Stranger Things and Star Wars have a unique connection

Stranger Things: Season 2. How Star Wars led to the creation of this season’s seventh episode.

Stranger Things 2 and Star Wars, yes they existed in the same “time” but Stranger Things has a different story to tell, and yet we see a massive parallel between the two this season.

Episode 7 of Stranger Things brought in a new face for us to see. Kali, a girl who was also in Hawkins, Indiana along with Eleven, was experimented on by a top secret government program.

The program was designed to use the offspring of people who volunteered themselves to be test subjects and allow themselves to be injected with LSD, for the “furthering of science” and to “defeat the Russians.” But like every other government idea, nothing went according to plan.

As fans know, chaos follows, and Hawkins is drawn into a war they didn’t even know was possible. It is the connection to Star Wars that is the exciting part. In episode 7 Eleven leaves home to find her mother and fulfill the longing to fill the empty void only a mother can fill, instead though she sees nothing but sadness and more pain.

Before she leaves though, Eleven goes through all of Hopper’s stuff and finds a picture of the girl we later know as Kali. After finding her mother, she begins her trek to see Kali and be reunited with her lost sister.

Eleven arrives and finds Kali, and also finds out she has powers just like her, but a little different. Kali tries to convince Eleven to avenge her mother and exact revenge upon the same people that hurt her mother. Eleven almost gives in to the temptation but finally, sees the light and returns home.

The connection we see to Star Wars is that the Duffer brothers — Ross and Matt — the creators of the show, brought in elements of Luke and Anakin into the mix. Eleven portrays parts of Luke in trying to find her way in all of this while also wanting to take care of those she loves, Matt told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview.

"We talked about Luke going to Dagobah and meeting Yoda. Also, the idea of a dark Eleven, of Eleven being pulled to the dark side was an interesting idea. So a lot of that episode was what happens if Eleven is drawn towards this darkness and what can she learn about herself if that’s the case"

Just like in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is training on Dagobah with Yoda whenever he senses Han and Leia are in danger and leaves to save them; Eleven parallels that by training with Kali but she can keep her friends by going early.

"More from Dork Side of the ForceThe High Republic Adventures (2023) 1 reviewDaniel José Older named a High Republic Adventures character after someone specialHow animation changed Star Wars: Ewoks and DroidsKelleran Beq comes to Star Wars: Galaxy of HeroesThe Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal becomes No. 1 on IMDb’s Starmeter for 2023I took everything from Luke and from the relationship with Anakin. The reason why Kali is so angry is also because of love… That’s the same thing with Darth Vader — he believes it’s the right thing and he’s doing everything for the love of his mother."

Kali parallels Darth Vader/Anakin a lot. The desire to do what she thinks is right in her eyes, clouds herself from seeing the bigger picture and knowing that two wrongs don’t make a right. Even though Anakin loved his mother more than anything, he still did not go about it the right way.

Anakin did what he thought was proper and necessary, the emotions came from the right place but were not acted out on correctly. Now I disagree with the idea that Darth Vader did what he did because of the love he had for Anakin’s mother because Darth Vader destroyed him and felt nothing for the things and people Anakin loved.

Next: Will Luke pilot the Millennium Falcon in The Last Jedi?

What are your thoughts on the Star Wars parallels in Stranger Things 2? Leave your comments below!