It: Chapter 2

7,473 Views | 78 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by Chase McGuire
Cinco Ranch Aggie
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AG
I finally got to take my kid to see this tonight. As with Chapter 1, I was quite entertained. I thought the movies adequately captured the essence of King's massive book. I really liked both versions of the cast - as a guy married to a hot red-head, and no, I am not going to honor Rule #1, I can sit and watch Jessica Chastain in anything. For hours. But I digress.

I had no issue with the film's length. The three acts all worked well, although I will agree with earlier posts that the Bowers subplot was unnecessary. It has been a long time since I read the book, but I seem to remember more on that subplot although I don't recall the American Werewolf-like Hockstettler character.

I bought the hardcover when it was first published in the summer of 1986. I read maybe 200 pages before I had to start the fall semester at A&M. Once the semester was done and I was home for Christmas, I started reading again. I read roughly 900 pages on Christmas Eve - could not put it down, read all night and then went out for whatever our Christmas morning activities were that year. The book scared the crap out of me. Along with The Shining, it was the scariest book I've ever read.

So now I turn my attention to the 5+ hours of these movies. While I am a fan of both, neither were at all scary. Creepy, perhaps, but nothing that is ever going to cause me issues sleeping. To me, that is this two-part movie's only real failure. I was hoping for a scary outing, one that would join the relatively short list of movies that I consider to be scary (Alien, The Exorcist, Paranormal Activity, and Poltergeist, among others).

im seriously surprised no one mentioned Chapter 2's most awesome scene (IMO), a scene taken right out of John Carpenter's The Thing, when the Stanley? head grow giant spider legs and starts attacking, and the one guy mimics Palmer from The Thing when he says "you gotta be f'in kidding me!"
Punked Shank
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In my opinion...chapter 2 was much scarier than 1.

1 was more of goonies and stranger things. 2 was much creepier. Weird things
Chipotlemonger
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AG
Finally watched the first chapter tonight (I know the story though and saw the old ones)
Proposition Joe
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Finally caught it last night. Was a competent film, but way too long and not particularly scary... so much like the first one, except even longer.

Just unnecessarily long. The idea of them going to discover/find their own "token" felt shoehorned in (why not just have it happen when they all scatter initially after dinner like in the book?), but if you're going to take the time to give each character their "scare", then you have to leave other stuff on the cutting room floor... Like one of the 17 "he can't write an ending" jokes or the funhouse mirror scene which really didn't serve any purpose other than to cram in another scene they thought looked good. Bowers was completely insignificant.

The biggest fault in Part 2 was the same as Part 1 - the creature effects outisde of Pennywise were just looked too CGI... too slick. Paul Bunyon, the leper... all relied too heavily on quick jump cuts, fast movements and the like.

A lot of nods to the genre and homages (my personal favorite being "You gotta be ****ing kidding me"), but overall it's not a film I think I will revisit any time soon. Very much felt like they had a ton of ideas and scenes they wanted to do but didn't know how to string it together into a good flow.
FTACO97
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AG
Proposition Joe said:

...

A lot of nods to the genre and homages (my personal favorite being "You gotta be ****ing kidding me"), but overall it's not a film I think I will revisit any time soon. Very much felt like they had a ton of ideas and scenes they wanted to do but didn't know how to string it together into a good flow.
Except that it's literally based on a book that came out in 1986. It's not like they just sat around and thought the whole thing up....
Proposition Joe
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FTACO97 said:

Proposition Joe said:

...

A lot of nods to the genre and homages (my personal favorite being "You gotta be ****ing kidding me"), but overall it's not a film I think I will revisit any time soon. Very much felt like they had a ton of ideas and scenes they wanted to do but didn't know how to string it together into a good flow.
Except that it's literally based on a book that came out in 1986. It's not like they just sat around and thought the whole thing up....

The child under the bleachers did not occur in the book.

The child in the funhouse did not occur in the book.

The scene of Stan at his bar mitzvah with the mic drop comments did not occur in the book.

The whole scene where Ben and Beverly are in the dirt/stall and have to say I love you to each other did not occur in the book.



I'm fine with a director taking liberties with the source material -- and ultimately most of the above scenes were decent/good... But the movie is very bloated with unnecessary scenes that have the movie as a whole become laborious to get through. There were roughly 15+ minutes of Henry Bowers scenes - yet Henry Bowers served no practical purpose in this movie.

I get wanting to stay true to the book with some scenes (Bowers)... but a choice needed to be made between having superfluous true-to-the-book scenes that otherwise served no purpose and the new wouldn't-this-scene-be-cool scenes. You want the funhouse scene and the baseball game scene? That's fine... Then cut the dog scene, or the spider-head call-back scene, or shorten King's scenes... or just remove Bowers completely from Part 2 it's not like adult-Bowers is any kind of memorable character and the rehashed-Sometimes-They-Come-Back goons played almost zero role in the second film so why bother?

I've read the novel 3 times and probably seen the original miniseries double that, so I enjoy the story... But I've never actually sat through all of Part 1 of the new film a second time, and I very much doubt I do for Part 2. They are bloated films that desperately needed to be tightened.
TCTTS
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AG
Very well said.
NASAg03
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I enjoyed Chapter 1 more than 2. Probably because it reminded me of Goonies, but also there was more anticipatory scary vs. just pop-up scary. And the ending seemed less drawn out and more original.

Chapter 2 was interesting to me solely because I was trying to figure out who was who all grown up. I didn't remember character names from the first, so the whole time I was trying to place characters from the first with the second.

There wasn't much character growth or change in 27 years, and Chapter 2 seemed to be a rehash of 1, but 27 years later. The minimal character development / fears to overcome were EXACTLY the same as the first movie.

And the second movie they had to stop being afraid to overcome Pennywise, because he thrives on fear, just like in the first movie. That's how they defeating him the first time. I get it, they didn't remember, but we do, which is what made the movie seem so long and pointless.

And the ending. Alien triune orbs floating around. Still don't see how that's related to single being. I wasn't convinced or scared or engaged with the ending. And at some point throughout it, I thought it was all just in their heads and as such, not actually scary.

And as my coworker said the next day, what was the point of that first scene? There was no closure or justice or connection with the rest of the movie.
Proposition Joe
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They did a poor job of explaining it, but the first scene marked It's awakening in the present day (27 years later). Historically there was always some kind of "evil" event that marked it.

The scene was actually well done but like you said -- it didn't fit the film so unless you knew the book it came off as just another scene they put in that they liked.

Hopefully Muschietti learns that sometimes things need to be left on the cutting room floor.
Chase McGuire
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Saw this the other day. I liked it, but it's a step below the first movie for me.
 
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