Editor's note: The below article contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2.With spores raining down on Hawkins, shocking deaths, and far more questions than answers, the finale of Stranger Things Season 4 is far different from the bittersweet, even uplifting endings we've seen since the end of Season 2. It's not an unwelcome shift, but for fans of Max and Eddie (basically, all of us), it was nonetheless jarring and harsh.
According to series creators Matt and Ross Duffer, it was also one that drew a great deal of inspiration from an appropriately '80s source: Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. As the pair told our Steve Weintraub, the downbeat cliffhanger ending of the 1980 midpoint of the initial Skywalker trilogy provided them with a model and goal for wrapping up — or in some cases not wrapping up — Season 4's storylines and gearing the series up for its upcoming final installment.
"We always have wanted to do an Empire Strikes Back ending," said Matt Duffer, "which we tried to do with [Season 4]. Where it's the sense of loss." Certainly, with the loss of longstanding characters such as Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser) and Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine), along with newly minted fan-favorite Eddie (Joseph Quinn), there's quite a bit of that in the final stretch of Season 4. While the fate of Max (Sadie Sink) is less definite, there's a clear parallel between her current deep coma and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) ending Empire frozen in carbonite.
Hawkins's fate also seems to mirror the shattered state of the Rebel Alliance at the end of Empire. With spores raining down on Hawkins in episode 9's final moments, the stakes are higher than ever, and failure is closer than ever. "We knew we wanted to end with spores falling in Hawkins," Matt says. "I don't remember how early in the process [we wanted that], but pretty early in the process." He continues, "Like I said, we were very much inspired by Empire Strikes Back, that ending where they're looking out the window. We knew we wanted to end on the backs of our characters as they're looking out towards this dark supernatural plume that was spitting out these spores all over their town as they're facing this evil, that has not retreated, but very much coming in an aggressive way into their town. We wanted to hand at the notion of war, and a supernatural war coming to Hawkins."
Of course, all this loss and looming doom set us up for a high-stakes, high-action Season 5, just as Empire set up Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi. As Ross Duffer adds, "The goal of this [Season 4], unlike other seasons, like Matt's saying, is that sense of anticipation where you've set up what the stakes are, which is something we haven't done for other seasons" He continues:
So we've set the stakes, and it's just, the feeling you always want to try to get is that Empire Strikes Back feeling of, “oh my God, I'm so excited to see what happens next.” Or Fellowship of the Ring as they're just headed off towards Mordor. That's the dream, that's the hope. That's the feeling you want. Which we just haven't been able to do before, because generally we really wrap up the storylines, and then we go, oh, but there's some horror lurking beneath the surface that the audience sees that our characters don't necessarily see. In this case, our characters truly see the horror. It's like, what are they going to do? How are they going to deal with this? What is their journey going to look like? So those were the two films that we referenced when we were working on that last shot.
Indeed, the Hawkins gang hasn't truly faced failure and uncertainty — in terms of keeping Hawkins safe and saving Eddie — on this level since they believed that Eleven died way back at the end of Season 1, six years ago. We haven't been as geared up for an upcoming season since then, either.
In the end, it shouldn't be a surprise that the Duffers got us to this place thanks to a bit of Star Wars inspiration. They are, after all, the duo that recently turned "George Lucas" into a verb.