It 1990 - Blog Posts

Was thinking about what Taylor Swift songs would match with Reddie, and the first one that came to me was “Right Where You Left Me” and now I’m crying.

I have so many Taylor Swift songs for reddie, and for the other Losers.

What if I start referring to the book IT as the the canon and the movies (2017 + 1990) as the fanon? What then

I wanna dress like Richie Tozier but in a 1990 miny series way

I wanna dress like Stanley Uris but in a 2017 movie way

I wanna dress like Stanley Barber but in a queer icon way

I wanna dress like Sydney Novak but in a sweaters and too many layers way

My gender envy spectrum as a genderfluid:

He/Him - Spider-Man (And sometimes Peter Parker)

He/They - Peter Parker (But never Spider-Man)

He/It - Wirt (Over the Garden Wall)

It/That - Darwin (TAWOG)

It/They - The Collector (TOH)

She/It - Velma (Scooby Doo)

She/Her - Melissa (Milo Murphy's Law)

She/They - Fluttershy (MLP)

They/Them - Stan (IT book + 1990 + 2017)

N/A - Dave/Evan/Chris/C.C./Crying Child (FNAF)

I don't think I missed any... but yeah this is my personal simple gender envy graph thing... yeah

okay last thing i will say on the subject for tonight (maybe) but i think what most viewers -- and most readers, in all honesty -- fail to understand is that it 1986 is abnormal. it is a weird book. it is not a traditional horror novel with a traditional horror setup and, while of course it IS horrifying in every way a book can be horrifying, that is not its main focus. it 1986 was never meant to revolve around gore or blood or death. it was meant to revolve around the losers club. the protagonists of the novel are what made it so impactful when it was initially published and they are what continue to make it so impactful today. pennywise, as a villain, is only important as it relates to the losers club (and btw it will be referred to here on out as pennywise, despite that not being its actual name, for clarity). because the actual book cannot survive without those central characters, it just can't. it 1986 is about seven people who are extraordinarily, supernaturally, surreally deranged about each other and in love with each other who have their lives irrevocably altered by a trauma they faced together, although separately. but does it really matter, because aren't the characters themselves both one person and not??

to understand king's original intention with the novel is to understand the losers and it 2017 massively, undeniably fails to do so. in an effort to create relatability, and to scare larger audiences, it 2017 (which for this post's purposes encompasses the entire remake franchise) totally disregards the bond and dynamic between the losers club. really, it disregards any element of magic at all. richie and bill get into a physical altercation in which punches are pulled, bill has to force the losers to hunt pennywise with him, mike drugs bill, mike lies to the losers, etc. the list goes on and on. it 2017 wants desperately to be a drama, and therefore its protagonists must face internal conflict. but none of this could EVER have been present in king's novel. the magical ties and promises that bind the losers are such that they not only care about each other but ARE each other at times. they can read each other's minds, bev thinks at one point. they -- and i know this is a sensitive subject for many but it's worth mentioning -- quite literally have a platonic orgy to solidify their bonds with one another. they are strange. the relationship between these characters depends entirely on forces outside of their own control. to suggest that they could fight like schoolchildren, per it 2017, goes against the very fabric of it 1986. these characters cannot fight like kids. they are, of course, barely even kids (and still completely kids). it's confusing. that's the point.

fine, then. we aren't allowed a weird dynamic with the remakes. where does that leave us with each individual protagonist, then? well, quite frankly, nowhere. the losers are completely intertwined, and erasing their relationship does absolutely nothing beneficial to the characters' personalities. the decision to loosen the bond between the characters -- to make them seem more like casual friends than soulmates -- comes at a detriment to every single character. and i mean every single one (yes, also bev). this goes back to what i was saying earlier about how, oftentimes, the losers seem to be one functioning body. what is bill if not the leader of this group? where is richie if not fitted into the overall group ecosystem? nothing and nowhere, apparently. the losers become childish mockeries of who they were meant to be. for example: stan's entire personality in the remakes is "jewish." that is quite literally his entire thing. so now we have a movie with shitty characters based off a book that is ostensibly known for its characters. already, we are off to a terrible start.

but it doesn't stop there! see, the problem is, pennywise depends on the characters just as the characters depend on their relationship just as their relationship depends on its magic (see the pickle we've gotten into?). the bone-chilling, spine-tingling terror of book pennywise is that it's always one step ahead. it knows your fears, sure, but it also knows what you love. it knows your hopes and dreams. it knows what you do in your free time and it knows how you interact with your friends and it knows all your inside jokes. and sometimes it shows up just to play! sometimes it's barely even menacing. sometimes it is just there because it can be, because each loser's relationship with pennywise is its own kind of individual horror, and pennywise wants them to know that. here is where the fear originates: you cannot run from it because it knows you and sometimes maybe it is you. you cannot escape something that has lived inside of you all along. and that sounds cliche, and quite possibly one of THE simplest horror metaphors to nail, but here is where it 2017 truly screws the pooch. without fleshed-out characters, it is impossible to do pennywise any of the justice it deserves. suddenly, it has no point of access to the losers, because they have no personalities to target. pennywise loses everything that made it terrifying in the first place, because it cannot exist without the losers. instead it relies on a mouthful of sharp teeth and a silly dance that will hopefully scare the audience. pennywise, after some slightly personalized meddling (and i mean SLIGHTLY. a painting?) to freak the kids out, attacks every loser in almost exactly the same way. that defeats the point of the story.

the audience does not leave a screening of it 2017 with any lingering feelings of dread or despair or i-should-leave-the-lights-on-tonight. the audience leaves with a classic slasher satisfaction and the knowledge that pennywise is really good at Eating You, if it so chooses. but there's none of the personal panic that there should be upon consumption of any version of stephen king's it -- there's no vague, half-formed thought that maybe it is waiting for YOU. not just anyone, but YOU. pennywise has been entirely impersonal and random for the entire movie. why should you be afraid?? it doesn't know YOU. it can't. and so the remakes fail. of course they do! they were fucked from the moment the losers' slates were wiped almost entirely clean.

but hey, i'm sure they tried their best?

I have thoughts about IT Chapter 2 (2019).

I had watched the IT miniseries and then about a year later I watched IT Chapters 1 & 2. I loved Chapter 1 (and still do). I really enjoyed Chapter 2 when I first watched it, and there are still parts that I really like. I have since watched both movies and the miniseries several times, and read the book. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like Chapter 2 as an interpretation of the story.

As a one-to-one adaptation of the book, the miniseries is better than the movies. That’s an indisputable fact, and also not necessarily what the movies were trying to do. The change in setting (1950’s to 1980’s) does change the way that the characters are presented. I actually really like this, and will almost certainly make a separate post about it someday. The way that Bill Denbrough is presented in the movies, however, is just inconsistent with his character. In the book, he is the leader of the Losers. They all look up to him and respect him. They all genuinely love him and he genuinely loves them back. Every single Loser almost worships Bill, to the point that the book even comments that he’s the only person Ben wouldn’t be jealous of if Beverly dated. And Bill is aware of his friends, even if he is still asking them to do dangerous things. Still his characterization in Chapter 1, while off, doesn't ruin things nearly as much as the mess that Chapter 2 becomes.

So IT is a beast of a book to read. It’s long and the dual story structure is written concurrently, meaning that it jumps from kids to adults randomly. The miniseries keeps this to an extent. I think separating the two stories is smart, but having the two run concurrently does allow the reader to see that though the structure seems circular the characters have grown. They are adults the second time they face Pennywise, and have different priorities and fears. And they have to figure out how to defeat Pennywise as these new versions of themselves. And, yes, Chapter 2 does this, for everyone except Bill. Because in the book, Bill actually cares about his wife, Audra, who follows him to Derry and gets abducted by It. In the book, Bill is a rational adult who chooses to go into the sewers, leading and with the support of his friends. He grows throughout the book, coming to realizations about what parts of him need to revert back to his childhood self versus which parts of his adult self are needed to win (the cheating bit). Which is really what each of the Losers has to do in Derry before they can defeat It.

So I am so annoyed by the choices made for Bill Denbrough in IT Chapter 2. The inclusion of a random stand-in Georgie child completely erases any capacity that Bill has for growth in the story. It keeps him in the mentality of his traumatized 13 year old self, and he acts like it. He is supposed to be the beloved leader. The Losers are supposed to rally around him, because he is everyone’s big brother/first crush. Why is he going rogue in the sewers? Why did they take the responsible leader and make him a manic loner? Why did they do Bill Denbrough so dirty? It completely ruins the integrity of the movie as an adaptation of IT.

richie literally has chemistry with ALL of the og losers plus mike in the book. why dont they show any of that in the movie. like i get hes 'flirty' in the movie but.. in the book he held hands with mike, kept bringing up bill not stuttering all the time (a whole page was dedicated to showing how mesmerized he was about it? and he brought it up 10 pages later.), he heard a bird noise and thought "hey stan would know what kind of bird that is :)". LIKE HELLO WE GOT NONE OF THAT IN THE MOVIE. you people are sick and twisted. we got reddie in the movies and i thank god for that but really??? you are gonna deprive me of this? wow.

imo, there really is a disconnect between the way book eddie is described and It chapter 2 eddie is portrayed.

to me, eddie is sweet and sensitive at his best, but has a short fuse when he’s poked too hard and bites back with spunk and verve to defend himself or his friends. it chapter 2 eddie just….has no fuse. he’s just always angry at any and everything and anger is his default state, not him at his fiercest.

in the book, eddie is skittish and afraid most of the time, but that’s what makes his outbursts of confidence and bravery so meaningful when it really counts. he’s willing to drop all those fears to save his friends. and to be fair they did give him this same arc in it chapter 2, but most of the time they showed him being too afraid and screwing things up for everyone so we only got one moment of bravery before he was immediately killed.

idk. maybe i just wanted to see eddie attack the giant eye in the movies. 💀