POP! Television – Eleven Underwater (Stranger Things)

So about a month ago we had Stranger Week here at the LBC – so popular it even ran for eight days instead of the regular seven you’d expect to find in a week.

But there are still more Stranger Things POPs to be covered. Don’t expect to see me do all of them (I’m likely to pass on Dustin wearing a different t-shirt and the Con exclusives) but I do plan to get most of them. And so today we take a look at Eleven Underwater.

A Hot Topic exclusive in the US, in Australia Eleven Underwater is just a regular release. And at the moment she seems to be much more readily available than her regular counterpart, who along with the Demogorgon has been selling out left right and centre.

As the name suggests, this POP depicts Eleven in her diving gear. We see her donning this multiple times throughout the season, usually in flashback form. Initially she uses her psychic potential to act as some kind of (inadvertent) spy, relaying foreign messages to her mysterious masters via the power of remote viewing. But one of these remote reviewing trips seems to be the key that opens the gate to the physical realm of the Upside Down, as we discover in later episodes. 

Believe it or not, both the US and the Soviet governments did experiment heavily with the idea of psychic powers during the Cold War. This isn’t some Alex Jones-style nonsense, either; these days it’s a matter of public record. A more comical version is relayed in the George Clooney movie The Men Who Stare at Goats and the non-fiction book it’s based on, but it was a reality – presumably something the Duffer Brothers are well aware of. In real life things weren’t quite as successful as they were in Stranger Things, mind you.

It seems laughable in the face of today’s post-Berlin Wall world and the widespread scepticism about the supernatural, but it’s perhaps understandable given the times. Any prospective advantage over the enemy needed to seriously investigated, no matter how implausible. It’s easy to crack wise about the baby boomers and how “easy” they had it, but we forget too soon that many of our parents grew up in the very real shadow of nuclear annihilation. In the show’s universe, the kids would have been well aware of it too – everyone seems small in the shadow of a mushroom cloud. 

The POP itself is pretty much what you’d expect; there’s a new body for the “swimsuit” and what looks to be a retooled head from the original, incorporating all webbing and sensors that we see Eleven wear. Paint is fine; nothing to blow you away, but certainly not bad either. I just feel sorry for my American cousins who will likely have to bend over backwards to track this figure down, while we have relatively easy access, thanks to minimal exclusivity deals over here. 

While not as essential as the regular POP, Eleven Underwater is nonetheless a good addition to the Stranger Things shelf. The Upside Down remains a mysterious realm, and will likely have more of itself revealed in Season 2 – personally, I can’t wait.   

Stranger Week Bonus Day – POP! Television: Demogorgon (Stranger Things)

The most visible threat of Stranger Things was the Monster, better known as the Demogorgon. A number of Lovecraftian elements are present in the show, but the Demogorgon’s design is where we probably see the most influence shining through. H.R. Giger and Silent Hill's hands are also evident, though there’s far less bio-mechanoid/Freudian sexuality than either of those influences typically showcases. Stalking through both the real world and the Upside Down, numerous characters fell victim to its claws and teeth-lined face.  

At present, we don’t actually know a great deal about the creature; there’s been a wide array of fan theories, but for me the jury remains out until such time as future season/s of the show provide more information. The Duffer Brothers themselves have likened it to the shark from Jaws, rather than being a sentient being, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what…unfolds…

The POP depicts the Demogorgon with its “face” fully flared out, ready to attack. It somewhat resembles a carnivorous flower, and it’s also pentacle-shaped – this is likely a reference to the demonic origins of Demogorgon in Dungeons & Dragons, which in turn drew its name from a rather vague (and unrelated) figure in Christian demonology*. Modern research seems to suggest that the whole concept was likely based on a misinterpretation of the word “Demiurge”, a figure in Gnostic belief. But here we start to move into occult waters that are well out of my depth.

The scale is not quite right. Looking at screencaps, the Demogorgon is substantially larger than a human, but nowhere near big enough to warrant a 6” POP. They’ve gone bigger in the past with figures like Cthulhu, but on this occasion I think the reduced scale still works fine. He’s wildly different in style to the other figures in the series – which would ordinarily be a criticism but makes sense in light of the way the character is depicted on the show.   

There’s also a chase version of the Demogorgon, and it’s a good example of an ideal chase figure i.e. it adds something cool to the collection, but it’s not essential to own in order to consider the collection complete (Eleven’s chase POP is a bad one for this very reason). The chase version depicts the Demogorgon with a closed face, somewhat resembling a clenched fist, a nurse from Silent Hill or a butt. It’s okay…but the regular version is definitely the cooler one.   

If you enjoyed Stranger Things but don’t want to go all-in on the line, Demogorgon and Eleven are the obvious figures to pick up. The sculpt is good, the paint is fine (the teeth on the "petals" is a bit sloppy) – and while I wouldn’t go so far to say the Demogorgon has quite reached iconic status yet, it’s a very cool creature design and will look great on the shelf alongside other movie monsters. I can't wait to see what Season 2 throws at the protagonists!  

*Though they got it a little off if they wanted to convey this; the upright pentacle that we see on the Demogorgon's head has typically been seen as a symbol of good. It's the inverted one that's meant to convey darkness or evil. Hence why neo-pagans tend to wear upright ones and metal bands tend to use inverted ones. The upright one has even been used as a Christian symbol at various times, though your local church is unlikely to have one on prominent display.  

Stranger Week Day 7 -- POP! Television: Eleven (Stranger Things)

Weird girl with magical powers who can’t communicate properly with those around her. This is a well-worn trope across all genres of weird fiction, and it’s one that tends to drive me up the wall. I’ve never been totally clear on why it bugs me so much, either; perhaps because it tends to be played for crappy comic relief and/or heavy-handed social commentary on how sometimes what we see as cultural norms are actually a bit strange AND HAD YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT??!?!?*

But I didn’t dislike Eleven at all. Millie Bobby Brown had quite a central role as part of Stranger Things, and she pulled it off admirably. Eleven was rather different from some of her cinematic forbears in that the producers opted to play her in a relatively understated fashion – and for the most part, convincing – as opposed to exaggerating everything into an opportunity for “hilarity”. There are some funny moments, but they’re never break the wider tone of the show.

As might be expected, Eleven is depicted with a shaved head, dirty face, bloody nose and a pack of Eggo Waffles. She’s also wearing the clothes that she gets from Mike’s house (was it meant to be Nancy’s old clothes, or just from a dress-up box? I don’t remember), even down to the calculator watch. So this POP isn’t based on any specific scene; it’s more of an aggregation of several elements of the character, though you could argue that it’s from right near the end when she fights the Demogorgon.

Eleven was actually the first Stranger Things POP teased, back before they even had the license. What we got here is much the same as that initial prototype, which is impressive – it’s one of Funko’s more detailed POPs, both in terms of sculpt and paintwork. Obviously Netflix and the various other licensors were quite happy…but the cynic who used to work in advertising makes me think that Funko had the license for a lot longer than they let on, and the whole “these are prototypes” thing was just to build hype. Never mind either way; the final product is a good one.   

There is also a Chase version of Eleven, packed at a 1/6 ratio. It uses the same body sculpt, but has a different head sculpt – it’s Eleven after she gets her blonde wig and has her face cleaned up. And this brings me to a complaint. I don’t mind that Funko does Chases; but in four years of collecting, I have only ever encountered four or five in the wild. Traditionally, they’ve also tended to be paint variants – metallic, glow-in-the-dark, that kind of thing.

But in 2017, Funko is now bringing in sculpt-based chases, and that irritates me no end. Once upon a time, Funko would have simply released these two versions of the character separately, and people could simply pick and choose which one they wanted (probably both, in most cases) – now we don’t have that option. Though they’re ostensibly being packed at higher ratios than before, I can virtually guarantee that they are still going to be a huge pain in the ass to find. Given that I’m expecting (as I have noted numerous times on here) Season 2 versions of the characters to eventually be released, I’m probably not going to make much more of an effort to search out the Chase version. But Funko’s doing similar things across a number of their lines, and I don’t think it sets a very good precedent. Their Twin Peaks range has done something similar, in even more disappointing fashion -- an entire major character has been relegated to a Chase figure.       

Not counting the Chase, there are two other versions of Eleven at this stage and I suspect we’ll see more not too far down the track. There’s an Underwater version, with her “swimsuit” and helmet. Next month there’s an Emerald City Comicon exclusive – Upside Down Eleven, who’s in a two-pack with Upside Down Barb. It looks to be the Underwater sculpt without the helmet, so I’m sure customisers won’t have any issues creating their own.

Eleven is must-buy for fans of the series, and she seems to be the best-selling so far. Funko have done a bang-up job with this one, and here’s hoping we see this level of care and attention applied to some of their other ranges in future.

*One of my other pet peeve is when characters are described as “quirky” by their actors, screenwriters or directors. In our day-to-day lives, we do meet quirky people, and they’re often highly engaging and entertaining. But on film, “quirky” tends to be code for “the character has one or two oddball interests but is mostly just extremely irritating and will make you resent the time they spend onscreen”.