 The Duffer Brothers are back with Stranger Things, season 4, part 1 of 2. They split this in half, and there's a lot of questions to be asked, but the most important one that stands out to me is, why don't the people of Hawkins, Indiana, move? I mean, at this point, I don't know why anyone's still living in this hellscape known as Hawkins. The place is a literal nightmare. What does the brochure even say at this point? Hey, come on down to Hawkins! Check out the demigorgan or the mind flayer! It will kill you! This season's no better. Now they have Vecna. This guy's an asshole! For starters, he's wearing skin wrong. It's like inside out. He's got tendrils coming out of that thing, tentacles coming this way and that. Secondly, he's got scary CG bats that will do whatever he wants. And finally, the way he kills these poor kids. It's nothing shy of disgusting if it didn't look so fake. I've always been impressed with the visuals and stranger things. But as the show has gotten larger in scale, there's some noticeable issues going on in this department. The budgets may be stretched a little too thin at this point. Our boy Vecna is not going through the drive-thru. He likes a full-course meal so he can savor every bite. And by that I mean he full-on Freddy Kruger's these kids mentally tortures them in their dream states and then eventually goes for the kill shot. And it's not just a wham-bam thank you ma'am sort of a deal. No, he pops out the joints, dislocate, and then he gouges out the eyeballs for fun. And this is where the CG goes from serviceable to downright atrocious. It's like the budget kept getting thinner as they were going on. So the first time you see a person die, it's like shh, won't levitating in the air. It looks pretty solid. And then by the last time, it's just a cartoon. The last death looked like a character skin in Fortnite. I should probably talk about this season and what it's all about. There is a lot of plots going on and the directors have full-blown ADD now. They cannot sit still on one subject matter for more than five minutes before we jump to the next one and the next one and the next 30. It becomes very hard to keep interest which is why it took me so long to get through seven episodes of this show. Each episode's over an hour long as well, so these are super sized episodes. What ends up happening is you overextend the material to the point where it's not interesting anymore or you take things way too far such as getting bullied, which is a major issue in this town. Again, why are people living here? Actually, I guess the bullying doesn't take place in Hawkins because Elle, who's the one getting bullied, she lives in a new town. They moved at the end of season three to get away from the hustle and bustle and the monsters and the death and so now they're starting to fresh, starting a new. Elle doesn't have her powers anymore. How is she gonna deal with this? I can't wait to find out in 45 minutes when we come back to her eventually after doing a plot that takes place in Russia with Hopper. What's he up to? He's getting tortured and beaten and tortured some more and beaten some more and then he's finally tortured and then beaten but then we're gonna jump back to 11 eventually to watch her get tortured mentally by her classmates and teacher and skating rink attendance. The level of bullying going on in this show is astronomically stupid. I don't know what the Duffers grew up in and it's not just a mean girl clique or the douchey jocks, that's believable. No, this is the mean girl plus the mean teacher, plus the entire school, plus an entire roller rink. At one point they pull a prank on Elle and she's in the middle of the roller rink freaking out and everyone stops and makes a like a coordinated circle around her. They all hold hands basically in point. It's ridiculous and I know the Duffers sometimes try to ham it up and go over the top but they went over the top of over the top ham. It's ham on ham. It's too much. Too much ham. It's bad for you. I shit you not. There are like a dozen plots in this show. Half of them I already forgot about and I'm not gonna break down the entirety of this series. I'm just gonna say I really like Stranger Things season one. Season two, big let down. Season three, I thought got a lot better improved and then season four here it's like half awesome and great but then there's all this other stuff that really dragged it down for me such as the over long 11 back story complete with weird deep fake technology of her young self like six different storylines around kid trauma alone and how they're dealing with it or more importantly how they're not. Nancy Wheeler and gang Scooby doing around town. Waenona Riders spies like us storyline. The introduction and character assassination of the Hellfire Club. Vecna's backstory double crossing shadow government agencies going ahead to head plus the introduction to several new characters one of which is fantastic and that's Eddie Munson played by Joseph Quinn. He's the older kid in the friend pack should have probably graduated a few years back. He also is the leader of the Hellfire Club. One of the major storylines revolves around him and how he's wrongfully accused of these murders. I love season one of Stranger Things because the vibe was there the nostalgia was there of that time period it felt like a bunch of mini Steven Spielberg movies. Since that time I don't think the Duffer brothers have been able to capture that magic again because a lot of these kids who notably look much older this season some are unrecognizable at first until they start talking then I'm like oh it's it's you okay cool but even with those good memories it was still hard for me to get through this season I did and I enjoyed it a decent amount but I was I found myself frustrated with a lot of the plot points intentionally hammy or not I didn't feel it criticisms aside it's still doing enough to keep me invested for the second half of the season which can't come soon enough I am looking forward to it I just hope they tighten things up a little bit more you know cut down that runtime maybe not so much with the bully and stuff we get it everybody's got some baggage they have to overcome well there you have it my lukewarm thoughts on the new season of Stranger Things I've seen some comments online and people seem to be very high on this thing maybe I'm in the minority let me know in the comments below are you loving this are you all in or are you kind of like me and things just aren't really lining up like they used to so please leave a comment if you want like the video if you got some enjoyment out of this and maybe think about subscribing because I do tons of movie and tv show related content on this channel all the time I'd love to have you stick around take care since you're still here and I'm still pondering over this show is it just me or did like half the characters wildly change in personality or revert back to how they used to be Jonathan Byers for instance sucks this season it is just pathetic poor will why do they even save the kid in season one when he has nothing to offer the show they never give him anything to do and Robin who I liked in season three became obnoxiously annoying here what happened listen I know you're the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawk that's that's a power couple but uh I'm not feeling it I'm not feeling it this season do better