deadly class

Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things‘ might have made sticking shows in the ’80s a cool concept these days, but ‘Deadly Class’ was always meant to be “a love letter to Gen X.” The comic which was written by Rick Remender was released first in 2014, two years before the Netflix hit. He initially had gone so far as to call it ‘Reagan Youth’ which still ended up being the title of the first arc even after the series name was changed to be more faithful to the main plot points of the comic.

The reasoning behind the era and why being true to it came up was thanks to co-showrunner Miles Orion Feldsott who stated:

“One thing that Rick wanted was that we approach this era with the same kind of reverence that Mad Men did that time period. So in order to maintain that quality and make sure that all the costumes are right and all the cars are right and that we didn’t mess up and use a reference or a slang word that wasn’t until 1990, that’s a very, very challenging task.”

Much of today’s pop culture came directly from the ’80s and ’90s, so trying to keep it all straight can be taxing though it sounds like they’re going out of their way to be true to form for the ear. As to why the new show stuck with the same era as the series instead of being modernized for today’s society was partially because of how integral it was to Remender’s inspiration for the story:

“The reason that it’s in the ’80s is that’s really the time when Rick was going through this period of his life. He wrote the book as a love letter to Gen X and to all the kids that he knew and that he loved that he felt like didn’t have their stories being told in mainstream media. So he wrote the book really for them. I believe the original title of the book was Reagan Youth, and then it morphed into a conglomeration of that book and this heightened Academy for Assassins.”

Not only was the inspiration being used for the story but other elements played into this decision:

“So for [Rick], it’s deeply personal, and we hope it exposes the kids that are that age now to a version of the ’80s that they might not be familiar with. They might be only used to the Steven Spielberg Amblin ’80s, which we all love and we all know very well because those movies are all iconic. But this definitely has a much grittier, angrier tone to it because it’s about the kids that those movies weren’t about, frankly.”

Personally, I love this focus on the Generation X story being accurately told so it will be interesting to see how it plays out in a world that is already going to be vastly different from our own.

Are you excited for Syfy’s ‘Deadly Class’ to officially debut? Do you feel that it will give us a different take on the ’80s compared to what we’ve seen in shows like ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘The Americans’? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Source: Screen Rant