A new documentary about the making of Stranger Things 5 sees co-creators the Duffer brothers disagreeing over Eleven’s destiny at the end of the series.
As Stranger Things approached its final few episodes, fans became obsessed with who would live and who would die by the time those concluding credits rolled.
Matt and Ross Duffer promised it wouldn’t be a Game of Thrones-style bloodbath, and maintained they were making a feel-good show, so killing everyone off wasn’t the aim.
But new Netflix documentary One Last Adventure – about the making of Season 5 – spotlights the brothers arguing over Eleven’s ultimate fate. Meaning SPOILERS ahead…
The Duffer brothers couldn’t agree on Eleven’s ending
Much of the drama in One Last Adventure stems from Season 5 being shot while the finale is being written, which places pressure on production staff, who are keen to know what to build and how to budget.
But it also takes its toll on Matt and Ross Duffer, who want to do right by both the audience, and their characters, which triggers a debate about Eleven’s end.
The scene plays out in the ‘Writer’s Room,’ and kicks off with Ross stating: “The whole episode has to be building towards ‘Eleven is going to kill herself.'”
Matt follows up with: “Like, if we’re trying to sell it as she’s going to kill herself, and then she kills herself…”
Writer Paul Dichter pitches in with: “I think that it’s like, is she still deciding? Has she already decided?” Which leads to a full-on debate between the brothers…
Ross: “You have to keep toying with the audience, because I think what works in [Episode] 7 is this, like ‘Oh my God!’ Like, ‘Is she really going to go through with this?’ And it’s what everyone’s gonna keep expecting.”
Matt: “We think she’s made the choice to live.”
Ross: “I don’t know.”
Matt: “Just kidding, she hasn’t. Just kidding, she has.”
Ross: “I don’t know if we have to play it like that.”
Matt: “How would we play it?”
Ross: “We keep it ambiguous. We keep it ambiguous to the moment…”
Matt: “No. If she comes back and has… in a moment with Hopper… if she comes back and has this moment with Hopper and gets in the van, I feel she has clearly made a choice to live.”
Ross: “No. Not necessarily.”
Matt: “If you show me those images, she’s made a choice to live. I’m so…”
Ross: “Don’t do the 100% thing.”
Matt: “I’m 100%.”
Ross: “What’s the other option?”
Matt: “God, I don’t know how to play this.”
The doc leaves it there, but we the audience now know how they ultimately played it, going down the ambiguous route, with Eleven either trapped or killed in what’s left in the Upside Down if you believe your eyes, or starting a new life in a new town near multiple waterfalls, if you believe Mike’s theory.
As for what One Last Adventure director Martina Radwan thinks about Eleven’s fate, she told Variety: “I like the idea that magic died, or that magic had to die. But then again, magic lives on within us. So I don’t know.”
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