UPDATED ON JAN 22

The idea for my first faneidt attempt was to recut each season of Stranger Things into three full length films, like a horror franchise from the '80s.
I wanted to create three cohesive movies to watch alone as a recap of each season or for a first viewing without having to watch entire seasons.
Many scenes and subplots were removed and some major changes occurred in order to create an easy to follow and comprehensive story.

STRANGER THINGS

Runtime: 2 hours 49 minutes

Changelist

-Less Wheeler family.
-No Eleven and Benny interaction and no investigation for Benny’s death.
-Less “bad men” searching for Eleven and the boys.
-Less school bullies.
-Less Hopper’s investigation of Hawkins Laboratory.
-No mentions and appearances of Will’s father.
-No Terry Ives subplot.
-Less Steve and Nancy romance.

STRANGER THINGS 2 V3

Runtime: 3 hours

Changelist

-Eleven’s return right from the start.
-All scenes at the arcade have been removed, we jump right at Max’s arrival.
-Almost no Billy.
-Reduced Max and the boys trying to befriend her.
-Reduced Hopper investigating the crops.
-Reduced Will’s visions.
-Reduced Dr Sam Owens. Removed Will’s sessions and Hopper’s interaction with him.
-Less Joyce and Bod.
-No Halloween party.
-No Nancy and Steve conflict.
-Reduced Hopper underground.
-Reduced Dustin and Dart.
-Reduced Nancy and Jonathan at Murray’s house.
-Reduced Demodogs’ attack inside the lab.
-Shortened interrogation of Will in the shack.
-No Lost Sister subplot, only a glimpse of her in Terry Ive’s flashback-memories.

NOTE:

There was an idea to remove El’s visit to her mom as well to create a tighter and shorter film.
In that case I would had put together a new film titled “Stranger Tales: The Lost Sister” covering her screentime away from Hawkins, including Terry Ive’s story and the whole Lost Sister plot.
In case Kali returns in future seasons, I will revisit this idea.

STRANGER THINGS 3 V3

Runtime: 3 hours 1 minute

Changelist

-Shortened Russian lab introduction.
-Removed Billy and miss Wheeler flirt.
-Removed Tom and the rest of Hawkins Post employees.
-Reduced Mayor Larry Kline.
-Reduced Heather’s plotline.
-Shortened Miss Driscoll subplot.
-Reduced Joyce research about the magnets and almost no Scott Clarke.
-Reduced El and Max at the mall.
-Reduced Dustin, Steve and Robin investigation.
-Less Dustin, Steve, Robin and Erica at the Russian lab.
-Way less teenage romance/drama.
-No Russian interrogation.
-No hospital fight.
-No Steve and Robin romance.
-Less Hopper and Joyce romance.
-Less Alexei.
-Removed 4th of July festival.
-Removed Suzie and Dustin’s song.
-Removed post credit scene.

NOTE:

The reduction of Alexei’s scenes and the removal of the 4th of July festival lead to the removal of his death scene. In this cut Alexei serves only to inform Hoppeer, Joyce and Murray about the Russians’ plan and we last see him at Murray’s house.

All three cuts are now available through PM. Any kind of feedback would be much appreciated.

Stranger Things - Film 1 is out now available through PM.

Hello, that looks amazing. Can you please send Film 1 link for PM?

PMed you

No Eleven. Every scene with Eleven up to the point where she appears in Byers’ house was removed.

I mean it makes sense for runtime but at the same time you’re losing by far the best plotline. If anything, I’d rather have a movie just covering El’s story in Season 2.

Anakin Starkiller said:

No Eleven. Every scene with Eleven up to the point where she appears in Byers’ house was removed.

I mean it makes sense for runtime but at the same time you’re losing by far the best plotline. If anything, I’d rather have a movie just covering El’s story in Season 2.

I hear you. I struggled a lot with this choise.
As I said,my main goal was the runtime and with her whole story the film was just too long.

I want to revisit the whole project sometime in the future (maybe after Season 4) and maybe then I will try to make a seperate film.

I loved season 1 of Stranger Things, but the subsequent two seasons were a bit too bloated for me. Curious to see how movies 2 and 3 turn out. It would be interesting to do Movie 2.5 with the El storyline.

Very cool. I had basically the same idea but of course did nothing with it. This was actually pretty common in the 80’s where series were cut down to feature film length to be released overseas in the cinema.

Sorta like Classic Doctor Who omnibus edits that ran on PBS.

ANNOUNCEMENT

I decided to revisit the whole project from the start, since I have not been happy with the final result for some time now. Many transitions between scenes were a bit rough and some plotlines may have not been quiet easy to follow.
Major adjustments accured on all three films for better pacing and a more immersive experience for first time viewers and fans alike. Naturally, this also made the movies a bit longer.

As soon as all three films are available for sharing I will post another announcement and update the original post with the new runtimes and changelists.

For now, I can share with you some of the changes I made for “Stranger Things 2”.
As some of you pointed, losing Eleven’s storyline may has not been the brightest choise. So, in this approach
I decided to include her whole arc insted of a flashback later on.
But this choice lead to a much longer final cut. So, in my current cut for “Stranger Things 2” I left out the whole Lost Sister plotline, since many viewers find it odd and hasn’t really anything to do with the overall story.

In order to justify some developments throught the movie, I made two new scenes.
The first one is a dream sequence at El’s mother’s house where she sees what happened back in Hawkins which leads to her return.
https://vimeo.com/411732825
(password: edit1)
The second one is an alterantion of Brenner’s voiceover while El is closing the Gate, replacing his footage from Kali’s illusion with scenes from Season 1 and including a brief appearance of El’s mother istead of Kali.
https://vimeo.com/411737234
(password: edit 2)

While I do believe that losing the Lost Sister plot makes a better movie, it surely creates a problem with El’s new punk look. I can only hope that Hopper’s comment about Aunt Becky giving her those clothes makes up for it.

Now, in case Kali returns in future seasons, I also made another cut with the whole Lost Sister plot in it.
In this cut, El travels to Illinois after finding out about her sister in her contact with her mother in Hopper’s cabin.
https://vimeo.com/411747304
(password: edit3)

So what’s the runtime of each film?

Anakin Starkiller said:

So what’s the runtime of each film?

I am still trying to find ways to trim the runtime, but the first film is something less than 3 hours and the next two more than 3 hours but less than 3 1/2 hours.

In my books a film should never exceed 2 and 1/2 hours.

Anakin Starkiller said:

In my books a film should never exceed 2 and 1/2 hours.

As I said that’s the perfect runtime for me too.
But in my books a film should also have structure, logic and continuity. And in this case I made the choice to sacrifice the runtime in order to achieve those goals.

So if for example Steve appears in the end of Film 1 with blood on his face, I can’t get rid of his stupid argument with Nancy because that’s where Jonathan comes and breaks his nose.

Tell that to the guys who deleted the scene where Indiana Jones gets inside the sub before it submerges. Lol.

But in all seriousness I get what you mean.

What? That was the best part!

All three cuts are completed and available through PM.
The original post has been edited with updated information.

Could you please PM me these? I’d love to see your work!