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Mar 29, 2017 12:08:10 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Scott on Mar 29, 2017 12:08:10 GMT -5
Looks much better than the mini series.
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Mar 29, 2017 18:00:26 GMT -5
Post by GRWelsh on Mar 29, 2017 18:00:26 GMT -5
Maybe it will do the book justice. I wonder how it will handle the Ritual of Chüd?
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Mar 29, 2017 18:04:26 GMT -5
Post by Scott on Mar 29, 2017 18:04:26 GMT -5
Yeah, the trailer doesn't get into the cosmic weirdness. Not sure how that will be handled.
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Sept 11, 2017 8:41:53 GMT -5
Post by GRWelsh on Sept 11, 2017 8:41:53 GMT -5
I saw this last night. It was good (not great, but not bad), and my main criticism was that the scares were too frequent. Horror needs to build up tension and suspense, and if every scene has something horrible or supernatural happening, it starts to dull your senses a bit and feel like a CGI funhouse. One of the reasons the book works is that it takes its time, and the movie doesn't have that luxury when it tries to include so much from the book. So, it was sort of like a balancing act that didn't quite work. Pennywise was at his best when the actor playing him was allowed to act. I was impressed with how many details from the book they worked into a 2-hour movie, but like I said, there was a cost to doing that. I thought it was a wise decision to just do the kids' story first, and leave it open for a sequel when they are adults. The movie did change the time period of the kids' story from 1957-58 to 1988-89 presumably so the adult sequel could be set in the present day. That was a change I was neutral about. There was no Ritual of Chüd, and no Maturin/cosmic turtle... which I can understand leaving out since those things probably would have just confused the audience. Instead, it was a more simplistic explanation of "the power of friendship to overcome fear." The kids realize the only time they were able to hurt Pennywise was when they were all together, and so they conclude they have to stay together in order to overcome IT.
I've always thought of IT as a Cthulhu/Nyarlathotep sort of being: like Cthulhu because he came to earth from the stars long ago, and slumbers, and like Nyarlathotep because he has many masks and seems to toy with people for inscrutable reasons, perhaps simply because he enjoys their fear. Pennywise is just one of IT's masks. The new movie focuses on how Pennywise feeds on fear, and even implies he may starve if he doesn't get enough of it. I was trying to remember what the book said about that, and I'll have to dig it out and read through it again.
EDIT: It was revealed in the book that IT is female, or at least one of the characters thinks she sees ITs true form is a monstrous, female spider. I remember thinking at the conclusion of reading the book that IT was like a clever but fat and lazy cat: smarter and more powerful than any of its prey, sleepng a lot, never straying far for its meals, and surprised at prey that could fight back. Both IT and Maturin the cosmic turtle were created by "The Other." The book implied Maturin died sometime between 1958 and 1985. The book also implied that "The Other" or what is "God" in Stephen King's works was using divine providence and acting through the group of children to help them defeat IT.
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Jan 21, 2018 9:40:07 GMT -5
Post by geneweigel on Jan 21, 2018 9:40:07 GMT -5
I watched it last night and the next day it comes together in your mind like the ramblings of a disturbed person trying to justify their story with fantasies to cover up some crime. Altogether not a bad flow and I liked the effects. Could have used more timing, like you mentioned Gary, but it was good enough for a horror adventure.
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Jan 21, 2018 10:05:42 GMT -5
Post by Scott on Jan 21, 2018 10:05:42 GMT -5
A Netflix mini series would have been the way to go. They broke it into two movies and I still thought there was too much. I agree with Gary, it came at you too fast. In addition to not building much suspense, everything felt glossed over, there was no depth to the characters, story, etc.
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Jan 21, 2018 10:10:32 GMT -5
Post by GRWelsh on Jan 21, 2018 10:10:32 GMT -5
Yeah, I kept thinking that it was a big improvement over the 1990's mini-series but also that this new version should have also been a mini-series like STRANGER THINGS. It is odd to compare them in this way, since IT the novel is obviously one of the influences on STRANGER THINGS, but the film version of the former felt rushed and the latter benefited from being a mini-series in all the ways a huge novel like IT needs. The Netflix miniseries treatment would have been the perfect vehicle for IT. But for a compression of just the kids' story, the film was about as well done as could be expected, and I'm glad they split out the adults' story for a sequel.
P. S. We're really living in the second Golden Age of television with all of these high quality shows on HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. I recently re-watched THE GODFATHER and THE GODFATHER PART 2, which I've always regarded as nearly perfect movies, and I found myself thinking they would be perhaps even better as a mini-series. But also in a way, due to their length they feel like prototypes of all of the miniseries we are enjoying in modern times, and a lot of the early criticism of Part 2 was that it had a divided narrative and was trying to do too much.
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