#337. 'Stranger Things'
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
This is a wrap-up episode on Netflix's One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 and Stranger Things as a whole, and the trio splits hard on both. JVL, who has watched zero minutes of the actual show, sits through the two-hour documentary and comes away hating it and everyone in it — the ugly, over-genuflected-to actors, the shrunken Netflix writers' room, the Duffers never once discussing story — declaring it "the worst commentary track ever" and calling the finale-obsessed fandom's reaction proof the whole business would scare any stagestruck kid straight into law school. Sonny, a real fan, watched the documentary at 1.5x speed out of boredom but defends the show's first two or three seasons as genuinely great binge television before the mythology (Vecna, the magic rock, the military-created monster) curdled the show's primal unknown-horror into "just a guy" and killed the momentum; he cites the season's staggering 140-million-hour viewership and grades the finale's bloated, 40-minute farewell montage as a symptom of streaming-runtime indulgence. Mike, who also watched all ten years of it and grew up near its Georgia filming locations, credits the documentary for honoring the practical-effects and set-building crews but piles on the finale critique, laments Winona Ryder's near-total absence from both the doc and the last season, and dissects the fan controversy over Will Byers's anticlimactic coming-out scene. The front third of the episode is classic wandering Sub-Beacon banter: JVL rhapsodizes at length about buying a Godzilla-by-Stern pinball machine and the deep, slightly grimy subculture of pinball modders, Sonny extols the virtues of Texas's nickel-arcade chain "Nickel Rama" over Dave & Buster's price gouging, Sonny eulogizes Scott Adams and Dilbert as the last great daily-newspaper comic strip (with a tangent into why web comics and Substack economics never replicated that mass-media bundling), Mike recaps a rough opening weekend of second-grade basketball coaching, and JVL tells an extended tale about basketball prodigy Julian Newman before the box office rundown (Avatar: Fire and Ash still #1 but fading fast, the monkey-horror movie Primate, The Housemaid, and Marty Supreme closing in on being A24's biggest hit).
From the show notes
This episode really went on and on. Just like the finale, hiyo! We have fun here, folks.
Full transcript
?00:00:00♪♪ ♪♪
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts who can be found playing Dungeons and Dragons in the Wheeler basement or maybe at the Starcourt Mall or maybe in the Upside Down. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family. If they want to listen to the show, they got to do it at Sub-Beacon.com. New episodes every Friday morning at Sub-Beacon.com. Join the conversation in the comments. We are going to be talking about one last adventure, the making of Stranger Things 5, and we're going to be talking about Stranger Things.
Sonny00:01:22Let's be honest. We're talking about Stranger Things. JBL may just want to we may just send JBL home early tonight. If he doesn't want to sit. Oh, I got a lot to say. He's got a lot to say.
JVL00:01:32Stranger Things. Oh, I got a lot to say. Well, OK. Well, I'm at this fucking show.
Mike00:01:36Well, what I was what I was going to say before I was helpfully interrupted, I should say, is that we will be talking about all of that later, later in the show. That's how it works on this program. But first, JBL, I said before we started recording, you look like you are bursting at the seams to talk to us. What is going on with you, Mommy? Yeah.
JVL00:01:59Yeah. Uh, boys, do you remember that episode we did where I was like, man, I think I want to do pinball. I think I want a pinball machine.
Mike00:02:06Yes. Yes.
JVL00:02:07Yeah. And I and I wind up with the Multicade Arcade, which which should be like about four weeks away from from coming to me. I'm very excited about that. But I got to say, I think I need a pinball machine. I think I know which one I'm getting. And here's here's the thing. OK, so I think I'm going to get the Godzilla by Stern. And what really sealed it for me? First of all, I was back at back at our local retro arcade with my childhood best friend, Chris Worshove. And hey, Chris and his son and G Money. And we like we all played gauntlet together. And what this place has a just a ball or pinball set up. And so I was just I spent like two hours playing pinball. It's so satisfying. Godzilla is such a great. I mean, there's a reason it is. It's already like considered a top five all time machine.
Mike00:03:02Question.
JVL00:03:03Yeah. Sorry.
Mike00:03:05Godzilla. What what Godzilla are we talking about here? Are we talking about original Japanese Godzilla? Are we talking about terrible 1998 Roland Emmerich? It has no bearing on whether the machine is good.
Sonny00:03:15It's the Emmerich, right?
Mike00:03:17No, no.
JVL00:03:18This is not pure, pure Japan. OK. I mean, it's it's got kanji kanji lettering everywhere and it's got Mechagod. This is this is neither the Roland Emmerich nor the monster universe. This is much closer to like Godzilla year one. Um, but here is zero minus zero. Sorry.
Mike00:03:39Minus one. Whatever. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry. Sorry. But here's what really sent you for me.
JVL00:03:44I, uh, you know, I was just like doing the research the way I like to do my own research as the people will tell you good and get all the best information. There is a whole universe of. Pinball modders, of course there is. And so you, you get your pinball machine and then people are like, oh, I think I can figure out how to make it better. And so for instance, the Godzilla machine comes with like a little sculpted Godzilla toy that sits in the back left corner. And people are like, actually I can do better. We think that should be bigger. And so some, some nerd somewhere who probably had sex. Once, uh, it like creates this beautiful sculpted Godzilla and then figures out a way to have the spines mouth and eyes illuminated with LEDs, and then have those wired to the game so that, uh, it lights up at appropriate times during the game, the entire, the entire play field is customizable and you can mod it to infinity and I got it. I tell you the prospect of doing a little pinball maintenance and getting in there and putting it in safe mode and popping up the glass and going to work on
Mike00:05:07the play field and, uh, so the, the, the arcade system is really for the kids.
JVL00:05:20The pinball machine pinball machine is for me. Yeah, I'm going to be honest.
Mike00:05:25I love it.
JVL00:05:25The pinball machine is for me. And the other thing which gets me about it is that unlike arcades, which, you know, is for me and to be generational, uh, pinball machines are kind of like buying, uh, treasury bills. They just, you buy a pinball machine and it doesn't really ever lose value. Like you, you lose a little bit of value off the top, um, but getting a used pinball machine, uh, one of these, you could save maybe 500 bucks buying used versus buying new. And oftentimes once they go out of production, the prices go up, not always. Yeah. So it is the case that if you get a pinball machine is what many guys do is you get a machine, you like really love it for three years and then you sell it. And just buy a new one or trade it. There's a whole universe on pin side of pin collectors, uh, who just like locally be like, Hey, you want to buy this? Hey, you want to trade? And they'll just like swap pinball machines back and forth. How do the mods affect resale? Uh, I gotta be honest. I don't think the mods add a whole lot to the resale value, but they do. They detract. No, no, they don't detract that they are a plus. So if you have modded it, it is a plus. Um, it's really for your own masturbatory purposes. It's just, so you can, I mean, I mean, it's.
Mike00:06:56It's not just, I mean, okay, th th there's a lot of masturbatory. I only bust on Mothra.
?00:07:02Okay.
JVL00:07:02It's I, again, if you looked at my YouTube history right now, it is just a string of pinball modding channels. And I, I do have to say every one of these guys is exactly like what you would imagine. They would be comic book guy. They're not quite comic book guy. They're slight. They're not better than comic book guy, but they're a different subclass. Does that make sense? Worst pinball mod. They, they're a little like greasier than comic book guy. Certainly they're dumber, right? Comic book guy is like, at least read some books, the pinheads. Not, yeah, not a lot going on there.
Sonny00:07:53I don't think they're more like, I mean, I, I assume. I assume they're more like a, a far, a far less complicated version of like hot rod. People, right?
JVL00:08:03Like, yeah, I think that's right. I think there's a lot of like tuner culture, but gearhead stuff. Yeah. And a lot middle-aged men. That's the other thing. It's just middle-aged men who can finally afford a pinball machine and who are like, I can put a pinball machine in my basement with me. I thought, I thought it would do it. I thought it was nothing. Nothing to live for. No, but it's not like 30 year old single dudes, Sydney Sweeney.
Sonny00:08:32That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is leaning over her Godzilla, modern it up. You got the camera, the camera cranes talk about that.
JVL00:08:40There would be like 28 year old dorks or something doing that. It's not that. Cause you need some scratch.
Mike00:08:47You need some scratch.
JVL00:08:48Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:08:49I think you need space. You need space. You need, you need, you need a, you need a home that's bigger than a one bedroom apartment. Right. And you need $10,000. Like how much does one of these Godzilla pinball machines call? I mean, who could say Sonny, when you advertise it out, some numbers, you
JVL00:09:05know, advertise it out per play, sunny dollar per play. So if you go to an arcade, you are paying a dollar every time you start a game. And so I would never pay that much. I'm just saying that, you know, if you're doing that, then after you've played it. 20 or 30,000 times, you will recruit every dollar.
Mike00:09:28You're really, you're really making money when you buy, you're making money.
Sonny00:09:31You're, you would be crazy not to do this. Look, if you want to be buying, if you want to be, but I'll tell you, I'm pro.
JVL00:09:38Oh, that's not that bad. And add them now. These are not double digits. It's and that's new. That's new in the box. Delivery included. Uh, like if you get a used one locally that you can just go pick up, you can, you can save another 500 bucks, of course, then when you start modding. That's when you can start spending some real money.
Sonny00:10:00A dollar, a dollar a play is, is extravagant. I am a, do you guys have near you? I don't remember these in Virginia. I don't know what New Jersey is like, but do you guys have nickel Ramas? Do you know what this is?
JVL00:10:13I've never even heard of it.
Sonny00:10:15So in Texas, I don't know if it's a chain. I think it is a chain, but they, there are a couple of different versions of them. But like, you know how you have. You have like Dave and busters, right? You got like Dave and busters. You got like Chuckie cheese. You got Chuckie cheese. You got Dave and busters, Chuckie cheese, a little kid version, Dave and busters grownup version of the same thing. But at the Dave and busters, the games are all relatively expensive. Like they're not, you're not, you're, you're, you're looking at cards.
JVL00:10:40You have no idea how much you get the cards and it's like a number of points.
Sonny00:10:43And you're right. The prices are really good.
Mike00:10:46The prices are really good.
Sonny00:10:47At the end, you know, the price you, well, yeah, you make it up at the end. When you go and you give them your tickets and they give you the prizes. Obviously I mean, I'm not, I'm not an idiot. I'm not an idiot. Mike. I know how, I know how business works. All right. I know how you make, you make money by working that is playing the games. And then you trade your money for goods.
Mike00:11:07By the way, nickel Rama appears to be two locations, but so Nick, what's that? Two locations in the Dallas area.
?00:11:14Yeah.
Sonny00:11:14So, okay. So maybe it's just a Dallas thing, but so at nickel Rama, they it's, it's like a Dave and busters or a Chuckie cheese, like more, it's, it's more Dave and busters. And Chuck and then Chuckie cheese. Um, but they have, they have like arcade games and they have ticket games and the games are, they're all, they all operate on nickels. Now it's, they don't all cost five cents. They don't all cost five cents. It's not necessarily five cents a play, but it's like a dollar game.
JVL00:11:39You got to put 20 nickels into it, but there, but that's the point
Sonny00:11:43is that there are no dollar games. That's like, sometimes you have, sometimes you have to put like three nickels in or four nickels in, you know? Yeah. I like this.
JVL00:11:51I mean, that seems like so little money. So little money that actually you'd be better off having it be free play. And just charge people by the hour.
Sonny00:12:01Well, there is an hourly, or there's not an hourly charge, but there's like a mission. There's like a charge to get in. There's like, you pay like, you pay like six bucks to get in or seven bucks to get in and then, and then you buy Nick cups of nickels, you know, you trade, you trade money, you trade real money for nickels and then, and then, and then they have, they have like a, they have like an, uh, like a. Genuinely like, you know how at Dave and busters, they have like the little table. That's just like, like spider rings and like loose, loose pieces of gum. Like that's what the entire, that's what the entire toy toy rack is at the, at, at nickel Rama, but the, but the thing itself is just a lot of fun and it's not expensive. Again, it's like you, you, for like, you go in there and it's like 15 bucks a person. You'll play for an hour and a half. It's great. Um, but that is, that's. That is now like my baseline for going to places it's totally spoiled me because I go to, I go to Dave and busters and I'm just like, this is like $2 and 50 cents for a play. I'm not, I don't want to do this at all. I don't want to do this nonsense even a little bit.
Mike00:13:07Question. How often are you going to Dave and busters, Sonny?
Sonny00:13:10Like, is this a regular, not that often, not that often, but like there are a surprising number of kids' birthday parties at Dave and busters.
Mike00:13:17Yes.
Sonny00:13:18And like, if, if one of them, if one of my kids is going to Dave and busters for a party, I have to take the other one, which then becomes its own.
JVL00:13:26Do you like harpoon lagoon? The harpoon lagoon is the best. That is the greatest game ever.
Sonny00:13:32It's, it's the highest, I think it's the highest point per ticket game. I have found that's not just like a random, like pull the lover and you know, maybe it lands on 500, the chest in the middle opens up with the jelly and the jellyfish comes out.
JVL00:13:47The golden jellyfish is that's when you can get like 50,000 tickets.
Sonny00:13:50Yeah. It's a. It's the best, but one thing I have discovered at Dave and busters is that they do have like an unlimited play card sometimes, like it's not all the time, but it's like, I think it's like 60 bucks or something like that. And you, you have unlimited play for 90 minutes and you can win up to 1500 tickets. There's like a limit on the amount of tickets you can win, but the, uh, but, but it also comes with a meal. So like, it's, it's like, it's actually not a terrible, it's like for two hours, 60 bucks. That's not. That's not the worst. Again, you just buy one card for the kid and he goes and plays whatever.
JVL00:14:25So what we do though is, I mean, so all of our arcades are, uh, per hour. And so you go in and it's like, you know, it's either 12 or 15 bucks an hour and everything is set to free play and that's the best, like this is the, and then I realized that my kids having never really been around real arcades, they will never have. That like very Adam Smith esque, like, uh, creating their own supply demand curve with what their resources are and why only a 50 cents left? Is it worth it on this game? Or even, even the bigger one is like, should I continue? Is it worth, is it worth my quarter to continue this game? What am I getting? What's my utility curve on that? Uh, they just like everything else in life. It's just a card. It's just, they don't have to think about how, like, well, is this CD worth buying? Because there's only two songs on it, but I like, it's just like, no, I'd listen to every song I ever want whenever I want it, wherever I am.
Mike00:15:30Yeah. Well, and you can see the effect of this. Like my middle son, like has absolutely zero scope or understanding of like, like it's, it's, he's just slamming that card against the stupid reader. And I'm like, you are, you are the sucker. You are the one that the, like, you know, the, the suits here at Dave and Buster's when they see you walk in, they're like, we got one, we got one, hook them in. Dollar bill, dollar bill, y'all. They're, they're, they're bringing them Cokes, you know?
JVL00:16:05It's the Dave and Buster's version of like the casino.
Mike00:16:07Sir, would you like a ticket to the buffet? That's right. That's right. Would you, would you care to see the show later?
Sonny00:16:13Are you staying here in the, in the hotel, sir? Dave and Buster's hotel.
JVL00:16:19Just like, Jimmy, would you like a chocolate milk? Milk while you play the, uh, the claw game.
Sonny00:16:25Yeah.
JVL00:16:25Bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it. What he needs, bring it.
Mike00:16:27What he wants.
JVL00:16:29Anyway, if you win at the Harpoon Lagoon, you hit the, uh, hit the jellyfish. The pit boss comes over and says, sir, sir, I'm sorry. Your action's too good for us, but here, here's a, here's a ticket for the bar. Go enjoy one of our non-alcoholic beverages or Capri sun. Maybe some, uh, some Philly cheese steak, uh, egg rolls on the house. There we go.
?00:16:47There we go.
Mike00:16:48That's right.
JVL00:16:49All right. Sorry. That was a long digression.
Mike00:16:51But I'm so excited to do this. I'm excited for you.
JVL00:16:54Question. That's great. Yes. JBL. How fast do I get divorced if both machines show up on the same day?
Mike00:17:03I'm more worried about logistics. Or do we go straight to murder? No, I'm worried about the logistics of getting it.
JVL00:17:07Forget divorce, just homicide.
Sonny00:17:08Yeah. Will you, will you have enough room in your basement for, for both? Will the, you're going to have like a whole little arcade down here?
JVL00:17:14I got a lot of room. I actually might put the pinball machine in my office, like behind me.
Sonny00:17:19Okay.
JVL00:17:20How great would that be? That'd be on like live streams and YouTubes. And I got like Godzilla flashing and you could, you could do like a, you could do the live
Sonny00:17:28shows while just playing the, playing the pinball. Yeah. Yelling at the screen.
JVL00:17:32All right. You, you guys talk and I'm going to send you guys some pictures. All right. Sonny, what's going on with you?
Sonny00:17:38Uh, not much. I, I don't, I don't have a ton going on in my life. Uh, one thing that was, was kind of, so, um, not interesting is the wrong word. So, so Scott Adams died. Scott Adams, of course, creator of Dilbert. Uh, this was. This was, and, and I like, I, I, Scott Adams, I don't, I don't have a lot of thoughts on Scott Adams, but Dilbert is a very interesting cultural phenomenon. Um, because it is, I was, I was thinking about this when he died. There is, it's the last, it's the last daily comic strip that will have that kind of cultural impact and penetration ever. Right. So like, think about, think about. Think about the daily comic strips, right? You have peanuts and peanuts still a thing. You know, the people still classic peanuts, but yeah, it's not, well, not new peanuts. No, no, no. But like, but people still know what Charlie Brown and Snoopy are, right? Like that, that is like, they watch the, they watch the holiday specials. Every, my kids, my kids will never read a peanuts comic strip, but they watch, you know, the, they watch the, the Christmas special, the Halloween special. Um, you have like Calvin and Hobbes obviously is like a big one because it was a, super successful and be also kind of like revolutionized how people thought about the form, right? Um, or Garfield, which still, you know, is still going or the far side. Again, you have these massive cultural objects where like they're selling millions of books and they're selling millions of calendars and they're just, they're just, there's huge penetration in the market. And Dilbert, Dilbert was like this, like, again, Dilbert is funny, kind of funny. It was, it was entertaining. I like Dilbert fine, but Dilbert. Dilbert was an enormous thing, right? Millions of books, millions of calendars. There was a fucking TV show. There was a Dilbert cartoon TV show that ran for, I think, two seasons on UPN, maybe three. I don't know. But like, it was an enormous, enormous thing. It was an enormous thing. And that will never, there is nothing. There will never be another comic strip like that. There will never be another daily newspaper comic strip like that. And the reason for that doesn't really even have. Anything to do with comics or changing tastes or anything like that. It just has to do with the, the delivery device of the daily comic strip is essentially defunct. The daily newspaper. People don't, people don't get the daily newspaper anymore. That's not a thing. And there's a huge difference between being delivered a daily newspaper and having a subscription to like the New York Times or whatever, right? Because like you get the daily newspaper, you sit down, flip it open, you, you go to, oh, look, here's the cartoons. Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert. Zitz, whatever, for better or worse, you know, you, you just read the things because they're there. You read, you read the things because they're there. That's like what it is.
JVL00:20:29The family circus.
Sonny00:20:31Family circus. Exactly. Exactly. You just, you just have an, and, and that, that medium is entirely gone. And it got me like, got me thinking more deeply about this. Like what other, what other media things are like solely. Dependent on their delivery device, right? Like this is why film is probably a dying medium. Kind of is that the, the movie theater is how film should be consumed. That is how film was delivered to people. It is how you should experience how it's like the only way you can really make money on movies at this point is, is, and though that's going away and the stuff that we have on TV, it just doesn't work. Like movies made for TV look worse than movies that are made for. Theaters. That's just truth. It just is what it is. If you want to watch something on TV, you, if you watch something on TV, you watch TV show. That's what you watch. Um, TV is different than film and TV is still, is still well for most, for most people, TV is still, is still a going concern.
JVL00:21:41Uh, I don't know. I like it again.
Sonny00:21:44I like, I don't have strong thoughts on Scott Adams himself, but like he does rep, he is literally the last. Of a dying breed. Totally agree. Um, and it, it, there will be nothing like that ever again in that medium JVL.
JVL00:21:58So there was a moment in not the early internet, but like mid internet when web comics were projected to take over that mantle. And there were a lot of people who got famous as doing like X, Casey webcomic comics, right? Well, that was more video, but yeah, but it never really. Took off.
Sonny00:22:22No, you know why? You know why? It's because again, they're the, the media, the delivery of the medium was not the same, right? Again, the reason that the daily comic strip was a thing is because you had syndicates that sent one cartoon strip to 7,000 newspapers every day. And it was in front of tens of millions of people. And you all experienced the same thing.
Mike00:22:46It was mass media.
Sonny00:22:47And it was, it was mass. It was the monoculture. It was the mass. It was mass media. And that you, you cannot replicate that on in, in online form. I don't think, I don't think it's possible to do it. Okay. Even with things like email deliveries or RSS feeds or social media or whatever. It doesn't, it doesn't, it's not the same. It's not the same.
JVL00:23:12So let me, let me tell you why I think it didn't work. Okay. And the reason is because the economics. Of comic books in a newspaper are free, right? I mean, the newspaper is paying some syndication for it, but the, the actual revenue incoming from purchasing one of those comic books is impossible to measure. And honestly, it was probably zero when you unbundle them from the newspaper and comics have to have an economic case, a business case. For themselves, there isn't one because you might be able to get like a comic that somebody might be willing to pay for, but people didn't go for like a comic. The whole thing was that there was this huge smorgasbord and different people had different things that they liked. And, uh, you can't replicate that without an underlying bundle to which the comic book is only an ancillary piece of the business.
Sonny00:24:18Well, this is, I mean, you're also, you're also just describing magazines, right? So this is like, this is, this is what happened with magazines, magazines, any individual writer is maybe very good and you may be willing to pay for that individual writer, but no individual writer, uh, by themselves really is, is as valuable as a thing. So then you end up with a system where you have like 300 magazine writers who all want to have their own sub stacks and they're, they all cost the same as for New Yorker. Yeah.
JVL00:24:48But it works though.
Sonny00:24:50It kind of works. It works. It works for that.
JVL00:24:52Well, so it's, it's much better for the writers than it used to.
Sonny00:24:56Well, it works very well for the star writers, right? It's the K shape model where you have like, you have a, you have pretty good for me.
JVL00:25:03I'm buying a pinball machine.
Sonny00:25:04Well, and, and, but this is, but this is the secret of the bulwark, right? Is that, or the dispatch or whatever, is that like bundling everybody into back into essentially a magazine format is a good, is a better business model.
Mike00:25:18I mean, I mean, there's also, there's a lot. There's a lot of similarities to like network television from 40 and 50 years ago where like the, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a scene in Seinfeld when they're selling the show, they're selling Jerry to Bob Balaban, who's playing the sort of you know, the NBC president and, and George is like selling them on the show on nothing and he's like like describing how nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens. And Bob Balaban says, well then why am I watching it? And George says, because it's on TV, which is, which is funny. But also like there was like, there was a lot of truth to that for a long time on TV. It was because it was on and you know, but nobody just has the TV on anymore. Nobody has just a few options and that's what, you know, so it's, it's really kind of the same thing. And the newspaper comic element of it. Is like, even when I was a kid in the nineties, reading the newspaper comic strip page, the comic page, which was always the first one I went to, um, it even then felt like outdated, you know, like it, it just felt like something that was like, I can't believe, I can't believe I'm getting away. Like I'm getting away with this.
JVL00:26:40Does the wall street journal still run their comic? Do they have a comic? Oh, you don't remember no salt and pepper. Dot, dot, dot salt and pepper on the wall street journal. It's typically in like the back pay, like not the back page, but so back page three
Mike00:26:59or what would be called like inverse cover three pepper and salt is pepper and salt pepper and salt pepper, dot, dot, dot and salt salt. It was like their, there was like their New Yorker style.
JVL00:27:10Yes. But like it was perfect because it was exactly what you would think that the wall street journal. Lying to ape, the New Yorker would come up with here's the, here's the, if we get a bunch of humorless 70 year old wall street mandarins and we told them, yeah, make a, make a New Yorker cartoon. Be Peter Steiner. This is what they would come up with.
Mike00:27:37I mean the, the, the, the latest one on January 15th, 2026 is a woman with a bunch of papers sitting at a table talking to a man and the caption is ed, I'm your financial advisor, not your fairy godmother. I mean, it's kind of perfect. It's like, it's so perfect. It's like, oh, oh, is this, is it funny? No, it's not funny. It's it's, is it something? Yes. Is it something that speaks to the wall street journal? Average reader? Absolutely.
Sonny00:28:10Pepper and salt. That's per I would pay. I would buy a wall street journal subscription just for that.
Mike00:28:13Just for that.
Sonny00:28:14All right.
Mike00:28:15Uh, okay. How are you Michael? I'm fine. Um, it's just basketball season. We're, we're, we're chugging along. We had our first, uh, my kids had their first games on Saturday and my 11 year old team won, uh, which was great. I didn't get to see it because I was coaching my other son's game, which was at the same time. Um, only time that happens this season. Um, and we did not win. Uh, I should say my, my second grader did not win his game. Um, a lot of work realized a lot of work needs to be done on just, um, it's, it's a weird, uh, I have come to realize that there are many flaws in the rules for second grade basketball and our league. The first of which is five players too many. It's too many. It's we, we need to go back to four, three on three. We were four on four in first grade. I think that's a good, that's good still like, like five on five, there's a lot of kids on the court. Sonny, I don't know if this is your experience, but like, despite all of my efforts in, in practice to, to encourage them otherwise, there's a lot of like, when your teammate has the ball, you don't run and get open somewhere else in the court so that they can pass it to you. If they're in trouble and you can somehow set up another play, everybody just runs to the ball.
Sonny00:29:45You run, right. You run right to the player with the right. Cause otherwise, how will they get you the ball?
Mike00:29:50It's like, there's just like this mess of like, I don't understand your thought process
Sonny00:29:55here. Mike, you're like run away from the ball. That doesn't that I want the ball. I want the ball. Cause I want to shoot the ball. Yeah. So I'm going to run to the person with the ball and say, give me the ball. Exactly. Yeah. Now that's logic to it.
Mike00:30:09There is a logic to it, but again, the chaos kicks up when, you know, we have this system where we have the colored armbands and the, you cannot, you cannot guard. Except on a breakaway, basically the rules are, you cannot guard anyone who does not, who is not your person that you're right. That you have the corresponding wristband too. So like when they run to the ball, so does their defender. And so it's just, it was just the best the other team. So basically we had the same number of shots. They were just, they just made five more shots than we did. And that was, it was, it was a 10 point game and that was it. And, but we, anyway, so it's just, I realized how much, how much work I have to do. And I will, I will be amazed. I will be, I think I will look back at the, at the end of the season, I will look back and either be amazed that we improved as, you know, given like my inability to sort of like, just get the basics of like, get open, you know, position yourself well, so you can get a, so you can get the rebound. Those kinds of basic fundamentals that I thought I went through last year, but have apparently all been forgotten. Or it's just going to be like one, it was just going to be one bad game after another. So we'll see that the team we played, they were pretty good, but, but like, I don't know, it just, I'm looking ahead at this season and just thinking this is, this could be a very long and miserable season. I had a great basketball.
JVL00:31:51I'd like to share a basketball story with you boys. I'm sorry. I didn't realize I'm dominating the opening half. Please don't let's promise. I'll shut up after this. Have either of you ever heard of Julian Newman? Nope. Okay. Julian Newman was a sensation about seven or eight years ago, and he was pushed by his father as like sort of the tiger woods of basketball. He was in fifth grade when he. Made his school's varsity squad. So he played varsity basketball for a number of years. Uh, that's healthy sports illustrated. He was on the and one tour and, uh, he, he scored, um, he, he, by his sophomore year in high school, he had scored 3,873 points, uh, passing the, the state record, which had been held by Teddy Dupay, who you may remember as a McDonald's all American who went to play for Billy Donovan and then like got injured. And anyway, um, so, uh, but this is a really excellent lesson in comparative advantage because, uh, Julian played for, uh, a small Christian school in Florida. And so he was not doing McDonald's all. American, uh, IMG, that sort of stuff while he was averaging 34.7 points a game plus seven assists and five rebounds and four steals. Anyway, uh, he went on to a, you would think to yourself, boy, he must've been recruited. He was, he was recruited by Bethesda university, which is part of the national Christian college athletic association. This is my favorite line in his Wikipedia. He made his collegiate debut on October 24th, going scoreless on over six shooting in a 109 to 23 loss. So maybe like if this is like Kramer at the dojo, totally second Seinfeld reference. No, that's all just, you know, if you put your kid against the right competition, people will think they're Kyrie Irving. Totally. That's that's amazing. All right.
Mike00:34:24OK, well, let's let's move on here and talk about very quickly the box office. Number one, once again for I don't know how many weeks in a row now, Avatar Fire and Ash number two coming in in its first week. Primate. What is Sonny? What is Primate?
Sonny00:34:43It's a creature feature. It's a monkey, monkey, monkey killing people.
JVL00:34:49OK.
Sonny00:34:49All right.
JVL00:34:50What was it different than Congo?
Sonny00:34:53Yes. Different than Congo. My understanding is that it is not set in the mines of Africa. It's set in it's set in a neighborhood in California or something.
Mike00:35:03Oh, yes. OK. I've heard of this. I've heard of this movie. And the number three, the housemaid hanging on there at number three house made huge hit any any any thoughts on on the box office?
Sonny00:35:17No. I mean, I once again, it is probably. It's worth noting that Avatar Fire and Ash is running like a full, I believe, third behind. Let's see. So we're twenty seven days at twenty seven days. Way of Water had grossed five hundred twenty eight million dollars, almost five hundred twenty nine million dollars. This movie has grossed three hundred and forty nine million dollars, more or less. So that's that's one hundred eighty million dollars. I mean. That's like a full it's a full third, maybe even slightly more than a third behind. It's it's running way behind. So that's that's a that's a huge drop off. I mean, it's just right. Yeah, that's bad. You don't want that. I mean, just yeah. So, you know, it's grossing. It's grossing half as much per day, et cetera. Like, it's not it's not it's not holding well at all. And again, I think it just you know, the the it was very front loaded. But people people do seem to be just kind of tired of this. It's not I have a hard time believing another one gets green lit at the budget. James Cameron was working on with these these last two. I just can't I can't see that happening. But, you know, you know, you never know because it's so I mean, look, it's still going to gross $1.4 billion, probably, which is a lot of money. Still a lot of money. And it's still doing very well overseas. So, yeah. And Zootopia, too, continues to I mean, you know, it's number four.
Mike00:36:49This week.
Sonny00:36:51Yeah, it's that's not bad. So anyway, I don't know. There's there's not much. The Housemaid is really interesting. Again, it's going to gross $100 million. Marty Supreme is going to gross is going to be the highest grossing a 24 film after this weekend, probably.
Mike00:37:09So it'll get it'll get another boost, too, with. Yeah, it's going to be Oscars.
Sonny00:37:13I think I think it probably gets to $100 million unless something amazing weird happens, which again, that's a very, very big number for a 24 a 24 spent a lot of money on this movie. This is not a cheap movie. I think they spent $70 million or something on it because it's it's very, it's very period. They had to like they were rebuilding New York streets, et cetera. So I don't know. It's that's that's a big that's a big hit.
Mike00:37:40Absolutely. All right. OK, well, why don't we thank you, Sonny? Why don't we move on to talk about the the main event of of this podcast, the so again, just to circle back to what we discussed at the beginning of the podcast, we watched the JVL. You actually you watched the the the two hour documentary as well on Netflix One Last Adventure, which is you can you could feel well, I'll let you give a review of it, Sonny, but you could really feel you could hear the the ringing of the towel. That Netflix had for for for Stranger Things. There there's sort of like like what else can we get out of this thing? We got ourselves a two hour, a two hour documentary making of documentary that I'm sure a lot of people watch. But go ahead and give us a big review of this and and maybe even Stranger Things in general.
Sonny00:38:39I OK, yeah, I plan on mostly talking about Stranger Things because I watched I watched like 30 minutes of this documentary and I turned it off and I'd watched Sinners for the third time instead after I was.
Mike00:38:52So should I talk about should I talk about this documentary then?
Sonny00:38:55I was so worried. No, I went and I finished. I finished. I went back and I finished the documentary because I just was like, I was a little I was a little tipsy and I was like, this is so fucking boring. I am done watching this and I just turned it off and then I ended up I ended up turning it back on and watching it largely at the gym on 1.5 X speed. You guys, I've never done this before. I have never watched. I've never watched a thing on more than one X speed before.
Mike00:39:23That is how film is supposed to be watched.
Sonny00:39:26I've never done it before, but this was so boring and everybody was so slow. I went literally when I turned it, I turned it on to the 1.5 speed and finally felt like things were happening at a at a reasonable pace. And then occasionally it would cut to like the actual action from the show itself. And the action from the show itself would be like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. But then you would cut back to the people, cut back to the people on the set, you know, make it in the thing. And they would be like, yeah, I think that's the thing we need to do here. I was just like, what is going on there? It's like they live in one half speed. Anyway. So that was that. That's my main experience watching this documentary. I don't I don't know, JBL, do you what were your thoughts watching the documentary for the show that you've watched? I assume you've watched zero minutes of Stranger Things zero. So you've never you've never watched. You don't know what a normal thing is because you because you've never seen a Stranger Thing. So what what was your what was your take on this? I don't know. One last adventure. One last adventure.
Mike00:40:25The making of Stranger Things five. I.
JVL00:40:30I came away from this hating every single person associated with the Stranger Things franchise, with the possible exceptions of Frank Darabont and the woman who led the painting crew on the sculpted set. Yeah, I could have done an entire movie just with the sculpture, the sculptors and the sculpting painters as they did that giant sculpted set for the like the interior of a rib cage. 100% that was the saddest writer's room I've ever seen. So it was I mean, Sonny, you know this. I don't know if you do, Michael. Like one of the things Netflix did was cut down sizes of writers rooms, which has caused a lot of angst in Hollywood. You could see it even on Stranger Things. There's like six people in the room and they're in a room that's way too big for them, and nobody really has any ideas. There's well, I don't know.
?00:41:24And
JVL00:41:27there's so much genuflecting before the actors, not a single one of whom.
Mike00:41:32And you haven't even seen the show. You haven't even seen the show.
JVL00:41:35Well, I've seen a couple of them in other shit and they're bad. Yeah, let's let's I did think to myself,
Sonny00:41:42let's just bring on AI, bring bring me the AI actors.
JVL00:41:46Give me CGI eyes. The worst. It was like the worst commentary track ever, ever. The actors are ugly.
Mike00:41:58And God, they're also ugly.
JVL00:42:01There's everybody. Everybody in this. Everybody associated with production is ugly. And OK, I'm not done. I'm not done. All right. The showrunners, the creators and writers, the Duffer Brothers, never once talk about story. They're like, Oh, this is like everything here is that we got this new big creature. So like, you know, how are we going to do that? Because that's what the big focus is. Or they're like, you know, all the nostalgia. This is, you know, it's also really just going to give you such nostalgic vibes. And you never, never once do you hear anybody thinking about,
Sonny00:42:39Oh, what, what is the story we're actually telling here? Is there an emotional beat that shows up in the last two seasons or last last two seasons of the show? I, I, I. To you, Sonny.
JVL00:42:50Yes, you I believe you, like me, had a youthful dalliance with the idea of perhaps moving to Los Angeles and the City of Angels screenwriter or getting involved in the business. I, I was super late. I almost left the Weekly Standard after like the first year to go out to L.A. and like try to try to write movies, try to make it this documentary is like a scared straight intervention. You show any 15 or 22 year old who thinks they want to go into entertainment this thing and they will be like, what the fuck? I'll go to law school.
Sonny00:43:33My my favorite.
JVL00:43:34This makes the entire business look so tedious.
Sonny00:43:37Well, oh, oh, so so JBL on this point, there's this there's this great and I use that word advisedly moment where they're in a they're in a they're in like a real place, they're shooting in a real place, but it's an open it's just like an open field and they have the big giant blue walls all around. And the Duffer Brothers are like, we really like we really like shooting in real places, which good for them. It's like nice. Like that's that is the one interesting thing about this show is that they do show a lot of the set design. Yes. And a lot of the like like they're building real physical sets and real physical things. There's this moment where Sean Levy, who directed a couple episodes, is like we were trying to make this sludge really thick and it's supposed to be real goopy and it's coming out like water. And we're like, what the fuck are we supposed to do? And like that, that sort of stuff kind of interesting. But there's this moment where they're talking about shooting in this location and it's this bit and they've got all the big blue walls up and none of them have any idea what is happening. And what I mean is they're like they're like, we don't know where. So the monsters, I think, are coming this way. Like, none of the actors know where any of the danger is coming from. They don't know which way they're supposed to be running. The directors don't have any idea. They're like, I think you're going this way. I think you're trying to go this. And that is that is really the whole problem in the whole problem with again, these last two seasons of the show in a nutshell, like nobody actually has any idea what's going on. It's the thing has gotten spiraled totally out of control. And it's and it loses a lot.
JVL00:45:19That ness which which they talk about this thing. I insipid, utterly insipid. I hated I hate Stranger Things. I hate every single person associated with that production. I did.
Mike00:45:35I knew you would have this reaction as I was watching it. I was like, I just cannot wait to hear how much JBL hates everything about this. Sonny, what did you what did you
Sonny00:45:49Yeah, I think of this as a fan and then we get like, again, it was unwatchable. The documentary is unwatchable. I like I I regret I regret even suggesting we do we do that. We should have just done we should have just done the the the show. So the show itself, that's what I want to talk about here, because the show itself.
Mike00:46:06Can I say real quickly, though? Yeah, on the documentary, the one thing that I did appreciate, which you guys got to a little bit, is to the extent that it is a love letter to the practical effects crew of the show and I think it's it has it has value in that in that sense. Like you do. I appreciated how many craftsmen and like just all the people who worked on the show who actually do like real stuff, you know, like you said, makeup, hair, the set design, like it, it makes this stupid show so much they have all of that. And it was nice that they sort of gave them credit. So that's the last thing I'll say about it again.
Sonny00:46:55It was it was just nice seeing seeing it all actually get made the show itself. I do find interesting the show itself. I do find interesting and I kind of enjoy in a limited in a limited way. I mean, so look, I'm not I'm by no means a Stranger Things haters there. There are the Stranger Things haters out there even even hate that more than JBL, they watch the whole thing, they hate it all. I am not I am not one of those people. I thought the first season, the first season was a really it was like the perfect it's like the nay plus ultra of binge storytelling. Right. It was it was an old school serial style storytelling where everything ends on a cliffhanger and you're like, I'll watch the next one. I got to see what happens next. And it was the first thing I really binge it like it was. So this comes out in 2004. 15, I think, you know, House of Cards had come out the year before or maybe maybe two years before that.
Mike00:47:55So it was 20, 20, 16 is when it came to 26 July 2016.
Sonny00:47:59So like it was not this was not a revolution in the form precisely, but it was the first like I thought really great version of it, even even more than that first season of House of Cards. And it was it was really gripping. And it did have the great nostalgia and like the kids were good and it looked good, like watch go back and watch some of those first the first first couple episodes like it shot in a way that like again, it looks like prestige TV. It's still very obviously TV, but it like it's lit like movie, right? It's it's lit like a movie scene there. There are darks and shadows and they're like, it's not all just overhead. You know, it's it's very, very little green screen. The only real green screen, the only real pure CGI stuff are like the Demogorgon monster. And even that there's like a lot of practical capture and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I, I really like that first season, second season. Very good as well. You know, it's a step a step worse, but whatever. The third season, they introduce some new characters. Things get a little bit weird, but they still they still maintain the momentum. The tone changes, too, and the third season tone changes a little bit. The tone changes a little bit. And like they're starting, they're starting to like make it more complicated. They're starting to really complicate the mythology of it. Yeah. Things go off the rails and things start to go off the rails in the fourth season, which loses some of that, like that kind of pure momentum that the first two seasons had, but also makes a very key mistake. And we're going to we're going to be discussing what happens on the show here. So spoilers, if you are catching up on Stranger Things, if you haven't watched it and you're you're you're you're just now getting into it, maybe turn it off here, but the problem with the fourth season is that they take the general threat of the upside. So I get the the basic idea of the show. One of the boys in this group of friends gets kidnapped into a dimension called the Upside Down, and it's this kind of Lovecraftian horror where it's, you know, there's weird monsters that are all shaped. They're all misshapen and horrible and doing terrible things. But it's also a mirror of our world. And it's it's like exactly the same except, you know, the upside. It's it's like the photo negative version. It's full of evil and ash and smoke and fire and whatnot. Bright red lightning flashes, etc. So in the fourth season, they take this kind of general terror of being kidnapped into the unknown and thrown in with these awful monsters. And it puts it in the form of a guy. It's just like, oh, it turns out there's an evil guy. This guy, Vecna, he's the he's evil. And worse than that, it turns out there's not just an evil guy, but the evil guy was was created by the military. And he was he was like the the the hero of the show. Eleven, this girl L sent him. It created the upside down, sent him into this other dimension and created him. But he is Vecna is being controlled by this giant spider creature. And he became Vecna. He got his powers by touching a magic rock. I still don't understand what that was all about.
Mike00:51:21This is this is apparently all explained in the in the East End play. Sure, sure. There's a rock.
Sonny00:51:28There's a magic rock that he touches and it turns him in. It turns him into a magic monster. And then the whole thing, the whole thing, it just like it gets it. It takes the kind of general overwhelming terror of the unknown. And it's just like it's a guy. And that is a huge mistake. I'm sorry. It destroys it destroys all of the it destroys all of the terror and fear of what what the show had going for it. But but worse than that, worse than that, worse than making all of these changes to the to the mechanics of the show. They got rid. It stopped being compulsively watchable. This last season was an enormous slog to get through. I like my wife and I watched the first episode. We were like, that was not good. Right. And it took us it took us. It took us two weeks to watch another episode. We watched another episode. We're like, still isn't good. It didn't get to. It wasn't until like the third or four or it was the fourth episode, the fourth and the fifth episodes that we watched that were like that old school, like things are happening. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then Cliffhanger got to watch the next one. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Cliffhanger got to watch this last one.
Mike00:52:39The best episode of the season was the one that was the Home Alone style funhouse of like. Where they're trying to catch the Demogorgon in the rich people's house, which was directed by what's his name? Who we mentioned. Sean Levy. No, no, not Sean Levy. Darabont. Frank Darabont. Frank Darabont. Yes. Which had all of the hallmarks. It was the one episode that felt the most like the original first two seasons.
Sonny00:53:13Anyway, I don't know. Like the series just. Really fell apart there at the last the last season and a half.
Mike00:53:22Well, and the documentary also serves this purpose, which it demonstrates how that's the case, which is the Duffer brothers had it a very. It's one of those things where the Duffer brothers had a lost problem where they didn't know how it ended, except it was a lost problem of their own making because it didn't have to be that way. They did not have to construct this whole complex mythology. For the show, and they did, and then they couldn't figure out how to make it all make sense and end. And it was so apparent because in this documentary, they, you know, they my wife, who is, you know, is doesn't have any familiarity with how movies and television shows and stuff are made. She was shocked to hear that they had not written the last episode of the show. And, like, on the one hand, it's like, well, things are like kind of written as you film sometimes, but like, it became clear they just wasn't that like, the script wasn't finished. It's that it wasn't even really.
JVL00:54:32Oh, is that is that because Netflix rushed them immediately from the end of season four, they had to start production on season five right away. Is that why that was?
Mike00:54:41No. Oh, wait, was there any time between season four and five? This is you're sitting down. I can see there was a lot of time. There was a lot of time. I know it's shocking because you would think that, yeah, they were just rushed.
JVL00:54:57And with all that time, they didn't bother to think about how they're going to tell their fucking story.
Sonny00:55:03You would think what our team would think.
Mike00:55:07It's it's so disappointing because of what of Sonny of what you described, which is the we were also talking about. Was this really the first stream? Streaming show that really. Yes, there was House of Cards and there was Orange is the New Black kind of were the the forerunners in terms of shows that people were watching. But Stranger Things had a bigger cultural footprint than those two shows.
Sonny00:55:35Enormous.
Mike00:55:36And I mean, obviously it did. And and that first season, I mean, we were just recalling what it was like when we had at the time we had one kid and we were just. Like, I don't remember. We must have watched it all within like a couple of weeks, like a week and a half or so, two weeks. And it was terrific. And I think if you watch this documentary, who is missing from. You know, in the cast from who is from from from sort of like talking head type, you know, but not even just that, but like who is really hard to even kind of get. On camera for even a couple of seconds. Winona Ryder. No, Winona Ryder.
Sonny00:56:24Barely. She's barely in it.
Mike00:56:25She's barely in this. And like Winona Ryder was what sold that show from the beginning. I mean, it was a Winona Ryder vehicle in a lot of ways for all the good reasons. Right. It's like it's like remember when remember Winona Ryder in the 80s? Like what? Yeah. Yeah, I do.
JVL00:56:47Okay, JBL.
Mike00:56:48What if we have an 80 show where she's in it, but she's like the mom now and I don't know like she's she's she was fantastic in that first season. She has absolutely nothing to do by the end of the show. I mean, she is just literally there to like run around and it that to me encapsulates all of the problems with the direction of the show. And it's just it's just sad. It's. It's sad because it was so fun and it's not it was not fun anymore.
Sonny00:57:24I will say, look, I you know, it's easy. It's easy to kind of joke about Netflix stuff not having a cultural impact. And I think that is still largely true outside of, you know, the very rare thing like K-pop demon hunters or like the Tiger King or whatever. But Stranger Things is a legitimate phenomenon. I the the the new season dropped and the sports the sports guy, the entertainment strategy. Guy had a, you know, he does his ratings reports. The new the new season when it debuted its first week, 140 million hours viewed, which is like you look at it on the chart. That number doesn't mean anything to you in context, but I'll put it this way. He has a tier where like the best stuff, if it breaches 40 million hours, it's in the 40 million hour club. This was the 140 million hour club. There's nothing. There's nothing else like there's just nothing else like it. It is it is an enormous it is an enormous, enormous phenomenon. The only other things that are like it are like Stranger Things season four or Stranger like which I think Stranger Things season four when it debuted at 120 million hours, something like that. So like it's you know, it is it is sui generis in a in a very real way. It is an enormous. Hit and like to the extent even that it is one of the few things that they have tried to they have really tried. To do physical presences with right. So they had the they they put the film in they put the last the last episode in theaters. They put the last they put the last episode of the finale in theaters and it's it's hard to get accurate numbers because technically technically it was given to the theaters for free the theaters instead of selling tickets to it. You had to buy a voucher for food and all of the chains did different. Things the the estimates I've seen is that they sold about twenty five million dollars worth of these vouchers, which is like that's that's a lot considering it was day and date on on Netflix anyway, you know, it's it's an enormous enormous hit people still watch the shit out of it. A lot of people still really like it. I like I would be remiss to say I like I I feel like I am slightly out of the norm.
JVL00:59:46What what was the reaction of the fan community? To this, particularly to the end. So how did you do people like the end of the series? Because that's always hard to get a question.
Sonny00:59:57Very, very, very mixed. I think there were the reactions were pretty mixed.
Mike01:00:02I think I would say I would say the so some of this is generational. So I think that it was probably the most positive. The younger you are, the more positive the reaction was.
Sonny01:00:18Like, that's actually that's actually perfectly right. I think that's a very good way to put it.
Mike01:00:22I think so. And this gets I want to talk a little bit about what JVL mentioned, which was the way that the Duffer brothers kind of like worshipped the the the actors in that documentary. Like, but you can see that wasn't me. No, no, no, no. You can see that on screen in the in the in the product of the show, particularly the last season. But but even in the last couple of seasons. Where me. So, all right. In the second season, a a fan favorite, Sean Astin's character, Bob, who was introduced at the beginning of season two. He is the boyfriend of Winona Ryder's character. By the way, I found out that like when they were coming up through Hollywood, that like Winona Ryder had a huge crush on Sean Astin. She like talked about this like when they were young. I just I find that. I find that nice. You know, it's like they're like talking about it like, you know, 40 years later. It's like, oh, you know, so but Bob is a spoiler alert is killed at the end of season two in this sort of heroic moment. And it was people were were horrified by it because he was such a great character and he really was a great character. And it in people, I think there was some online outrage even about it at the time. And since then, they have. Basically been unwilling to kill any character who was not a bad guy on the show to to the detriment of the show, to the detriment of the sense of danger and thrill that the first couple of seasons had. And so I think the the show, particularly this last season, it was so indulgent on like giving every actor, not even the not the character, not in a way that would serve the story, but. Every actor like a moment, you know, to to have like an actory moment on the show and to have like a goodbye moment. I mean, that last episode, Sonny, I don't know how you felt, but like chop off the last forty five minutes of that two hour episode and it's fine that but like the whole going back like you're going ahead 18 months like and we've got like the older kids standing on the roof thing like it was like, what the fuck is this?
Sonny01:02:48You can have you can have that. But what the. Twenty years ago. They understood how to do a goodbye montage, you know, you know how you do a goodbye montage, you have somebody give a speech. And then there's a bunch of music and you see the people and they're kind of having fun and they're hard on Layla. You see them, you see them in their new jobs with their new responsibilities and you play some music over it.
Mike01:03:15Hold on, Sonny, are you saying show? Don't tell.
Sonny01:03:19And that's five minutes long. Maybe if you're really pushing it, that's five minutes. It's really should be like three minutes. And then you close it with another. You could close it with that Dungeons and Dragons segment that they close with, which was a great way to end the show. There's a there's like there's a there's a version of that 40 minute coda that's like 15 minutes long and probably could have been 10 minutes long and is so much better. And instead, it's two hours long. It goes on forever. I mean, this is just. This is just a streaming. I mean, we were talking earlier about the medium, you know, determining the form of the thing. And this is a streaming problem, which is that, like, there's no reason for this not to be two hours long.
JVL01:04:01You know how to get those viewing minutes.
Sonny01:04:03Yes. You get to 141 million hours. Fucking two hour finale. That should only been 80 minutes.
Mike01:04:10I think that's true. But I think it also speaks to the parasocial relationship that viewers and the show understood the viewers to have. Well, so these actors.
Sonny01:04:20So this is this is why I think Mike is right to highlight the ugly, ugly actors.
JVL01:04:24Hey, hey, quiet, quiet. I'm sorry.
Sonny01:04:27I'm not wrong.
Mike01:04:28Natalia Dyer is quite attractive, quite attractive, more more attractive than her, like Frodo Baggins haircut in the in the last season. Her haircut in that last season was terrible. No, there's a scene they have her in. There's a scene in the documentary where, like, she shows up at one point and I'm like. I, like, sat up and I was like, oh, yeah, she's hot.
Sonny01:04:52She's really hot. Forgot about that.
JVL01:04:54Forgot about that.
Sonny01:04:55Anyway, the.
JVL01:04:58Well, I lost my train of thought.
Sonny01:05:00Oh, no, the the youths. So, like, I saw I saw some people highlighting the ridiculous, like, overextended finale. And every time I saw somebody highlight that, there were randos in the comments that were like, but you have to say goodbye to everybody. That's what the audience wanted. The we wanted to say goodbye to all of these characters. At length. And I was just like, oh, my God, you you don't know how to watch.
Mike01:05:23You don't you kids don't know how to watch things. One hundred percent. You don't know how to watch things. You don't know. I mean, I think I've mentioned this on the show before, but like the the greatest thing about older movies and you don't even have to go far back that far. But especially if you watch movies from 60, 70, 80 years ago is the way they end when they end. They end quickly. It's like the final. The final thing happens in the movie and then the movie is over within 45 seconds. Forty five seconds.
JVL01:05:55And like Northwest.
Mike01:05:56Yes. Perfect example.
JVL01:05:57Right. Guy falls off Mount Rushmore and 90 seconds later, we're rolling credits. Totally. After they have come together or gotten on the train, had sex, got married.
Sonny01:06:06Well, they're going into the tunnel, right? Yeah, they go in the tunnel. Answer them going in the tunnel.
Mike01:06:11Hey, so 45 seconds. Yeah. So I just there's a there's an indulgence that I. I think you're talking about with the medium itself, but if there's an indulgence with the audience and particularly the younger audience who is more vocal online, who is I mean, like, we don't have to get into it. There was a lot of controversy over the scene in the penultimate episode where Will Byers, the kid who's originally kind of lost in the upside down in the first season, comes out as gay to everybody. And there was a lot of. At length. I mean, it is.
Sonny01:06:49Hold on, guys. We're not going to stop the apocalypse. The world is ending. I got to tell you that I got I got something I got to tell you.
Mike01:06:57By the way, by the way, for the story, right, they set it up as like he has got to come out to save the world. And once he comes out, it doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter. And it's like, what? And that's what we're not.
Sonny01:07:13We're not exaggerating. There was I saw I saw a meme going around that was like, you know, that. You know, the the meme from community of Chang from community yelling gang like that. There was somebody somebody did a version of that where it was Vecna in the Chang spot. And it was they they didn't have the actual word, but it was just Vecna doing the doing the hand thing. And somebody had captioned it Vecna's plan in season five of Stranger Things. Just saying just call just calling will being like, I could do this to you because you're gay. Like that is literally.
Mike01:07:48That's like I'm not exaggerating, but the show doesn't really, but the show doesn't even do anything with that. They're just like it's like it's like over after he says it to these. It's so ridiculous.
Sonny01:07:59The whole thing is silly.
Mike01:08:00But if you read the online commentary about it, it's like it's like that's this like all the youths. I'm sorry. They're like, no, it's like that's the scene we've all been waiting for. And you know what? I bet the Duffer brothers knew exactly that. And that's why that scene is.
Sonny01:08:17I would. I was so desperate for them to make the subtext text that totally that's the entirety of the entirety of online commentary.
Mike01:08:25Now, anyway, it's a shame. I loved the show when it came out. And I still I mean, the other thing is like JVL thinks the actors are ugly or whatever. But like, I really do like a lot of the actors, even some of the kid actors. I think I think everybody, the Will Byers actor, what's his name? Noah Schnapp. Not good. Like, he's just not he's not a good. Actor, but the Ghostbusters one, right? No, that's been Wolfhard. That's been Wolfhard, who I actually think is a pretty good actor. And also not a good actor. No, no, I think I think he's all right. I think Millie Bobby Brown is like a little overrated. What's her name? Sadie Sink. I think she's great. I think she could she could have like a long career. We'll see. But, you know, it just the short changing of the older actors, particularly Winona Ryder and David Harbour. It's like it's just.
Sonny01:09:18It's well, the guy the guy who's going to end up having the best career out of this thing is the guy who died in season four. Remember, Eddie? Oh, yeah. Who was in he was in Gladiator two and he was in. He's been in everything.
Mike01:09:31He's been in everything. He was in the Fantastic Four.
Sonny01:09:34Yeah, he was in. That's right. He was he was the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four. Correct.
Mike01:09:38He's he's everywhere. He was in the in the wrestling movie that we watched for this show. He's one of the brothers. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, I don't know. It's just it's it's a it's a shame, but it's also like whatever. It's a stupid. It's a fucking.
Sonny01:09:55Yeah, I mean, I like again, it's it's one of these things where I don't I can't I can't get too worked up about it because it's not like it's not like I and I had invested seven years watching it every week. Right. Because the show came out once every the show came out first once every 18 months. And this is the other thing is that like I actually had slightly more appreciation after watching the documentary for the amount of time it took. To shoot these seasons of television. Right. Like a season every 18 months, I think, is relatively reasonable. A season every three years. Not not as not as reasonable. And look, that just kills the momentum. This is a show that was predicated on momentum and taking that enormous break between season three and season four, but then even more between season four and season five. I mean, there were two there were two seasons in the last five years of the show. Like, that's insane. You can't do that.
Mike01:10:50Yeah. The last thing I'll say about about the show is I did enjoy throughout throughout the 10 years of watching the show, five seasons, 10 years was seeing where I grew up on screen because Hawkins is filmed in in the Atlanta area and it was so recognizably, you know, just the residential neighborhoods and, you know, it's like it's all very it looks exactly the way I mean, you know, it's funny because it's supposed to take place in Indiana and there's all these like southern pine trees and tall like hills, the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It's like, oh, like this looks nothing like Indiana, but it it sure is how it looks like Gwinnett County, Georgia. And in fact, the mall in season three of the Starcourt Mall was the was the mall that I went to, you know, all the time when I was growing up and it was the same mall.
JVL01:11:44They shot the opening of Wonder Woman 1984 and no, it wasn't.
Sonny01:11:48No, that was that was shot in Virginia.
Mike01:11:50Yeah.
JVL01:11:51Yes, that's right.
Mike01:11:52Yeah. So no, no, no. But it was, you know, there's a lot of action in season three in the food court. And like I spent as much time as they did in that food court growing up. So it was I did enjoy I enjoyed seeing that. So the show was fun.
Sonny01:12:09The show was frequently fun for those first three years.
Mike01:12:11Yes, 100 percent.
Sonny01:12:12First three seasons.
Mike01:12:13I even I even liked the total change in season three. I thought it was like appropriate. But yeah, once they the mythology, it's like, oh, it's like, why, why, why, why, why are we doing this? All right.
JVL01:12:25And I can tell you why, Michael. Why? Money. Because they didn't have anything else to say. Interesting.
Mike01:12:32There was a lot of money to be made if they kept making more hours of it. Yeah. Can't fault them.
JVL01:12:38Yeah.
Mike01:12:39It's a money making machine. Any final thoughts on Stranger Things or One Last Adventure?
JVL01:12:47Again. Never hated, never hated a TV show more.
Mike01:12:51You can't hate Winona Ryder, though, JVL. I defy you to hate Winona. Yeah. I didn't think so.
JVL01:12:57I'd even forgotten that she was in it. So did she. Having watched the documentary, I did not remember that she was in it.
Sonny01:13:05So did everyone who watched the fifth season, frankly, until the final shot.
Mike01:13:09Yeah. It says a lot that she was not involved in that documentary.
Sonny01:13:14And she's barely in that either.
Mike01:13:16Like, yes, I said. That's a lot about her relationship with the show, too.
Sonny01:13:20Yeah. It's interesting. The actor is really writ large or barely in it. The guy who gets the most screen time is the guy who plays Beckner, Jamie.
Mike01:13:29Oh, yeah. Because they put all the stuff on it, which was cool to see. It was cool to see him actually in the costume.
Sonny01:13:36It was funny to see him. So they put on a whole head rig and his face is really made up. And then he's wearing a bodysuit. It's just like a flimsy bodysuit. I was like, it didn't. I was like, did it look like that on screen? No, there was there was lots. There was all CG. All right.
Mike01:13:52We've we've we've run quite long. All right.
Sonny01:13:56Speaking of things that have gone on too long.
Mike01:13:58Totally. We should have cut it off 45 minutes ago. Join us over at Sub-Beacon. That is all the time we are giving to this episode today. Leave a comment and we'll talk to you next time.
Sonny01:14:16Should we do like Heather's next week? I bet. I bet Heather's is streaming somewhere.
Mike01:14:20I love that movie. I've never seen Heather's, so maybe we should.
JVL01:14:25I worry that it won't hold up. And I loved it so much as a high school kid. Seeing it and then realizing it was terrible would probably make me feel bad about myself.
Mike01:14:35I've heard it's not terrible, though. I've heard it's like it's like, oh, like this was almost too dark for the time. And so it's aged really well. That's what I've heard as somebody who's never seen it.
Sonny01:14:46I think that's I think that's about. Right. I haven't I haven't watched it in 15 years, probably, but it definitely had like it has like it's not just dark. It's also like kind of ironic, like it's it's like a dead gay son.
Mike01:15:00Yeah, there's like this level of irony that sort of presaged the the 90s in a way. All right.
JVL01:15:09I'm sure it's fine.
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