HHN '18: Stranger Things

Embargos are something you should be aware of..

 

actually murdy himself wanted to know when it was gonna happen.

 

Just wanted to mention since I don't know if many people noticed, but on the ground as you leave the upside down section, there are reused xenomorph eggs from avp, kinda neat to see them again

 

I thought they bore a striking resemblance. Now I feel silly.

 

This maze reminded me a LOT of Silent Hill from ‘12. The woods and the flashlight effect with the chain link fence at the beginning felt exactly like that. I recall hearing way back that SH was supposed to go in where ST is now. Going through ST is probably a taste of what that maze would’ve been in SS 29.

 

Would it have made that much of a difference though? ST fails as a soundstage maze. No facade, maybe one scene with height, maybe one scene with width, the light bleeds in the entire maze, no immersive control over the environment like snow, UM has more roofs, and the maze is short. I think SH was okay as it was... could've been better with a darker, scarier tone that from someone who was a genuine fan of the games.
AVP is the best example of an actual SS house we've had so far, unfortunately.

 

That is true, which is why I think SH would've made little difference in a sound stage aside from maybe a layout change. Although I will say the lab scene is probably the only main advantage of the sound stage as having a room that size would be impractical in any other venue.

I say this for every forest scene, but would it really kill them to add more camo netting for the forest scenes to make it feel more immersive and cover those blasted black walls? $10 at Walmart. Shouldn't be an issue.

 

Definitely agree the forest needed more foliage in several spots, especially around Castle Byers. I also think they ought to/should have cut the first full-size Demagorgon; that spot was not intended to be a scare location, and it shows. As soon as the trigger goes off, everyone who has entered the maze can see it coming. It also disrupts the intended design, which was to tease the Demagorgon (first shadow, then claws through the walls, then half-body) until the full-body reveal in the Upside Down.

I will dispute concerns of length, however. It's a fairly standard length for a maze, with many of the scenes being quite large.

 

In terms of height, I now question the capabilities we've been able to pull off considering how high some scenes in TrT are. Or did they just get a higher tent this go around for that? But I was genuinely impressed.

I do question the idea of camo netting... I think in theory it should work, but the more I think about it, it might break the concept of perspective. If I'm supposed to be looking deep into a forest, yet there's a giant net in close range, it completely breaks that perspective. It'd ultimately look cheap and like we're in a lagoon or something. As where if it's just darkness, with the right lighting, it could supposedly go on forever. I'd prefer matte paintings, with trees "in the distance" getting smaller and smaller, but that'd be very time consuming and would need to be lit in some way, which again would just make it look like a wall. I think the best thing to do is what Disney does in their dark rides. Have layers + matte paintings. Again, it'd have to be lit and may look like a cartoon.

Yeah, that first scare is EMBARRASSING. He's just standing there out in the open, not hidden at all. That's when I knew the maze was in trouble.
And I agree, in theory by scene count the maze is standard. But all of those scenes feel short. The experience as a whole is a beyond truncated version of everything we've seen on the show. Compared to what they've done on TWD or AHS, none of the scenes felt fully fleshed out. So yes, a standard length, but none of the scenes are done justice by that length. Which is why I think it needed to be twice as long, and it had the space to do it, too. And we honestly did not need the First Purge, all that money could've poured into ST.

 

I guess I just disagree that the scenes are short? Many of them are rather large - the forest up to Byers, the Hawkins Lab exterior/interior, the school hall/classroom - the big letdown is the Upside Down, which needed to be far bigger; the later detour to Upside Down Castle Byers also felt really random.

That said, they didn't really have any additional space in there. The only way to mine any more real estate would be to swallow some of the queue directly in front of the maze, some of which has to exist for fire marshal reasons (basically, you have to be able to circle the maze structure with a certain width).

 

Agreed, and it doesn't look good. Sounds like their original plan didn't pan out.

 

What was their original plan?

 

Allegedly involved bouncing of light and cotton balls - was supposed to create an ethereal "floating fauna" effect. Was trumpeted a lot internally and just... didn't happen.

 

Oh yeah I forgot about the cotton balls. Maybe it scared John too much when he went through it and he made them take it out

 

My guess is fire hazard