Entertainment
Stranger Things’ Scariest Scene Intentionally Ripped Off Star Wars
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
If you’re caught up on Stranger Things Season 5 (and if not, beware some minor spoilers), then you know one of the coolest moments is Vecna making his entrance into the real world. Our heroes spend most of the first four episodes trying to hunt him in the Upside Down, hoping to take the fight to the villain and end his bid for power. However, Vecna shows up and immediately begins wreaking havoc on military soldiers in a cool moment that had even cooler inspiration: the Duffer Brothers confirmed Vecna’s entrance was inspired by Darth Vader’s appearance at the very end of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Veni, Vidi, Vecna
The fourth season of Stranger Things established how scary Vecna could be: when he had victims (Chrissie, wake up!) firmly in his psychic grip, he could bend and break their limbs, giving them a gruesome death. We also saw more of his psychic powers in the previous season when he had confrontations with Eleven that felt right out of a comic book. But Vecna’s arrival in the real world in Season 5 took things to the next level, showing how this bulletproof baddie with unlimited telekinetic abilities could take on a small army with ease.
In a recent interview with Tudum, Ross Duffer (one-half of Stranger Things superstar showrunners) said, “We knew that when he arrived, we wanted it to feel like this huge moment.” He confirmed that this killer entrance was inspired by Darth Vader’s arrival at the end of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and he seemed quite pleased with how Stranger Things adapted that iconic scene: “The minute [Vecna] walked out of that gate, you felt the power of Vecna. You felt how scary he was.”
The Coolest Star Wars Moment
The Darth Vader moment that inspired the Duffer Brothers is, to many Star Wars fans, one of the coolest moments in Rogue One. That movie mostly focused on all of the drama and sacrifices that went into obtaining the Death Star plans, and the very end showed the Rebels frantically rushing to get those plans to Princess Leia aboard the Tantive IV. But their hopes are very nearly spoiled when Darth Vader shows up and begins cutting down Rebels left and right in a fun (albeit over-the-top) scene of mayhem before our heroes narrowly escape with the plans.
The Duffers’ Star Wars homage was very successful, and in some ways, Vecna’s entrance was more effective than Vader’s entrance. That’s because Stranger Things needed to establish that its Big Bad was a threat against the heavily-trained, heavily-armed soldiers and not just confused and unarmed children. By comparison, Vader was already one of Hollywood’s scariest threats when he showed up in Rogue One, and it’s downright weird to compare how fast and nimble he is cutting down Rebel soldiers to how slow and clumsy he looks fighting Obi-Wan in A New Hope in a fight that canonically takes place only days later.
“Will, I Am Your Father”
While some Star Wars fans may take exception to the Duffer Brothers borrowing from their favorite franchise, it’s hard to deny the results: the first four episodes of Stranger Things Season 5 were a bit uneven, but Vecna’s rampage and Will Byers getting new powers (not to mention a decent haircut!) made the final episode insanely memorable.
Will the show borrow anything else from that famous galaxy far, far away? Let’s just all cross our collective fingers that Vecna doesn’t utter the words “No, I’m your father” sometime before this hit Netflix exclusive finally comes to an end.
