with this world and each other. Rich territory for science fiction writers.
I can't help feeling though that a far better film would have been made had they had the courage toWell, David imprinted on his Mom, a programmed way to shortcut a process that takes time to develop. He loved as best he could. When there was that little misunderstanding at the pool, she felt like he was a threat to her son despite the fact her real son provoked him, and she felt bad for him so my impression is she turned him lose, versus turning in back in to be reprogrammed, although getting a fresh start might have been a better option. I think a lot depends upon the viewer sees these mechs, just like you would view Data from STNG. Does he really have feelings or are they a programmed response? And humans, are we programmed?
The total irony of this particular story (hidden for anyone who has not seen it):
is that it's the A.I. that prevails, with intelligence that far surpasses humans, and it's the biological humans relegated to the dustbin of history. Which leaves the viewer asking, are their feelings and perceptions any less valid and precious than our own?
This is the most thought provoking aspect of any A.I. based story, which bleeds over into the subject of religion/souls. Maybe outside the purview of the Community Forum, but when the soul is removed from the equation, any reasoning intelligence regardless of it's origin could be just as valid as we are. And in contrast, with souls, they might be able to latch onto any physical mechanism that allows them to perceive and interact with this world and each other. Rich territory for science fiction writers.
end the film at the blue fairy. Fade out .... be truly introspective
Instead the final 20 mins of the film felt grafted on to create a happier ending for audiences to the detriment of the overall film narrative. It sullied the film for me.
I thought this show was really great. I was thinking it may end up pretty cheesy as well, as another poster stated, but I thought they did a fantastic job of making the 89's feel a great experience. I was a kid in the 80's and It gives me a great nostalgic feel. I definitely plan to watch it next year as well. Looking forward to seeing where the story leads.
Part of the Spielberg and A.I. Comments-
I would not have been happy with the ending you described because it leaves David in a very dark place believing in a fantasy, regardless of how appropriate that might be. True, the actual ending is more positive than what you describe, but it shows an intriguing aftermath that's still bleak from the human perspective.
I would not have been happy with the ending you described because it leaves David in a very dark place believing in a fantasy, regardless of how appropriate that might be. True, the actual ending is more positive than what you describe, but it shows an intriguing aftermath that's still bleak from the human perspective.
