Stranger Things‘ season two will be more like an amped up movie sequel instead of a normal year of TV, so does that mean it will suffer the usual movie sequel curse, or will the show flip that upside down? We went searching for answers on today’s Nerdist News Talks Back, along with the first reactions to the SNES Classic, and what we thought of the trailer for Annihilation.
Host Jessica Chobot was joined today by a very special guest, musician, and video game high school star Jimmy Wong, along with Geek and Sundry‘s Amy Vorpahl, and Nerdist producer Jason Nguyen. They started with everything we learned from EW’s spread about the upcoming sophomore season of Netflix‘s smash hit Stranger Things. Can the big bad “Shadow Monster” out do the Demogorgon in the scare department? How long will the Byers family be able to keep Sean Astin’s character in the dark about the supernatural happenings in Hawkins? Also, since the Duffer Brothers wrote this season as a sequel, is that a bad sign the show won’t live up to its great first year? And which all-time great sequels give us hope it could be even better?
The panel then returned from the Upside Down to discuss initial reactions to the SNES Classic. Jimmy knows a thing or two (million) about video games, so what does he think? Which games are we looking forward to playing? Or is everyone hesitant to invest in an SNES Classic after Nintendo’s announcement they’ll be doing a Netflix-style service for the Switch? If they do, which N64 games need to be included?
Finally they broke down the first trailer for the new sci-fi film Annihilation, the followup from Ex Machina director Alex Garland, which stars Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac. Find out what everyone thought of this first sneak peek, the rest of Garland’s impressive resume, and what we would be willing to do to rescue Oscar Isaac.
As always Nerdist News Talks Back was live at 1:00 p.m. PST on our YouTube and Alpha channels, just like it is every weekday. Tune in during the show so you can get in on the conversation.
It’s just like Stranger Things season 2: every day is a bigger, more exciting sequel to the last show, and Jessica frightens us more and more. (Just kidding. The show is usually around the same length.)
But you can still talk back to us about today’s topics by sharing your thoughts with us in the comments below.
Even Stranger, um, Stranger Things…
- Stranger Things clips explain why Steve didn’t die.
- Guess the ’80s references in these Stranger Things posters.
- Season two script pages introduce a new character.
Images: Netflix
