Stranger Things has received plenty of reactions online since its final episode aired on New Year’s Eve, including a petition for the Duffer brothers and Netflix to release hours of unseen footage that would have completely changed the final season for several characters. Now, the creators of one of the biggest TV shows in history have responded to the claims that they cut a lot of footage from the finale that would have included more scenes between Will and Mike following Will’s coming-out scene. The petition is now nearing 400,000 signatures, which is not an insignificant amount but certainly small compared to the millions that have already seen how the final act of the series plays out, and all stems from an anonymous Google Doc shared online claiming to contain all the scenes missing from the finale – as though such a list would exist. Now, the Duffers have shut down any truth in the claims made in the document, telling Variety:
Matt Duffer: Someone sent it to us, yeah. Obviously, that’s not a real thing.
Ross Duffer: I have not seen [the petition]. I don’t think there’s a single cut scene in the entire season.
Matt Duffer: The show has just grown so massive. Online, there’s just so much misinformation. Just tons of it. We would be here for hours trying to bat down the stuff that was not true. But at the end of the day, hopefully the work speaks for itself, and it is the show that Ross and I wanted to make. Netflix was, and has always been, incredible. I mean, there’s no interference or direction at all from them on us. They really trust us, and that’s been true from Season 1 on. It’s never changed, even though the show and the size of the audience have grown.

‘Stranger Things’ Did Not Quite Stick the Landing for Everyone but Did Enough

Noah Schnapp as Will Byers in Stranger Things Season 5Netflix

It almost seems impossible to believe that the Duffer brothers could have actually managed to bring Stranger Things to an end in a way that everyone was satisfied with. As Matt Duffer said, with a show as big as Stranger Things, social media becomes a complete cesspool of lies, rumors that have no founding, AI created spoilers, and misinformed backlash. Just like the current wave of new fake Avengers: Doomsday posts, whether it be fake trailers, AI images, or “rumored” plot details created for clicks, Stranger Things fans eager to know and see more are willing to read almost anything put online. While the Duffer brothers have shut down the idea that hours of footage was cut from the series finale, the Stranger Things petition will continue to garner more signatures on the basis that fans often refuse to believe any official comments on such matters, and prefer to follow “scoopers” and other online leakers who make claims that align with the reality they would prefer to be true.

Stranger Things ended the way the Duffer brothers wanted it to, and despite Zack Snyder fans getting their way and receiving the “Snyder Cut” of Justice League, it did not set a precedent that every other project would be remade to please a select portion of the fandom that just cannot accept the way things worked out.

Release Date

2016 – 2025-00-00

Network

Netflix

Writers

Kate Trefry, Jessie Nickson-Lopez, Jessica Mecklenburg, Alison Tatlock