The creators of Stranger Things have revealed the lengths they may go to retcon a season 4 mistake regarding Will's birthday. Stranger Things is one of Netflix's flagship series following the goings-on in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, which is located over the portal to another dimension called the Upside Down. Set in the early to mid-1980s, the show largely centers on a group of pop culture-obsessed young people who use their love of fantasy and horror to help them understand what's going on, including using a Dungeons & Dragons term to describe the first big monster they face off against together: the terrifying beast with a distended mouth known as the Demogorgon.
One of the main characters in the series is Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), a young boy who was abducted by the Demogorgon in the first episode of season 1. While the entire season revolved around his family and friends trying to find him, he has played a more instrumental role in the following seasons as even more supernatural threats have beset Hawkins. Despite how important a figure he is in the overall arc of the show, Stranger Things still flubbed a major detail about the character: his birthday. The date of his birthday is mentioned as March 22 by his mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) in a season 2 episode of the series. However, season 4 part 1 - which premiered on Netflix on May 27 - set a major scene on March 22 without mentioning Will Byers' birthday at all.
Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer recently sat down with Variety for an interview about season 4 part 1. When the topic of Will's birthday came up, they revealed that they might "George Lucas" that season 2 episode, using ADR to change Joyce's line and make Will's birthday May 22 instead. They revealed that they didn't have somebody keeping track of those kinds of details, but a helpful fan sent in a document listing all the major dates of the series that they will be referring to from now on. Read their full quote about changing Will's birthday below:
Matt: I think we’re gonna George Lucas it…
Ross: It doesn’t make any narrative sense. We were talking about it yesterday, I think we’re gonna George Lucas it…
Matt: We wrote his birthday six years ago… I don’t remember. I don’t sit down and rewatch my seasons. I don’t know the last time I saw season 2.
The Duffers, who have delighted themselves by making "George Lucas" into a verb, are referring to the way the Star Wars creator has updated his previous material. Back when the Star Wars prequels were coming to theaters, Lucas oversaw re-releases of "Special Edition" versions of the original trilogy, which had substantial edits including CGI enhancements, changed lines of dialogue, and the addition of a deleted Jabba the Hutt scene. While the alteration of Will's birthday wouldn't be as major a change as many of Lucas' decisions, it would evoke his methods by retconning material that has already been out for years.
While this is hardly the most important plot development of Stranger Things, it would at least explain why Will's friends - and even his mother - forgot his birthday. Considering the fact that Will has frequently gotten the short end of the stick as a character, this would remove at least one slight from the in-universe narrative of the character. Now the Duffers will just have to make sure they don't set any non-birthday scenes on May 22, and they will be golden.
Source: Variety