Re:The Typography of ‘Stranger Things’
by munificent on Thursday July 28, 2016 @12:28PM
(#12181263)
Totally agree. The title sequence and music taps into some primitive nostalgic core parts of my history I can't even accurately articulate. As soon as it came on, it's like a light in my childhood blinked on. Wonderful.
But the show itself is just meh.
The acting is uniformly bad. Given that it applies to all of the actors, I assume it says more about the directors than the cast. Everyone is too loud and too over the top, all the time, which has the effect of making everything boring. There's no dynamic range in the emotion (except for the mysterious girl, who is pretty great).
I like the story mainly because I enjoy the all the tropes it rehashes. But the dialogue is pedestrian, the pacing is semi-random, and the episodes I've seen so far feel like more of a pastiche of scenes than something tightly polished.
The cinematography is everything I hate about digital film production. It's so easy to color correct every frame that now you're obligated too and everyone does it the exact same way: Crank up the shadows so 90% of the frame is pure solid black (with none of the subtle detail that would still be just perceptible in there if it were film). Get the that's left and kill every color that isn't orange or blue [1].
Cinematographers! You can do amazing things with color today. Stop always doing the same thing!
Still, having said all that, I do enjoy watching it. I think a more experience hand could tighten it into something more spectacular, but it scratches a nostalgic itch that not many other things do.
But the show itself is just meh.
The acting is uniformly bad. Given that it applies to all of the actors, I assume it says more about the directors than the cast. Everyone is too loud and too over the top, all the time, which has the effect of making everything boring. There's no dynamic range in the emotion (except for the mysterious girl, who is pretty great).
I like the story mainly because I enjoy the all the tropes it rehashes. But the dialogue is pedestrian, the pacing is semi-random, and the episodes I've seen so far feel like more of a pastiche of scenes than something tightly polished.
The cinematography is everything I hate about digital film production. It's so easy to color correct every frame that now you're obligated too and everyone does it the exact same way: Crank up the shadows so 90% of the frame is pure solid black (with none of the subtle detail that would still be just perceptible in there if it were film). Get the that's left and kill every color that isn't orange or blue [1].
Cinematographers! You can do amazing things with color today. Stop always doing the same thing!
Still, having said all that, I do enjoy watching it. I think a more experience hand could tighten it into something more spectacular, but it scratches a nostalgic itch that not many other things do.
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=stranger+things&espv=2&biw=1...