Random Did You Spot This NES-Related Blunder In Stranger Things Season 5?

Didn't know about the release date, but I did notice that he was playing the arcade version on an NES. That was bizarre.

I do admit its pretty cool to have a NES that plays 16 bit (or cps1?) games, but with a "Hang-On" cabinet right next to it? Come on... I know what id be playing!

EDIT
I commented based on the original version of the article, so any conclusions I drew from it aren't relevant anymore

I'm confused about this article. The game on the TV is the arcade version of Ghosts'n Goblins and not Ghouls 'n Ghosts. And the label on the screenshot clearly says Ghosts 'n Goblins, not Ghouls 'n Ghosts like the article claims. So their mistake was using footage from the arcade version instead of the NES version, but the game was the right one.

@flamepanther I work on movie sets. You have no idea how easy it is to make that kind of mistakes. The set crews have so much work to deliver in so little time that they can't check everything. It's Impossible. Too much stress.

VFX could easily fix that one. But again, things go fast during post-production too as there's so much work to deliver. That's the kind of mistakes the editor or the VFX crew might easily miss as it doesn't screem "MISTAKE" unless you remember that this game wasn't released on that console.

I like how Stranger Things doesn't look at all like the 80's.
And I'm not being sarcastic: I really like that it doesn't.
Because it looks like an idealized version of the 80's that never was. It's a complete fantasy. And I like that.

@1040STF I wrote my comment before the article was updated, so it's moot. But as originally written, it was implied that not only had arcade footage been used, but that it was from a game never released on NES, and that a prop cartridge of this imaginary release had been fabricated to match the game footage. That they matched would've suggested some level of coordination at least. Like even if the Duffer Bros hadn't intended to feature a non-existent NES game, the person creating the prop and the person sourcing the footage would have to be doing the same thing on purpose for the results to match. So that's where I was coming from.

But as it turns out it's a game that WAS released on the NES, that's probably a real cart of it (it's inexpensive and easy to find), and somebody just grabbed footage from the arcade version by mistake, which does seem incredibly easy to miss.

I always hate how they always zoom in on the footage too in TV shows/movies. The game was never that large on the screen regardless of the format.

The article may have been updated, but there's still a blunder(for shame.....just kidding). This is the blunder: "it clearly has a Ghouls 'n Goblins sticker on it" and the sticker is not wrong.

There's a Ghouls 'n Ghosts
There's a Ghosts 'n Goblins
But there's no Ghouls 'n Goblins

(edit: and it has been fixed. And there was much rejoicing. Yay.)

@The_Nintendo_Pedant "in all fairness I can't keep these titles straight"

I misread it at first and thought the mistake was that it was listed as Ghouls 'n Ghosts, so I can relate that it's hard to keep it straight, or that it's easy to make such a mistake. Good thing for me I went back to double check what it said.

The mistake has been fixed now.

Nobody but a tiny amount of nerds like us care or would ever notice, so.

@sdelfin Despite how many ports Ghouls 'n Ghosts got, not a single one was for a Nintendo console until the Genesis version came to Wii VC in 2007. Capcom Arcade Stadium on Switch marks only the second appearance of the middle game on Nintendo hardware despite the other two games in the initial trilogy being famous for being on Nintendo hardware.

Though I have heard the GBA port of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts did have a stage or two or Ghouls 'n Ghosts as unlockable content.

Not the first time. People wer obsessing over certain D&D miniatures not having been released during the supposed time, and the big Millenium Falcon toy was a later, early 2000s reprint or something like that, that some people noticed over the absolute tiniest detail. I found those observations hillarious, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter, nor does it bother me personally.

If I recall in one of the earlier seasons, when the characters were talking about Nintendo, the timing was also very off. Whenever the season took place would have aligned with the very early release of the NES before it hit all markets, but the kids still talked about the system like they'd been playing it for years and it was already the national phenomenon it eventually grew to be.

I haven't watched this show and don't have any interest in it, even though I am someone born in 1984 who enjoys the genre it belongs to and the subject matter. However, I don't know. It just doesn't seem interesting, and it looks more like nostalgia bait. Goofs like that bug the crap out of me as well which is an additional turn off.

Boy I hope somebody got fired for THAT blunder!

@Tasuki Yeah, the whole show is nostalgia bait. I try to avoid any of the Stranger Things infection going around. 😆

Maybe he has a modded NES, that plays arcade PCB's instead 😜

Seriously, who cares? (Except for nerdy internet dwellers) 😉
It's a show set in an alternate 1987, where dark dimensions and monsters exist. In that world, maybe the NES was more powerful?

It's fantasy, so make up your own reason why he can play an arcade perfect NES port 😂

@Shiryu
I used to own a Super Hang-On cabinet, that I bought cheap from a local shutdown arcade.
Wish I didn't sell it 15 years ago 😫

Both Hang-On games are amazing. 👍👍

@Exerion76 my dream back then was a "Galaxy Force II" cabinet. Follow your dreams, id say.

@Shiryu
That would have been amazing to own 👍😁

@KingMike I guess that makes the game a timed exclusive, of sorts. I guess, by the time the Super Famicom was a thing, Capcom determined that Ghouls 'n Ghosts had been done enough(Mega Drive, SuperGrafx, X68000) and maybe was past the window they thought was right for a port, so they decided to make a new game instead. Funny how that works out. Surprising to think they didn't do a version for GBA or DS.

In a funny coincidence, I was looking up some GBA stuff a few days ago and learned about the added stuff for GBA Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts for the first time this week, and tried it out last night, as I write this.

I watched it and before I seen the controller or console I thought he was the spoiled kid who got an early Mega Drive or something until the shot shown him with a NES controller. But then I could tell they were going for the spoiled child route when he had the Hang-on arcade machine in his room. I didn't really think much else of it though as for the most part when it came to gaming references in it they have been pretty accurate.

I think they should have digitally deaged the characters. (Maybe they could only do the ones they have done on other things due to there being loads more footage I don’t know but I never remember it being this bad with other stuff).

@Tasuki Oh yeah it's been one of their tactics since the beginning. It's why I could never get into the show.

Well in season 4 they had the venca campaign that didn't come out till the 90s so yay

Shooting any monitor with any camera can be hard but shooting a CRT with a 24fps cinema camera is especially tricky. Having worked in this area back in the day when CRTs were common ("Max Headroom"), we had to use specially modified custom video gear to get a CRT to properly sync up to a multiple of 24 frames per second. Otherwise you'd see very noticeable lines and tearing on the resulting film - much worse than what we commonly see today on flat screens.

There are on-set video playback specialists in Hollywood who focus on solving these problems. They generally have a lot of gear for converting and syncing between various display standards as well as bunch of different kinds of displays which have been modified in various ways useful in production (extra bright, polarized, etc). I imagine these days those with the gear and experience to work with analog CRT TVs are even a bit more specialized.

When a publicly available source like a TV show, movie or game clip needs to be shown on a display, the on-set playback specialist is often responsible for obtaining and formatting that source. So this minor gaff is probably on the playback team instead of the directors. In this case, I suspect the playback contractor probably just used an emulator like MAME to pre-record clips of gameplay. This would be the preferred approach instead of having the actor actually play the game on-set and then converting and syncing the NES output in real-time to the CRT for several reasons:

• Old consumer consoles like the NES had quite janky video output that was far from broadcast spec, making them tricky to capture and convert reliably.
• Requiring the actor to actually operate the game distracts from their primary job of acting and hitting their cues. Plus, once everything is finally set for a take, having "Game Over" appear can cause another re-take and there are already dozens of things randomly causing that - so the fewer variables the better.
• Due to the frame rate being adapted during real-time conversion on-set, the gameplay on the monitor tends to be delayed which will mess up the actor anyway.

In this case there might even be a good technical reason for using a recording of the arcade version over the console version. Some console titles only generated 30 unique motion frames per second (especially on early consoles) whereas arcade versions tended to generate 60 unique video fields per second. Converting for film sync usually requires changing the frame rate to either 48fps or 72fps (multiples of 24fps). Using a source with more unique motion frames tends to look much better when converting (after doubling the 240 scanlines of each field to create 60 unique full frames).

Bonus Trivia: Back in the late-80s and 90s, Amiga computers with custom hacked genlock, TBC or Video Toaster boards were often used by on-set playback specialists as they were smaller and much cheaper than hacked broadcast equipment. And Stranger Things Season 4 prominently featured an Amiga 1000 computer (a perfect retro callback due to the Amiga's continuing retro popularity).

The art department likley pulled that game footage straight from Youtube to be seen live in the shot. Easy mix up and only us nerds really noticed. No need to fire anyone over this, lol.

I know I am overreacting a bit but having a "eh, only so-and-so amount of people will notice or care" attitude is one of the many things that enables execs to keep everything, modern games included, feeling so sloppy and rushed. Why aim for anything better in any production ever made when social media market research shows most don't care?

P.S. Those same execs definitely have data saying most people don't care enough about retro games to make a whole-ass website about them, yet here we are...

@markran

Thanks for the insight.

And I'm sure you'd agree that nowadays most productions would just glue or paint a green screen on said monitor/TV then have it tracked and replaced in post by the desired footage.

Anyways, please give my regards to Matt and Amanda. And catch the wave !

@MarcelMaigre

That's one way it could be done but in the case of a screen like that, getting a motion tracked inset to look right can be tricky. The problem isn't so much the tracking itself but matching the ambient light falling on the screen and the environmental reflections on the glass. It can certainly be done but it comes with constraints that need to be managed, including set lighting and camera motion. Even if the director just wants to move the camera several feet to one side to improve the shot at the last minute, it might create issues with the VFX set-up requiring a multi-hour reset. Plus you now need to have the VFX coordinator on-set to sign off on those shots.

In general, if you can get an element in-camera at the cost of a few thousands dollars for the playback team, that's almost always preferred vs creating another VFX item to be managed through post production. It's not just the increased cost and complexity of VFX, practical shots have higher veracity - it will look "real" because it is real.

@markran

Sure, sure, real is always better.
But tracking has become so much easier than it used to be, even without on-set motion controls, even with a last minute axis-changing director.

And as far as natural reflections go, if you use one of these, then don't crank up the opacity threshold all the way when keying in post, I'd say you'd just to have to worry about not confusing arcade versions with home console editions :
https://www.tvfilmprops.co.uk/det/1131/Green-Screen-BMC-Monitor/