Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Gets A Cutscene-Lookin’ Trailer

Stranger Things gets animated for a 10-episode interquel series, and the results are mixed.

When is the brand bigger than the product itself? The exact line is hard to map, but one of the markers getting close is when the key elements can be stripped out of the product to the point where only the brand remains. Now, I’m not saying that Stranger Things have gotten there just yet, but how this uncanny valley-lookin’ animated placeholder they’ve cooked up performs will certainly indicate how much farther it goes.

Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Trailer

What’s the plot?

As the official synopsis tells us:

Return to Hawkins with Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, an exciting new animated series from showrunner Eric Robles and executive producers the Duffer Brothers. In the winter of 1985, snow blankets the town and the horrors of the Upside Down are finally fading. Our heroes Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and Max have settled back into a normal life of D&D, snowball fights, and quiet days. But beneath the ice, something terrifying has awakened. Could it be from the Upside Down? From the depths of Hawkins Lab? Or from somewhere else entirely? Our heroes must race to solve this mystery and save Hawkins in this new story set in the Stranger Things universe.

Who’s in it?

Not a single original cast member, that’s who! But expect to hear:

• Brett Gipson as Jim Hopper.
• Luca Diaz as Mike Wheeler.
• Brooklyn Davey Norstedt as Eleven, AKA Jane Hopper.
• Braxton Quinney as Dustin Henderson.
• Elisha Williams as Lucas Sinclair.
• Ben Plessala as Will Byers.
• Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Max Mayfield.
• Jeremy Jordan as Steve Harrington.
• Odessa A’zion as Nikki Baxter.
• Janeane Gorofalo as Anna Baxter.
• Lou Diamond Phillips as Daniel Fischer
• …and Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, as Cosmo.

When’s it out?

Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 premieres on Netflix on April 23.

What’s the vibe?

I am… unconvinced. It feels like the flip of a Disney live action remake of an animated classic, taking something that works perfectly well (sometimes incredibly well) in one medium and shoving it into another where it can’t hope to match the quality of the original. And the fact that it’s an interquel – a story set between two existing instalments – makes it feel inconsequential. Now, interquels can work – look at Rogue One and Andor – but nothing here feels like anyone’s bringing their A game.