Does the Stranger Things finale look like a Linkin Park music video? In the End's director thinks so too

'It definitely started to feel a little familiar'

In the final episode of Stranger Things, the kids from Hawkins have their final confrontation with Vecna, not in the Upside Down, but in the previously little-seen alternate dimension known as “The Abyss” (aka, Dimension X). The visual difference between the two is striking. While the Upside Down is blue-tinted with red lightning and, seemingly, always enveloped in shadow, the Abyss is a dry, hazy, craggy, rocky yellow desert, at the center of which is a dead-looking tree. Having only glimpsed it briefly in previous episodes, the Abyss seemed wholly new to fans.

That is, unless they were nu metal fans around the year 2000.

For many Stranger Things viewers, who would, after the episode, later congregate online, the yellow-tinted computer-generated desert of the Abyss drew a striking resemblance to the yellow-tinted computer-generated desert from Linkin Park’s music video for “In the End.”

“My favourite part of the Stranger Things finale was how they had the final fight in the same place Linkin Park shot a music video,” wrote one Twitter user, “Linkin Park walked so stranger things could run” wrote another. Yet another fan created an AI-generated version featuring Eleven and Vecna standing in for members of Linkin Park in the music video.

But these fans weren’t the only ones who saw the resemblance, so did the director of the “In the End” music video, Nathan Cox, who joins us here to talk about his own surreal experience watching Stranger Things in a theater on New Year’s eve.

Polygon: Tell me, what was your experience watching the Stranger Things finale?

Nathan Cox: My girlfriend and I had been watching the series from the beginning and when it came time for this new season to be released, we were following the schedule, the Thanksgiving release and then the Christmas release. Then she bought tickets for us for New Year's Eve to go to the actual theater. And I'm a huge movie fanatic. I love movies, and it just seemed like the right way to check out this finale.

We went to the theater and it was amazing because it was full of kids. I was this old man in this theater full of young kids and everybody in the theater was sobbing. These girls were crying so loud. You could hear them sobbing everywhere. I was too. I was in tears also. It totally got me. Watching the Stranger Things kids grow up since they were so little and we fall in love with these characters.

Then, as it got towards going into the Upside Down and everything, we go into that world, the Abyss and it definitely started to feel a little familiar. Actually, I think it was my girl who leaned to me and said, “That looks familiar.” It was pretty funny, we mentioned it on the way home. It was like, “Hey, did you notice that?” And it was like, “Oh yeah, I kind of noticed it.”

It’s just the colors of it all in this sort of desiccated desert landscape. Of course, our technology, when we did this video, Linkin Park “In the End” was 20-plus years ago. It was a very groundbreaking video at the time. We shot the whole thing on green screen and we built all these environments. We had this brilliant effects team led by a guy named Andrew Orloff, who was incredible, and I had this awesome production designer named Patrick Tatopoulos who was just brilliant. We had created this world, but the technology now is so incredible — some of the details that they have in Stranger Things, we didn't have the ability to get that back then. So when that video came out, it was so groundbreaking, and we were so proud and excited about it. When I look at it now, it kind of feels like a bad video game to some degree.

When did you find out that this comparison between the two had become a thing online?

Somebody sent me the clip of "In the End" with Eleven singing and Vecna dancing and doing the thing. I thought it was hilarious, but I didn't realize that it was going viral. I didn't realize this was becoming a thing and people are talking about it. So I think it's wonderful. I love it. Now the video's been old enough that it's retro and it's kind of coming back. Now I'm going out to clubs and things, and I'm starting to hear these songs that I worked on way back when.

Do you think it was an influence?

Honestly, hopefully our video from way back when inspired them. I really hope so. It might not have been. It might've been just a happy accident, but I really hope, somewhere in the zeitgeist, our video made it through to the Duffer brothers because they're brilliant.