Stranger Things Has A Secret Weapon For Perfecting Its '80s Period Details

We are now just a few days away from the premiere of "Stranger Things" Season 4, Volume 2. Little more than a month after the premiere of Season 4, Volume 1, fans of the series are due to receive the final four hours worth of footage in the penultimate season of the series (via Radio Times).

Aside from a brief trailer and a handful of promotional images, all we really know is that July 1 cannot get here fast enough. By now, it's no news to anyone that "Stranger Things" is an absolute phenomenon, the most-watched English-language show in Netflix's history (via Forbes). Much of the praise for the series centers on its devotion to the pop culture of the '80s (via The Telegraph). In addition to featuring a plethora of plot throwbacks to inspirations as varied as 1982's "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" and 1984's "A Nightmare on Elm Street," "Stranger Things" is also well known for its focus on the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.

It's here that all these throwbacks come into play. In fact, the real-life '80s hysteria over D&D, heavy metal, and suspicion of social outcasts has shaped up to play a real role in Season 4 (via BBC). Calling all the Reagan-era accouterment nostalgia might be a bit glib then, as some of it is there less to tug at the heartstrings than it is to simply be true to the setting. If that's the case, then a Pacman arcade game here and a poster for "The Thing" there simply won't do the trick. Accuracy counts, and as it turns out, the producers of "Stranger Things" have a good amount of help in that department.

A new Harper's Bazaar profile of Winona Ryder, the tenacious Joyce Byers herself, zooms in on the actress's intellect and creativity. The piece covers everything from Ryder's earliest dreams of Hollywood life to her relationship with Johnny Depp and, of course, the latest season of Netflix's "Stranger Things."

There is also a quote from her "Stranger Things" co-star David Harbour (Jim Hopper) that brings up how clearly she remembers the decade in which "Stranger Things" takes place. "It's just kind of epic how wild her mind is and how it goes to all these different corners," Harbour said. He went on to say that Ryder has even caught historical inaccuracies in the series. In fact, according to Harbour, Ryder has gone out of her way to point out the issues to series creators Matt and Ross Duffer. 

So, did the Duffer brothers fix these issues?  "She'd tell them, 'This song actually came out in '85, and you have it in '83,'" Harbour said. "She knew all of these minute, tiny details they didn't even know, and they had to change things in the script based on that."

Of course, Ryder is no "stranger" to the pop culture fads of the '80s. She made her film debut in 1986 at the age of 14 in David Seltzer's "Lucas," followed not long after by her big breakout in Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice" in 1988 (via IMDb). Still, most of us would be hard-pressed to remember the exact year that songs from our teenage years came out almost four decades later. Color us impressed.