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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
Runtime: 3 hours 5 minutes
Changelist:
-The film starts with Eleven returning from the Upside Down. She goes to find Mike where she realizes that revealing herself would mean more danger for her and those close to her, so she hides in the woods.
Eleven’s return might have been a big mystery after the end of Season 1, but also something that everyone expected. So I decided to start Film 2 by giving away her return, so the rest of the film would focus on the real mystery -her recomposition with the group and the town of Hawkins.
-Less Max and the boys trying to befriend her.
-Almost no Billy.
-Less Joyce and Bod.
-No Nancy and Steve conflict.
-Less Dr. Sam Owens.
-Less Bob interacting with Joyce and Will.
-Less Dustin and Dart.
-Less Nancy and Jonathan at Murray’s house.
-Shortened interrogation of Will in the shack.
-No Lost Sister subplot, only a glimpse of her in Terry Ive’s flashback-memories.
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 my cut Eleven has a vision in Aunt Becky’s house where she sees what happened to Will and the Mindflyer’s plan against the group, which leads her back in Hawkins.
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.
This decision lead me to create an alteration of Brenner’s voiceover while El is closing the Gate, replacing his footage from Kali’s illusion with scenes from Season 1 and a brief appearance of El’s mother instead of Kali.
NOTE:
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.
Links for these scenes can be found in the comments below.
This cut is not currently available, although I might consider making it canon in the future.
STRANGER THINGS 3
Runtime: 3 hours 22 minutes
Changelist:
-Shortened Russian lab introduction.
-No Billy and miss Wheeler flirt.
-Way less Hawkins Post.
-No Tom and the rest of Hawkins Post employees.
That means I had to get rid of the whole hospital fight. While being a cool sequence it doesn’t really add much to the story.
-Way less Mayor Larry Kline.
-Shortened Miss Driscoll subplot.
-Less Joyce research about the magnets and less Scott Clarke.
-Less Heather.
-Less Dustin, Steve, Robin and Erica at the Russian lab.
-No Russian interrogation.
-No Steve and Robin romance.
-Less Hopper and Joyce romance.
-Less Murray and Alexei.
-No Suzie and Dustin’s song.
All three cuts are now available through PM.
Those of you who already have the previous cuts of Films 1 and 2, please send another PM if you are interested in those new versions.
I am open to any discussion about which parts I could have left out to significantly reduce the runtime of each cut, as well as any feedback on the overall project.
