‘Stranger Things 3’ Trailer Breakdown: It’s Time to Fight Back

Posted on Friday, June 21st, 2019 by Ben Pearson

Here’s where the ’90s influences really start to show themselves. This shot of Max, Eleven, and Mike hiding at the end of a counter is straight out of the “raptors in the kitchen” scene in Jurassic Park.

“I can fight,” Eleven says to Hopper. “Better than any of us,” Hopper replies, “but I need you safe.” Seems like their father/daughter relationship has improved from its fraught beginnings, but Hopper hasn’t given her complete freedom just yet.

Here’s everyone’s favorite bromance partnership, Steve (Joe Keery) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), in the trailer’s second huge ’90s reference. We’re not sure exactly what’s in that device, but the green coloration and the tube structure of it recalls imagery from Michael Bay’s prison action film The Rock. In that movie, the green stuff was a toxic gas that could wipe out an entire city, so hopefully Steve and Dustin are dealing with something slightly less dangerous.

Here’s a better look at that machine from earlier, which reminds me of the Honey I Shrunk the Kids shrink ray. Are they trying to reopen the gate that Eleven closed last year?

Get him, Hopper! (He’s brawling with the hitman/mercenary guy from earlier.)

Nancy comes face to face with the new and improved Demogorgon, looking uglier and slimier and more Xenomorphic than ever.

“Holy mother of God,” Dustin says, and several shots of our heroes looking up in fear/awe at something and then the power abruptly going out spells a supernatural conflict at the Starcourt Mall. (Is this going to be the season where the Duffer Brothers condemn capitalism by building and then destroying a mall in this small Midwestern town?)

And as Dustin screams a “code red” warning over the walkie-talkie, the trailer wraps up with more Jurassic Park vibes as characters hide from the creature, whose roar at the very end even seems similar to the dino sounds from Spielberg’s 1993 classic.

Stranger Things 3 hits Netflix on July 4, 2019.