Topic: Stephen King's It

[Jimmy]

I've just finished watching it tonight and I will not write a review since I'm sure that everyone have seen it. What I want to do is tell why the movie is a deception for me. The Stephen King's book is the first one him that I've bought years ago and I've read it often trough the years, so this book is very familliar to me. I'm used to the fact that the movies adapted from King's works are usually disappointing, in fact only Pet Semetary, The Tommyknockers and The Myst didn't disappoint me (yes I've seen almost all his movies, even the stupid one with the rats). There are so many things who are not mention in the film this is discouraging :

Obviously I reveal many thing here, so don't look if you have not seen the movie yet

(click to show/hide)

- Most of the first time that the children saw It are incorrect (Eddie saw it as a lepper, Ben saw it as a mummy, Stan saw it as the drown childs, Mike saw it as Rodan, Richie saw it as Paul Bunyan, but I think that for Beverly and Bill it's correct).

- The subplot with Tom Rogan is not there and it's a pivotal point for the end.

- The children use the silver marble against It at the old train station because they have encounter It as a werewolf there previously and it's the way to kill a werewolf. They never use it in the sewer since it didn't make sense.

- Henry fight Mike at the library not at the motel. This is Eddie that kills Henry.

- Eddie is married, he doesn't live with his mother she's dead.

- Richie is a radio host, he doesn't do a television show.

- No mention of the indian smoke ceremony where Richie (or Bill?) get a vision of the arrival of It.

- The relation between Bev and her father is not develloped and this is important to understand why she have married Tom Rogan. By the way her mother is present in the book.

- The first fight in the sewer is much more complicated than that. they panic, they get lost and Richie and Bill fight in the Dead Light against It. 

- The child love part is not mention at all, but it's not necessary a big thing since this is kind of weird.

- It is not a clown or a spider, in fact it is everything and nothing.

- It is a mother that's why they fail the first time, since they don't know this fact.

- They are a big rain storm when they go in the sewer the second time as adult.

- They are not prepare to go to the sewer the second time.

- They defeat It because they crush her eggs.

- Derry is almost destroyed by the storm.

- Ben and Beverly doesn't get married at the end, they leave together but that's all.

- The actor who portray Ben as a child is not big at all.

- And many other little details.

I look like I've not like the movie at all, but it's not the case. Maybe I've love the book too much.

The same thing has happen when I've seen The Stand the first time too.

Am I the only one who feel like it or I don't know how to appreciate an adaptation?

[RossRoy]

Am I the only one who feel like it or I don't know how to appreciate an adaptation?

Far from me to say you don't know how to appreciate an adaptation, but I do think you might want to try and separate the movie from the book.

There's just so many things that can go on in a book, for which there's just no way to convey them on screen. The book appeals to your imagination. Challenges you to create the images in your own mind. Movies bluntly put stuff right in your face and you don't have to think about them.

Thing is, when you've read a book so many times, you have associated specific images for every charcaters, situations, environment, etc. Then, when the movie comes, it may not be what you envisioned, and creates a sense of a bad adaptation.

I think this is what happens with most adaptation of King's work. His books are so charged with information, there's just no way you can make a movie, and tell the whole story as it is in the book. You have to cut somewhere, or combine story elements and characters. Hence some of the shortcuts they take here with It, as they did with The Stand. I'm guessing even The Shining, while regarded as a great movie, actually differs from the book.

[Najemikon]

It's interesting that The Shawshank Redemption is considered the best adaptation of King's work, but the original was only a short novella and also a different mood. I agree with Sebastian and I should also say that I've always managed to separate films from their source and enjoy them independently. In fact I enjoy them more if they are brave with the source material and interpret it.

The most important aspect of any story is surely the overall theme and message. The spirit of the story, perhaps. That can be compromised by either ruthlessly removing sections without accounting for consequences, or slavishly including everything at the cost of coherence.

I haven't seen It, or read It (that's a confusing sentence, but I'm sure you follow! ), so I can't comment if I think it's successful. But my favourite example has always been Lord of the Rings. Much as I love the films, I do think they get by a little by sheer audacious spectacle and if you look under the surface, they could have been better:

1) The bullish pacing of Fellowship loses the important sense of time passing in the book (especially the theatrical version)
2) Talking trees in Two Towers works in the book and is an important metaphor, but I think they're unnecessary and silly on film
3) Six endings for Return of the King? Jackson adapted Tolkein's appendices into the narrative, which simply can't work.

In all points, a braver approach to the source could have made it more coherent and ironically, then it would have been more faithful.

A couple of my favourite more recent adaptations would be History of Violence (changed a lot of the story, lost none of it's impact and kept the visceral nature of the comic) and Adaptation. Charlie Kaufman tried to adapt a book called The Orchid Thief, failed, so told the story of him trying to adapt it! Fantasy and reality fold together, yet somehow, he apparently retained the overall theme of the book. Brilliant.

Films, books and comics are very different ways of telling a story and I believe they only work for the same material if they are approached individually.

[Jimmy]

I can understand that it's impossible to tell 100% of a book in a movie because of the running time. But if your adaptation is a teleseries you have between 3 or 6 hours to tell it, they got it with "The Tommyknockers" so it's not impossible. I can live with some unimportant passage like the omission of the subplot with the Trashcan Man and The Kid in The Stand (that was not in the first published book), but I was angry with the wrongly retelling of the Larry New York part.

Even with a film it's possible to make a perfect adaptation. Christine or Firestarter are perfect exemple of this (some things are incorrect but nothing important).

It make me "angry" because the movie director have change the story too much. The basic story is the same (7 kids fight a monster but they fail, they came back years later and confront it again), but almost all the details or the subplot are incorrect. He had the time to tell them in 3 hours, he could have told the fact as they are and not change them (it's not time confusing to tell that Eddie is married or tell the first encounters as they really happen). I understand the TV format limitation that's why the omission of the creepy part with Beverly and the boys in the sewer doesn't derange me (I found that kind of weird in the book).

But if we talk about bad King's adaptation "The Running Man" is the worst, but the movie is entertaining...

[addicted2dvd]

This shows one reason I am glad I don't read books much. I just go directly to the movie. 

[Jimmy]

This shows one reason I am glad I don't read books much. I just go directly to the movie. 

Maybe but the movie that I've in my head is much better than the one I've seen yesterday 
The only problem with it, it's a one week movie...