Some strange things are happening behind the scenes with Stranger Things. In a tweet today from the official account for writers of the hugely popular Netflix show, they went on record to say that “no scenes from previous seasons have ever been cut or re-edited. And they never will be.”
This despite suggestions from showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer that they would be "George Lucas-ing" the show to fix older continuity errors.
PSA: no scenes from previous seasons have ever been cut or re-edited. And they never will be. pic.twitter.com/H0j8JwidLs
— stranger writers (@strangerwriters) July 26, 2022
The statement from the Stranger Things writers follows rumors that a scene in which Jonathan Byers spies on Nancy was cut — rumors that have since been debunked. They arose from earlier hints by the Duffer Brothers that they had already "George Lucas'd" or digitally edited scenes without fans realizing it.
"We have George Lucas’d things also that people don’t know about," Matt Duffer told Variety back in June.
Fans have since confirmed that the scene is still there, and it's unclear what Duffer is referring to when he says that scenes have been "George Lucas'd."
The Duffer Brothers first suggested they would be making changes to Stranger Things in a separate interview. In it, the duo acknowledged a Season 4 flub where several characters appeared to completely miss Will Byers’ birthday when in fact it was just an oversight on the creators, saying the error was because Will’s birthday had been written six years prior and they simply forgot.
In the interview, Ross Duffer said that in order to fix it, they would “go and George Lucas” the scene from season 2 and change it to “May” since that can fit into Winona Ryder’s mouth as she speaks. It is unconfirmed whether those changes actually took place.
Whatever happens, fans are already looking ahead to Stranger Things Season 5, which will pick up several threads left dangling in season 4. Itwill be the show’s last, but don’t expect it to have quite as long of a run time as Season 4, which was split up into two parts.
In our review, we gave Season 4 Part 2 a 9/10 and said it features “as many thrills as you could hope for, but also quite a few lovely, tender moments between characters we’ve come to care so much about.”
Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.