Text | Wang Chongyang lp
The fourth season of the American drama "Stranger Things" will be released soon in 2022.
The news first delighted many loyal fans, since the first season aired in July 2016, "Stranger Things" has gained countless fans, and this high-scoring American drama positioned in the sci-fi thriller genre has quickly achieved considerable results in North America and the world with its unique themes, distinctive characters and mysterious elements.
Of course, as the days of the fourth season of "Seeing the Light" draw closer, for this once "phenomenon-level" high-scoring American drama, there are also some doubts, not only from their American counterparts, but also from "weird fans" around the world.
One
Numerous elements The "Strange Universe" has been born
As a true Cthulhu myth and "lover", Stranger Things made me get all my favorite elements as soon as I debuted:
The fear of the "dominator of the old days", the parallel space between the other world and the real world, the nostalgic homage to various classic film and television works of the 80s, the "pure love" dog food between the little male and female protagonists, and the wonderful and magical battle of the supporting characters, there is a more important element:
These stories all take place in a small town in Indiana, USA, even after three seasons, each season of the villain is more than one supernatural, and its ambitions are more arrogant than one, in short, "if you want to conquer the world, you must first conquer your county." The county's status in the "strange universe" is no less than that of China's Cao County, and New York is eclipsed by it.
Because this town is not only "fortunate" to be the "other world" exploration base specially set up by the US government in the 1980s (the story is set in 1984) to compete with the Soviet Union for hegemony, but more importantly, it gathers several protagonists in the "strange universe" who can save the earth.
The decadent middle-aged sheriff "Uncle Snake", who thinks that he is the "ceiling of the battle strength of the other world", mike, the male protagonist with a clean face and a soft inner rigidity, the super-powered communicator "Little 11" who has been concerned by the audience since the first season, and the peak of appearance, Steven who has been ridiculed by everyone as "evergreen" because of his girlfriend's breakup and confession of Lily Sister, will, who has a significant complication of "every time the big BOSS appears on the scalp will itch" and so on.
As for the other characters can not be said to be mediocre, on the contrary, they all have their own advantages, until the end of the third season, the above characters have provoked the soul responsibility and clue series of the show.
The origin of the story around the "strange universe" is also very simple:
A quiet town, a group of idle bear children, a chance disappearance, a mysterious military base, a military experiment in a vain attempt to dominate the world, a super powerful girl who escapes from the base, a monster of a different dimension that appears because of the connection to reality, a thrilling death-defying battle...
In the very beginning of Stranger Things, not only the creator writers are on the protagonist's backpack and Halloween characters, full of homages to the classic horrors of the eighties, Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters, but also because of school bullying and simple love that belongs to children alone.
These ingenious and exquisite plot designs not only arouse the nostalgic dreams of the audience, so that they can frequently popularize the science of young friends around them, but also make modern urbanites who have long been deeply involved in the emotional abyss feel the greatness of love and the sigh of sacrifice for a short time.
Coupled with the Cthulhu myth and "doom complex" that Westerners have long deposited, a stark struggle between survival and death, sacrifice and greed, good and evil, purity and filth can quickly make people fall into the story.
This is one of the reasons why the first season of Stranger Things was immediately widely acclaimed after it aired that year, and it was named "2016 Film Association of America's Top Ten Dramas" and won the 28th Producers Guild of America Award for Best Group Drama Series.
What is even more rare is that in the year after the second season was broadcast, "Stranger Things" once won the 69th Emmy Awards in 2017 for best casting, best original theme song, best sound editing in the drama series, best title design, and best single-shot screen editing in drama series.
Even in its controversial third season, Stranger Things won the 45th Saturn Awards for Best Streaming Horror/Thriller Drama Series and the People's Choice Awards for Drama Series of the Year and Drama Series of the Year in 2019.
The witty American people naturally will not let go of its surroundings, from the image and clothing of the characters in the "Strange Universe" to the image of the monster, which has derived a series of brands and handicrafts.
It should be said that "Strange Universe" has not only captured a group of global fans in just three years, but also become another high-scoring brand under Netflix. However, it should be noted that as mentioned above, at the beginning of the third season of Stranger Things, negative reviews also arise.
Two
Narrow vision Whether the "three generations and cuts" can be fulfilled
I once mentioned a deadly and well-known feature of most American dramas when I told American Horror Story:
Don't exceed three seasons, after which you will be "tired".
This "greasy" includes the following two characteristics:
First, in order to make the plot continue, he will not hesitate to "forcibly explain".
For example, at the beginning of the second season, when the audience sighed at the reappearance of "Little 11", in order to suppress the doubts of the audience, the screenwriter arranged for her to fall into the other world in the first season, which seemed to end up with the monster, and later did not know why it reappeared in the real world.
Second, always write a few "people", I said before, there is a commonality in American dramas:
When a character who originally seemed to be a supporting role has more scenes and even some childhood memories about this character, nostalgia for the glory years and even arranged emotional dramas, it means that this role is "not far from death".
This "physical sublimation" of the character has appeared in classic American dramas such as Breaking Bad, House of Cards, The Walking Dead, and Mexico. Until now, I don't know whether this is because the actor's contract expires and he is unwilling to cooperate anymore, "let the TA die" for "venting his anger", or simply pay tribute to the role.
Just like the brother and sister group that appeared in the second season of "Stranger Things" replaced "Evergreen" Steven and became the first handsome man in the town, in the second season, he was at most a grumpy man, and at the beginning of the third season, he became a wanderer who hooked up with a married woman, and the plot seems to be in order to make a magnificent preparation for this role, and also specially arranged for "Little 11" to see his tragic life as a child through the exploration of The Inner World of Big Mao.
Although at the end of the third season, when Da Mao, who got rid of the control of the monster, chose to use his body to block the monster's attack and died in order to save everyone, the arrangement was more like the main message of "give you a scene and you hurry to die".
As for why the third season is controversial, another reason is that the creator's brain hole has been significantly reduced:
A group of Soviet soldiers set up a base underground in an American town in order to find the "other world" experiment abandoned by the US government in the first two seasons, and what is outrageous is that not to mention that the Soviet soldiers wearing military uniforms have no sense of violation in the American world, just in terms of the experiment that ran through three seasons, a group of Soviets came to the United States from afar to persuade the local mayor to act as "American traitors" and use the equipment abandoned by the Americans to conduct experiments with great fanfare, and what is even more absurd is that by the end of the third season, they have not figured out what the Soviets are trying to do with this experiment -
Say that it is to compete for global domination, Siberia and Chernobyl are very large, enough for the Soviets to play, and they cannot run to the United States;
It is said that it is to lead monsters to destroy the earth together, so what did the Soviets really want?
Therefore, the background setting of the third season is not only separated from the "tribute" and "nostalgia" of the first two seasons, but also "black" and "black" for the sake of "black" and "black" without logic.
The most outrageous thing is probably the intuitive view of most viewers about the third season:
Cthulhu's growing ambitions don't match the town's capacity—
Several protagonists are still engaged in small things about their children's love, but the town is still the "starting point of the universe", which obviously makes people feel:
Small, small.
At the end of the third season, there is a routine of the beginning of the second season, when everyone thinks that "Uncle Snake" is generous and righteous, in a "labor camp" guarded by the Soviet army in the Easter egg, a big man who is working shows a resolute face...
Uncle Snake is still there, and the story is not over.
But when I saw Uncle Snake, looking back at several leading actors who were obviously already "big children", I actually felt that "Stranger Things" had become a little "not so strange".
Three
Conclusion
In 2021, due to the impact of the epidemic, the quality of film and television dramas, including foreign film and television dramas, is more or less variable. I said before that "Mei Di" was the season because of the shooting location and the problem of actors, and the two stories in one season were like "the eunuch tells the ancient - the following is gone".
But the old problems about American dramas have not been changed before and after the outbreak:
The start is wonderful, the reputation is quite good, the income is good, the efforts are continued, the brand is established, the creativity is exhausted, the compilation is made for the sake of editing, and finally the end is broken.
The topicality and malleability of the third season of "Stranger Things" have obviously followed the same old path as most American dramas.
As a group of children grows over time, the audience watches them go from infancy to maturity. The background of the story and the perspective of the universe and vision should also be deeper and broader.
But the truth is that when the "nostalgia" that can resonate with people is no longer just "awkward black", the small town that once made people want to go to the same sweet taste of suffering and sweetness also began to become mediocre.
Although the official introduction of Netflix mentioned that the perspective of the fourth season of "Stranger Things" will be more ambitious, I have temporarily reserved my opinion when I have not seen the episode.
Unlike the similar film and television IP "Harry Potter" series that tells the growth of the protagonist, which is a mature and very complete magical world, the follow-up episodes of "Stranger Things" are the "ready-to-sell goods" that a group of screenwriters in the industrial era constantly adjust according to market changes and various uncontrollable factors, and even temporarily modify.
It is clearly a little difficult to guide mature audiences to believe a story that is no longer precious. But regardless of the reputation of the fourth season of "Stranger Things" in 2022, this classic sci-fi thriller drama also interprets a truth as well as its Netflix "little friends":
Don't forget your original intention, you have to be consistent.