The kids are not alright in these new photos from Stranger Things‘ fourth season
Get ready for some 1980s teen slasher energy in the upcoming season of the supernatural Netflix series
Aux News Stranger Things
The passage of time can be a harrowing thing, especially when it comes to aging or let’s say… waiting years in-between seasons for a supernatural horror TV series about a group of kids in small-town Indiana. Three years later, the ticking of the grandfather clock is almost up as Stranger Things returns May 27 with the first half of season four, and then comes back for the second half on July 1. Netflix celebrated the series’ imminent return by sharing a fresh batch of pictures from the upcoming season.
But even the Duffer Brothers acknowledged the long gap between seasons in a preview of their interview on the Netflix podcast Present Company With Krista Smith. “I think they’ll be happy when they see it. It’s very, very long, which is why it’s taking us a very long time,” Ross Duffer said.
A change is also coming in the energy of the show, at least from the perspectives of the original group of bicycle riding kids turned shaggy-haired teens. With aspects of horror entwined in many parts of the series, the Duffer brothers have decided to go for an even darker energy overall.
“When we pitched it to Netflix all those years ago, we pitched it as the kids are…The Goonies in E.T.,” Duffer explained. “That’s their storyline. And the adults are in Jaws and Close Encounters and then the teens are in Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween. But, this year, we don’t have the kids. We can’t do The Goonies anymore. And so, suddenly, we’re leaning much harder into that horror movie territory that we love. It was fun to make that change.”
With horror movie legend Robert Englund having a guest appearance in the new season, it seems that the newly minted teens won’t just be gripping with the terror of puberty and high school. Though, their matching haircuts and the overload of flannel in the freshly dropped images below beg to differ.
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I’m betting on this season being the one everyone stops giving a shit about Netflix’s last ok original. First season was excellent, the rest have been meh.
The *tiny adults* are not alright in these new photos from Stranger Things’ fourth season
Poor Will. For all the bad things that have happened to him, that haircut may be the worst.
I had that haircut at approximately that age, in approximately that year.
People keep making fun of the haircuts in these photos on Twitter, and like…have they ever seen photos from the actual decade? This was it, guys. These haircuts are painfully realistic. Deal with it.
I really appreciate how this show doesn’t give us an idealized version of the ‘80s. We get to see the stuff that was actually common, including terrible clothes, terrible hair, dumb TV shows and bad pop songs.
Compare to, say, Gross Pointe Blank, which would have you believe that the Class of 1987 were all effortlessly cool as teens which, no, they were not.
>I really appreciate how this show doesn’t give us an idealized version of the ‘80s. not really, the kids would be saying way more racist, sexist and homophobic shit if it was. im not saying they should include those things its just that STranger things is very much idealized version of the 80s
You think that haircut was bad, check Bud Bundy in the late 80s!
That mane is glorious!
Haven’t you heard? Haircuts are literally the most important thing in the universe, and if you see a “bad” haircut without expressing how much you despise it and its owner, you’re a bad person. I mean gosh darn it, you might as well pass by an avocado bathroom without comment![I would link to avocado bathroom sketch there, but kinja just messes up links, so…]
I was alive then, and know that the haircuts are realistic. That doesn’t make them not terrible.
Makes your comment sorta weird!
How so? I feel sorry for Will being saddled with that awful haircut, just I would have anyone who had the same haircut at the time.
Same – other than mine came down over my ears until some point in 1985.
The hair is accurate, unfortunately 🙁
I had that haircut from the mid 80s to the mid 90s. 😢
Yeah, I’m especially disappointed since this seemed like an ideal moment to retool the character’s look, after Will’s season 3 arc was all about him taking a bat to his “Gosh, I’m still a kid who just wants to play D&D” illusions. I would’ve loved to see the character integrate the cheeky, ostentatious side of himself that he’d previously only been able to express through his “Will the Wise” persona—maybe reinvent himself as like a funky art kid or something.
Just came to say “Poor Will” for that exact reason. Kid is always getting saddled with just THE WORST haircuts.
I mean I think they intend it as a bit of visual characterization to telegraph his “sheltered momma’s boy” relationship with his frazzled mother Joyce.
Kids?
Stranger Things is still on?
love that this season apparently is set maybe 2 years after season 1 but we’ve gone through 3 presidents since then.even when netflix has a massive hit that works they still manage to fuck it up behind the scenes.
I get your point but to say we’ve “gone through 3 Presidents since then”? By that reasoning we’d gone through two when season two came out.
even when netflix has a massive hit that works they still manage to fuck it up behind the scenes.Did you forget about the worldwide pandemic that shut down movie/show production for a full year? This season was supposed to be out already.
I’d scoff but you wouldn’t hear it behind my N95 mask.
the pandemic didn’t have anything to do with the 2 year wait between seasons 2 and 3. they also should have had shot 3 and 4 together, specifically because the kids were already getting too old (and season 3 basically disappeared from consciousness immediately). they obviously couldn’t have foreseen the pandemic, but they’ve done a bad job with this show since the beginning.
This kinda ridiculously assumes that S3 & S4 were *written* at the same time. And that any of the actors would have been up for filming back to back seasons. This is playing Monday Morning Quarterback for Wimbledon.
i’m saying they should have planned better. you can plan to go ‘hey the duffer brothers, write 3 & 4 and we’ll plan to make those together, because we’re banking on the kids and they’re getting old’they’ve literally stealth filmed entire sequels to movies before the original has even been released. back to back seasons are done constantly and these were surefire hits. obviously i’m ‘what if’ing but these are scenarios that netflix has done for other, far less important shows in the past and present.
Holy shit. I just assumed they had to do a time jump because the kids grew. Maybe the plot is that the upside-down monster is putting growth hormones in their food.
We’ve gone through 3 presidents since July of 2019?
It’s like whole thing with Walt from Lost.
“Say ‘Walt’ again! Say it one more motherfucking time!”
This comment deserves more stars.
Netflix is really overplaying their hand expecting fans to wait how many years, and not even with a firm release date, to be excited by..pictures..
Worked for Adult Swim, “The Venture Bros.” and tweets from Jackson Publick.
Stranger Things returns May 27 with the first half of season four, and then comes back for the second half on July 1.What do you mean by “no firm release date”? It’s right there.
I assume they meant *before* these ads. Like the intervening years.OTOH, there was a sort of big deal global problem that made productions difficult to predict…
I’m pretty sure we got these dates several months back.
I mean…. Yeah. I get it. There were plenty of indications.But CineCraft’s original point, I believe, was that from the last season to the upcoming, there was a LOT of time and LITTLE information on offer. Which obviously was compounded by the pandemic. And is also sort of par for the course where it concerns Stranger Things. BUT is also, admittedly, for fans of the show, kind of annoying.I feel like we’re all stepping on each other’s dicks a bit here.
I hate to be that guy, but the pandemic couldn’t have been the only thing to slow production down, right? Filming for James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” started in 2019 and was delayed by the pandemic before being released in 2021. With that, James Gunn also managed to write all of the “Peacemaker” show, which he had filmed, wrapped up, and released in January 2022. That’s just one example, but still, since the release of Stranger Things Season 3 in July 2019, a whole film and a companion sequel series managed to get made by another studio.
Waiting this long, and then they split the season in half. Likely to mitigate all the unsubs as soon as it’s over. So they keep the hiatus just short enough- a month break- that folks probably won’t bother. Along with the price hikes, Netflix is straight up playing games
I’m considering cancelling it after I finish Ozark, which the 2nd part drops on April 29th. I’ll sign up again once all of Stranger Things is available.
Wait until you see Disney+
Where they just pulled all of the top tier Netflix MCU content from the last decade? yes please.
I’m a fan of Netflix and continue to pay for it but I noticed that right away when they announced the release dates. I get it to an extent since pretty much every other streaming service is going to weekly drops of there shows but it was still a surprise.
Most regular network shows somehow managed through the pandemic, while other streaming shows were abruptly cancelled (GLOW). I’m guessing splitting up seasons in two (La Casa de Papel, Star Trek Discovery) or three (The Walking Dead) parts is also due to the pandemic, but it is truly ridiculous. Makes you wonder how they did things back in the 20th century.
They used to break seasons up into, like, 22-24 different parts, all released at different times. I think it was just a scam to get people to keep tuning in, personally.
The problem is Netflix sorta defines itself as the king of binge TV. So they can go to a weekly release format that other streamers have recently adopted and found success with. As someone who ain’t got time to binge in a fan of weekly releases but Netflix won’t go that way. Best they can do is split a season into parts to spread those subscriptions numbers
I know it’s fun to snark, but honestly, this new season of Pen15 looks great.
My interest in ST has waned a bit, but only because there was a long gap in the show and life intervened (plus, I have consumed a fair amount of other pop culture in the time between). That being said… ST does a slasher is something I could get behind.
The quality declined substantially between S1 and S3 for me. Or at least the novelty wore off and what was left wasn’t all that interesting. I loved the Goonies/ET homage but by S3 it had worn thin. It’s going to have to be something really great with slasher whatever for me to like it. Having said all of that B.S. I’ll probably still watch it and endure my wife’s sneering.
Millie Brown looks like young Winona Ryder in that picture, which reminds me especially now that Joyce has adopted Eleven on the show, I think Winona should adopt her in real life as well
I too believe that children should be taken from their parents and given to celebrities they resemble. I’ve never met anyone else who shared that opinion.
Man, looking at these photos I come to find I don’t remember any of these character’s names. It’s been so long since season 3.
I’ve just started assigning them random numbers in my head, starting with the girl, for the sake of simplicity.
The magic girl is Eleven and then the boys are all Jesus disciple names and the older sister is Karen and then there’s Steve Holt and that Jon guy. Oh and they added two new girls in season three and I think one of them is named Jennifer (as was the style of the times).
You forgot JeanRalphio.
Steve Holt’s younger step brother from his dad’s redo family?
That’s my headcanon at least.
Who could forget the apostle St. Dustin!
Patron saint of actor tricks.
I hope the strange youths go pay a return visit to those Chicago punk who apparently live directly on Navy Pier. Then Sean Astin’s ghost show up and is like, “Hey how come I’m the only person who made a heroic sacrifice and then stayed dead?” Then the rude sheriff who is definitely also dead, you guys (definitely), throws a beer can at him and tells him to shut the fuck up.
Why not just watch the movies this show is based on?They’re better.
in-between—> in betweenbicycle riding kids —> bicycle-riding kidsnewly minted teens —> newly-minted teensThough, their matching haircuts —> Though their matching haircuts