‘Stranger Things’ fans think they caught Duffer Brothers using ChatGPT to write script for final season, but it gets worse

It’s no secret that fans aren’t exactly happy with the final season of Stranger Things. From the plot holes to the baffling writing decisions, something just seems off with the fifth season, it’s just missing something the other four had and fans think they know what that thing is.

Many think that the finale lacked the human touch. Even before the documentary dropped this week, many wondered if the Duffer Brothers had made use of AI assistance like ChatGPT to help them write the script. 

While the conclusion satisfied many longtime viewers, admittedly, the whole plot did seem rather generic and maybe even a little soulless in a way that is synonymous with the slop AI often generates. 

But surely that can’t be the case right? The fifth season of Stranger Things was one of the biggest, most expensive, and highly anticipated shows to ever be produced. Surely the Duffer Brothers wouldn’t be mad enough to leave something so important, so beloved and lovingly crafted, to be chewed up and spit out by a machine.

The Stranger Things documentary reveals some concerning details

While the ChatGPT theory has remained purely speculation in the weeks since the final episode, the behind the scenes Stranger Things documentary released on Netflix this week gave a more in-depth look at the brothers’ writing method and fans didn’t like what they saw.

One part of the documentary has been clipped and shared online already and it appears to show ChatGPT tabs open on a laptop while the brothers are working. The screenshot is rather blurry so it’s not entirely clear whether it was the AI software open in the tab or not, but many fans believe that it looks like the ChatGPT logo.

If that’s truly the case then surely we would have ended up with something much worse. However, others were quick to defend the Duffer Brothers with another person on X providing a clearer screenshot that shows it probably wasn’t what many thought it was.

What the Stranger Things documentary did confirm was that the Duffer Brothers had a Reddit tab open prompting many to suspect that they had made use of the online forum to look at fan theories which may have influenced their writing. The brothers themselves also admitted they had no finished script for the finale when production began.

All of this new information has only further enraged Stranger Things fans who were hoping for more from the finale. In their minds, the documentary confirms their suspicions that the Duffer Brothers had no clue how to finish the show and while there’s no conclusive proof they made use of ChatGPT, many, no doubt, will still believe they did.