Table of Contents Show
Spoilers for Stranger Things – Season 5 (2025) and Iron Lung (2026).
“Intentionality,” as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, refers to the quality of being done on purpose or with deliberate intention.1 The OED definition does not capture the word’s full contemporary social and cultural resonance, as a deeper interpretation of intentionality remains closely tied to the concept of purpose. Intentionality can be seen as the root of craft, carrying three interrelated expressions of the purpose in film.
These are narrative intentionality (the cohesion of plot, character arcs, and stakes), design intentionality (camera placement, sound, editing, and pacing), and production intentionality (planning, script completion, and creative control during production). Together, these descriptions shape how purpose is constructed by production teams, and then communicated to audiences.
Across visual art, creative writing, and music, intentionality, purposeful decision-making, sits at the core of artistic creation. However, if one is to look at this idea of intentionality not as a rigid concept, but instead a spectrum that runs across narrative, design, and production, purpose becomes another avenue to critically analyze content from.
Stranger Things Season Five2 (Duffer, Ross & Matt; 2025) and Iron Lung3 (Markiplier; 2026) were both highly anticipated productions, yet their receptions diverged sharply. Despite its substantial budget and established fan base, Stranger Things Season Five has been criticized for lacking the narrative intentionality audiences expect.
The production has been critiqued for its intense continuity errors, unwillingness to let characters die, and sidelining core characters. In contrast, Markiplier’s Iron Lung, despite criticism of its runtime and pacing, demonstrates how cohesive writing, a focused crew, and a unified creative vision can foreground intentionality in film production.
Production Intentionality As Creative Philosophy
The act of putting one’s creative work out, is inherently somewhat a purposeful practice. From writing a script, preproduction, filming, and editing, a great deal of work is often put into creative pieces from the large, or small teams behind the production.
However, when comparing the creative approaches of the Duffer Brothers and Mark Fischbach, the degree and consistency of intentionality in Stranger Things Season 5 and Iron Lung appear markedly different.
Constraint As Craft — Intentional Design In Iron Lung (2026)
Iron Lung was officially announced on Fischbach’s Youtube channel in April of 2023, with a teaser trailer. The film stars, is written, edited, and directed by Fischbach, along with being self-financed at an estimated 3 million.4
After the film’s release, as of the February 13th domestic chart, it has a total gross of just over $37 million.5 Since its release, the film has been both criticized for its slow pace and perplexing plot, and praised for its accomplishments as a small, indie release.
However, Fischbach’s purpose behind his production emerges in interviews about the film, such as his interview with IGN.
“But hey, not everything’s about making a profit. If you can break even on something and you made something cool, that adds value to the world.”
Mark Fischbach6
Fischbach, when making the film, strived only for breaking even, and simply had a dream of making it into large theatrical releases. His goal, he asserted multiple times throughout the process, was not to create a large, successful film, but instead make a production he was satisfied with constructing. His main critique, that of slow pace, even reflects this intentionality.
Iron Lung adapts a video game defined by slow, claustrophobic suspense — an experience some players describe as immersive and others as tedious. The game consists of moving the submarine through the blood ocean, finding coordinates, pursuing points of interest, only for the character to die.
Critics calling the adaptation monotonous, while a rational criticism due to the slow nature. of the film, miss the key knowledge that the original game contains this repetitive nature by design. As a result, for the film to be tedious can be seen not as a flaw, but instead a deliberate homage to its predecessor.
Spectacle Without Cohesion — Problems In Stranger Things Season 5 (2025)
Stranger Things Season Five was first announced to be in-writing on April 22, 2023 on Ross Duffer’s Instagram, the first day of filming being on January 9th, 2024. Its previous season holds Netflix’s #3 spot for “most popular show”, with 140,700,000 streams in the first 91 days of release.7
Since its release the series has been under criticism for a number of narrative and production intentionality choices, mostly stemming from disappointment from the once-beloved director-writer duo, Matt and Ross Duffer.
“That’s what people don’t understand when we’re not killing people off because we were always like, oh we have to maintain this sense of fun in the show or it doesn’t become the show anymore.”
Matt Duffer8
Since the release of One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 (2026),9 deemed “The Documentary,” the documentary has increased frustration with the production team rather than nostalgia for fans.
This manifests itself in moments such as The Duffer Brothers admitting to not having a finished script for the finale while filming and actors such as Maya Hawke being forced to take responsibility on-set to direct themselves in order to fix plot holes. Through these moments, The Documentary suggests a looseness and lack of production intentionality.
Within this, Matt Duffer’s quote about preserving “fun” over killing off characters can be read not as a single statement, but instead a production philosophy that deprioritizes intentional narrative choices. This lack of perceived narrative intentionality can be seen, to its fullest, at the large-scale conspiracy theory created by fans, otherwise known as “Conformity Gate.”
“Conformity Gate” was the theory that the last published episode, known as “Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up” was not the true finale, but instead a fake ending created for the story. Those who believed in the theory chose to put faith in the series’ many inconsistencies, or lack of purposeful writing.
They cited forgotten dates, a doorknob that moved, and characters missing from the epilogue.10 However, Conformity Gate proved itself an incorrect theory, with the series finale being the intended ending. Fans were instead left with the knowledge that the multiple continuity errors were just mistakes, a lack of narrative, design, and production intentionality.
Small-Scale Design, Large-Scale Effect
Best displaying this purpose is a scene from the rising action of Iron Lung11, one where Simon first sees the monster that will be haunting him for the rest of the film, displaying acute design intentionality. In the scene, Simon uses a charcoal pencil to slowly etch out his coordinates on a map, navigating his way through his new, unknown surroundings.
The camera pans from shots of this, to shots of the x-ray camera, his one way of perceiving outside of his iron submarine. Doing this, the audio remains purposeful, focusing on the etching of charcoal, the movement of Simon as he navigates around the submarine, with the soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult in the background.12 This auditory unease highlights the design intentionality of the film, seen in the mixing and spatial construction of the submarine, highlighting tension of the unknown.
This is best compared to the climax of Stranger Things Season 513, the final battle with Vecna. The battle is staged as a blockbuster setpiece, with sweeping shots over the battlefield rapidly cutting between the multiple characters in the scene. However, despite the spectacle, the scene narratively fails to resonate with an audience expecting high and realistic stakes.
The final battle contains a nine vs. one story, and while this does not inherently pose a problem, the issue comes in the story’s refusal of action. For example, after Eleven jumps into the Mind Flayer’s head to fight Vecna directly, the group decides that one of them must be bait, to attack the Mind Flayer from the outside. Nancy becomes this bait, framed in medium and close-up shots that are surrounded by shot sequences of her allies.
The shot composition and editing do not linger on her vulnerability or fear for an extended amount of time. This leads the audience to read these construction choices, one that has been repeated multiple times throughout the season, to assume that Nancy will make it out safely.
The final battle of a five-season series leaves viewers with some expectations about the stakes and intensity about the climax of the entire show. However, this conflict instead leaves the watcher feeling underwhelmed and unsurprised, a result of the lack of narrative and production intentionality that was put behind the season.
Constraint Versus Spectacle In Climactic Storytelling
Further into the scene from Iron Lung, it can be seen just how Fischbach’s design intentionality is pushed through with his decision of small-scale horror, pushing his narrative. After the etching of the writing is emphasized, along with the pressing of the x-ray camera, the lens pans to the floor, the sound of the x-ray echoes through the room, and all of a sudden, Simon’s pencil hits the ground.
The camera pans to a wide-shot, showing Simon face-to face with the monster, with the compressing submarine around him. His breaths are emphasized, condensation is dripping from the walls, as Simon slowly presses the camera button more, and the creature slinks away.
Compare this even deeper to Stranger Things Season Five, where the final battle with the final villain is over in less than seven minutes, a minute amount compared to the finale’s two hours and eight minutes. The camera emphasizes large, cinematic shots with guns, flamethrowers, and Molotovs, but even as the characters are running from the villain, true tension is never created.
This is best emphasized by a previous scene, one where fan-favorite Steve Harrington is seemingly flung off the side of a building. The moment is cut like a cliffhanger in a TV show with commercials, with the screen cutting to black after the character falls. Like Nancy, however, the shot composition still follows an already established pattern, that characters will be flung into dramatic danger that is not authentic, instead being decorative.
This last-minute rescuing is a theme throughout Stranger Things Season 4 and 5, creating a recurring device of characters being protected. This design and narrative intentionality fractures any realism in the show’s narrative, something seen in Matt Duffer’s previous quote, where he says he does not want to kill characters, in order to keep the “fun” in the show.
Characters do not have to die for a show to have a satisfying ending but the stakes do have to be realistic, something that Stranger Things Season 5 lacks due to it’s shortfall of narrative intentionality.
In comparing the two productions, it is clear that the active design intentionality of Iron lung outweighs the purpose put behind narrative in Stranger Things Season 5. The latter favors safe choices in narrative, resulting in a large cast of characters and visual viewing pleasure without a strong, realistic plot to stand on. This creates a series that seems to favor brand continuity and the preservation of its ensemble over narrative purpose.
In comparison, Fischbach makes choices with narrative and design intentionality intertwined in an attempt to create an immersive experience for the viewer. He centers on purposeful sound mixing, along with long, focused shots to build suspense on-screen.
Reception & The Perception Of Intentionality
Rotten Tomatoes has become the ubiquitous review site for film and television production, calling themselves the “world’s most trusted and recognized source of movie and TV reviews.”14
Using the “Tomatometer” for critic consensus, and the “Popcornmeter” for audience consensus, intriguing parallels can be seen between the two types of reviews, in both Stranger Things Season 5 and Iron Lung.
Along with this, Letterboxd, a review site that results in longer, analytical reviews, can be seen to show how casual consumers perceive the intentionality contained within the two productions.15
Narrative Risk, Or The Illusion Of Stakes
When looking at the reviews, from “Rotten Tomatoes,” ofStranger Things Season 5, a fascinating, symbiotic relationship can be perceived between the “Tomatometer” and the “Popcornmeter.”16 Critics call the series “amazing,” captivating,” and “impressive,” disappointed fans state the series is “cheap, “awful,” and “a huge mess.”
The idea of intentionality isn’t a direct avenue from creators to audiences, but the missed marks of the seasons reveal a pattern of missed purposeful production that fans are feeling frustration over. This is put into words by audience reviewer creede, on Letterboxd.
“It never takes real risks, it never truly challenges the audience, and it clearly prioritizes a “brand-friendly” conclusion over compelling storytelling.” creede17
The reviewer, creede, is pointing at the audience’s perception of the lack of narrative intentionality throughout Stranger Things Season 5. Before this, they state that the series felt “manipulative,” and “corporate,” something that can be directly linked to Matt Duffer’s quote above about preserving the “fun” of the series. However, Stranger Things was created to be a horror, sci-fi, show.
As a result, for some viewers, like creede, that philosophy reads less like a commitment to tone and more like an avoidance of the narrative stakes that earlier seasons suggested.
Disorientation As Design — Why Iron Lung Works For Fans
Looking at the film’s“Rotten Tomatoes,” an interesting subversion is present, contrasting the reviews of Stranger Things Season 5.18 The “Tomatometer” has critics calling the narrative “staggering,” “dull,” and “lethargic.”
In comparison, the “Popcornmeter” has fans stating the film is “psychological,” “anxiety-inducing” and “suspenseful.” It is clear that while critics saw Iron Lung’s slow pace as a flaw, many fans interpreted that same pacing as a form of design intentionality, a deliberate use of repetition, silence, and confined space to sustain tension.
This is seen in a Letterboxd review, where the reviewer, Harry Brewis (Hbomberguy) discusses this purpose. He discusses a shot where the main character, Simon, wipes blood on his pants, a small shot that adds no technical plot value to the film.
“A worse movie would cut or shorten that shot, or never have shot it at all. SO much thinking must have gone into where to put the camera, how to highlight the physicality of the space, and how to make that very small room keep feeling new and strange.”
Harry Brewis (Hbomberguy)19
Brewis puts the Rotten Tomatoes reviews into a formal argument, discussing the difficulty of creating a full feature film in an inclosed space. He verbalizes a feeling felt by many fans, how each shot was created suspenseful due to the intention put behind, and in front, of the camera.
Later in the review, states his willingness to forgive the flaws of the film because of the purpose put behind the design of the production, something mirrored by the high fan score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Scope, Budget, & The Visibility Of Creative Purpose
Though Stranger Things Season Five has a higher critic score than Iron Lung, fans of the productions gave inverse reviews, generally, than critics. Given the vast differences in budget, scale, and audience reach, declaring one production objectively superior would be impossible and unfair. What emerges more clearly is that Iron Lung’s constrained scope makes its narrative, design, and production intentionality visible and cohesive.
To contrast, Stranger Things’ large-scale spectacle sometimes obscures the absence of real narrative risk behind impressive images, leading to fan disapointment regarding lack of purpose. Fischbach’s constrained production highlights every narrative, design, and production choice he made, creating fans that acknowledge his intentionality. In contrast, Stranger Things creates a narrative where spectacle is favored over purposeful choices, creating a narrative that is visually-appealing, but lacks resonance.
Footnotes
- “Intentionality, N. Meanings, Etymology and More | Oxford English Dictionary.” Oed.com, 2024. ↩︎
- Duffer, Matt and Ross Duffer, creators. Stranger Things Season Five. Upside Down Pictures, Netflix, 2025. ↩︎
- Fischbach, Mark, director. Iron Lung. 2026. ↩︎
- Tassi, Paul. “Markiplier’s ‘Iron Lung’ Removed From Box Office Charts, Returns Making 7x Its Budget.” Forbes, 4 February 2026. ↩︎
- “Weekend Domestic Charts for February 13, 2026.” The Numbers, 13 February 2026. ↩︎
- “How Markiplier Is Trying To Break The Video Game Movie Mold with Iron Lung.” IGN, 29 January 2026 ↩︎
- “Tudum.” Netflix ↩︎
- Radwan, Martina. One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5. Netflix, 2026. ↩︎
- Radwan, Martina. One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5. Netflix, 2026. ↩︎
- Goodhart, Benjie. “What is Stranger Things’s Conformity Gate craze – and why did it crash Netflix?” The Guardian, 8 January 2026. ↩︎
- Fischbach, Mark, director. Iron Lung. 2026 ↩︎
- Hulshult, Andrew. “Iron Lung (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack).” 2026, Spotify ↩︎
- Duffer, Matt and Ross Duffer, creators. Stranger Things Season Five. Upside Down Pictures, Netflix, 2025. ↩︎
- “About Rotten Tomatoes.” Rotten Tomatoes ↩︎
- “About Letterboxd.” Letterboxd ↩︎
- “Stranger Things: Season 5 Reviews.” Rotten Tomatoes, 26 November 2025. ↩︎
- “Stranger Things 5: The Finale Review by creede.” Letterboxd, 31 December 2025. ↩︎
- “Iron Lung Reviews.” Rotten Tomatoes, 31 January 2026. ↩︎
- “Iron Lung Review by Hbomberguy.” Letterboxd, 29 January 2026. ↩︎