Spielberg Things about "Stranger Things"

Netflix's (low-key incredible) new show "Stranger Things" is, the internet agrees, a mash-up of a lot of great things, notably: Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, Stephen King, and the 1980's.

I'm not well-versed in Carpenter or King, but I do score decent marks in Spielberg and 1980's films. I've lost count of how many people have told me that E.T. scared them as a child. Because E.T. comes up in conversation for me. A lot.

*philosophizing* This moment IS cinema.

It's obvious (and wonderful) that the Duffer Brothers have major film influences, but I need to take a second to appreciate how meticulously they pay homage to E.T. in specific. They brilliantly recreated memorable moments from a total classic Spielberg film.

Hello and welcome to the best thing to happen to Netflix ever.

Apart from the fact that everything looks Spielberg à la 1982 (puffy vests, a foggy backyard, moonlight, kids on bikes), even the show's themes are Spielbergian.

You've got your basic Spielberg motifs: kids knowing more than adults, kids encountering supernatural creatures, and the classic Spielberg blend of the heartwarming with the piss-your-pants terrifying. Throw in a dinosaur and a massive shark and you've just about got the whole package (I'm kidding, Steven, I love you).

Stranger Things is even a brilliant Spielberg reference structurally.

Let's just take a glance at the Stranger Things, Episode 1: "The Vanishing of Will Byers".

Even though the structure is far from identical, the approach is similar. Here's a breakdown of the first two scenes of each Stranger Things vs. E.T. (Bonus: I color coded shared elements).

Opening Structure of E.T.:

Opening credits

Pan over of starry sky

Scene #1: The Forest Pursuit (creature established)

The spaceship introduced, aliens (including E.T.) kept in shadows and unseen

E.T. pursued by government men and left behind on earth

Scene #2: Elliott's House (friends established)

Elliott wants to join his older brother and his friends in a Dungeons & Dragons-type game

The boys banter about the game

Elliott picks up pizza from delivery man

Elliott's mom asks about the game

Elliott investigates a noise in the backyard

The family goes out to investigate but they find nothing

Opening Structure of Stranger Things, Episode 1:

Opening title on starry sky: November 6th, 1983. Hawkins, Indiana.

Tilt down from starry sky

Scene #1: Hawkins National Laboratory (creature established)

Scientist is pursued and taken by unseen monster

Scene #2: Mike's House (friends established)

Mike and his friends are playing Dungeons & Dragons

The boys banter about the game

Mike's mom tries to end the game

Dustin ends the scene by asking if anyone wants the pizza

Shared elements abound: young boys bantering over a board game, pizzas, moms not understanding the essential importance of Dungeons & Dragons ... even the opening with a moving shot of the starry sky. So. Much. E.T.!

Structurally, the major difference between the two is that Stranger Things uses the first scene to establish that the creature is pursuing humans, while in E.T., humans are pursuing the creature.

The opening scene of the monster chasing the scientist at Hawkins National Lab serves the same purpose as the first scene of E.T. in the forest when E.T. is being chased. Both say to the audience, "hey, this is the (mysterious) creature, and this is humanity's relationship to it". Stranger Things reverses E.T.'s scenario by making the monster pursue the humans so that the scene integrates aspects of 1980's horror, but still works around a similar opening structure of E.T.

Which is, you know, casually brilliant.

Can we talk about the casts for a moment? Frankly, Henry Thomas was incredible as Elliott in 1982 (his screen-test for E.T. is still one of the most memorable I've ever seen; watch it below), and the young actors in Stranger Things follow in his footsteps beautifully - they are hilarious, heartfelt, and sincere in turn.

Henry Thomas: Child Prodigy

But in both cases, it's the whole cast working together which makes everything seem uncannily natural. Great work everyone. We can all go home now.

The exact scientific representation of how I feel about the cast of Stranger Things

If you think about Eleven as E.T. and Mike as Elliott, there are an overwhelming amount of similarities. I was humming the E.T. theme (as I often am) when Mike faked sick (or, in this case, faked grief) to stay home from school. By this time, we'd already seen him sneak back into the house on a school day after his mom left. But he had to show Eleven around his house. When you have a friend staying, you don't just leave them alone.

Elliott fakes sick to stay home from school, too, and then shows E.T. around. Both scenes create a lovely trust bond between the characters as the one so willingly shares all his most important possessions with the other - even if those possessions include a plastic Boba Fett, or in the case of Stranger Things, a Yoda action figure.

Side note: Mike's bedroom even has the same rainbow blinds as Elliott's bedroom. (Rainbow blinds = all the rage, apparently.)

And who could forget the scene in E.T. when Elliott tries to hide his new alien friend from his mother, camouflaging him among dolls in his closet? Mike also hides El in his closet, though this triggers a flashback for her, which puts a spin on the original iconic scene when you expect laughter, but instead get something pretty grim.

And then, of course, there is Spielberg's iconic bike chase scene. When I think of Elliott and friends skidding along those asphalt roads with E.T. in the bike basket, John William's soaring - utterly unparalleled - score to E.T. is instantly audible:

This. Score. *crying noise* *crying noise*

Mike and friends also have a bike race of sorts to escape several pursing government cars. Was I the only one who completely expected El to make everyone's bike fly??

Although E.T. was pretty nostalgic even when it came out in 1982 (Star Wars references, Elliott's recreation of the kiss from Ford's "The Quiet Man", general cultural/filmic intertextuality), Stranger Things still strikes me as E.T. plugged into 2016 and our hyper-nostalgia culture. It's like an eight-hour E.T. that never would have been possible - at least, not in the same way - in 1982.

On the other hand, part of the brilliance of Stranger Things is that it is a cinephile's treasure hunt. It goes so far beyond E.T., too. Because this show handles filmic influences the way every director aspires to, you can see on the screen what films have influenced it. Spielberg is present without anyone saying a single word, and it's fun to unravel this text like a ball of 1980's-era yarn.

The fact that such a Spielberg series has taken off so dramatically makes it even more interesting that Spielberg's actual new film, "The BFG" (2016), tanked so badly at the box office last month. Could this mean that people are craving more genre-blending to make Spielberg "more interesting"? And would The BFG have done better if it had been released after Stranger Things rather than before? The rabid reception of the show could only have created a renewed interest in Spielberg, and also boosts Netflix's programming relevance.

Surely, the horror aspects of the show aren't what's scariest to the primetime networks about Netflix's renewed relevance. A small streaming service making such a big splash (again) might make primetime wonder if they've actually seen stranger things than Stranger Things. Something tells me they're about to.

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P.S. I took this opportunity to design my own poster for Stranger Things - check it out in larger size here!