Netflix's juggernaut Stranger Things has been in the spotlight since Season 4 dropped and instantly became one of the most viewed shows on the platform, but the renewed attention has also sparked a bit of a conspiracy theory. Recently, viewers have reported that a scene from Season 1 showing Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) taking photos of Nancy (Natalia Dyer) while she was undressing had been edited out to instead show the elder Byers sibling just snapping pictures of Barb (Shannon Purser) sitting by the pool moments before her death. Fans speculated that the change was made because the writers were unhappy with how pervy it made Jonathan look, even if the larger sequence itself was already a bit creepy.
The official Stranger Things writers' room Twitter account decided to put the rumors to bed, however, denying any edits of that sort had been made to previous episodes. "PSA: no scenes from previous seasons have ever been cut or re-edited," the message reads. "And there never will be." In regard to the Jonathan scene, the account responded that it too was not altered after the fact.
The whole idea that Matt and Ross Duffer and the rest of the crew behind the show would consider amending the show as they saw fit arose from an issue with Will's (Noah Schnapp) birthday. The brothers discussed the potential of changing his birthday to May 22 instead of March after it seemed like his family and friends all forgot during the show. In that same interview, however, they also admitted to "George Lucas-ing" previous episodes after release, encouraging fans to find whatever's been changed between the original release and the edits.
More recently, lead editor Dean Zimmerman also confirmed to Variety that Season 4 had also seen edits made to fix certain VFX shots that the Duffers weren't happy with. However, that doesn't necessarily include completely changing a scene and its context as many theorized happened to the Jonathan scene. Rather, the changes made were likely small, visual changes that don't affect the overall cut. In the end, it all seems like one instance of the Mandela Effect, the idea of a group of people misremembering something as happening differently than in reality.
While the idea of retroactively changing Jonathan to be less of a creep hasn't come to fruition, it did spark some discussion over the ethics of tweaking characters and stories after the release. The writers' room account took a moment to roast one article on Twitter for having to retroactively correct itself for talking about a rumor all about retroactive correction, but it does beg the question of if "George Lucas-ing" like this could become commonplace to make things flow better.
All four seasons of Stranger Things are currently streaming now on Netflix. See the message from the writer's room Twitter account below.
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