- Netflix has released the opening scene of stranger things season 5 episode 1
- Answers a big question about Will Byers from the show’s debut season.
- However, some fans are not impressed with one aspect of the footage.
Netflix has released the first five minutes of stranger things season 5 and, wow, we need to talk about it.
With less than three weeks to go (at the time of writing) until stranger things‘ final season premieres, Netflix is in full promotional mode for the show’s last hurrah. And, to generate even more excitement for the arrival of stranger things season 5 volume 1 on November 26, the streaming giant has posted the opening scene online for us to peruse.
Look
It’s also a pretty significant sequence. Rather stranger things 5 Opening in the present day, the scene in question takes us back to November 6, 1983, that is, the day Will Byers disappeared and set the show’s overall narrative in motion.
After a brief chase sequence in which Will almost manages to evade capture by a demogorgon in the Upside Down, he is knocked unconscious after falling while attempting to jump from tree to tree in an attempt to escape said demogorgon. Dragging Will to what appears to be the Upside Down version of Creel House, the demogorgon leaves the preteen as a gift for Vecna, aka the main villain of one of Netflix’s best shows.
Binding Will with several of those wet, slippery tendrils that make us squirm, Vecna expresses her satisfaction at being able to continue with whatever her grand plan is. Using his telekinetic abilities, he raises another more sinister looking tendril towards Will’s face, places it in his mouth, and begins pumping a vile substance into Will’s body.
Some of this is not completely new to stranger things devotees. We already knew Will had been filled with…something in Season 1, Episode 7 because, when he’s rescued by his mother Joyce and Hawkins Police Chief Jim Hopper, he’s tied up the same way he is here with the tendril still attached to his mouth.
In season 2, Will is also possessed by an entity known at the time as The Mind Flayer, who was presumably able to control Will using the substance that was forcibly imposed on him. He also coughs up a disgusting slug-like creature at the end of that season. Oh, and let’s not forget that Will can “sense” when Vecna or some other Upside Down entity is nearby because the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
stranger things The opening scene of season 5, episode 1, then, is not only a callback to everything that’s happened to Will so far, but it also fills the gap in his story regarding what happened in the Upside Down after his kidnapping in season 1. It also sets the stage for its importance to the show’s fifth and final installment, which was much teased in stranger things The official trailer for season 5, which could include a major spoiler.
Although it’s nice to see franchise overlords Matt and Ross Duffer staying true to their word that stranger things 5 will answer our biggest questions about the show, there’s one element of this extended clip that doesn’t sit right with me: the visual effects (VFX) technology that was used to de-age actor Noah Schnapp for this sequence.
This isn’t the first time a character’s aging has bothered me. Its use in Indiana Jones 5, The Irish, Gemini Manand many other movies and TV shows were equally irritating because the final product just felt “out of place.”
It’s a feeling I haven’t been able to shake since watching this extended sequence either, and I’m not the only one. Whether it’s threads on Reddit pages like r/StrangerThings and r/Television, or places like X/Twitter, others are also unimpressed with the strange valley nature of it all.
Will we remember this when the time comes? stranger things ends? Probably not; but, considering it’s the only extended sequence they’ve given us before the release of season 5, it’s going to be a hot topic of discussion until volume 1 arrives.
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