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Stephen King's IT |OT| He thrusts his fists and then he posts (Unmarked spoilers)

To be fair, do you think it's possible for a movie to do that in such a limited timeframe? It seems like something that really requires a hefty novel, as IT obviously is, or like a three hour movie. In 2 hours 15 minutes it already has to cover the kids getting to know each other and bonding with each other, each kid getting shown a fear in isolation, cover some secondary characters like the bullies, Eddie's mom, Beverley's dad etc, have them deal with Pennywise together at least once before the final battle....what is there is already stretched a bit thin in places.

I'm not sure what could be lost from the movie as is, purely in terms of plot points, without compromising the kids part of the story, in which case I think the issue could only be resolved by making it longer, but maybe that wasn't an option with the studio.

I think that maybe some of that oppressive nastiness embedded in the town could have been highlighted in basically the same amount of time. Eddie's mom, Beverly's dad, the Bowers family dynamic, the Pharmacist - they're all there, but they're not present, yunno? Bowers' gang is just some shitty kids, you dont' get the sense that they're kinda being enabled by the town's cowardice, and the town's cowardice isn't really delved into beyond that one shot of the car we saw in the trailer.

I guess you could afford to spend less time in the haunted house and still pack the same punch if you spent more time outside of it watching these kids struggle against the town itself. I don't think you'd really need that much more time to do that. Derry's history is basically only related secondhand, through newspapers & personal anecdote. You don't really see it, much less feel it.
 
From Variety
Much like Quentin Tarantino’s first volume of “Kill Bill” offered a delirious yet morally unmoored mixtape of kung-fu spectacle, only for the second installment to provide the context that retroactively made it all meaningful, “It” very much feels like the flashier half of a longer story.

Ideally that context and larger scope will come in the second movie. Use the research and record keeping of the adult story to show the subtler horror of Derry. I mean, the interludes were all from an adult perspective

You could restructure the interludes as a cold case-esque mystery at the start, then segue into a psychological thriller with the other characters and their struggles
 
That's the dark secret. You know like how a village silently accepts their good harvest knowing it was a result of the yearly sacrifice that no one talks about

It was a dark secret for the kids and reader to uncover; that it's known and ignored by the adults is the unsettling disturbing part

Okay I see what you're trying to say now.

On another note, the Variety review definitely sounds similar to Bobby's review minus the Pennywise comparison.
 

SargerusBR

I love Pokken!
I hope that it is good. That SK tweet tho... I remember when he said he hated Kubrick's The Shining and preferred the TV miniseries adaptation.
 

Majora

Member
While it's certainly not inconceivable that the second movie is the one which will provide deeper context for the first and delve more into Derry's history, it's not a bet I would be willing to make at this point. I think it's equally likely that WB could want a movie just based around Pennywise terrifying then as adults. I think WB got exactly the movie they wanted with IT and if it's as as big a success as everyone is anticipating then they might just want another in the same vein.

I hope I'm wrong but I'm not willing to get my hopes up at this stage.
 

Jarmel

Banned
From Variety


Ideally that context and larger scope will come in the second movie. Use the research and record keeping of the adult story to show the subtler horror of Derry. I mean, the interludes were all from an adult perspective

You could restructure the interludes as a cold case-esque mystery at the start, then segue into a psychological thriller with the other characters and their struggles

What would be cool, but completely unlikely, is a HBO miniseries that focuses on historical events in Derry. An episode per cycle or something. Have it release in the months before the second movie comes out.
 

groansey

Member
The Derry stuff needs to be a subtext not the focus.

People seem to want different things from this movie based on whether they've read the book, seen the tv series or none of the above.
 
While it's certainly not inconceivable that the second movie is the one which will provide deeper context for the first and delve more into Derry's history, it's not a bet I would be willing to make at this point. I think it's equally likely that WB could want a movie just based around Pennywise terrifying then as adults. I think WB got exactly the movie they wanted with IT and if it's as as big a success as everyone is anticipating then they might just want another in the same vein.

I hope I'm wrong but I'm not willing to get my hopes up at this stage.
I think this is likely too but I would hope not, that would be short sighted of them. Besides it's not like there are sequels to IT, they aren't gonna get a franchise out of this, so if some dumb people show up and get upset that it's not killer klowns from outer space pt 2 it's not as big a deal compared to if this one fell off a cliff.
 
I recall reading somewhere in a interview that the director wants to open the second movie on the Black Spot Fire. So we my get some Derry history in part 2.


Edit: found the quote
”They were able to [incorporate it into the script], but they were not able to incorporate it into the budget. Just like we weren't able to, but it's going on the second...that sequence with the Black Spot, we think it's gonna be a great opening for the next film."
 
Okay, so: The kids are all pretty damned good. When this movie is working, it reminds me most of the best parts of Stand By Me. It's not as good as that movie, of course, and the performances don't end up anywhere near as good as River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, & Kiefer Sutherland's in that film, but there's also never anything as thin as O'Connell and Wheaton's work. IT is powered by the camaraderie between the kids, and when the film is echoing the sort of "shooting the shit while walking the train tracks" sort of vibe, it's a solid, solid effort.

As a haunted house film, it's pretty decently constructed. I know it's an easy pun - but the film floats from set-piece to set-piece pretty effortlessly. And perfunctorily, but more on that in a little bit. It's not bad, but it's also, surprisingly, not very scary. Like, at all. It hits the beats, it just doesn't hit them all that hard for the most part, outside of one or two really effective visual ideas executed well.

Skarsgard's Pennywise is a twitchy, weird, fidgety presence in the film. But here's where we start getting into the biggest problem of IT - it's not the visuals, because the visuals are pretty damned good (yes, there's obvious CG, but considering the nightmare imagery we're dealing with, unrealistic creatures aren't too distracting), it's not the music, which I found pretty decent in the moments the film gave itself over to the score. It's not even really Pennywise, who I still think looks and behaves more like the monster from the book than I think Curry's portrayal does.

Derry is not a character in this movie. It's just a place where a haunted house is planted. And so far as I can remember: Pennywise never gets an on-screen kill in this movie, save for Georgie at the beginning, and even then, you don't really see that kill.

So yeah. That's a problem. Because part of why the kids feel so imperiled, part of why the book's atmosphere is so oppressive, is due to the town being being malignant and its denizens being complicit in Pennywise's cycle. And in this movie, Derry is just a town. Bad shit has happened here, but its all academic. It's not really felt, and it's not really shown. It's just quickly referenced, usually in passing, and not only does that soften the overall sense of dread, it softens the threat of Henry Bowers, because now he's just a screaming mullet instead of an unhinged manifestation of the town's callousness and cowardice.

And so if you're not going to have the town be a living, cancerous tumor on Maine's ass, then you need to make Pennywise just that much more threatening and malicious, and Skarsgard is basically pinned in a very limited range of giggly superficial evil and confused, uncomprehending frustration. He never gets happy, he never gets really angry, he never really gets frustrated, or scared. The two or three notes he's allowed to play, he plays really well (and he plays them all in that one scene with Georgie) but past that, either he's smiling, or he's giggling, or he's racing at the screen with a go-pro strapped to his chest and that's about it. The clown never really gets his gloves dirty.

It's a good movie. It's a fun little haunted house ride. Finn Wolfhard basically steals the whole movie everytime he opens his mouth (and he apparently loves himself a shitty game of Street Fighter 1). But it's a lot thinner, safer, and lighter than I was expecting. The crowd at the screening was definitely up for that ride. A couple set pieces ended and relieved murmurs rumbled up in response once they were done. But this is a film that doesn't have much of a sense of menace. It hits the beats, sets up the next beat as fast as possible, and then hits that. It finds itself in this weird in-between space where it's fine being profane and bloody as much as it wants, but that's as far as its ugliness ever goes. When it comes to the real nasty shit the book thrives on, the everyday horror of small-town cruelty and ignorance? There's almost nothing there.

Pretty much on the money here. The uniqueness of the setting (which feeds into theme) only getting expository lip service about what makes it unique was my biggest problem as well. I thought the music was not good though in terms of actively making things less scary than could otherwise have been with a little eerie silence (another reason why the Georgie scene at the beginning is the most effective).
 
Said it in the review thread, but seems like there's going to be a jarring clash between what people think IT the creature is and acts like based on Curry and based on the book

The problem is that people put Curry's performance on a pedestal as this great and defining adaptation of Pennywise, when it's really like watching the Robocop remake first and then being confused and offput by the original because Robocop is so slow and why is his suit so boring and like all he does is walk and shoot.

I had only known Pennywise as Curry's performance till a month ago. After reading the book, his portrayal went from "defining adaptation, guess It is about a killer demon clown called Pennywise" to "wow, wtf, his portrayal sucks. It's like people praising Hannibal Rising's Lecter as the best portrayal of Hannibal"
 
The book honestly didn't carry its quality into the second half or last third of the story. I hope the movie can somehow salvage the not-so-great quality of the book in the later parts.
 
Said it in the review thread, but seems like there's going to be a jarring clash between what people think IT the creature is and acts like based on Curry and based on the book

The problem is that people put Curry's performance on a pedestal as this great and defining adaptation of Pennywise, when it's really like watching the Robocop remake first and then being confused and offput by the original because Robocop is so slow and why is his suit so boring and like all he does is walk and shoot.

I had only known Pennywise as Curry's performance till a month ago. After reading the book, his portrayal went from "defining adaptation, guess It is about a killer demon clown called Pennywise" to "wow, wtf, his portrayal sucks. It's like people praising Hannibal Rising's Lecter as the best portrayal of Hannibal"

What would you say were the biggest/main differences between Pennywise in the book and TV piece?
 

Rootbeer

Banned
The book honestly didn't carry its quality into the second half or last third of the story. I hope the movie can somehow salvage the not-so-great quality of the book in the later parts.
Personally not worried... a lot of the better King adaptations have smartly devised where in the story it's best to deviate from the source material in order to get the best result. IT Part II will probably have more original material than Part I, my prediction.
 
From the review thread, here's mine. Just added it to Rotten Tomatoes:

‘It’ Review: Stephen King Adaptation with More Carnivalesque Adventure Than Genuine Terror



With a more ceremonious unveiling than the other Hollywood adaptation of a Stephen King property this year, It is slickly calibrated to please its spook-hungry audience. Functioning more as a roller coaster ride of frights and humor than a dread-inducing exercise in terror, Andy Muschietti’s Mama follow-up doesn’t have the inspired vision or thematic complexity to join Brian De Palma and Stanley Kubrick in the pantheon of the (very few) masterful cinematic retellings of the celebrated author. However, for a Halloween precursor, there is a respectable amount of carnivalesque mischief to be found in this cinematic equivalent of a deranged jack-in-the-box.
 
I'm excited to see the movie, well, not excited excited but looking forward to it. King's books have a bad history of adaptation.

Love the OT title though. Solid work there, sir.
 
I hope that it is good. That SK tweet tho... I remember when he said he hated Kubrick's The Shining and preferred the TV miniseries adaptation.

In King's defense Kubrick's movie is a bad adaptation of his novel, despite being a quality horror film.

(So is the miniseries but for other reasons)
 
What would you say were the biggest/main differences between Pennywise in the book and TV piece?
You know how Hannibal Rising or Robocop 2014 takes the elements and tenets of the character, tears out all the subtlety, and leaves behind a shadow of the character that kind of resembles their original portrayal in the barest ways?

Curry's Pennywise is like that. IT is so much more than creepily jovial demon clown but you'd never know that from watching him or that portrayal. Not only that, but Curry feels more like a deranged serial killer in clown make-up IMO rather than something ancient and eldritch.

IT in the book is a ravenous predatory entity that wears a person suit over its form. IT isn't Pennywise the clown, it's a hungry and ancient lovecraftian horror that hides its monstrous true self behind fearful veils, of which Pennywise is merely one of them (and IT's favorite).
 
Said it in the review thread, but seems like there's going to be a jarring clash between what people think IT the creature is and acts like based on Curry and based on the book.

I snipped part of your post just to focus on this, to disagree in part. For me, I think I'm going to be disappointed just because of the leaked Georgie scene. I thought it was pretty fantastic, and yet most reviews say that's Pennywise's strongest scene. Which doesn't bode well to me personally. So, it may not be like the book, but I'd like more Pennywise performance from Skarsgard and I'm afraid I won't be getting what I'd like.
 
I snipped part of your post just to focus on this, to disagree in part. For me, I think I'm going to be disappointed just because of the leaked Georgie scene. I thought it was pretty fantastic, and yet most reviews say that's Pennywise's strongest scene. Which doesn't bode well to me personally. So, it may not be like the book, but I'd like more Pennywise performance from Skarsgard and I'm afraid I won't be getting what I'd like.
To be fair in the book, if I remember correctly, that moment felt more similar to IT during the adult parts; for much of the kid's sections, IT isn't Pennywise the creepy clown like it is in the grate. It's playing other horors and hunting down and scaring and devouring prey, or trying to.
 

Majmun

Member
This is the OT though, aren't unmarked spoilers fair game here? (And that's not even a spoiler since the dude hasn't seen the movie)

Well, the movie hasn't been out yet officially.

I also read the book. But I won't be asking huge or important plot questions from the book here either, without spoiler tagging them first.

But that's just me.
 
That's changed over the last year or two, as people began realizing all the spoiler-free talk was already happening in review and trailer threads, so OTs didn't need to be split in half.

Basically, the traditional means of making threads for movies was backwards. An OT should be where people who actually saw the fuckin thing get to speak freely. Someone who hasn't seen it or doesn't want to be spoiled already has 1 or 2 threads for that by the time the OT drops.
 

Toa TAK

Banned
Having two OTs for films is redundant, which is what having a spoiler thread and an OT is. Especially when people post impressions in the review threads. Which makes three. And it ends up being parallel conversations anyways. Consolidate that shit.

Edit: Beat by Bobby
 

More adventure than genuine terror? Hmmm...bit disappointed to read that.

By the way i feel quite stupid now. I was talking to someone on another forum and he told me i should not expect it to be like the mini-series and i was like...hold on, next to the old movie they also made a series about it? So i IMDB it and i see it's indeed a mini-series. All this time i saw this as a movie, a horror movie. But then again it's also a long long time since i last watched it.
 
As someone that hasn't seen a horror movie in, let's say a loooooooong time, will the scares be a lot more affective to someone like me?
 

IronRinn

Member
Derry is not a character in this movie. It's just a place where a haunted house is planted. And so far as I can remember: Pennywise never gets an on-screen kill in this movie, save for Georgie at the beginning, and even then, you don't really see that kill.

So yeah. That's a problem. Because part of why the kids feel so imperiled, part of why the book's atmosphere is so oppressive, is due to the town being being malignant and its denizens being complicit in Pennywise's cycle. And in this movie, Derry is just a town. Bad shit has happened here, but its all academic. It's not really felt, and it's not really shown. It's just quickly referenced, usually in passing, and not only does that soften the overall sense of dread, it softens the threat of Henry Bowers, because now he's just a screaming mullet instead of an unhinged manifestation of the town's callousness and cowardice.

When it comes to the real nasty shit the book thrives on, the everyday horror of small-town cruelty and ignorance? There's almost nothing there.
Movie still sounds like fun but this is really, really disappointing to hear.
 
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