So, long story short....
After watching episode 3 of season 2 of Stranger Things on Netflix tonight
I decided to do some research of my own.
I decided to do some research of my own.
Nothing in particular...
...starting with movies from the year 1984
...starting with movies from the year 1984
After only 15min or so into my quickly expanding playlist of movie trailers on the YouTubes,
my partner called from the other room
my partner called from the other room
"Whats this song? where do i know this?"
"I dunno? some VHS looking thing from 1984" i replied
"Its Stranger Things?"
My jaw dropped as we had just discovered a revered holy grail of secrets hidden away inside the Stranger Things homage hunt.
The original source of 'inspiration' for the iconic opening music, up untill now, nobody has been able to identify.
The original source of 'inspiration' for the iconic opening music, up untill now, nobody has been able to identify.
I go on a bit about what lead me to who i am today, if you can't be bothered and only came for the bragging rights, just do what most people have already done and skip straight to the video link at the bottom of the page. If you are at all interested in what i have to say, please, read on
Now I was born '79', my better half, she's an 80's baby, our earliest memories go back to 84/85, influential memories 86/87/88'ish.
Down in New Zealand it took time for movies to make their way to the Southern Seas of the world.
Who cared what date a movie was released?
We went to the movies when we were lucky enough too.
Thanks to another child of the 80's, old mate VHS, we were able to watch every release again and again and again.
Even if it sucked, we'd watch it, because we could (and it was an ideal babysitting tool).
Everything, we could so we did.
Point is, we were force fed 80's pop culture.
MTV, Hiphop, Basketball, toys, comic books, cartoons, toys from cartoons, cartoons from comic books, comic books from cartoons, sitcoms, Alf, Fido Dido, Spacies/Space Invaders (arcade video games to the rest of the world), and all those classic movies marketed straight to an 8 year old kid.
A small glitch in time between Generation X & Genertion Y, we grew up with these new technologies, the first generation to grow up teaching the adults how to work those 'blasted things'.
We had all the pop culture we could ever dream of, so long as kids kept buying the merch.
With no Google search engines, we relied on word of mouth to find things deemed cool.
The machine kept spewing out pop culture so fast it didn't even know what it was creating anymore, some of us made sure, armed only with blank tapes and sellotape, nothing would ever get lost.
Even the most obscure, so impossible to find it doesn't exist, but, i might know a video rental place on the outskirts of a town 8 hours away that might have a ratty old copy you can hire for 5 days.
No matter how shitty the quality of production, someone could always drop a cool 'yeah, my cousin got a dub of that'.
aaaand so the internet was created
aaaand now its all at our fingertips
aaaand now its all at our fingertips
De La Soul resampling a record from Mums collection is not the enemy.
Home taping is not killing music
The reason your band is not making any money is because your sitting on your ass doing nothing, don't blame Limewire, go tour ffs!
Data flow is now so torrential it's impossible to know how big the wave is that we are surfing.
Downloading something to watch takes so long, people only do so for airplane flights, its all about the stream.
This is where Netflix does wonders, upstarts proving the old folks ways are out dated.
We have new systems, information can have expensive lawyers but it can't be owned.
It can however be rented out in 4K HD with full surround sound to multiple devices from one account, an entire season of TV, available worldwide 27.10.17
I'm happy to pay for my telly when the people i am paying are producing outstanding productions like Stranger Things.
The Duffer Brothers are well aware of all this, and it seems this season they have taken a page from Ernest Clines 'Ready Player One'.
Stranger Things Season 01 payed homage to some key influences to our modern culture, Stephen King, Sci-fi & Horror flicks B-grade and below, etc etc.
Stranger Things Season 2 has stepped up the game a touch to another level, becoming an epic adventure into everything us kids deemed 'Cool'' back in the days.
A treasure hunt if you will, this seasons clue is '1984'
A treasure hunt if you will, this seasons clue is '1984'
Is it a strange thing that 1984 is also the year The Duffer Twins were born? (so Wiki says)
I like the story, yes, but so far i have found myself repeatidly pointing out all sorts of strange things i remember from the weekly 5for$10 VHS rentals i grew up with.
Every line of dialogue, every camera shot, every edited cut, hidden gems slipped into the background by Art Department, the amazing audioscape, all the FX, and even the bobble eyed extras, i seem to be searching for that unattainable crystal key, and for what reason?
Homework has been made by every department in production for this level of 1984 cool.
I made the call to only watch one episode a day, it's a comic book thing. It lends time to absorb what has been watched.
We are only up to episode 3 and my 'where's that from?' quest is all the way up my arm.
Movies have been cross referenced too.
Obviously they are wearing 'Ghostbusters' costumes, but the ectoplasm, the heavens opening above to the onslaught of Stay Puft the Marshmallow Man.
Is it by chance one scene involving the upsidedown skies closely echoes Close Encounters of the Third Kind on its 40th Anniversary?
Is it by chance one scene involving the upsidedown skies closely echoes Close Encounters of the Third Kind on its 40th Anniversary?
Driving to the laboratory follows the car in a fashion too similar to 'The Shining' to be a coincidental thing, especially when the kid in the car has the same haircut to Danny from Kubricks masterpiece.
The opening titles sport a '2' straight outta 1990's 'Childs Play 2', the creators of Stranger Things are happy paying homage to any era, as long as its cool.
Jim Hoppers Evil Dead cabin where we see 11 watching television with the cinematography straight out of a Poltergeist movie.
Look up movies that came out in 1984 on the internets and you will surprise yourself with some sources of inspiration for this season of Stranger Things.
The Last Starfighter, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, Terminator, Children of the Corn, Nightmare on Elm Street, C.H.U.D., Dreamscape, we even get Sixteen Candles... classic 80's high school relationship dilema's and a cute ginger that all the boys love?
ANYWAYS,
THE REASON YOU CLICKED ON MY BAIT
enough chit chat already
THE TUNE I BELIVE TO BE THE ORIGINAL INSPIRATION TO THE STRANGER THINGS OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE
IMDB rates this 1984 release at 2.7/10
With an estimated budget of $200 000
Considered by some to be one of the best worst movies ever made
Directed by Bruce Toscano
The Jar
With the soundtrack credited to an aptly named
'Obscure Sighs'
The YouTube i found labelled it
80's VHS Synth music
If you look them up you may find only a Reddit post labelled
'Obscure as fuck music/bands'
Here it is folks
After an hour of me telling life stories
Its not original
Its another copy
The source of inspiration for the music to the opening sequence of
STRANGER THINGS
A Netflix Original
Now the well clued up might say
"Hang on what about this?"
"Hang on what about this?"
'Big Trouble in Little China' did not come out till 1986
Maybe the 'Abduction at Airport' theme in fact rips off Obscure Sighs?
Who knows?
At the point of time i wrote this
Any information linking 'Obscure Sighs' to 'Stranger Things' was non existent to my search engines.
IMHO
Somebody somewhere in the making of Stranger Things knows of 'The Jar' (1984)
I just hope Obscure Sighs can get the recognition Obscure Sighs deserves.
Do i get a prize now?
Can someone track down 'Obscure Sighs' and give them a medal?
That is all
Thank you and goodnight
