‘Stranger Things’ Fans Rant About the Season 5’s Cheap ‘Netflix Look’

The series finale of Stranger Things will stream on Netflix and screen in movie theaters on New Year’s Eve, but some viewers say Season 5’s production values aren’t cinema-worthy. In fact, a popular Reddit thread sees viewers complaining about the low-budget “Netflix look” of such a high-budget show.

In a post about Stranger Things’ fifth season, Reddit user Tan_servo wrote, “The ‘Netflix look’ and green screen look has gone too far. Over-lighting, sets that look fake as hell, the overuse of depth of field to blur the background on almost every scene and shot. Hardly any practical effects even when it could have been done. I am just so tired of this sloppy look. Not even going to mention the horrible exposition-heavy dialogue where they explain what they are doing every 20 seconds.”

Another user said the visual effects were glaringly bad during the Upside Down lab scenes in Season 5’s fifth episode. “The tentacles on the walls all looked weirdly amateurish,” that user wrote. “It was as if a bunch of interns were told to superglue some stuff to walls and that’ll be fine. I thought it looked cheap as f***.”

Someone else opined, “The worst was Max’s cave; it looked so incredibly fake.”

Netflix

In another comment, a Reddit user said the “Netflixication” extended to the rom-com series Emily in Paris, where “it was like they’d shone a thousand ring lights at the actors and called it a day — no depth, no contrast, overexposed, and it looked like an amateur production.”

Watching HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry and Apple TV’s For All Mankind represents a “night and day difference, not just from visual styling but general script quality, character work, and overall production quality,” that user observed.

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One Reddit user says they try to give Stranger Things “a little grace” after growing up with “WB sci-fi/fantasy shows where the sets and effects were always a little funky.”

“However, when you look at the budget for this show, you do wonder what the hell they spent it on,” that user added.

Another user wrote, “Don’t be harsh. They only had four years to get it right.”

Stranger Things viewers previously complained about the show’s production values earlier this month, after one TikTok user highlighted how electrical tape was visible in one scene. “This is a multi-billion dollar show [for which] they spent years producing just the final season,” one commenter wrote at the time. “I wouldn’t expect there to be even a single mistake with those resources.”

Stranger Things, Season 5 Finale, December 31, 8/7c, Netflix and Select Theaters