Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Review

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

It’s only been four months since the epic series finale of Netflix’s Stranger Things, but the Hawkins heroes are “baaaaack” in animated form. Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is the first of several promised series spin-offs, with this one entirely animated and nestled inside the Stranger Things mythology between the events of the Season 2 finale and the start of Season 3.

While Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is executive produced by creators Matt and Ross Duffer, it’s creatively led by showrunner Eric Robles (Glitch Techs), and leans into a kid-friendly, upscale, Saturday-morning cartoon aesthetic – think Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! with a lot more visual swag and money. Picking up a month after Eleven closed the gate to the Upside Down and attended the winter Snow Ball with Mike, the main characters of the live-action series – Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and Max (all voiced by new performers) – discover they still have some dangerous Upside Down creature remnants to clean up in Hawkins.

As a spin-off idea, Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is a safe Russian nesting doll of nostalgia. If Stranger Things is nostalgia for all things ’80s, then Tales From ’85 is micro-nostalgia for the portion of the audience who think the earlier seasons of the live action series were “the best.” The 10-episode season unfolds as one overarching mystery that is richly animated by Flying Bark Productions and gorgeously production-designed in ’80s neons and contrasting colors by Benjamin Plouffe. If only the central mystery were as vibrant and complex as the medium in which it's being told, but by season’s end, the five hours of storytelling feels bloated, like it should have been condensed into a less repetitive six episodes or a really tight animated film.

Set in the winter season – a first for the universe – the opening episodes at first benefit from placing the Hawkins gang in a fresh setting of snow and winter woolies. Eleven (Brooklyn Davey Norstedt) is cozy in her forest cabin with a protective but busy Hopper (Brett Gipson) while her friends return to school after winter break. Their new normal disappears, however, as soon as they witness a menacing snow shark monster dragging human victims under snow drifts.

Because Eleven is needed to stop the relentless creatures but can’t be revealed to the general Hawkins populace, Tales From ’85 keeps its character circle tight to the middle schooler set. Older core characters, like Hopper, Nancy Wheeler (Alessandra Antonelli), and Steve Harrington (Jeremy Jordan) pop in and out of the story while the kids take point. That includes a new transfer student, Nikki Baxter (Odessa A’zion), who arrives in Hawkins with her substitute science teacher mom, Anna Baxter (Janeane Garofalo), and slips into the circle of trust after she’s attacked by the snow shark creature.

Animated and portrayed like a beefier, non-psychotic version of Jinx from Arcane, Nikki brings her engineering and science smarts into the mix while also challenging the existing group status quo dynamics in a useful way. She becomes a cheerleader to meek Will and a risk taker alongside Dustin. She’s also just as feisty as Max in defending Eleven, and functions like a younger, cooler Steve to the kids. Nikki is eventually folded into the gang’s newly formed Hawkins Investigators Club (or HIC), where they source leads from their peers about the weird creature sightings in the pumpkin fields, the woods, and the town’s sewers.

As expected, the creature threat stems from something residual left behind from the newly-sealed Upside Down, and that gets corrupted and exacerbated by some other shenanigans relating to the recently defunct Hawkins Lab. As a central mystery and creature generator for the season, it works, but it quickly gets repetitive. And because the season’s story is so tightly constrained to remain within Hawkins’ city limits and avoid messing with the live-action stories, the stakes are rather bland. It’s a given that no one is going to get consequentially hurt by the incessant creature battles or even the Indiana blizzards – where these kids are woefully underdressed! – so the rinse-repeat episodic fight sequences against variants of an organic Demogorgon-esque plant creature all mush together.

While there are some fun jump scares and visually stunning creature encounters peppered throughout the season, the overall action blocking doesn’t have much bite. In comparison, an animated spin-off show like Jurassic World: Chaos Theory feels more unfettered and dangerous because it was allowed to mature with its audience and given room to roam, literally and figuratively, on the fringes of its broader mythology. Tales From ’85 suffers from having to cling so tightly to what came before and what will come after, making it feel less like a vital watch within the universe. However, it’s got plenty of appeal for younger audiences new to the world, or those just aging into the live-action series. The vocal performances are also great, especially Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Max and Braxton Quinney as Dustin, who faithfully channel their live-action counterparts to a T. Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is a light watch for families to enjoy together, but it’s missing the spark that makes the live-action series so infinitely rewatchable.