After the ending of Stranger Things’ final episode, Netflix released a documentary on the making of season 5. There were many impressive things shown and done; but at the same time, there were many disappointing things that were mentioned/shown that, if addressed, could have made the finale better. I am going to tell you my opinion on the bad, the good, and everything in between.
The Good: One impressive thing they showed was the set design, mainly for the inside of the mindflayer and the occupied military base. For the military, instead of mainly using CGI, most of the set was actually there. They made full houses and buildings just for the set. They had massive lights strung up by cranes there as well. Another impressive set was the inside of the mindflayer, AKA where the kids are kept. It was made of rubber, foam, and plastic, and there were multiple columns. It took months to make each piece and to set it up together. There were multiple artists who worked on the coloring and texture of the columns and worked so hard on perfecting it. I wish my words could put to scale how well they did the sets, so I recommend you go and see it for yourself. One emotional thing was seeing the actors’ comments and final days on the show before the ending. You can feel and see the emotions they are expressing. You have to remember that they spent a large amount of their childhood and teen years with this series, and it has impacted their lives so much. It was so great to watch them grow, and see their final moments on this series, and can’t wait to see what they do next.
The Bad: Towards the middle of the documentary, it showed a scene where the writers are talking to the Duffer brothers, and telling them that there have to be Demogorgons in Dimension X. The Duffer brothers would go on to say that they had Demogorgon fatigue and that was the reason they did not have them in the home dimension. In an interview earlier, they also said the reason the Demogorgons did not try to help the mind flayer, or were walking around in the dimension, was because Vecna was surprised and did not expect an attack. First, this is just lazy, because even if you have fatigue over all the Demogorgon stuff, they still have to show up in their home dimension, because it’s where they originate from. I know that this might seem very obvious, or it can’t be that simple, but it is. When the Mindflayer, AKA the main thing controlling all the demos, was being attacked, you would think it would do whatever it could to stay alive. But for some reason, they did not show up. I’m not a writer/filmmaker yet, but even I know that the demos had to show up in some capacity in the fight against the Mindflayer, even if it was towards the end. As I mentioned earlier, the Duffers said the reason for the lack of demos was because Vecna did not expect a surprise attack. This is also bad writing and makes Vecna look dumb, because back in season 4, the way they defeated Vecna was also with a surprise attack. Most people, if they were surprise attacked, would have precautions or make preparations to make sure it would never happen again. The same should be with Vecna. Even if he thought it would be impossible to reach him, he would at least take the smallest precaution to prevent it from ever happening again.
In one screen shot, it showed a tab of the Duffer brothers’ writing, and on the tabs you can see Chatgpt and Reddit. When they showed this, they where talking about writing the ending. The problem with this, is years ago they said they already had planned out the ending and knew what it was going to be. Also in the documentary, they started to shoot the final episode even though the script wasn’t finished, and the shooters had to shoot into the dark on what to do for some of the scenes. This shows horrible planning and management, as they lied to our faces and showed that they did not know what they were doing. The info we have makes it seem like the Duffers just ChatGPTed the ending/got it from Reddit and did not really work on writing a proper ending. This could explain why there were so many plot holes left over that they said would be addressed and filled from the ending and from the documentary. If you were wondering, they did not fix almost any of the plot holes from the series in this documentary.
In conclusion, the Stranger Things documentary was overall ok. It had some amazing parts and a few glaring flaws, but in all it’s worth the watch. Stranger Things was a great show, and I’m sad to see it end. Even though it has its flaws, it’s still fun to watch, and I hope the Duffer brothers improve and we see something new from them one day.
