Stranger Things creators defend season 4’s movie-length finale
By Daniel Roman
When the first seven episodes of Stranger Things 4 premiered back in late May, one of the things that got everyone talking was the monstrous episode lengths. Not a single episode of the show’s fourth season clocked in at under an hour, and a handful of them were pushing an hour-and-a-half. Volume 1 was mighty, to the degree that it almost feels like a new evolution of the television format.
But it’s got nothing on Volume 2, which drops on Netflix this Friday and is slated to have a season finale that’s just under two-and-a-half hours long. How is that even an episode of TV? It’s practically the same length as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight!
Stranger Things creator says if the finale is too long, you can always pause it
Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer recently sat down with Variety for a lengthy interview where they talked about all sorts of things, including these gargantuan episode lengths. Having the episodes run as long as they do wasn’t a premeditated decision on the part of the Duffers or Netflix, but rather came about organically during the editing phase of production. According to Matt Duffer, the reason the episodes weren’t broken down further was so that the pacing of each one would remain more engaging.
“If you look at one of the episodes, like, you couldn’t cut it out 15 minutes early,” Matt said. “Structurally we have this year — I think it was four major storylines. And they each have three or four beats per episode. So they’re all building towards a specific point.”
“We looked at the final episode ’cause it’s so long. There really wasn’t a good spot to break it,” Ross added. “So it’s like, why — at the end of the day, you know, if someone wants to pause it, they can.”
"Even to do sound and editing, we had to break [the finale] into reels as if it was a movie, which we’ve never had to do before. So reel one is build-up/dread, reel two is action/chaos, and then reel three is sort of our traditional coda/come down after all of that. You didn’t really wanna break it after just the build-up, it wouldn’t feel like a satisfying episode. So at a certain point we just said, ‘well, it’s just a mega episode.’"
That makes sense. Watching an episode of nothing but build-up would likely have been a little less fun, although the second episode of Game of Thrones’ final season, which was entirely build-up to the Long Night battle, does come to mind as a decent counterpoint that worked well.
In any case, it’s nice that Netflix gave the Duffers enough freedom to make such an ambitious season, though Matt insisted that it’s not like they had carte blanche to just do whatever they wanted. “You know, it’s a discussion. We have a really great relationship with Netflix, where everybody wants the show to be successful for them. It’s an ongoing discussion with them, creatively.”
Stranger Things 4 Volume 2 drops on Netflix this Friday, July 1. Then we can all make up our own minds about its epic conclusion for ourselves.
Next. Who will die in Stranger Things 4 Volume 2?. dark
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