I finally saw the new It movie from 2017. It’s really an easy movie to review. It can be summed up in one sentence:

Scary clown charges camera and goes RAWR!

It is a competently enough made film, but it is basically unnecessary beyond stimulating the economy. Other than that, the new It doesn’t bring much more to the table (at least in Chapter One) than the 1990s mini-series did, other than better special effects, of course.

The new It is basically for people who have never read the book. I think they would find the movie to be a decent crowd-pleaser. As a person very familiar with the book, the movie felt like a rushed disappointment to me. Everything happens quickly and shallowly. No tension exists because I know which characters will survive.

One can’t really fault the filmmakers for this. It’s difficult to condense such a big book full of so many characters into something that can light up the screen for only two-and-a-half hours. The book is an achievement of formidable talent. How much cocaine augmented that formidable talent is perhaps up for debate, but I find the novel to contain some of my favorite writing in the the pantheon of American storytelling. I still read sections of It now and then because reading it feels like time travel to me. I particularly like the section where Ben stays late after school and walks home in the cold. Growing up with Minnesota winters, that section seems to literally pluck me out of reality and set me down in my past. I find King’s ability to capture childhood in It to border on mystical. This is not to say the book is not without its wonky parts. I’m okay with the Ritual of Chud, but I think King could have put on the brakes when it came to some other events. But that is neither here nor there for now. We are talking the 2017 movie.

Some other nitpicks: the movie could have took it down a notch when it came to design. The actor who played Pennywise did a great job, but Pennywise’s look was pushed a bit too far into scary territory. This design choice carried on to the sets, as well. For example, the house on Neibolt street and Pennywise’s lair looked like something out of Edward Scissorhands. It was pushed so far into scary territory that it ended up fairy tale surreal. To a degree, I kind of get that if that was, in fact, the stylistic choice because I think King brushed up against such things in the book. For example, the little door leading to Pennywise’s lair in the book. That was like something out of a fairy tale. Regardless, I couldn’t take the house on Neibolt street seriously because I kept expecting Johnny Depp to show up around any corner giving a poodle a new hair style while a children’s choir went “oooooh oooooh oooh ooooh oooh oooh ooh…”

But, as a fan of the book, it was mostly the story that I couldn’t get into. The movie simply had to skip so much by necessity, and, as I said, I felt no tension because I know who lived and died. I wonder if there is a way to fix that. It would certainly be a challenge, but let’s play around with it because we can do anything we want in a message board post…

How about this…since the movie is for people who never read the book, then they wouldn’t care if we change anything, and if we make crazy changes, then even people who are big fans of the book are going to find themselves being surprised and, maybe, interested.

So…let’s kill off some characters unexpectedly. How about two of the seven main kids don’t make it through the movie? To further play around with fans of the book, let’s say this version of It is based on the novel written on a different level of the Dark Tower? Then we can do whatever we want! I just don’t understand why any huge fan of the book would complain because, again, the book is so formidable that the movie cannot possibly come close to capturing what makes the novel amazing.

Here’s another outrageous change…how about we start with the grown up characters rather than the children characters? Or how about we do the movie from the parents’ point of view? Maybe it isn’t Bill who hunts Pennywise to avenge George’s death. Maybe it is his father? Again, I’m just brainstorming. Most ideas might suck, but what if we stumble onto an interesting, unexpected track? So anyway, the parents try to defeat It. It doesn’t work, and then their kids grow up and try it in the second movie?

Or maybe we stick with the kids, and then the next movie is their kids trying to follow in their parents’ footsteps?

Naw, probably can’t lose the kid/adult dynamic. That is maybe the essence of the story. Can we play around with Pennywise then? Maybe he is not a monster. Maybe he is human. Maybe he is the human servant of a monster. Maybe he is an alien. Maybe he is a demon. Maybe he is literally the devil.

Or maybe the problem is too many kids. Maybe instead of seven, we cut it down to four. Then we can spend more time getting immersed in their world and the story wouldn’t feel so thin. Heck, maybe it is just Bill alone and his friend Ritchie. I suppose you could keep Beverly because a love interest is always nice. Bill is hunting Pennywise alone. He eventually ropes Richie into helping him. Beverly is around somewhere. I think that might be the best option because that could really simplify the story. Then you could have more victims because, as things stand, Pennywise is really not too good at his job. Who did he actually catch? Patrick who walked right into the sewer and a couple of others offscreen? He actually comes off pretty inept the way things stand, other than being great at charging the camera and going RAWR!

So, yeah, I think I like that as a possible solution to beef up the movie. Less kids. Yeah, it’s a shame to lose them, but if we can’t do them justice, they are just there because they are in the book, and they are still in the book even if they don’t show up in the movie.

Or maybe we do a side story. The story is told from the point of view of a different kid or a parent who is also hunting Pennywise while the other original seven are doing their thing. Then we could do a whole movie on this other tangent, which occasionally intersects with the group of seven. That might be kind of neat, as well. Then we are not really bound by anything. It would kind of be like Ender’s Shadow to Ender’s Game.

It would have to be carefully done, though.

Anyway, if I don’t stop, this post will become as long as It. But it’s fun to try to think of different ways to tackle the problem and still end up with a movie that is a crowd-pleaser to non-fans and still offers people who are very familiar with the book something different, as well.

Or how about this…what if the movie is about one of It’s children that escaped at the end of the book? And now that child is out for revenge on the children of the children. We don’t have to make a remake of the 1990 mini-series. We can still do It, we can just do it differently. The possibilities are endless if we really want to sit down and think it out.