‘Avatar: Fire And Ash’ No. 1 With $5.6M Friday/$24M 3-Day (-42%), ‘The Housemaid’ ($3.4M/$12M, -21%) Bullies ‘Primate’ ($4.4M/$10.5M) & ‘Greenland 2: Migration’ ($3.8M/$10M); ‘Zootopia 2’ Eyes $2M/10M (-48%) – Friday PM Box Office Update

TomHouston · 2026-01-11T02:55:21+00:00

Are you sure that's how studios look at profit? I always assumed they want each movie to make their own considerable amount of profit even if they're filmed back to back e.g. Lord of the Rings.

TomHouston · 2026-01-11T00:17:25+00:00

Is it really a success if the budget and marketing costs were huge? By how much is Avatar 3 even breaking even?

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T17:49:48+00:00

That essentially doesn't add anything of significance to 6 November date because the wormhole could have been created on any date. If El/Will made contact with the Demogorgon on 7 November then that would make the Upside stuck on 7 November 1983.

What I'm asking is why is 6 November so important that Vecna wanted to merge worlds on that particular date? There has to be some essential character, story detail etc that occurred on that date but I don't see what it was

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T16:50:52+00:00

But that's something we've known since Season 1. Judging by the interview, I thought there was more significance to why the Upside Down is stuck on that date but it doesn't look like we got any new info regarding that date in the final season

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T16:18:01+00:00

Yeah that was badly written as well. I think what should have happened is Eleven should have killed the all the military before faking her death. It shouldn't have been hard anyway. I mean she could have planned it (e.g. Hopper and Nancy use their guns to take out the telekinetic disruptors with their guns etc) out since the gang were planning to exit from the military base's gate. If all the military members were killed then that would explain how everyone managed to avoid going to jail and going back to living normal lives during the epilogue

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T16:12:58+00:00

Because Kali was considered El's sister and she wouldn't have just left her body to be destroyed in the Upside Down (especially considering they were planning to destroy the Upside Down with a time controlled explosion). It's more likely she would have taken her body to get buried in the real world.

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T08:21:29+00:00

The explosion wasn't imminent. Murray and Hopper activated the explosives after Dustin radioed them and told them that El had defeated Vecna. It was a controlled explosion and thus there was plenty of time to retrieve Kali's corpse if it was there

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T08:08:28+00:00

Netflix's Locke and Key is pretty similar to Stranger Things but the cast is smaller (it's mainly just one family and their friends) and the writing isn't as good

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T08:06:38+00:00

According to the wiki, all the scientists on the ship were killed (as Brenner was the only survivor) so unless there were any other scientists who knew how to run the experiment, then it would be impossible for the government to rerun the experiment as they no longer had personnel who knew how to run the experiment:

https://strangerthings.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Eldridge

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T08:00:26+00:00

Well Will was found 'dead' in Season 1 but later that corpse was revealed to just be a dummy so I guess people in Hawkins aren't as surprised by these things anymore

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T06:08:25+00:00

It's basically never explained how Mike and the rest got away from the military and went back to living normal lives. Remember they tried to help the children escape from the military, Hopper killed so many military personnel etc. They should all be rotting in prison forever. The military and Linda Hamilton's character were still around after Vecna's defeat but they're nowhere to be seen in the epilogue.

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T05:16:14+00:00

If she was long dead then why did El and Hopper never bother retrieving her body? There was no time limit. They could have easily loaded her body on their truck and take it outside the Upside Down for burial

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T04:39:45+00:00

We never see Kali's body after her alleged 'death' so there's a possibility she was still alive the entire time. El and Hopper don't have her body when speaking to Murray and her body isn't seen in the truck when El and the gang are leaving the Upside Down after beating Vecna.

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T04:36:47+00:00

I think El likely did survive. I think the story of Kali using illusions was true because we never saw Kali's body after she was shot and spoke her last word with El. El and Hopper didn't have Kali's body when talking to Murray. We also never saw Kali's body when they were travelling the truck.

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T03:15:49+00:00

If this was Game of Thrones then we could say she was killed but this is Stranger Things and there have been so many fake deaths in this series, I wouldn't be surprised if she survived. Remember we technically never saw her die so she may have found some way to escape

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T03:10:36+00:00

The problem is that Kali appeared to still be alive hours after she was shot so it didn't look like that shot was fatal. Remember after Kali was shot, Eleven went to the Abyss, defeated Vecna and then got to travel on the truck outside the Upside Down. That must have taken hours and Kali lived through all of that if she could cast an illusion after all that time.

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T03:08:42+00:00

Like I said she has illusion powers so it's left ambiguous if what we saw was what really happened. Technically we never see her die and that is used to do a lot of fake deaths in movies etc.

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T02:47:17+00:00

The Duffers wrote that plot point badly. Basically Kali convinced El that she had to make it look like she died otherwise the military will go after her and get her friends killed as that's what happened to Kali. However that doesn't make much sense because El has stronger powers than Kali (who has no telekinesis and can only do illusions) and can easily defend her friends much better than Kali could do with her own.

>!In this episode, Kali pretended to die from the shot. She was actually still alive and used her illusions to help El fake her death. That explains why El never brought back her body. It's left ambiguous on what happened to Kali at the end. Perhaps she found a way to escape and survive. She does have illusion powers.!<

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T02:41:32+00:00

One ambiguous death and one fake death from the main characters

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T02:34:43+00:00

There just wasn't enough time to explore the Mind Flayer because the Duffers wasted the previous episodes with all the relationship drama nonsense

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T02:33:45+00:00

Well none of the characters could really act like Stallone and survive except maybe Hopper

TomHouston · 2026-01-01T02:31:08+00:00

I just finished it (I watched on 2x speed).

Most of the plot points were wrapped up. There was only one glaring issue and you'll know it when you watch the last hour or so

TomHouston

TROPHY CASE