@wreckage3001 said:

Most of all these 'particle' stuff, but also the monster and all the rest, it totally ruins the 80s vibe. I want real dust in weird lighting and a Stan Winston style monster.

They never claimed to be reproducing the exact methods used by 80's filmmakers and rejecting anything developed later. Most of the demogorgon's scenes actually weren't pure GCI, but enhanced practical effects. A guy in a monster suit touched up with GCI to make it look more realistic. Those kinds of shots actually look quite good. When it dropped down from the ceiling, broke through the wall at the school, and was on fire, you could tell the monster was pure GCI. So what? They did a good job with a fairly limited budget. Sequences like Eleven's van toss would've looked incredibly fake using 1980's-only methods, so I'm glad they didn't go that route. And personally I liked the look of the Upside Down. Producers can do more these days with less money and less time spent in post-production thanks to modern techniques. I understand what it is you'd like to see, but that probably isn't feasible. Just think of ST as a 21st century re-imagining of classic 80's cinema. Because that's basically the idea behind it.

Er....no I think I like to disagree :) With all due respect. And I have a problem with the guy in the rubber suit anyway. It was the original Alien movie's so well created psycho terror that was almost ruined by a guy in a suit in the final scene, remember? So I think ST's biggest mistake is to let us see the monster completely. Seeding (sic), in the viewers head, the idea of "There's a huge, evil thing out there from another world" for as long as possible without revealing the whole thing is much better suspense. Now we have this carnivourous plant on legs sort of. It will appear and disappear in coming episodes, it pretty sure will perform some cool polymorphics but the beast is way less scary. The first hint writers are aware of this is the invention of the slimy snail stuff in the final episode...I remember a nice computer game from years ago, Project F.E.A.R. I think. It's background story kind of resembles 11's. Some scenes were so scary and they did it with only letting a little girl in a nightdress appear in some dark corner for a second. So yes I also think they demystified things about Eleven too much, too early. But I agree 80s movie were not like this. Goonies, Stand By Me, Firestarter and stuff wasn't about paying much attention at building suspense. And in recreating these types of atmos, ST is very very good. But then you go such a long way to make it perfect (for who actually is all this effort, todays kids or old folks with nostalgia?) and then you're counteracting by making the FX like coming from a totally different world. The particles in a real 80s ST would look like real dust (what about cocaine, rather popular in the 80s, totally fits the drug expanded universe feel of Upsidedown) . They would use some hydraulic plate with springs or whatever to make the van fly, the Demo would be animatronics and you would only see a face or a claw.

@wreckage3001 said:

Er....no I think I like to disagree :) With all due respect. And I have a problem with the guy in the rubber suit anyway. It was the original Alien movie's so well created psycho terror that was almost ruined by a guy in a suit in the final scene, remember? So I think ST's biggest mistake is to let us see the monster completely. Seeding (sic), in the viewers head, the idea of "There's a huge, evil thing out there from another world" for as long as possible without revealing the whole thing is much better suspense. Now we have this carnivourous plant on legs sort of. It will appear and disappear in coming episodes, it pretty sure will perform some cool polymorphics but the beast is way less scary. The first hint writers are aware of this is the invention of the slimy snail stuff in the final episode...I remember a nice computer game from years ago, Project F.E.A.R. I think. It's background story kind of resembles 11's. Some scenes were so scary and they did it with only letting a little girl in a nightdress appear in some dark corner for a second. So yes I also think they demystified things about Eleven too much, too early. But I agree 80s movie were not like this. Goonies, Stand By Me, Firestarter and stuff wasn't about paying much attention at building suspense. And in recreating these types of atmos, ST is very very good. But then you go such a long way to make it perfect (for who actually is all this effort, todays kids or old folks with nostalgia?) and then you're counteracting by making the FX like coming from a totally different world. The particles in a real 80s ST would look like real dust (what about cocaine, rather popular in the 80s, totally fits the drug expanded universe feel of Upsidedown) . They would use some hydraulic plate with springs or whatever to make the van fly, the Demo would be animatronics and you would only see a face or a claw.

But this is what the Duffer brothers said, that it was a present day re-imagining of classic 80's horror/sci-fi movies. Their goal was never to replicate the exact way movies like ST would've been filmed 35 years ago but to capture the style and atmosphere of those films using modern techniques. Maybe you would've done it differently. But the result is precisely what its creators intended.

There is no simple device I know of that would allow movie crews to hurl a van that high into the air; and if there were, the law wouldn't allow you to throw it over the heads of minor actors (or possibly adult ones either) due to safety concerns. A botched launch could be lethal. In the last shot of the sequence they dropped the van straight down from a crane but the rest was a computer generated model of the van added to the image. And you have to admit, it looks real. They get the shadow underneath it just right. It doesn't appear superimposed at all, like it would with older methods. Inanimate objects are much easier to render than living things of course. You'd never know they were using CGI.

A lot of older horror and sci-fi goes to great lengths to avoid showing the monster because special effects were so expensive and many types of shots were impossible to do in a realistic looking way. In the scenes at the end of The Terminator for instance, you can see the stop motion with the robot, whereas today it would look fluid and believable. The fusion of traditional creature effects and CGI gives you a better looking monster than either practical effects or CGI alone are capable of producing. Directors back in the 80's did without such things (and avoided full body shots like the plague) because those techniques weren't available at the time, not because they wouldn't have chosen to use them had they existed. To be perfectly blunt viewers have become impatient with reveals that take too damn long. Yet another monster-cam scene with someone backing away and screaming, but we don't get to see it. Another victim dragged into the shadows by a clawed arm or tentacle and we still don't see it. Give me a break! Just show us! Waiting until nearly the end of an eight episode season to give people their first good glimpse of the beast would be more cheesy and irritating than suspenseful.

@wreckage3001 said:

Most of all these 'particle' stuff, but also the monster and all the rest, it totally ruins the 80s vibe. I want real dust in weird lighting and a Stan Winston style monster.

No.

They just need to speed it up a little; so many scenes are dragged out so slowly.