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Stranger Things writers deny editing old scenes – including ‘pervy’ Jonathan sequence

Duffer brothers had previously said scenes were being altered

Ellie Harrison
Thursday 28 July 2022 01:24 EDT
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Stranger Things 4: trailer

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Stranger Things writers have denied that any scenes from previous seasons have been cut or re-edited.

The official Twitter account for the show’s writers’ room posted the following message on Tuesday (26 July): “PSA: no scenes from previous seasons have ever been cut or re-edited. And they never will be.”

The tweet comes after the co-creators of the Netflix show, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, claimed earlier this month that they had been editing past seasons – a move they called “George Lucas-ing”, referring to the Star Wars director’s habit of editing his films years after they’d been released.

Many viewers had suspected that a scene in the Stranger Things’s first season, in which Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) secretly photographs Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer), had been later edited to appear less “pervy”.

Some fans claimed that they remembered that, in the “original” scene, Jonathan continued to take photos of Nancy as she took her clothes off, which is not what happens in the version of the episode on Netflix now.

When a fan responded to the Stranger Things writers’ room PSA with the question, “So that also counts for the Jonathan spying on Nancy scene in S01, as many people believe?” The group responded: “Yes.”

The first four seasons of Stranger Things are out now on Netflix. Read The Independent’s review of the latest batch of episodes here.

The series will return for a fifth and final season.

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