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Season 1 Script Thoughts

An incomplete list of things I noticed in the Stranger Things Season 1 Scripts

Anyway sorry for the inconsistency in images. I was taking pictures while in three different environments and I can't be bothered to retake them all.

One. When reading there are pages where there are clear blank spots.

These blank spots, I think, correlate with script version changes. (This is a common practice in screenplays and stage plays where instead of replacing the whole text, you just replace pages). Two things on why this is interesting to me:

The fact that they kept the breaks in, instead of making it one continuous text, seems strange to me. I actually didn’t notice it, until I got to page 196 because the scenes flowed one to another, without large gaps. If I’m right and these are a reflection of the pages/text being changed, why did they keep it in? Some gaps happen in the middle of a scene. It’s not like we NEEDED to know where revisions were made. But leaving it there, keeping the space, I want to read into it and be like “they wanted us to know there was a change.” Simplest answer is that someone legit just copy and pasted the final version and didn’t change or fix things, but that seems… weird. I don’t actually think we should read into it. So I’m just saying. It’s interesting.

Note that size of gap ≠ a massive amount of content being changed. Instead the number of gaps/hard page breaks, means multiple changes. (Could be small changes to dialogue) That being said. The Flea and the Acrobat had a TON of changes if the page gaps are an indication of changes made (ie new pages added). This makes me really curious on what caused that episode in particular to change that much.

Two. Gone = Dead (in most cases). Vanish ≠ Gone

I will probably have to write a whole new post about this, because it’s actually REALLY interesting to me. And I’m really curious if this trend continues for S2-S4. Like we knew that El said “gone gone” about Barb and not “dead.” Having read the whole of season 1, dare I say, this actually holds more weight when the word gone is pretty exclusively used to equate to the word dead. Like it’s not a 100% but pretty close (there are some moments that break the consistency, but not a lot).

I’m going to need to go back through all of S1, and list out each time “gone,” “vanish,” “nowhere to be seen,” and “darkness swallowed” are used. And then I’m going to look at S2, because I think it’ll be relatively consistent. And once I’ve done both, I think I’ll have an analysis.

Three. IMO, page 99 is hilarious.

The “Eleven is on Mike’s bed” being underlined. (Underline is used for emphasis). The implication based on emphasis that the reason that Mike is out of his mind is because El is on his bed. Followed by the “she knows about Will,” and “what do you mean, “she knows about Will?”” Yeah, what does she know about Will, Mike? It feels like an:

*Mike is caught with a girl in his room*

Mike: It’s okay guys, trust me. This girl who is sitting on my bed? She knows about Will.

His friends: WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WHY IS SHE IN YOUR ROOM?

This lowkey reads like a cheating scandal which made me laugh, because it 100% didn't feel that way to me when I watched the scene (not once in the many rewatches).

We all know what this scene is about: Lucas thinking Mike is out of his mind talking/listening to her. But like IDK, looking at this, and the way it’s written with the underlines just made me laugh out loud.

Full scene context:

Four. Courage

Every time that Mike is on the page, he makes the choice to not fight back against the bullies for a “not today” sort of reason. He chooses to be passive. But as time goes on and Will is gone longer, the passive approach turns to vibrant anger and courage (negative).

And

Now this second instance really gets me, specifically, because, Mike is smiling through his pain. It isn’t just his pain of being hurt but the bullying as well. We knew this to be true, based on the visual clues, but the written text says so as well.

And then at the school

And we’ll get to what El “put together” in a second. Notice here that Mike is fuming, hot, burning, and embarrassed. Mike’s anger is red. Who else do we coordinate with red? El. What does she do? Defend him. (El representing a metaphor.)

But most importantly: Mike doesn’t gather courage to face his bullies. He gathers determination.

You know when he does gather courage tho?

Confirmation that Mike knew he was going to die. And I’m like, the word courage here relates to the courage in the “smiling through pain.” The two scenes are linked in Mike’s desolation.

And you may be like AC. Please, it’s just a word. It could mean anything. Possibly! But they use the word “unoccupied” for Barb’s empty desk at school (when she’s missing and Nancy notices). Vanish vs gone has an actual correlation in the text.

Courage + smiling through pain and courage + stepping off the edge, are correlated. They are meant to be related in the text. If courage being tied to Mike being willing to hurt himself wasn’t the case, the word would have been used when he confronted the bullies in the gym. It wasn’t.

Also, Mike wasn’t angry when he stepped off the cliff side. I really think this says something about his emotions in a deeper context, but I’m also not sure if I’m the person to break down the inner workings of his anger, desolation, and “courage.”

I actually need to go back through the text and see every time the word courage is used to 100% stand ten toes down on this, but for now I’m pretty confident.

Five. I don’t actually think El knows/knew that Mike was being bullied.

This is probably my most controversial take, ever. I was of the opinion she knew, and understood by Season 4. That when she said her bullying and Mike’s bullying wasn’t the same, and that he didn’t understand, that she meant him being bullied for being weird vs her being bullied for a perceived disability. In which case she’s correct, those two things are different.

Now, I’m not going to completely discredit that, because I do think it’s still true an applies, but after reading S1, I actually wonder if she did understand.

El puts together that Troy hurt Mike (see above) .

In this scene previous, Mike explains. Now, from what we know in S4, this El shouldn’t remember the bullying she had at the facility (memories locked). And if we consider S1 on its own, there’s no proof she’s being bullied. But she is being abused.

El understand when people hurt others. Her saying she understands in this scene is not her understanding he’s being bullied, to this El, she’s equating it to abuse. Those are two entirely different things.

So in S4 when El and Mike are talking about her being bullied and he says “I’m not exactly Mr. Popular,” she knows that. But I don’t think El thinks Mike was being actually bullied (verbal bullying) the same way she was in school. I think El thought Mike was being hurt (physical bullying). When for Mike it was actually both.

And you may say, but AC she saw the bullies at Will's assembly at the school. She did. And she heard what they said about Will.

Let’s break this down:

1. She sees Mike hurt. He says a person hurt him by tripping him. And he said he didn’t want to tell her because he didn’t want her to think less of him. El, memory locked, really only remembers being abused. Mike’s injuries = her injuries = she understands.

2. At the school, Troy is making fun of Will. Mike calls him out. The “fairy” comment goes over El’s head but she knows it’s bad and they’re talking bad about Will. Mike, in her eyes, stands up for Will. In Mike’s eyes, however, the fairy comments are bullying/a direct attack against him. In this scene Mike is standing up for himself as he’s being bullied. To El, Mike is a hero.

3. When Mike jumps for Dustin, there is a knife against Dustin’s neck. Mike jumping is because he’s being pushed to it by his bullies. El sees Mike sacrifice himself to save Dustin.

Yes, El sees the physical violence, but to her that is what it is. Troy is Mike’s Papa, the one who hurts him. But Mike is a hero in her eyes, someone who saves others.

Again, El doesn’t actually see or hear Mike being bullied (in part because she doesn’t understand yet, from a language gap. In part she doesn’t understand nuance yet, and how comments that are being said against others are used against him). She sees violence.

Follow this:

In s2. El doesn’t see Mike except for when he’s at the school and another girl is circling him. (Making El jealous). Mike = cool to get another pretty girl.

In S3. We know El doesn’t go to school. She pretty exclusively hangs out with the crew (who are all outcasts) and she can’t be seen. It is reasonable to assume she doesn’t see Mike being bullied, ever.

So we get to S4. El is being bullied. And she doesn’t want Mike to think she’s not strong or cool enough. She doesn’t want to be seen as a loser to him (as Angela makes her feel.) When he says he understands (he didn’t want her to see him as a wasteoid). She says no. Because Troy=Papa NOT Angela. It’s different.

And she would be right.

But she’s also wrong, because Troy = Angela for Mike.

I don’t think El meant that Mike doesn’t understand her bullying in the nuance of being bullied for something you can’t control vs just being seen as a loser. (Which it is a totally fine take/ way to read it. After all, Lucas called Mike out for it and he did mean it in that nuance.) I simply think El doesn’t think Mike actually understands.

I’ll know better when the S4 scripts come out.

Six. Cut Scene of Jonathan becoming #1 suspect.

This is fascinating to me, because the rest is kept. People say they think he’s the killer. His creepy/stalker behavior. After the fight he’s arrested for assault on a cop and kept there because of the murder weapons in his trunk.

However, this scene is cut. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t affect anything. But it’s cool to see how this scene alone takes an implication (that Jonathan is creepy and people joke he killed his brother) and turns it into a legitimate question (“what if he did it?”) Jonathan as a red herring, like an actual one, is really interesting. But I figure they cut it to make the plot simpler to follow for the audience. The rest of the scenes imply that people think Jonathan’s creepy enough to be a killer. As is in the final version, the audience doesn’t necessarily think that. Yet, this single scene could have turned him to sympathetic to extremely questionable.

Seven. Page 166 Watergate foreshadowed.

This scene was also cut. Only unlike above, it was only cut partially. Nancy still goes to the water, but she doesn't really look into the pool. Instead she heard the noise and investigates.

Eight. Scenes I want to compare with future scripts to see how they are written and if they’re similar

Page 313 is when Mike tears down his tent. Compare to S3 when Will destroys fort byers. Also page 444 of the destroyed Fort Byers in the Upsidedown. Are they described the same?

Joyce pushing Jonathan 379. Compare with Mike pushing Hop in S2

145 El seeing Nancy’s room (memories on her dresser/descriptions) Compare to S4 El flashbacks with Max.

Count me as surprised if pg 94 doesn’t come back in S4 “relieved this is about Will, not Eleven.”

Nine. Lonnie called him a…

Script only says “queer.” The final show says “queer… a fag.” Both a slurs for being gay, but the final show implication (and also in the script) is that queer = gay slur AND queer = different. Yes, yes, I know that this tracks for the definition of the word.

However, if we look at the final product: Joyce is essentially saying Lonnie thought Will was 'different [queer], that he was gay [fag].' Where as the written script has that he’s different AND gay [queer, only]. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Anyway, I’m just going to replace the word “different” with “queer.” And when you’re “different [queer]…”

See you in Season 4 when I'll probably do an analysis of the use of gay slurs and being different in the actual text.

Ten “See, Michael: This is what happens.”

That punctuation is curious, isn’t it? Oh but AC, we’ve analyzed this to bits. Ted is saying to Mike that this is what happens [when you like boys/act gay]. Yeah, I know. We assumed that based on context clues and media analysis. This is the actual punctuation and it says the same thing.

I’m not refuting. I’m giving textual support.

That semicolon means everything.

Eleven. El Knows Will

I can’t tell you why exactly this stood out to me so much. I think it’s because it’s one of the few times where an answer is so obvious in the implication. Maybe it’s because of the “yes” in quotations but it’s not underlined, as most of the major revelations are.

Or maybe it’s because this scene has both of their POV. Mike sees her looking and realizes it’s Will in italics.