This article contains minor spoilers for Stranger Things: Tales From ’85
When we last left the kids of Hawkins, they weren’t kids at all. Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, Eleven, and Sam had all grown up and moved on from their adventures in the Upside Down, and with good reason. As punctuated by Joyce’s flashback before dismembering big bad Vecna in the series finale, these kids have lost a lot in their battle against a primordial evil—most importantly their childhood innocence.
So we cannot help but smile when, after a foreboding cold open, the first episode of Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 begins with the main kids running out of their houses to gather together and ride their bikes to school through the snow. Returned to youth through vibrant cell-shaded animation, the kids have all the innocence and energy that made us love them in the first place.
Created by Eric Robles, Tales From ’85 resets the clock, taking place between seasons two and three of the series. By this point, Will has already been trapped in the Upside Down and El exerted herself more than ever before to close it, but the kids begin the series more or less feeling like the worst is behind them.
Using animation solves one of the most notable problems facing Stranger Things. It took nine years to produce the forty-two episodes the show released over five seasons, and the kids had well advanced into adults. Twenty-somethings regularly played teenagers in the ’80s properties that inspired Stranger Things, but we first met these actors in pre-adolescence, making the disbelief harder to suspend. In animation, Dustin may have all of his teeth, but he’s not far removed from the adorable tyke of season one and El certainly doesn’t look like a wife and mother.
This isn’t to say that Tales From ’85 requires no buy-in from the audience. None of the original cast returns to lend their voices to the show, not even the adults. As a result, it does take some time to get used to slightly different voices coming from faces and characters we know well. For the most part, the transitions work with the kids, outside of minor details: Luca Diaz is a little less shrill than Finn Wolfhard was as season two Mike, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport shows a bit more emotional range than Sadie Sink as Max, and Braxton Quinney sometimes gives Dustin a southern accent missing in Gaten Matarazzo’s take. However, Brett Gipson feels like he’s playing a generic cartoon big guy instead of the lovable oaf who David Harbour portrayed.
Rather than harm the series, the adjustments help cement Tales From ’85‘s status as an animated spin-off, not unlike cartoon versions of live-action movies from the old days, such as The Real Ghostbusters or Godzilla: The Series. Tales From ’85 tones down the language and violence from the mainline series and puts the kids on a new adventure.
As seen in the first episode’s cold open, some manner of contaminated spore has been unleashed onto the town, infecting the plant life to create shark-like vines that glide through snow and pumpkins that threaten to devour humans. To deal with the problem, the kids form the Hawkins Investigators Club (HIC), offering their paranormal expertise as a service to citizens in need.
That premise seems to set up a classic Saturday morning-type series, in which each episode pits the HIC against some new Upside Down-related beastie. However, Tales From ’85 cant’ fully commit to such antiquated formatting, and instead plays like a modern season of television. There’s one overall story, and each episode is just a chapter, rather than a discrete narrative unto itself. This structural decision isn’t bad, per se, but it does feel like a missed opportunity, especially given how well everything else works in the show.
Those positives include the addition of new kid Nikki Baxter, a confident punk rocker voiced by Odessa A’zion (who cannot help but sound a little like alternate reality Bobby Hill, given the performer’s lineage). Nikki adds some of the same energy that Max first brought to the group, as a girl disinterested in nerd stuff and with more than enough energy to share with the timid boys. Moreover, she plays more realistically as a punk in a small town than those whom Eleven teamed up with in season two.
Moreover, Nikki bonds with Will, the most ignored of the main characters. Will’s arc in season five remains the most mishandled of the bunch, so teaming him with Nikki feels a bit like making up for later mistakes. Nikki brings out the best in Will, without the need to turn their friendship into a romantic relationship, as happened to Mike and Lucas with El and Max.
In short, Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is the rare animated spin-off done right. It conveniently gives viewers an excuse to ignore the parent show’s bland later seasons and lets viewers jump right back into the fun. Even better, it offers its own exciting take on the world, giving the first real indication that Stranger Things can be more than a fad.
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is now streaming on Netflix.
