Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 premieres April 23 on Netflix.
By Elazar Abrahams
Stranger Things has now spent a full decade as one of the most recognizable TV brands on Earth, and certainly Netflix’s most valuable asset. The sci-fi world of Hawkins is expansive, with a mythology that leaves plenty of room for side stories. Spin-offs were inevitable, and there’s no arguing the franchise is well-suited for it.
Which is all the more reason to be frustrated at Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 being such a misfire.
Set in between seasons 2 and 3 of the main series, Tales From ‘85 is an animated tale with potential. Stranger Things always has the characters in crisis mode, battling scary monsters and world-ending stakes. There’s not a lot of actual relationship building in the episodes, rather fans just buy into the dynamics that have happened off-screen. So spending time in 1985 with the gang is appealing. Perhaps we’d get a better feeling for how Max and Lucas are cozying up to each other, or Eleven adjusting to the world outside the lab. Instead, this spin-off feels weirdly pointless, just a rehash of another creature mystery for the kids to combat.
The first big issue is tone and audience. This show is intentionally harkening back to Saturday morning cartoons, the type that many popular 80s movies sprouted. That might be cute if it lived somewhere kids naturally stumble upon it. On Netflix, though, you have to choose it. You have to click on the tile of a cartoon spin-off of a show that sure, has always been for families and accessible to younger viewers, but was certainly mature enough to capture everyone’s attention. Here, the target audience seems to be little kids. The content here will not satisfy most adult fans, and as it’s tied to a live-action series that younger children probably have not binged, that decision just feels weird.
Tales From ’85 introduces new plotlines and even a new character, Nikki Baxter, who is meant to integrate into the friend group. Again, not necessarily a bad choice, but the nature of where this fits in the Stranger Things timeline immediately creates a problem… none of this can matter too much. If it mattered, it would have been mentioned in the pieces of the show that chronologically come later. That’s always the risk with “fill-in-the-blank” storytelling. The stakes are nonexistent. Viewers know who makes it to season 3, because we watched season 3 years ago.
Worse, the episodes start to feel repetitive. About half of the chapters end in nearly the exact same way, with a monster lunging toward the camera and the credits rolling. It’s a cliffhanger meant to keep you clicking “next,” but when it happens repeatedly, it is laughably lazy.
The voice cast is another knock against this project. The show uses a new voice cast rather than the live-action actors, which is understandable, I’m sure they were expensive. But too many of the characters sound so different than they do in the original show. Will, Lucas, Eleven, and Hopper’s voices in particular kept pulling me out of the story. When a franchise is this iconic, consistency matters.
As for the animation itself, that’s a strong point. The visual style is a weird 3D blocky look that reminded me a bit of Star Wars: The Clone Wars in texture, even if it’s not a direct match. It’s not going to work for everyone, but it grew on me over the season, and it’s easily the most distinctive element of the show.
Tales From ’85 feels like an unnecessary cash-in that doesn’t really understand what makes Stranger Things special. It borrows the characters, but it doesn’t deliver any of the vibes that made fans fall in love with this universe.
I give Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 a C-.
TV and City 