MovieChat Forums > It (2017) Discussion > Comparison of the movie to the miniserie...

Comparison of the movie to the miniseries and which did you prefer?


I like both, but for different reasons. I reread the book last month in preparation, watched the movie yesterday, and rewatched the miniseries today.

As a film version of the book It, I prefer the miniseries. As a straight out horror film, I preferred the movie. Picking one over the other overall, though, it would be the miniseries.

The miniseries kept closer to and had more of the kids' character development of the book (adults weren't in it). It felt like a buddy movie along with the horror, like the book did. The movie was, for the most part, straight up horror, which I also enjoy. Most of the horror is well done and the acting, overall, is better than the miniseries.

I think the movie's Pennywise was closer to the book's, and was done very well.

However, the miniseries' Pennywise was scarier to me because he could go from an almost normal clown to It, which is more terrifying than a monster I can identify immediately. The miniseries It makes me think of John Wayne Gacy. I'd never have fallen for the movie It's benign-ish aspect, like Georgie did. I would have for Tim Curry's. Like... people did for John Wayne Gacy.

The TV show extolling the virtues of floating that showed in the background scenes of the movie was pure brilliance. Whoever thought that up needs a raise.

I would love an HBO miniseries of It.

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I prefer the miniseries even despite its somewhat dated and made-for-tv production values. Tim Curry just knocked it out of the park. His pennywise still creeps me out after all these years. The new pennywise wasn't really scary and there was too much CGI.

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Yeah, there was just too much in-your-face Pennywise horror to scare me in the movie. I enjoyed it but it was not on the same level as Tim Curry.

The miniseries was a low budget, made for TV thing, done when horror and gore just were not OK on national television. I wanted to see if I have "nostalgia glasses" and, after watching it today, no, I don't. I still really enjoy it. I still think Tim Curry, as you said, knocked it out of the park.

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And yes Curry played it perfect for a pg tv mini-series...and it was 90 cgi gas come along a good bit lately

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Hard for me to compare...you just can't do things from the book in the mini-series...but the R rated movie did do it justice...liked what they changed and what they left in...pumped for chapter 2...hell,they do it right and they could have 3 maybe 4 chapters

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I'm also looking forward to chapter two.

It really seems like its set up as two movies, the next will focus on the adults. I think they should have marketed it as such, like they did with Lord of the Rings. I would have really liked a 3-4 series so they could go more into character development. As it was, I didn't really care about the Loser's Club. A bit of fleshing out would have helped with me. That's a place the miniseries shone.

The movie and the miniseries were going for completely different things so, yeah, hard to compare.

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I am hearing chapter 2 is going to be subtitled Pennywise...leading me to believe they will explore his/hers origins

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Ohhhhhhhhh I hope so. That would be awesome.

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Think so too...wouldn't mind if they did it in 3 chapters...the third culminating in their battle with It as adults

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3 chapters like that would really work. Each one could be a complete story, like this one was.

If the franchise is successful, there's plenty of canon material to support movies set in different times.

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i agree...only problem...I'm ready for the next already!!

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I think the film is overall better than the miniseries but I thought Curry's IT was scarier or more traumatizing as he does come across as a genuine clown one minute and a creepy psychopathic IT the next. I also liked Brandis as Bill than the newer one (though Jaeden was good too, I just think Brandis would've been better) and wonder how great he would've been if he came out in this film at his age in 1990. But the 2017 film's character development overall is better and liked the development of the character Richie in this newer version as well as the setup for the characters of Beverly and Ben, as well as the others. The one flaw 2017 IT has is it simply isn't scary, aside from the opening scene with Georgie.

I just don't think kids today would be as traumatized as most kids were when we first saw IT the miniseries on tv.

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Yeah, I think kids would be more scared of the movie's Pennywise since they grew up on that kind of horror.

I wonder if my age, and budding interest in serial killers, when I first saw the miniseries enhanced my enjoyment of Curry's Pennywise.

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I read the book in 1989 when I was eleven(same age as "losers club" in the book. Curry played it wonderfully but only for a TV mini-series. He had a few scary looks and faces but he couldn't capture the real essence of the eternal entity Pennywise's alien evil. Remember he/she is not a clown. He just preferred that guise the most. Skarsgård nailed it!!!

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True but the impact and interpretation matters and in the end, a scary film needs to be scary.

But like I said, I liked the film nonetheless and when I rewatched the miniseries, it didn't live up to the trauma I had as a child.

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Did anyone else see the picture of Tim Curry in the clown room Richie goes into?

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I never liked the miniseries but It's been 20 years since I saw it. Now after seeing the movie I'm interested in checking out how the miniseries has held up, not well I suspect. I loved the movie and I'm very excited about the second part.

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Me too re the second part.

Go into the miniseries remembering that is a low budget, made for national TV production using practical special effects and you should enjoy it more than if you didn't remember that.

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I always liked the first part of the miniseries, but not the second part where they are grown up, I find that part quite boring and dissapointing end. The movie ending was better even though its chapter one. I think Tim Curry's pennywise was scarier, the new one looked like they tried too hard to make him scary.

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Me too. Even as a kid I didn't like the adult second part and could never see those kids in them.

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I know, maybe bev and mike but not so much the others.

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I think both the first part of the miniseries and the movie are equally great (if you ignore the adult sections, which are cheesy as hell for the most part).

Tim Curry's performance in the miniseries is iconic and can't be beaten. Though it was refreshing to see the way Bill Skarsgård played a sort of 'updated' version of the character. Both are scary in their own way! Tim makes the miniseries genuinely unsettling in places, and you truly believe the kids are scared of him. Certain scare scenes in the miniseries are also iconic in themselves, like the Eddie scene where the shower heads attack him and Pennywise comes out of the drain. Tim's voice and laugh are also amazing. Though the whole cast for part 1 do a stellar job. The casting of the kids was as perfect as the movie.

The two areas the movie easily beats the miniseries is humour and emotion. The movie was a lot funnier than anyone was expecting! Like when all the guys are just staring at Bev like she's an alien from another world. :p and Richie's dialogue is funny, unlike in the miniseries (and, indeed, the book) where he is mostly annoying. I also really liked the way they did the Ben/Bev relationship.

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Damn, my answer for this is long...Oh well. Main thoughts - movie = just okay, miniseries = great and holds up, book = not relevant here.

The mini-series is made up of a great balance of small intimate moments that either highlight the characters’ personal and very real issues and/or their inner fears, and scary moments. It does so much with so little and that's what made it scary. With just sheets on a clothesline and a fallen tricycle, you get such a strong impression of how terrifying IT is and can be – and you see nothing. A balloon in the back of a car or a deck of cards holds so much meaning.

The film didn't have those kinds of moments. The kids are barely friends and are really underdeveloped as characters - except for Beverly. It could have been renamed Beverly Marsh and the Creeps of Derry and that would have been a fitting title. It was bleak, moody and atmospheric with some interesting effects, but not scary. The kids not being scared really killed any stakes, which killed any hope of payoff.

It follows the coming-of-age summer movie formula, where friends sit by a lake for a bit, meet a 'hot' girl, have a fight, and make up at the end for no real reason and are somehow "changed". But there also was a killer clown no one cared about and loads of crass jokes that were funny, but out of place. Usually the kids in movies like this are teens - these kids seem kinda young.

The miniseries was all about what drives our fears, and how friendship helps us overcome them. The movie was about how kids need to grow up fast to survive the lack of humanity in the world - which, however true, is impossible given that most kids aren't even allowed to go outside on their own for a majority of their childhood.

I tend to wonder if I would have cared if any or all of the kids had died at the end of the movie. The answer is, scarily, no.

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You nailed it.

I wish we could "like" posts here.

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Cheers.

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