It’s been three years since the previous season of Stranger Things and the final showdown between the Hawkins crew and the Upside Down begins Wednesday night on Netflix. University of Alberta film studies professor Murray Leeder joined CTV Your Morning Edmonton’s Kim Wynn to talk about the show’s popularity. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Kim Wynn: Why do you think this show resonated with multiple generations? Murray Leeder: My instinct is to say good fundamentals, solid start storytelling, good casting. Casting appealing young actors and people like Winona Ryder who we know from other things back in the day, who carry a certain amount of prestige with them. I think that that stamp of quality is one of the things that really carries over. But I’ve seen even younger children than that, like single digits, wearing Stranger Things apparel and such. Definitely a four quadrant. Kim: How did the show capitalize on the nostalgia of the 80s? Murray: I was just looking at the age of its creators, the Duffer Brothers, and they’re a little younger than me. They were born in 1984 so they didn’t experience the 80s, nor did I, in the way that the characters did. The show is very informed by media techs of the 80s and I think 80s culture has had a revival in the last decade or so. Much in the same way that the 70s was obsessed with the 50s, with Happy Days and American Graffiti and so on. There are these waves of internal nostalgia and the show is a distillation of 80s popular culture. Stephen King, Spielberg, The Goonies, ET and Dungeons and Dragons as well. I think that it does all that quite successfully. But I always wonder, is the 80s thing just aesthetic? It seems like the show takes place in this closed, generic world. Does it say anything about the 80s or is it merely about that nostalgic, looking back on that period, even from those who weren’t there? Kim: You mentioned Dungeons and Dragons and you’re kind of a D&D expert yourself. How do you feel about how they use that in the show? Murray: It’s nice. In my time in the 90s, Dungeons and Dragons wasn’t so demonized at that point, but was sort of a niche hobby. It’s interesting to see it get this revival because I can see another world in which it’s just tapered off indefinitely. Instead it’s received a boom in the last 10-15 years and the company has put out Stranger Things tie-ins and such. They’ve been on the train of trying to boost their brand. Kim: What do you think the legacy of Stranger Things will be? Murray: It’s always hard to talk about legacy. A certain amount of that depends on whether it sticks the landing or if this will be a case like Game of Thrones, of the initial reaction being mass disappointment which seems to wipe it off the cultural map. But its legacy already exists in that we had things like IT, the revival of Fire Starter, revival of 80s coded materials and it has launched careers as well. It will have a legacy on that front, but it will be very interesting to see if it sticks the landing or not.
