Oh, you should really try to watch the film. Of course, Kubrick cannot do full justice to the book, no director could, but he does craft a fine and thought-provoking movie with many touches of the Kubrick genius. The book and film certainly make you uncomfortable but that’s often the way with great art.
One nice touch about the film that I liked:
I expected film would move up the dates, but the thought of it disappointed me. I really thought the story worked best set in the 50s and 80s. I actually avoided reading anything about the film before going in, so I didn’t know that the kids would be 80s kids (hell, I didn’t even know the story was split into 2 films and this one would be ONLY the kids!), but I assumed they’d be 80s kids and told myself to just get over it.
What I really liked about it was that it still felt like it was set in the 50s. There’s 80s music, but it’s not intrusive, and there are 80s movie marquees but the whole film felt very much like the 50s set Stand By Me. The kids looked enough like 50s kids (especially Bill), they kinda talked like 50s kids, the overall palette of the film was more suggestive of how we conventionally present pre-60s as a period set piece.
In the actual 80s, I was the age of these kids. I really didn’t feel like I was seeing my childhood up on screen, I felt like I was seeing (what pop culture has lead me to believe would be) my parents’ childhood. They even let Bill keep his 50s bike, Silver!
It’s almost like the film was set in the 50s but, oh, by the way, let’s all agree that it’s set in the 80s. Kinda like how Robert Altman made MASH as a Vietnam film… set during the Korean War.
I’m wary of the chapter 2 film.
First of all, the kids’ story was always more interesting to me. When I read the book, the adults parts really only worked for me because they were interwoven with the kids parts. They adult parts dropped hints about parts of the kids’ story that hadn’t been told yet and, thus, effectively upped my anticipation to get to the next kids chapter. I do understand the practical benefits of splitting the films this way. I even agree it was the best way to do it. The downside is (though I’ll be happy to be proven wrong) that you’re leading with the strongest parts of the story and are only left with an inevitable letdown given that you’re only left with the weaker material to end on.
Second of all, Derry with iPhones. Ummm… no.
50s and 80s is really part of what makes the story work for me.
I don’t see a more-recently-posted in thread on the IT movie, so will post this here: The movie recently came to cable and I finally watched it. I was disturbed by a scene that I don’t think was duplicated in the 1990s mini-series: the extended sequence of the kids attacking the titular monster.
In the mini-series I seem to recall that the kids didn’t ever make a protracted attack on the character played by Tim Curry. I remember attacks on the spider-form of the monster, but not one on the clown, or at least not one that went on for any length of time.
But in this remake, there is a long, long scene of this gang of teenagers beating on this human-sized character (as played by Bill Skarsgard). Many of the shots show him from the back, and so we don’t see the unearthly teeth–just what looks like an eccentrically-dressed man, being hit by bats and rebar by a gang of kids.
I’m not saying that the filmmakers set out to give us a scene of a gay or transgender person being beaten up, but…watching the movie, it was hard to keep such associations from popping up.
Am I mis-remembering? Was there a similar scene in the miniseries?
… Other than that: the jump-scares were well filmed. The kid actors were well-directed and convincing (which is no small consideration in movies like this). And of course it will be easier to judge the movie in terms of its artistic achievement when the second half comes out, I suppose.
WTF? That’s an absolutely bizarre association to make, one that’s only in your head.
In the 1990s miniseries, the kids have a final fight with Pennywise in the sewers with Beverly shooting him in the head with the melted silver and Eddie spraying It in the face with his asthma inhaler (“battery acid.”)
Glad you aren’t saying that, because that is an incredibly weird thing to say.
Obviously, it is supposed to be a bunch of gold-standard supporters beating up a believer in fiat currency.
**Sherrerd **, did you read the book? There’s a part in the beginning about a gay man being victimized by the town baddies (and ending up in the jaws of Pennywise, I think). Perhaps that’s in the back of your mind? Otherwise, I don’t see what you’re seeing.
Gay? To quote another Stephen King adaptation, you have to be human first.
I have read the book, so that’s possible.
As I said originally, I’m not positing a conscious decision by filmmakers. But if you watch the movie (or the scene) again, notice that many shots show P from the back, from which vantage point you see only an oddly-dressed, unarmed man being menaced and beaten by a gang of teens armed with bats, rebar, and a slaughterhouse gun. Intentional? I wouldn’t think so, but I’d be interested to see again the similar scene (mentioned by Eyebrows of Doom) from the miniseries, for the camera setups used there.
I think that ink blot is all your own.
And seeing a man dressed as a clown from behind makes you think of transgenders… WHY!!!
This interpretation says more about you than the film. Transgenders are not clowns.
Honestly, I think, too, that King is wise enough to know that a cinematic adaptation is really its own thing; they may be adapting his story but it’s a different kind of art. He tripped over his own dick trying to make a movie (Maximum Overdrive) and is happy to say it wasn’t great. He knows movies are their own art form, and they succeed or fail on their own merits.
“It” was okay, but my quibbles with it have nothing to do with how it differed from the source material - in fact, pretty much every change made sense to me.
Your conclusions are in error. Clowns don’t make me think of transgender people.
What caught my attention was the long scene full of repeated images of an unarmed, oddly-dressed man being beaten by a gang of armed teenagers. “Oddly dressed” does not translate to “transgender,” but it does translate to “different.”
The phenomenon of gangs (of teens or adults) beating up people who they perceive as “different” is, unfortunately, extremely well-documented in real life.
This thread has taken such a bizarre turn.
Bizarre turn? Some people call trans people bizarre! Your comment is problematic!
They didn’t hit a guy on a bike. They hit a bike. They were driving home late, and didn’t know there was anything in their way until they saw a bent wheel sticking up in the rearview mirror. It was a kid’s bike, but there was no kid, no parent, no anyone, just the bike. “But it wasn’t on the side of the road, it was right in the fuckin’ middle!” (It probably was on the side of the road, while they thought the car was in the middle.). Anyway, that was the impetus for Jack throwing out his liquor, so I wouldn’t say it was waved away.
Let’s not forget, though, that Pennywise is not a man, much less an unarmed one. In no way are we meant to see him as a victim.
Also note that “teens” is a generous description of the Losers; the tallest of them barely reaches Pennywise’s shoulder.
Just watched the film again the other day on cable. One of them explicitly mentions their age as “13”, so they’re supposed to be junior high school tweeners and mostly they look it( as actors Lillis was the oldest at 15, but despite some people saying she looked too mature I’m not getting it - she could pass for 13 IMHO ). Old enough to be hitting puberty and making rough jokes about sex, young enough to basically not be much of a threat to any functioning adult. Y’know, excepting the occasional Henry with a switchblade vs. someone taking a siesta.
My son is 13, and I could probably take out any five of his classmates without raising a sweat; also, contaray to his claims, I personally am NOT an eldritch horror from beyond space and time.
Oh, I agree. In the world of the story, it’s Brave Kids Versus Extremely Powerful Supernatural and/or Extraterrestrial Monster. It’s just the way the shots were framed that created, inadvertently no doubt, imagery (subtext) that seemed a bit odd. (I still want to look at the scene from the mini-series that was previously mentioned as being similar.)