The Sword and Laser discussion

Anyone see it yet? I probably will soon. Clowns are your friends.

I'll be floating tomorrow.

I don't understand why people are afraid of clowns. Just imagining the effort entailed in finding and putting on their ludicrous outfits makes me chortle, especially if I imagine them doing so will ill intent. Just sitting there in front of the mirror putting on all that grease paint and trying to get the bald cap straight while muttering to themselves... heh.

I don't get it either. My daughter is going to see it but her boyfriend won't because he's scared of Clowns. When I told him that Pennywise is *mega book / movie spoiler* (view spoiler)[ actually a giant spider (hide spoiler)] he got even more freaked because he hates that even more.

I am not scared of clowns. Not anymore. The original IT movie scarred me when I was three (?), obviously I did not understand the movie but the imageries stayed.

If this new movie has great reviews (does it?), then I'll watch it.

Silvana wrote: "If this new movie has great reviews (does it?), then I'll watch it."

So far, I've only seen positive reactions to it. And it is tracking to do very well this weekend.

Louie wrote: "And it is tracking to do very well this weekend."

Just visited Boxofficemojo.com and daaaaaang. $51 million for FRIDAY, estimated to go well over $100 million by the end of the weekend. And this isn't a case of Box Office purchased with big bucks effects. Nope, budget on this was $35 million. Even assuming a low end of box office to film rental of 55%, this film will be in profit by the end of THIS WEEKEND.

Meanwhile, at a higher budget The Dark Tower's full run is less than It did on Friday alone. There couldn't be a clearer indication that movie makers should stick to King's horror works.

Might not be a good movie to cosplay during the show...

https://twitter.com/HG_Hohbes/status/...

I got done seeing it a few hours ago.

I don't know if its because I've read the book or I was too amused with the audience but I didn't find it scary at all. Clowns don't bother me all but I find other peoples overreactions to clowns hilarious. So in a packed movie theater with so many people overreacting to the clown I was chuckling most of the time.

As to the movie itself, its a solid adaptation but it needed to be longer. None of the kids really got fleshed out and the back stories for most of them are barely developed as characters. That doesn't make it a bad movie, I would give it a positive review but its not a great movie either. Literally this is all you really ever get to know about any of the kids: Bill has a dead brother, Bev has a creepy father, Ben is fat and has a crush on Bev, Richie talks too much, Stan is jewish, Eddie's mom is a weirdo, and Mike is a sheep farmer. That is literally all you really get to know about any of them, their likes, their fears, their motivations, etc. One of the things about the book that was so great was how fully fleshed out each character was but here they are just cardboard cutouts with no depth. Especially for kids like Ben and Stan whose whole depth of character is no more than being the fat kid or the jewish kid.

And the big change to the story by the elimination of the preteen sewer orgy with something not child porn creepy was a huge plus.

Rik wrote: "As to the movie itself, its a solid adaptation but it needed to be longer."

They have to leave something for Part 2.
For the people who liked Part 1, I hope they don't f*** up Part 2 like they did with the mini-series.
Part 2 of that ruined the whole story for me.

Turns out that It had a monster debut with $117 million. Just when the box office had dipped to its lowest point this century, it comes roaring back to life.

117 is a number that has followed me around my entire life. (It's why I use "Trike117" for things like Instagram when someone else takes Trike.) I was just watching the news about Hurricane Irma as I was reading entertainment news, and they mentioned that video of the guy getting out of the car wasn't him taking a selfie as people were joking but actually measuring wind speed... which was 117 mph. And while comparing it to other hurricanes, 117 people died in Hurricane Sandy while America's most damaging hurricane hit Galveston 117 years ago. And in the sidebar they mentioned the epicenter of the Mexico earthquake was 117 km from the nearest big city. This is too typical a cluster of 117s for me to consider it a coincidence. I see this weirdness so much it's normal.

I too appreciated the elimination of the pre-teen orgy. I was cringing waiting to see if it would happen or not. Still one of my least favorite book scenes of all time.

With so many kids on screen and limited time, I'm wondering how they could fully flesh them out in one movie. I think having read the book might have helped me, because I knew all of this stuff already and filled in a lot of the gaps in my head.

And I laughed a lot more than I expected at this one as well! Not only because this guy next to me was having some huge overreactions to things, but also because the tone of the movie itself seemed more playful. Which I kinda liked.

So yeah, also looking forward to the second movie and hope it keeps it together.

Tassie Dave wrote: "Rik wrote: "As to the movie itself, its a solid adaptation but it needed to be longer."

They have to leave something for Part 2.
For the people who liked Part 1, I hope they don't f*** up Part 2 l..."

They have plenty for part 2: the adult story.

And I laughed a lot more than I expected at this one as well! Not only because this guy next to me was having some huge overreactions to things, but also because the tone of the movie itself seemed more playful. Which I kinda liked.
"

Same here. I went with my wife and my wife's best friend. My wifes friend is terrified of clowns and must have went "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god" a few hundred times during the movie as she tried to shrink into her seat. At least half the audience was like her. Any suspense the movie might have had was turned into a comedy show for me because of this. It was like watching one of the prank youtube videos with clowns jumping out at people.

I saw it last night and really liked it. "IT" was my favorite book ever until "The Talisman"/Dark Tower series, so I've re-read it a few times, an even doing a re-listen now.

I thought they did excellent casting on the kids. All of them were well done, though older than the kids in the book (represented as leaving 5th grade so would be 10 or 11 in the 50s/80s). Bev was stunning, Ben had the sweetest most emotive face, Eddie was so sweet my heart ached. I call out those three as possibly my favorites, but all the kids were just fantastic.

Stephen King is my favorite author. And while I read horror, I have a harder time watching it, so I was conflicted on going to the movie. I'm glad I went. It was very, very good with a lot more to it than just scary clowns.

The parts that affected me the most were the real life horrors (bullying, abusive parents, grief).

Also, I'm 12 hours into the audiobook (it's well over 40 hours long) and we're only *now* getting to the kids' individual realizations that things are Not Right In Derry. (view spoiler)[ (Eddie's house/leper/bum scare, Ben's library scare, etc). Bev still hasn't joined the Losers' Club, either. (hide spoiler)]

So based on these reactions, no underage gangbang, I'm guessing.

It was the book that cured me of ever reading King again. So terrible on so many levels.

Leesa wrote: "Also, I'm 12 hours into the audiobook (it's well over 40 hours long) and we're only *now* getting to the kids' individual realizations that things are Not Right In Derry. [spoilers removed]"

My daughter, aged 18, started reading the book this week. I warned her that she'd be a few hundred pages into it before she ever got to the kids. I imagine a lot of potential book fans are going to WTF if they try the book since its soooooo long to get to the kids.

Trike wrote: "So based on these reactions, no underage gangbang, I'm guessing.

It was the book that cured me of ever reading King again. So terrible on so many levels."

I absolutely agree that the scene is indefensible.

That said, he has a lot of great stories. 11/22/63 would be a great book of the month pick if they ever pick Stephen King again. Its an amazingly well told story of a guy who travels back in time to save John F Kennedy. Only problem is that he can only go back to 1958 meaning he must live in the past for 5 years first and as he finds out time doesn't allow itself to be changed easily.

I don't care. His next book could walk my dog, whiten my teeth and wash my car, and I'd still pass.

The Pennywise/Babadook ship you didn't know you needed. Until now.
Pennydook? Or Babawise?

I saw it last night in Imax. Costumes weren't allowed. The volume was freakishly loud. I thought the characters were pretty good for a movie, but I'm tempted to read the book. Some of the cgi scenes with the clown I didn't really understand. Hey, I read online that in the book the clown turns into some other classic monsters that weren't in the movie like the mummy and the wolfman.

Tamahome wrote: "I saw it last night in Imax. Costumes weren't allowed. The volume was freakishly loud. I thought the characters were pretty good for a movie, but I'm tempted to read the book. Some of the cgi scene..."

The book will spoil the sequel just so you know. The book tells the story of the adults and kids at the same (alternating chapters).