Hey guys, I’m Mike and I definitely did not envy the Duffer Brothers during the buildup to ‘Stranger Things 2.’
Can you imagine the pressure to make a satisfying follow-up to such a beloved hit?
I mean, it was my favorite show of 2016. Anyway,
Fortunately, they avoided the sophomore slump by taking a lesson from one of the greatest sequels ever: ‘Aliens.’
James Cameron built on the success of Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ by changing everything from the scale of the story to the genre of the movie,
And The Duffers used the same lessons to up the ante with ‘Stranger Things 2.’
So let’s take a closer, SPOILER filled look at
How ‘Aliens’ Helped ‘Stranger Things’ Build a Bigger World.
Starting with
More Monsters
The first ‘Alien’ was just one xenomorph against a crew of terrified space truckers,
similar to how our ‘Stranger Things’ heroes had their hands full with a single Demogorgon.
Cameron needed to raise the stakes for ‘Aliens,’ so he dreamed up an army of swarming xenomorphs to raise hell on LV-426,
They're coming outta the goddamn walls!
just like how the Duffers unleashed packs of snarling Demo-dogs on the town of Hawkins.
Increasing the monster count allows for a lot more action,
and keeps the sequel from treading too much familiar ground,
but it does come at a cost.
Part of the mystique of the original xenomorph was how seemingly unstoppable it was.
Ripley couldn’t even kill it directly, she just had to stay alive long enough to blast it out of an airlock.
But the xenomorphs got nerfed hard in ‘Aliens.’
They certainly get their fill of space marines, but drones are exploding left and right in this movie,
and the acid blood only seems to matter when the script remembers it.
In the first season of ‘Stranger Things,’ the Demogorgon was an unkillable menace.
I mean, it took three teens and a house full of traps to slightly wound it.
But the new Demo-dogs aren’t too much of a problem, at least if you’re a main character.
I mean Steve is smashing their heads like he’s Gallagher,
and in the climactic scene Hopper just blows them away.
They’re still effective, but they’re not quite as scary as a single slimy Demogorgon played by a man in a rubber suit.
Speaking of which, special effects can also suffer when things get bigger.
H.R. Giger created a meticulously detailed suit for his Xenomorph,
and Ridley Scott hid it away in darkness to let your imagination fill in the terrifying details.
But there were too many xenos in ‘Aliens’ to get that kind of treatment,
so Cameron mostly used performers in black spandex with alien armor glued on.
In ‘Stranger Things,’ one of the Duffers’ main goals was to create a memorable monster of out real, practical effects,
and they definitely acheived it.
But in season two, I’m seeing a lot more CGI.
Here’s the thing, though:
You know how slasher movies get really old by like, the fifth sequel or so?
That’s because the stakes never really change,
It’s always the same monster killing the same clueless teens.
Most slashers just aren’t scary after you’ve seen them so many times.
You the monster's gonna come alive, and you know the teens are gonna die. There's nothing at stake outside of their own lives.
That’s why adding more action is such a brilliant move.
You can’t just have Will and the gang get menaced by another Demogorgon,
Or even another monster like it.
Instead, the Duffers successfully pivoted away from low-key horror to apocalyptic action.
And since the bigger scale required a vastly bigger threat, that requires a lot more
Worldbuilding
In ‘Alien,’ we know almost nothing about the Xenomorph.
It came from an egg in an ancient spacecraft, hatched into a wriggly worm of death and grew into a drooling killer.
For ‘Aliens,’ Cameron expanded on Scott and Giger’s original concept by introducing a single, monstrous Queen that controlled her army of mindless drones.
Meanwhile, in ‘Stranger Things,’ the Demogorgon was a total mystery.
They literally knew nothing about it, they had to use 'Dungeons & Dragons' terminology to equate what it does.
The Demogorgon is tired of your silly human bickering!
The season finished without any real answers on what it was, where it came from, or what it wanted.
That would have worked just fine as the end of a standalone series,
But the sequel needed to expand on the mythology to keep us coming back.
I still feel it...
So, we find out about the Mind Flayer, the giant, tentacled organism that controls all life in the Upside Down,
Not unlike the hive-mind dominated by the xenomorph Queen.
The shadow monster's inside of him. If the vines feel pain, so does Will. Hive mind.
Hive mind. A collective consciousness. It's a superorganism.
It's the thing that controls everything.
Not only that, we learned its purpose: to spread and conquer all of us inferior beings in the real world.
At least according to the kids and their Monster Manual.
The Mind Flayer. What?
Oh my God, none of this is real, it's a kid's game.
No, it's a manual.
It’s not just the scope of the story that increased, it’s the consequences for failure.
‘Alien’ and season 1 were about isolated humans fighting for survival.
Our heroes may lose their lives, but the world would keep on turning.
Both sequels transform the singular struggle into a battle for the species itself.
In ‘Stranger Things 2,’ the fate of our entire dimension is at stake, not just Will and the gang.
It’s like how in ‘Aliens,’ the humans and Xenomorphs are battling for control of the space colony,
while another faction wants to unleash them as bioweapons.
Speaking of which, we learned more about the evil corporation in ‘Aliens,’ too.
In the first movie, it’s only referred to in passing as the “Company,”
But the sequel lets us in on how powerful Weyland-Yutani really is,
and how they’ll stop at nothing to cash in on the xenomorphs.
Those two specimens are worth millions to the bioweapons division.
Now if you're smart, we can both come out of this as heroes and be set up for life.
Just like how ‘Stranger Things 2’ shed more light on the government scientists who are trying to understand, and exploit, the Upside Down,
But imagine for a moment a foreign state, let's say the Soviets, if they heard about our mistake...
Do you think they'd even consider that a mistake? Or would they try to replicate that?
Can’t let the Russkies have it can we?
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids!
The expanded scope opens up tons of awesome new story possibilities.
Number Eight [BELCH], Number Eight [BELCH], Number Eight [BELCH]
As a series grows from a standalone surprise hit to a genuine franchise,
It needs to flesh out its backstory and expand upon the world it created.
And with at least two more seasons of ‘Stranger Things’ planned,
the Duffers have successfully used ‘Aliens’ as a blueprint to build a much larger stage for their story to play out on.
Sticking so close to Cameron’s masterpiece also set up opportunities for
Subversion.
There are plenty of smaller nods to ‘Aliens’ that don’t necessarily tie into the big picture,
Like the way Hopper gets sucked into the tunnel floor like a colonist cocooned to the wall,
Eleven takes an elevator down for a final showdown with the big boss,
Or how a team of gung-ho sci-fi soldiers get eaten alive as their superiors watch on screens.
Get out of here! Ahh!
They might not tie into the greater narrative themes,
But they’re such cool iconic moments in action cinema, why not throw ‘em in?
What the hell?
It solidifies the connection, and it sets us up for some great subversions when things stray from the ‘Aliens’ formula.
Case in point? Dr. Owens.
It’s clear that the Duffers cast Paul Reiser based on his iconic role as the sleazy corporate scumbag Burke in ‘Aliens.’
It was a bad call, Ripley. It was a badd call.
Bad call? These people are DEAD, Burke!
I mean, in their original script, the character was literally named ‘Paul Reiser.’
Those were your words!
So during my entire binge, I just kept waiting for him to turn heel, betray our heroes, and die in a suitably ironic manner,
just like Burke.
So imagine my surprise when he actually turns out to be a decent guy!
And if it kills the boy?
Then quite frankly, Sam, it kills him.
Say that to me again.
Sure, he’s still working for the evil lab exploiting the Upside Down,
But he stands up for Will and tries his best to save him,
He even survives the night, and gives Eleven a birth certificate,
Which is like the nicest thing ever!
Hopper gets to be her dad now. I want Hopper to be my dad!
The Duffers built up our expectations with their ‘Aliens’ homage and self-aware casting of Paul Reiser,
Which made it such a pleasant surprise when they kept Dr. Owens on the side of the good guys.
That’s just what the Duffers do, though.
They get you in the door with some clever references and ‘80s nostalgia,
Create a satisfying story on the foundations built by those who came before,
And throw in that extra little twist that makes ‘Stranger Things’ so special.