(Sound) - I'll kill you all!
I'm every nightmare you've ever had.
I am your worst dream come true.
I'm everything you ever were afraid of.
(Noise) - The 1986,
Stephen King's novel 'It' tapped into one of mankind's most ancient fears,
spooky clowns that promise we'll float down there.
- And in 1990, ABC brought them to prime time with a two part mini series.
- But in 2017, New Line Cinema made a spooky horror film adaptation.
- And I'm going to skip it, because (Bleep) clowns, man.
I'm Laura Prudent, by the way.
- And I'm Clint Gage, and with no restrain on spoilers, it's time to ask,
what's it's difference?
(Music)
Right off the bat, most obviously,
there's a structural difference between the book and the miniseries.
Partly, because it's an 1,153 page book,
which is just way too long to adapt completely.
Though it was a two part miniseries with a run time of around three hours,
if you don't count the commercials, so they kept quite a bit in.
- The basic story of 'It' follows a group of friends,
self deprecatingly known as the Losers Club.
Coming together to battle an eternal demon in the form of Pennywise
the dancing clown.
And just to reiterate (Bleep) clowns, man, they're scary.
- But there are two halves to the story, the first taking place in Derry, Maine,
1958, the first time the Losers Club faces off with Pennywise.
And second half taking place in present day, when, as adults,
the Losers return to fight Pennywise once again.
- The book crosscuts the two halves of the story with both the 1958 losers and
their present day grownup counterparts squaring off with Pennywise
towards the end of the novel.
The structural differences in the miniseries are probably because of
commercial breaks.
Part one of the miniseries ends with a 1958 showdown with Pennywise.
Then everybody had to come back to ABC the following Sunday
night to see how the adults fared in their present day confrontation.
- But what's probably the main difference between the two
can be chalked up to something we've already mentioned,
a Stephen King novel, complete with unbridled gore and terror, was adapted for
a nationally broadcasted ABC Sunday night miniseries, in 1990.
So in the book you get a vivid description of a bully poisoning one of our hero's
dogs and watching it die.
In the miniseries, you get this,
a montage of two grown men funning around on an old bike.
(Music)
- While Pennywise, himself, stays largely the same from the book to the miniseries,
his carnage is much more explicit in Stephen King's book.
Actually, the entire town of Derry is as well.
For example, the novel opens with George Denbrough's death back in 1958.
It may be the most iconic image from the novel,
Pennywise literally rips the 5 year olds arm off from inside a gutter.
The miniseries, on the other hand,
begins with Pennywise killing a little girl in the present day and
Mike Hanlon discovering a picture of George at the scene.
Something that really doesn't happen at all in the book.
- Georgie.
(Music) - The book marks Pennywise's return to
Derry, Maine with a hate crime.
Two local assholes are drunkenly harassing a gay couple and end up shoving one of
them over the side of a bridge where Pennywise is waiting underneath.
The man is found later torn to ribbons and
the local assholes are convicted of his murder.
Stephen King goes into extreme detail recounting the events of that night,
including police interviews and parts of the trial.
But this homophobic attack isn't the only bit of bigotry the novel spends more
time with.
Racism, anti Semitism and misogyny area all featured much more prominently in
the book than they are in the miniseries.
Again, pure Stephen King has a swarm of flying leeches slowly eat a boy alive.
The cleaned up mini series has this cheery dinner time scene set to happy time music.
(Music)
- They love each other.
- But these are all differences between gory, unfiltered Stephen King and
a sanitized network broadcast.
Narratively, though, 'IT' stays pretty much intact.
All the main characters make it from the page to the screen.
But, as we said, their stories are told in a very different order.
So instead of going chronologically, let's take it character by character,
starting with the Losers Club.
- First up, defacto leader of the Losers Club, Bill Denbrough.
- Can I go sail it?
- We have to seal it first with paraffin.
- Stuttering Bill is basically the same in the book and the miniseries.
A kid dealing with a particularly nasty speech impediment and, right,
the tragic death of his brother for which he feels responsible.
Bill grows up to be a wildly successful horror author turned screen writer,
which can't possibly be a stand in for anybody because he's bald in the books,
so there's no way Stephen King wrote himself into his own fantasy adventure.
Bill is also married, quite happily, to a famous actress.
So, you know, NBD, you guys.
- Then there's Ben Hanscom, the overweight, easy target for bullying.
- Hey, look, it's the fat boy.
- Top of the day, fat boy.
(Music)
- In the book, much more is made of his intelligence.
He's a smart kid who spends a lot of time reading at the library.
Knows how to build dams and even smelt silver.
And as an adult, book Ben loses the weight and becomes a successful architect.
However, he still keeps to himself, living quietly outside of Omaha, Nebraska.
He even has a private jet and landing strip on his property, and
makes a point to come home every weekend no matter where his work takes him.
- In the miniseries, adult Ben is also a successful architect, but
he's more of a playboy.
We meet him drunkenly getting out of a limo, champagne bottles and
industry awards spilling out of his grip as he escorts his
lady of the evening up to a 90s chic downtown loft.
Though the rest of his back story remains the same, including the part about
an asshat track coach, who spurred lose all the weight back in high school.
- "Richie Tozier" is my name, and doing voices is my game.
- Richie Tozier is the same loud mouth cut up in both mediums.
The only real difference with them is in the book, he's a popular radio DJ,
famous for his many characters.
And in the mini series, he's a popular comedian, famous for his many characters.
- Look, look, the cricket is attacking the city.
- There's not much difference in the level of racial insensitivity in his characters
though.
- Mike Hanlon is a young man very interested in the history of Derry,
in both the book and the mini series.
And also goes on to run the Derry public library as an adult.
The book spends a great deal more time outlining his research through several
interlude chapters.
- It's time to tell the others what's happening.
I can't put it off any longer.
- Narratively, the interludes function the same as the miniseries use of Mike's VO.
But the book provides a ton more information in these sections.
- Mostly, the interlude chapters cover other incidents It has been responsible
for over the years.
Like the old iron works exploding during an Easter egg hunt,
and that time that some dude wandered into a bar in the early 1900s, and
chopped up a bunch of people with an axe, as you do.
- The mini series most likely cut these for time and relevance, but
it's also a prime example of unfiltered Stephen King running wild in his pages,
and ABC trying desperately to fight him back.
- Another loser is Eddie Kaspbrak,
a hypochondriac with an overbearing mother in both mediums.
- I don't want you to play with them anymore.
No good will come of it.
- But, ma, they're my friends.
- You don't need any friends, Eddie, except for your own ma.
- As an adult,
he runs a limo service in New York with a clientele that includes Al Pacino.
But while the book sees grown up Eddie married to a woman who is exactly
like his mom.
Mini series Eddie is still living with his mom.
This is actually a very useful shorthand for the mini series.
Instead of saying to the audience, remember what his mom looks like?
Doesn't it seem like his choice of wife indicates that Eddie's got some Oedipus
business to deal with?
They were just able to say this look at this dude's still living with his mom.
Full stop.
- Stan Uris is also a member of the Loser's Club for whom not much changes.
In both mediums, he's a successful accountant in Atlanta who, upon hearing of
It's return, goes straight upstairs, to slit his wrist in the bath tub.
The book delves much deeper into Stan and his wife's back story, and
trouble conceiving a trial.
Plus, he brutally chops himself up in the book,
while the mini series only shows a few drops of blood, but mostly it's the same.
- And, finally, there's Beverly Marsh, the only lady member of the Losers Club.
She's mostly the same from page to screen.
The daughter of an overbearing and abusive man, Beverly grows up to be a fashion
designer in a relationship with another overbearing and abusive man.
- Book Tom is her husband and an asshole of the more beer bellied, quiet,
the game is on, variety.
While mini series Tom is her boyfriend in a slick 80's champagne and
coke kind of douche.
- That's perfect.
Don't touch it.
- Though both are equally manipulative and abusive.
The book's version of their fight, as she leaves for Derry,
is decidedly more violent.
But this is true for all the characters.
Each of their back stories are basically the same just bloodier, more violent and
more upsetting.
- But this is a good spot to transition into the role of bloody Stephen King
versus overcoat network TV conversation.
Beverly's transition from page to screen is not just about violence.
Young Beverly's sexual awakening is a big difference as well.
The mini series portrays the kids as close as 12 year olds can be.
They're just really, really good friends.
- The mini-series skips the part where Beverly checks her breasts each morning to
see if they got bigger overnight,
and the part where her father becomes very creepily interested in checking her hymen.
Even though it's likely Pennywise who had taken him over in that scene.
But, most notably, she has sex with each of the guys in the Losers Club.
- After they defeat the spidery Pennywise in 1958,
the Loser's Club is falling apart, emotionally.
They talk about how they could ever possibly keep it together after the trauma
they've just endured.
After all,
Pennywise just forced them to come face to face with their deepest fears.
But, that's when 12 year old Beverly realizes their love for
each other is the answer.
So, right there in the dark tunnels underneath Derry,
just outside a supernatural ancient spider demon's lair,
Beverly has sex with each of the boys in the Losers Club one after another.
- And Stephen King's prose in this section is, well, detailed, to say the least.
But I guess the Losers Club thought that it still wasn't enough.
When they get back above ground, Stan still makes them cut their hands and swear
a blood oath to return should Pennywise ever start clowning around in Derry again.
So, cutting the 12 year old's sex stuff was a no brainer, where standards and
practices is concerned.
But, it was also an easy lift from a story telling perspective.
- The difference though is really a thematic one.
Stephen King's book spends a lot of time on the idea of childhood trauma,
on giving kids grownup issues to deal with and
ultimately handling themselves better than the adults around them.
The miniseries is more concerned with just telling a story about a scary thing that
happened to kids, who then grew up and had to deal with it again.
The monster is a metaphor for unresolved childhood issues.
- In the book, though, the sex scene works as a metaphor for
the kids becoming adults before they really understand what it means.
The circumstances the Losers Club finds itself in,
necessitates the transition into adulthood.
Going back to the structural difference to the story,
the books intercut race to the finish makes that point more emphatically.
Meanwhile, the two half structures of the mini series,
shows the kids going through the trauma in the first half, and
the adults picking up the pieces in the second half.
- I don't want to be scared anymore.
(Music)
I'm going back in.
This time I'm going to kill it.
- But we've got like 11 minutes into this thing and
we barely touched on the real star of 'It', It, itself.
(Sound) Iconically, played by Tim Curry in the movie series,
Pennywise the Dancing Clown is every bit the terrifying circus nightmare your inner
child remembers.
- Won't do any good to run, girly boy.
- He's a monster that shows up every 30 years to feed on children.
And while he takes several different forms in the mini series, largely,
the Loser's Club just sees him as a clown.
- In the book, however, Pennywise appears to each of the kids several more times and
in different forms.
He shows up as anything from a giant bird attacking young Mike Hanlon at the old
iron works, to a homeless man offering Eddie a blowjob under the porch of
the house on Neibolt Street.
But his methods, and even a lot of his dialogues, stay the same.
- I'll show you how to float down here.
They all float down here.
- The mini series sees the kids, in 1958, defeating Pennywise by banding together.
Holding hands while a bright light soars pass them and
out of sight after sling shooting a piece of silver through his forehead.
Then, in present day, Pennywise turns into a spider,
hypnotizes a few of the losers with his dead lights before they eventually
rip his heart out with their bare hands.
- The book, again, because of the structural differences,
has Pennywise turned into a spider in both time periods.
There's also more metaphysical aspect to the clan in the book.
In fact, there are a few sections of these final chapters that are from Pennywise's
perspective.
It is in these scenes that we find out that he's some kind of elder god from
outside of space and time itself.
And during the fight in 1958, Bill goes into the dead lights, and meets a turtle
that created the universe, a being that is kind of the yin to Pennywise's yang.
Because why not?
- So Pennywise goes way back in the book.
In the miniseries, he's a monster without any sort of origin story.
Creepy for sure, but who knows where it came from.
There's this weird thing that happens towards the end that looks like it's
outside of space and time, but really that's probably just cheap effects.
The focus of the miniseries owing in part to the two halved structure of its
roadcast, is not concerned with Pennywise the Dancing Clown for
anything other than a creepy metaphor for childhood trauma.
- Yeah, and actually inflicting some of its own, because, again, and
I cannot stress this enough, (Bleep) clowns, man.
- Very much agreed.
- Kiss me, fat boy.
- And so, universe creating turtles aside, ABC's two parter is a basically
faithful adaptation when it comes to the story's basics.
Kids find a monster, they beat the monster, they come back 30 years later to
beat the monster again, but that's as far as it goes.
Like the town of Derry itself, the miniseries ignored all the blood, gore,
bigotry, and preteen sexual awakening of Stephen King's original novel.
That's all for this episode, but be sure to subscribe to CineFix for
more What's the Difference?
I think a certain sequel to a certain iconic science fiction film based
on a certain legendary science fiction author's work, might be coming out around
the time a certain show would be doing its next episode of-
- Blade Runner.
We're doing Blade Runner next.
Dammit, can we get away from this clown now, please?
- We'll see you guys next time.
(Music)