Due to the general but chilling similarities, the opening scenes of stranger things 4 Due to the recent mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Netflix has issued a content warning.
In addition to a summary of stranger things‘ previous chapters, the new season begins with a short message explaining that during production on stranger things 4 Wrapped in 2021, viewers may be disturbed by the parallels between scenes from the first episode and the real-world Texas school shooting that killed two teachers and 19 schoolchildren. In the days preceding stranger things‘ Season 4 premiere, Netflix previously uploaded the scenes in question to YouTube as a teaser, but the video has since been taken down. The Netflix content warning, pictured below, appears when playing the Season 4 premiere, and it appears the message only appears the very first time you press play.
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However stranger things 4 Set primarily in 1986, the season premiere – “Chapter One: The Hellfire Club” – opens a few years earlier, back when Hawkins National Laboratories was still in place and conducting experiments on Eleven and d other children with improved abilities. “The Hellfire Club” features Hawkins Lab as both a prison and a school environment for Eleven and her peers, and the episode details how their time there culminated in a horrific attack that killed most of the children and Staff. Both in and out of the larger context that unfolds like the rest of stranger things‘ As the final season unfolds, the Hawkins Lab Massacre is very similar to the series’ take on a school shooting due to its focus on helpless children who lose their lives in classrooms.
It’s important to point out that while Disney and Lucasfilm have not released any content statements or warnings regarding the series premiere of Obi Wan Kenobithis show also opens with a scene of children being murdered in a school setting – a snapshot of one of the most significant moments in star wars‘ the story. Obi Wan Kenobi and stranger things 4 lead with horrific school murders may be pure coincidence. But in the wake of what happened at Uvalde, it’s hard not to see both shows as having tapped into something deeply broken in the country they’re produced in – all at one of the times. the hardest imaginable.