Stranger Things star David Harbour says the season 4 resurrection of Hopper was inspired by Gandalf’s in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Hopper’s death at the end of season 3 of Netflix’s Stranger Things was a huge shock for viewers, given that Harbour had been one of the show’s lead actors ever since its first episode. However, the teaser trailer for Stranger Things season 4, which dropped back in February, revealed that the character’s absence from the series would be short-lived, with the footage showing a still-alive Hopper working in a snowy Russian landscape.
The footage confirmed that Hopper was the American referred to by the Russians in the closing moments of season 3, but there is still no word on how Hopper managed to escape death in the giant explosion that occurred in the finale. Fans haven’t shied away from speculating about the details involved in the character’s return though, with new theories popping up all the time online. One popular theory even suggests that the Hopper seen in the teaser is a clone, which would fit in with the show’s broader sci-fi elements. Unsurprisingly, no one on the cast and crew is letting anything slip either, beyond acknowledging the general fact that some version of the character is returning.
Harbour himself remained cryptic about Hopper’s resurrection in a recent interview with Total Film, saying only that the plan to kill the character and bring him back was based on what happens to Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The wizard famously is thought to be killed by a Balrog in Fellowship of the Ring, only to emerge from the dead as a new version of himself, dubbed Gandalf the White, in the trilogy’s second installment. Harbour says the decision was also partly driven by the need to force change on the character, adding that Hopper “couldn’t go on” as the same person he was before:
I’ve had those discussions with them [The Duffer Brothers] from the very first season. We were always interested in that idea of the Gandalf resurrection – Gandalf the Grey who fights the Balrog and then becomes Gandalf the White. It’s the idea of the resurrection of the character. And mythologically, Hopper, in a sense, had to change. I mean, you couldn’t go on the way he was going on. He has to resurrect in some way. So it was a great opportunity to do that. So we’ll see a very different guy going forwards. The same guy but in a different vein. It’s a very cool thing to be able to play.
What’s most interesting about Harbour’s comments is the fact that Hopper will be a changed man when viewers meet him again. He clearly isn’t saying it’s a different character but, like Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, Hopper must have experienced or seen something during his “death” that fundamentally shifts his perspective on things. Whether that’s a good shift or a bad one remains to be seen. Harbour previously said that more of Hopper’s backstory will be revealed in season 4 and that could further help to explain the character change he’s referring to here.
Could something be revealed that not only changes the character, but also the way the audience perceives him? It’s impossible to know right now, but it’s worth noting that the change Hopper goes through could also have repercussions on the character’s relationships in the show. In particular, his personality change could somehow alter his bond with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who he essentially adopted in season 2. These questions will, hopefully, all be answered in 2021, when Stranger Things season 4 finally premieres on Netflix.
