Stranger Things fans, get ready! Eleven, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Will are back for another supernatural adventure. This animated spin-off, set between seasons 2 and 3, rewinds the clock to 1985 and brings the beloved characters together once again. So yes, another supernatural, deeply nostalgic show is heading your way to perfectly fill that Stranger Things-shaped void if you've been missing the gang like crazy.
Having said that, the animated series falls slightly flat compared to what we have seen in the actual series. It tries hard, but somewhere it ends up feeling like a competition the animated series is trying to compete with the actual one. What goes highly against the show is that, instead of creating something new, the series feels like a retelling of the familiar tones of the original show. Anyone who has seen things before wouldn’t like to watch the same plot again in an animated form. This time too, the group encounters what they already did- upside-down’s threat and how it can be solved with the help of science and loads of teamwork. For some, it is a good trip down memory lane, and for many, it is nothing new that they looked for.
This sense of repetition is there in all the episodes. I still don’t know what the need is to create another show with an almost similar plot when we already have a super hit series of the same plot. Perhaps a bit more uniqueness in the plot could have been amazing. At the end of the day, everyone expects big suspense when it comes to Stranger Things, which the original series did. Sadly, this one falls really short in giving us that.
The animation is okay. Like most of the characters, they resemble the original cast of the show, but just in the animated version. I feel that is something one can ignore because, probably, the makers thought that instead of creating starkly new characters, it would be better to continue with the old ones. Upside-down visuals are good, will definitely give the makers that one.
However, even in all this, there is still one sort of newcomer that we see: Nkki, who joins the group and is not borrowed from the original cast. She is a breath of fresh air in the old characters that have seemingly repeated themselves from the original cast. Maybe some more newness of this sort would have made Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 a hit like the original one.
Since I believe that this is made for kids, the horror aspects are not as brutal as we saw in the og show. Here, that dosage has been lessened. So if kids are planning to watch, this is a good introduction till the time they become old enough to watch the actual Stranger Things. While I won’t say this has to be a big “must-watch” for you, if you are a big fan of Stranger Things, this can be a one-time watch for you. I will advise you not to compare it, but that happens inevitably, so nothing much can be done about it.
Final Score- [4/10]
Reviewed by - Neerja Ch
Follow @NeerjaCH on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times