Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Review: Hawkins Returns in Vibrant Yet Spooky Animated Spinoff

Stranger Things began its life as a fairly small-scale genre experiment that gained its success largely through word-of-mouth, but over the past decade, the series has grown into the flagship Netflix franchise and one of the most successful TV shows period. Even with the original series finally ending just a few months ago with its fifth season and series creators the Duffer Brothers insisting that there will be no direct sequels, the show’s world and characters may never truly exit the pop culture spotlight.

But ubiquity doesn’t have to mean staleness, as the built-in audience and expectation for new stories can lead to exploring new ideas you might not otherwise have thought to try. Such is the case with our subject for today, Stranger Things: Tales from ’85, an animated interquel that takes the series’ 1980s roots to their logical extreme by giving the live-action original its own equivalent to The Real Ghostbusters. It’s a genuine joy to watch and probably wouldn’t exist without someone being forced to look at the original and ask, “What more can be done here?”

What is Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 about?

Our story takes place between the events of Stranger Things 2 and 3 as our heroes have settled back into a sense of normalcy in the early weeks of 1985. Eleven seemingly closed the gate to the Upside Down for good and the lives of her, Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, and Max are dominated by snowball fights and D+D games rather than interdimensional monsters.

But things take a turn when an entirely new breed of creatures begin terrorizing Hawkins. Now, our beloved gang of misfit kids, as well as newcomer Nikki, voiced by Odessa A’zion, must work together to defeat these new monsters, find out where they came from, and stop more from coming before their beloved town is consumed by darkness yet again.

Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Review

Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. It’s Stranger Things but as a cartoon, or more specifically, cartoony. The unique personalities and strong character dynamics of the kids, the 1980s cultural homages, and the cool little girl with psychic powers fighting horrific abomination creatures that made the original show the juggernaut that it is are all still here, just presented in a more colorful, compact, and family-friendly package.

The episodes are all 25-30 minutes as opposed to nearly an hour or more, the aesthetic is defined by bright green and purple instead of dark black and red, and there’s also a distinct lack of blood and swearing compared to the main series. While that last one is a little distracting when going from one to the other, it’s ultimately not a huge deal. And the new color palette and shorter episodes both end up as points in Tales From ’85‘s favor.

I loved all of Stranger Things all the way through, but the episode lengths, particularly in Season 5, got pretty exhausting, so getting to see these characters in a more compact story is rather refreshing by comparison. Plus, even though the episodes are shorter, there’s ten of them instead of the usual eight or nine, allowing more time within the story structure for these characters to simply be which is ultimately the point of a spinoff like this. As for the aforementioned color palette, it and the animation end up being one of the biggest strengths of Tales From ’85.

The neon color scheme gives the show a unique flair compared to its predecessor and helps its already strong design work, particularly the monsters, pop on screen. Speaking of which, I adore the monster designs in this series. Showrunner Eric Robles described The Real Ghostbusters as his “north star” when working on the show and that’s very much visible in how wacky and out there it’s willing to go with the different creatures our heroes fight over the course of the season, a far cry from the Demogorgon, the Demogorgon’s animal friends, and then just more Demogorgons.

Animation was handled by Flying Bark Productions of Rise of the TMNT fame and could best be described as “What if Arcane had to censor itself for a Saturday morning timeslot but was still just as delightfully extra?” The stylized character designs have a wonderfully cartoony bend while still capturing the original characters’ most memorable traits and the fluid movement coupled with strong environmental design make for a vivid world facilitating dynamic, fun, and even tense action sequences.

Though that “tense” element does bring me to Tales From ’85‘s biggest problem. While the series mostly avoids the typical prequel pitfall of “All these characters are going to survive, so why should I care?” by making the action so engaging in its own right that you forget about that part, the action does still feel less tense compared to its predecessor simply because the monsters in the original show could make our heroes bleed and these monsters can’t.

Admittedly, this is a deliberate creative choice. The show is clearly meant to draw in a slightly younger audience compared to the original, even being called “entry level Stranger Things” in much of the marketing. But that rings kind of hollow when the story is built on preestablished dynamics and continuity from the first two seasons that those viewing Tales From ’85 as a standalone story are given the barest of context for.

There’s also the new character, Nikki, who taken on her own, is one of my favorite parts of the show. She’s got a great design, Odessa A’zion delivers a phenomenal vocal performance, her personality feels very different compared to the other characters while still meshing well with the existing dynamics, and her gimmick of building stuff out of random scraps means the fight scenes feature a ton of unique weapons that would probably feel a little silly in the live-action original but fit perfectly here. Her storyline fits right in with the Stranger Things world while her central bit takes full advantage of Tales From ’85 being a cartoon.

But that’s the thing: this story doesn’t just exist within this cartoon world; it’s meant to be in-canon with the main series. That raises a lot of questions about where exactly this very helpful character and her very helpful weapons were during Seasons 3-5. Without spoiling anything, the ending leaves plenty of room for more stories between now and the start of Season 3 in which those questions could be answered, but regardless, either a tragic fate hangs over the head of this great new character or the main cast are inconsiderate morons who completely forgot their new friend within the space of a couple months.

Also, it should be noted that while the entire voice cast puts in great work here, none of the original actors from the main show return to voice their characters. This is much less of a problem than I thought it would be given that the main focus is on the kids who have by far the best soundalikes, but it can be distracting whenever the teenage/adult characters show up for their requisite one or two spotlight episodes.

All of them at least fit the vibe, but none of them match the exact cadence of the original and when that’s the only reference point, it can be an issue. I love Jeremy Jordan as much as the next girl, but I can’t pretend like hearing Lucifer from Hazbin Hotel come out of Steve Harrington isn’t at least a little jarring.

Is Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 worth watching?

If, like me, you enjoy Stranger Things and animation, then you will undoubtedly get a massive kick out of Stranger Things: Tales From ’85. It’s visually spectacular, there’s a genuine sense of mystery reminiscent of the early seasons, it’s surprisingly funny when it needs to be, and these beloved characters are just as compelling as ever. Does it have its issues here and there? Sure. Is it going to change the minds of anyone who previously fell off the series? Probably not. But I had an absolute blast from start to finish and however much more they can squeeze out of this previously untouched part of the timeline; I will be here for it.

Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is now streaming on Netflix. All ten episodes reviewed.

Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Review: Hawkins Returns in Vibrant Yet Spooky Animated Spinoff