I was going to review Stranger Things Season 4 today but there’s only one problem. I’m still on episode 6 of season 3. I had a brief flurry of motivation to binge the rest of the episodes up to and including season 4, but binging is so 2011. We’ve evolved past that, have we not? I’ll try to watch it all by next week assuming I don’t get consumed by a demigorgan.
Why am I still stuck on season 3, you may ask?
It’s complicated. I’m reluctant to say this because she’s so beloved but I’m kind of creeped out by Millie Bobby Brown. She’s like a 40 year old in an 18 year old’s body, playing a 15 year old. In fact, all the kids are looking a lot older than their TV ages. And this is in Season 3! I can only imagine how they look in Season 4.
You run into this problem when your storyline is continuous from season to season. The kids start turning into gigantic adolescent monsters despite only several days of movie time passing, lol. I full expect that in season 5, Finn Wolfhard will have graying temples and complain of seasonal arthritis.
Check out the stories of Patrick Fugit on the set of Almost Famous. Two weeks would go by and he’d grow 4 inches. So in the first half of a scene he’d be shorter than Kate Hudson, and in the second half he’d be taller.
It was interesting to see where I gave up on Season 3 of Stranger Things, since Netflix remembers exactly where you tuned out. It turned out to be the sequence where that annoying-as-sh%t girl who can’t act kept blabbering on to Gaten Matarazzo. She was it for me. I was like, “I can’t take this anymore. This show is made for 10 year olds.” That bad taste in my mouth prevented me from ever going back.
But when I started it up again, I realized that I like a lot of the actors here, despite Millie-Bobby Brown being 3 years away from receiving social security benefits. I love Gaten. I love Joe Keery, Sadie Sink, David Harbour, Maya Hawke. And the production value is astounding. There was a scene in a supermarket and I noticed that every single cereal box – of which there were 50 different brands – were all 1980s authentic.
The average person doesn’t think about that. But I think about it. It takes a lot of work to pull that off. I heard that Stranger Things currently has the highest budget per episode of any show. I believe it.
Something a lot of people are wondering is, can Stranger Things save Netflix? Season 4 doubled Bridgerton 2’s debut, which was the previous ratings record-holder. It occupies the only IP slot for the streamer that holds ongoing value – that drama/sci-fi genre spritz that geeks become obsessed with.
The reason this matters is because it’s the one area Netflix can’t compete with the studios on since there are puppies who have been around longer than the streamer. If Netflix goes the way of Blockbuster, a lack of IP will be the primary reason. So Stranger Things is valuable to them in that sense. However, it’s not a clear path forward for future stories. The main reason people watch it is because of the chemistry of these kids. As I’ve fastidiously pointed out, they’re not going to be kids for long. And then what?
Netflix’s only other IP plan seems to be to make Knives Out a franchise. Oh Netflix. Oh my poor Netflix. Never ever bet on Rian Johnson. The force will not be with you. But in all seriousness, who tries to make a franchise out of a very specific whodunnit? That’s not going to end well.
Meanwhile, you’ve got Top Gun 2 taking over the world. Some are calling it ‘the perfect movie’ and I know what they mean. They don’t mean it doesn’t have flaws. It means when you imagine going to the movies and having a great experience, Top Gun 2 fits that slot to a T. It’s action-packed. It’s fun. It’s got a movie star everybody loves. It leaves you with an excitement to go out and experience life. It’s the perfect entertainment experience.
And I know Hollywood loves to get excited about bombs. The sharks get so giddy whenever a highly hyped movie doesn’t perform well. But on the other side of that is how excited they get when they’ve got a hit. The town is so happy. Everybody’s celebrating. Everybody not named Netflix feels good about the possibilities of movies again.
And everyone eats. Joseph Kosinski is now going to become the most desired director in town. Miles Teller’s career has been revived. Tom Cruise is going to be re-courted by the super-franchises, like Marvel, DC, and Fast and Furious.
However, why would Cruise join those franchises when he could just start his own? Yes, Top Gun is about to become a franchise. Should Top Gun become a franchise? Of course not. It’s not built to be one. It’s about jet flying school. What’s the next movie going to be about – parachuting practice?
But the thing is, Top Gun is performing like a mega-franchise film. It’s going to top 1 billion dollars. For those wondering what that means, the last freaking Star Wars movie made 1 billion dollars. You don’t make that kind of money as a producer then waltz off in search of the next Paul Rudd dramedy (no offense to Paul Rudd).
The problem with a sequel to this sequel is that it would barf all over the good will this film garnered. Part of the allure of the film was not seeing Tom Cruise in this role for 30 years. Why then, would we get excited about not seeing him in this role after 2 years?
They could definitely move the starring role over to Miles Teller. I have no doubt in my mind that he would sign for three 20-dollar gift certificates to In and Out. The man was picked to be the next big movie star before making some of the worst career choices in Hollywood history and becoming an afterthought. Then this comes out of nowhere – you bet your a$$ he’d say yes to a sequel.
And you do already have the first sequel storyline ready to go. They want to close down the school for good and focus on unmanned fighters. Rooster has to prove it’s worth keeping manned fighters in service. He goes up against a group of remote desk jockeys piloting their smaller sleeker drone-jets from the safety of a remote facility in New Mexico before taking on Russian drones in a Siberian mission. The story writes itself.
And I suppose there’s no rule that says you have to stay in Top Gun school. So maybe we follow Teller (or other pilots) out on real missions. We’ve definitely got a clear enemy to fight in Russia. So you could have some fun there.
But the franchise would have some uphill battles. Because of Cruise’s star power, none of the other pilots really got a chance to shine. Even Rooster was in the background for most of the film’s first half. So they’d have to build up those pilots and make them worthy of carrying a movie.
But make no bones about it, this is now a franchise. There are going to be many Top Gun films going forward. And I would argue that they should go forward without Cruise. Because the irony is, Cruise’s star power holds everyone else back, which limits the direction the franchise can take. If they want to expand this thing out, we need to see the other characters shine.
And I just don’t see a storyline for Maverick. His storyline in this one was perfect. He was gone for 30 years. He comes back to teach the class. You don’t have that if you pick things up after 2 years. I don’t know. It’ll be interesting to see what Bruckheimer chooses to do. They’ll of course offer Cruise a bajillion dollars because they have to. But they may be better off if he turns them down.
Before I sign out, I have one last thing to share. I saw Ti West’s “X,” the homage to 70s horror flicks about a group of people who head out to a remote cabin to shoot a porno film. The film received a shockingly high 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is notorious for hating on horror films. So I figured I was in for something good.
Maybe my expectations were too high but the movie was just too darn silly. It’s about this old couple next door who slaughters our filmmakers. I’m not going to say it’s impossible for two hobbling 85 year-olds to slaughter 5 people between the ages of 20-40. But talk about some suspension of disbelief. At one point, the old man has to stop in the middle of a field to catch his breath from walking uninterrupted for 3 minutes. But killing people? Sure, that takes no effort at all.
The film does try to explore deeper themes about getting older and the loss of one’s sexuality and the effects it has on our psyche. And while it was noble and, at certain points, creepy (the old woman really wants to have sex with someone – anyone), the best scene in the movie was a crocodile chasing one of the porn actresses, which is a scene that could’ve been in any horror movie. The best moments of your movie should be specific to your concept. They shouldn’t be moments that could be in other films.
So it was a [x] wasn’t for me, unfortunately. But I’m not going to hate on you if you liked it. :)
Jurassic World or Stranger Things 4 review next Monday!
