Stranger Things Season 5 Takes A Few Cues From Great And Terrible Star Wars Movies

Spoilers follow.

"Stranger Things" season 5 continues the show's trend of paying homage to nerdy pop culture (to put it mildly). Heck, some storylines repurpose ideas from elsewhere, such as Will (Noah Schnapp) and Vecna's (Jamie Campbell Bower) relationship copying the feud between Harry Potter and Voldemort. The Wizarding World wasn't the Duffer Brothers' only source of inspiration, though, as "Stranger Things" season 5 also riffs on the "Star Wars" franchise's best and worst movies.

Let's start with the good ones.

"Chapter 5: Shock Jock," sees Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Steve (Joe Keery), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Nancy (Natalia Dyer) get stuck in the Upside Down's Hawkins Department of Energy. Upon entering the building, Dustin compares their mission to the Rebels' quest to destroy the Galactic Empire's Death Star in "Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi." He claims that the goo on the facility's walls is Vecna's version of the Death Star's shield, so they must find whatever is generating it and destroy it accordingly. Solid plan. 

Be that as it may, Dustin's analogy more or less confirms that this particular storyline mined ideas from the beloved "Star Wars" threequel — the Duffer Brothers aren't even trying to hide it. However, there is also a lowkey nod to the film when Max (Sadie Sink) wakes up from her trance in "Chapter 7: The Bridge." Her eyes are sore and she struggles to move, which is reminiscent of the scene where Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is unable to walk after being rescued from his carbonite tomb.

If you are going to pinch ideas from "Star Wars," then "Return of the Jedi" is a great movie to choose. That said, it's arguably even bolder to pay homage to a threequel that wasn't as well-received as the 1983 classic.

"Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker" is a disappointing conclusion to a solid trilogy. We don't have to get into the ins and outs of why here, but the fact it's the second-lowest rated "Star Wars" flick on Rotten Tomatoes indicates that a lot of people don't like it. Still, that didn't stop the Duffer Brothers from taking cues from one of the movie's dumbest ideas in "Stranger Things" season 5.

"The Rise of Skywalker" contains a scene where Rey (Daisy Ridley) holds a Sith digger toward a mountain range and realizes it's inscribed with the directions to the planet Exegol, where Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is hanging out. The dagger's scribblings are supposed to reflect the mountain's peaks, except they don't, but the movie wants us to believe that they do. It's a heavily mocked plot hole in "Star Wars" fandom circles, so how does it factor into "Stranger Things" season 5?

"Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz" sees Max and Holly (Nell Fisher) wandering in a desert, where Holly suddenly notices strange markings on the cap of the looking-glass she's carrying. Holly notes that if they can get the shapes to line up with shapes around a cave Max has been hiding out in, they might discover a map. Through this assumption, they're able to locate a mine shaft in the ground. 

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the Duffer Brothers' were poking fun at the maligned "Rise of Skywalker" here. After all, what's the point of paying homage to "Star Wars" if you can't acknowledge that the franchise is pretty silly at times ... even when it isn't trying to be?