Stranger Things documentary filmmaker Martina Radwan is addressing fan speculation after viewers claimed to spot a ChatGPT tab in the background of a shot in her new film about the show’s final season.
The filmmaker behind One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5, which delves into the fifth and final season of the hit Netflix sci-fi horror series, has also pushed back on criticism aimed at the Duffer Brothers over the final season’s script timeline, insisting it is not unusual for television productions to keep writing while cameras are rolling.
Martina Radwan insists that Stranger Things, which was still being written during filming, is not unusual in television. Speaking to BBC Newsbeat, Martina noted that you simply "can't write everything ahead of time" in TV and film, explaining that access to the writers’ room was a rare opportunity that helped demystify the creative process behind the show.
© Jeff SpicerShe added that the idea of a writers’ room being a place where scripts are simply typed out misses the complexity of what actually happens, saying, "I think having access to the writers' room is a real gift and a privilege that the brothers gave us because I think it's very easy to think when you write a script, you literally just sit there and write."
She continued, "And it's like, no, it's really thinking about a gazillion things, how you interweave all these stories. I mean, this is a massive ensemble cast, and to cover 19 character developments, it's quite a feat and an accomplishment."
Martina, who dismissed the so-called Conformity Gate conspiracy theory around a rumored secret extra episode as "bizarre," also shrugged off the idea of Matt and Ross Duffer using ChatGPT for their scripts after some fans claimed to see a tab open for the AI chatbot in the background of a shot in the documentary.
© Getty ImagesAsked whether she ever witnessed the brothers using the platform in an unethical way in the writers’ room, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she did not, explaining that what she observed was a collaborative creative process rather than reliance on artificial intelligence. "No, of course not. I witnessed creative exchanges. I witnessed conversations. People think the writers’ room means people are sitting there writing. No, it’s a creative exchange. It’s story development. And, of course, you go places in your creative mind, and then you come back to the script."
Martina was also questioned about scenes in the documentary that appear to show Netflix growing impatient over the amount of time the Duffers were taking to finalize scripts for the final season. She insisted the split release schedule was always planned and had nothing to do with delays in writing, adding that moments like that are common on sets of this scale.
"It’s so hard to take that out of context, because again, on every film set, you have that situation where you’re waiting for the script, you’re rewriting the script. It happens all the time," she said, noting that the biggest pressure point on any production is time, which directly translates into money. "There’s this constant pressure point of, like, are we going to make the day, are we going to get it done."
© Jerod Harris"This is not a fiction film where you’re like, well, let’s see when we’re going to be done, and then we’re going to find the festival. They had their air date. So that’s a whole different pressure, right. Because you really have no wiggle room. So it wasn’t that Netflix was particularly pressuring them. It happens all the time."
She added that the pressure was heightened by the fact that Stranger Things was working toward a fixed release window rather than an open-ended festival debut, explaining that the show’s scale and schedule left little room for flexibility.
