Despite the intensity of the season finale of Stranger Things 3, the episode was given a welcome dose of levity when Dustin and his girlfriend Suzie belted out a rendition of the theme song to 1984's The NeverEnding Story over the radio. However, according to Matt and Ross Duffer, this sequence nearly played out quite differently.
"We went through all the various songs they could sing," Matt told Entertainment Weekly. "At one point they were going to sing the Ent song from Lord of the Rings. Then we were like, ‘Oh, well, Amazon is making Lord of the Rings, that’s probably not going to go over well with Netflix.’ Then we came up, I think it was Curtis, our writer, who came up with I think a better idea, which was The NeverEnding Story theme song."
"Certainly filming that sequence, that was some of the most fun we had on this season," Ross added. "It was just so great."
Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Priah Ferguson, Cary Elwes, Jake Busey and Maya Thurman-Hawke.