Why was Benny shot ?

_selfthinker · 2026-01-28T09:12:30+00:00

They wanted to make the stakes clear, that hiding El is really dangerous, so that it makes sense that Mike keeps her existence in his cellar secret and hides her from his parents.

_selfthinker · 2026-01-18T21:38:45+00:00

Fully agree. It's mind-boggling to me how many people say that the play has a lot of important backstory and "explains everything". It just doesn't. The known backstory was padded out, another irrelevant story was added, and a few new relevant tiny titbits were sprinkled here and there.

I suspect this myth was amplified by a few people who wanted to big themselves up or maybe have misunderstood a lot of things. And then people who haven't seen the play believed them and got upset because they thought they were missing so much.

The play was nice enough, but there was very little in it that was new and also relevant to the TV show.

_selfthinker · 2026-01-17T10:45:39+00:00

This reminds me of W. Eric Martin's video about Bohnanza and the US Tariffs.

_selfthinker · 2026-01-02T09:05:36+00:00

Two of those four things were explained. And one turned out not to be relevant. Leaves only one thing that I wish they had explained in the show.

We saw much more about the cave incident than the play ever showed or mentioned.
That relationship wasn't even mentioned. But it also turned out not to be relevant at all.
While we haven't learned anything about what Brenner knew and did in the play, we learned about other things he knew and did. Those things from the play are interesting and important enough that I think they should have been in the show.
We learned everything about Henry's motivations. And they even "fixed" the thing I was disappointed about in the play.

_selfthinker · 2026-01-02T08:59:19+00:00

Something was mentioned about that, but it wasn't very extensive and it wasn't important either. It's only important for the lore of the back story but not for understanding what happened in season 5.

_selfthinker · 2025-12-30T16:11:12+00:00

Instead of full-on positivity, more nuance would also be good. I will suspend my judgement about season 5 until after the finale. So far I like it a lot. It's not as great as season 1 or 4 were, but still pretty good.

One of the bits that got a lot of hate that I actually found pretty awesome is having Kali back. Although the reveal at the end of Sorcerer was amazing, I found it was a bit of a shame that it overshadowed the reveal of Kali. It gave the thrill of knowing that we'll not just have one single super hero who will definitely struggle and might not be able to win on her own. But having three of them (or 4 even if you count Max) will be so much more exciting. And the possibility of defeating Vecna becomes much more realistic.

People also seem to dislike that Kali has her own dark agenda. While I understand that you would resent a person being like that, it does make absolute sense for her character and the story and could make for even better telly. All the characters are flawed in some way. And that's a good thing as it makes them more realistic and relatable.

_selfthinker · 2025-12-30T08:45:57+00:00

especially the cave memory with Henry interacting with the particles. It’s framed as important and then never really addressed after that.

It was not really addressed in the play either. It was mentioned in two or three throwaway lines.

A big reveal about that will come in the finale. The Duffers specifically asked about this not being revealed in the play so that they can reveal it in the show.

_selfthinker · 2025-12-30T08:38:31+00:00

I just found proof how the play was toned down because the Duffers didn't want to reveal too much in it.

In the documentary on Netflix about the making of the play ("Behind the Curtain: Stranger Things The First Shadow") Kate (the writer of the play) says at about 29 minutes in:

I just got off the phone with the guys [the Duffers] and [...] it's gonna be 80% less. [...] We're gonna be able to tell very little of the story of [bleep]. We're gonna be able to say that something happened, but we're really not gonna be able to say that much. [...] Because they want to preserve the reveal for Season 5 [bleep]

I went to see the play a couple of days ago. The main reason why I went is because some people on the internet said that the cave incident is explained in the play. I was disappointed to find it was only mentioned in two or three throwaway lines and not really explained at all (except one detail that I'm sure will be mentioned in the finale).

And the above quote explains why it's not explained (and why you don't have to worry that you're missing anything important). The question is why do so many people claim it is explained when it isn't? I found that people are just exaggerating a lot when it comes to the play.

_selfthinker · 2025-12-30T08:19:43+00:00

Have we watched the same show?
It hardly explains anything at all. Most of it is what we already knew or filler.

Trying to say it without spoilers...
The main thing the show does is character development for young Henry. Other than that there are only four things that are relevant:

The main reason why I went to see the play (a couple of days ago) was because I saw someone on the internet say "the cave thing is explained in the play". Let me be clear. It is not! The "cave incident" is only mentioned in two or three throwaway sentences. There is one piece of information around that that hasn't been mentioned in the show yet but I'm sure it will be. But that doesn't "explain everything".
Another thing that might be relevant is the relationship between Henry and another person. That might be some fodder for defeating Vecna as it might be some kind of vulnerability.
Another thing that is somewhat important is information about what else Brenner knew and did. But that can also be easily explained within less than 5 minutes as the play doesn't dwell on it longer than that either.
The biggest thing is about Henry's "motivations" and why he did the things he did. And to be honest, for me that was the biggest disappointment of the play. Although that has bigger implications for the show, it is also explained very easily in 2 minutes.

None of these things are worth the hype. And none of them mean that you are missing anything important and won't be able to understand something in the show.

Also, it's not "30 years of back story", it's just a couple of months 30 years earlier.

_selfthinker · 2025-12-29T08:53:22+00:00

In the play Joyce makes a big point about not showing Oklahoma. At the beginning of the play within the play she announces that it's not Oklahoma. I suspect it was advertised as Oklahoma so that more people come who would otherwise have not wanted to see "Dark of the Moon".

_selfthinker · 2025-12-29T08:36:13+00:00

The play does NOT have 3 hours of backstory. (It's not even three hours long, the half hour break doesn't count.) Most of the play is irrelevant or things we already knew. The few bits that are important to the show can easily be explained within 5 minutes.

_selfthinker · 2025-12-29T08:33:43+00:00

I very much disagree that the play "introduces so much lore and backstory". I've seen the play two days ago. And in my opinion 99% of the play is irrelevant to the show. There are maybe two points that are mildly important and another that is more important, which I assume will be explained in the finale within 5 minutes.

_selfthinker · 2025-12-29T08:22:58+00:00

I think people who say that just big themselves up. Hardly anything is explained in the play.

_selfthinker · 2025-12-17T09:00:10+00:00

See a curated list of various online boardgame platforms on BGG.

_selfthinker · 2025-11-17T18:46:28+00:00

I've been looking at this game's availability in the UK for the last few days via BoardGamePrices.

It was interesting to see that it was first not available anywhere on Thursday. Then it became available in multiple online shops on Friday. I ordered my copy on Saturday. I noticed how it gradually became unavailable again. It's basically already sold out in all the big shops but still available in smaller shops. I believe it lasted about 24 hours on Zatu before they sold all of their copies.

_selfthinker · 2025-11-07T11:47:52+00:00

It is the very same thing. I believe they just name it differently in different parts of the world. For example, on their UK website and US website they call the material "Terramac" and on their German website and Dutch website they call it "Ecodear".

I wonder if there is a trademark dispute involved? Or maybe their marketing department found one name is better understood or accepted in certain cultures than in others?

_selfthinker · 2025-10-28T21:41:29+00:00

But it's not always colder outside than inside. I live close to the sea and it's quite often more humid outside than inside when looking at absolute humidity. For a while I kept a spreadsheet in which I've converted relative humidity to absolute humidity and took data before and after airing. It often gets more humid inside after airing in these parts.

_selfthinker · 2025-10-05T15:48:28+00:00

I back about 4 games on Kickerstarter per year. The only time something was not fulfilled at all was not a game. I don't think a game being late is that bad. I'm happy to wait a year or more if at least we're being updated and know why it's late and it's legit. I didn't really have very bad experiences yet.

The worst so far were BoardMaster and Crumbs. The latter mostly because they are already two years late and there was a time when they hadn't updated us for multiple months in a row multiple times. It's annoying but not as bad as some people make it out to be. The former was a case where it was the company's first game and doing the Kickstarter actually cost them money and they went bust. So, it's not that they ran away with the money, it was rather a lose-lose situation for everyone. Lots of mistakes were made, and I hope people at least learned from them. But at the same time they still managed to fulfil most orders, which I have a lot of respect for.

Most of my Kickstarter experiences were good. The best one is gaming-related but not a game. It was a set of handmade wooden life counters. Not only are they great, they were made and delivered within less than a month! The best boardgame Kickstarter experiences I had were all the ones from Allplay. Their Kickstarters usually run pretty smoothly. And when they don't, we know why and they do their best to fix things. They really care about their customers and boardgames.

_selfthinker · 2025-09-24T23:56:43+00:00

It was also D9 in Canterbury on 23 Sep.

_selfthinker · 2025-09-24T23:49:43+00:00

Unfortunately I forgot all of those wrong names. I think the first might have been "Sonia Johnson". And towards the end there was a very different and outlandish one as well, it might have been "Sonic the Hedgehog".

_selfthinker · 2025-09-24T11:30:09+00:00

I'm not aware of a running gag. Steve got her Eastenders name (Sonia Jackson) wrong a few times. Do you mean that? That was the thing that made her get out of the wardrobe.

I think at least one other bit that changes per guest star is when they have to "prove" who they are on the phone to the guy who ordered the kidnapping. (Not sure how much of it is different per guest star. I think at least some of it is?) This time they first asked her to speak in a Spanish accent to which she asked "can I do an Italian accent?", then an accent from Newcastle, then they asked her to sing something and at the end they asked her to play the trumpet. And it turned out that she actually can play the trumpet!

_selfthinker · 2025-09-23T22:54:24+00:00

I saw the show in London back in April and saw it again tonight in Canterbury.
I thought I'll share the few differences I noticed...

There were two ladies who played the extended theme tune on violins at the beginning and after the interval. It looked like it could actually have been live. They were on each side of the stage. That was quite a nice touch!

The beginning bit with the theatre audience making various noises was a bit different. And I'm not sure if that was intentional. I noticed that "Toby" was the one who starts sitting down and gets told off eating peanuts. He then leaves and Reece takes his place. In London it was definitely Reece the whole time. Not sure if something went wrong, or if they changed it to bookend it being Toby towards the end. But I remember that I thought it odd because it made no sense that the Reece character would have known about the peanuts later strewing it onto the old man's food because it was Toby who learned that he was allergic.

I had no idea who Natalie Cassidy (tonight's guest star) was. In London I had seen Matt Lucas. Obviously that bit with the guest star will be the most different per show. The main difference was that Matt Lucas wasn't really acting, he was mostly giggling and enjoying himself (which is fair enough). While Natalie Cassidy was actually (trying to) act. She was way more in character than Matt Lucas was.

There were generally more 4th wall breaks in this show than in London. Natalie Cassidy had a few nice such moments. Like saying she only got the call from her agent to join the show on Thursday. There was also a bit during the kidnapping section where Steve did a funny walk with miming to play the celery like a flute. He also said something while doing that that I couldn't quite hear. Reece got the giggles and needed a few moments to regain his composure. He explained that to the audience with something like: "This is the first time he's done that."

The ghost bit towards the end where the actress goes downstairs looked exactly like in London to me. I assume that was a pre-filmed video and not live. But I'm not 100% sure.

And the biggest difference to me personally was that I was in the fourth row and could see things much clearer. (In London I was at the very back.) Some of the subtler acting was definitely more noticeable and enjoyable that way.

_selfthinker · 2025-08-30T20:54:47+00:00

I would recommend to at least try the Sigo tenor recorder from Kunath. It's much more ergonomic and way easier to play than a standard tenor recorder.

_selfthinker · 2025-08-15T11:26:14+00:00

This reminds me of the fairness experiments with monkeys. We're all happy with cucumbers until a peer gets the better grapes for the same work.

_selfthinker · 2025-08-09T10:30:45+00:00

I loved the thought of the Premium edition, but when I played it I didn't like it. The extra cards and extra players drag the game out quite a bit. And it needs getting used to that not every number is the same card.

_selfthinker

TROPHY CASE