Solving the Pennywise Problem

 I recently managed to see the long-in-the-making documentary Pennywise: The Story of IT, which covers the creation of the 90s TV miniseries. I won’t say that the documentary is the kind of thing that changes lives, but if you were a fan of the adaptation at all its well worth your time. They managed to track down and interview just about everyone involved who’s still alive and kicking.

Moreover, likely since the series is pretty far in the past, people are up for talking about the flaws, including some of the weirdness in the source material, the mechanical spider, and most interesting to me, the fact that part 2 isn’t as good as part 1.

Why does this interest me so much? Because as you likely know, the book was adapted again a few years ago, this time for the big screen, and once again, audiences felt that the second part wasn’t as strong as the first.

And here’s what surprises me: While there are various discussions about what makes part 2 weaker than part 1, none of them quite gets into why that is. Or potentially, how to fix it when it gets adapted again twenty years from now.

(It could happen.)

So.

To explain the problem, we first have to get into the plot of the movies, and how they’re the same.

In the 90s version, we get a direct adaptation of the opening of the book, namely the little brother and his paper boat meet Pennywise, and the brother gets eaten. We then meet the adults (briefly) and spend the rest of part 1 meeting the kids, watching them become friends, fight a bully, and then fight and defeat Pennywise.

In part 2 of the 90s version, we see the adults get together at a Chinese restaurant, do some mostly totally unmemorable stuff (fixing up a bike!), fighting the same bully because Pennywise sent the bully to take out the now-adults, and then the team fights and defeats Pennywise again.

In the 2010s version, part 1 has almost the exact same opening, and then… all the adult stuff is skipped, and it’s just the kids becoming friends, fighting a bully and defeating Pennywise.

In part 2, the adults get called back, meet at a Chinese restaurant, try to find some totems, fight off the bully, and then fight and defeat Pennywise again.

Okay: Ready for the problem?

And, sadly, the fix that no one is likely to use?

That’s not how the plot of the book rolls out.

Here’s what happens in the book.

The paper boat sequence occurs. We then get about 150 pages or so of the adults getting a call to go back to fight Pennywise, and in the 20 pages or so each of them gets, we learn who they are as adults, where they have been successful and unsuccessful, and get little hints about who they were as kids.

Then the flashbacks start.

As the book progresses, the adults gather and talk about their shared history, resulting in many, many, many flashbacks while the adults mostly sit around and don’t do very much at all. From time to time, Pennywise throws a scare at them, but, to put it bluntly, 80% of the interesting and memorable stuff happens to the kids.

Even the major obstacles Pennywise throws at the non-adults don’t veer the plot all that much until the book is very near it’s end. Bill and Beverly each have a spouse track them to Derry, but they affect the plot so little that Beverly’s partner is dropped from both adaptations completely.

And here’s the thing that’s really important: In the book, because so much of it is in flashback, Pennywise is defeated twice, essentially back-to-back. First in the past, and then in the present.

Why does this matter?

Simply put, the adaptation doesn’t work because, in both cases, all the meat of the story is told in part 1. Part 2 could, essentially, be a 30-45 minute wraparound story for part 1. It can’t work on it’s own because that’s not what it was designed for.

Both movies attempt to fix this by adding in fresh material, but it’s clear they knew that they were in trouble. The 90s version is in luck because it only has to fill about 90 minutes, which means they can just stretch what little material they have from the book and make it work, just not super well.

The 2010s version, however, attempts to add material, and frankly, it feels tacked on. The scavenger hunt is kneecapped by the fact that one character is already out of the movie and therefore can’t hunt, which makes the obvious even to non-readers that this was just crammed in there.

So, what’s the solution?

Well, I’m not the kind of person to take movies and re-edit them, because I lack the time and much of the equipment. I’ll leave that to the people with those skills.

But I can say what they need to do in the future, which is: Follow the book, and put both climaxes at the end.

Now, this isn’t the kind of thing that movie studios really want to do, frankly. Putting a cap on the first movie meant there didn’t have a be a second one. It was kind of brilliant.

But it killed the second movie.

Today, we will, at times, see studios willing to effectively put out half a movie. And with IT, I feel like you could get a double win, by putting out part 1 in summer and part 2 around Christmas.

Or, you know, take it back to TV with the streaming world, and make a 12-episode series that a) remembers Bev has a husband and b) adapts all the historical stories that never make into any of the adaptations because they’re entertaining, but not essential.

There’s a saying in writing about killing your darlings and for filmmakers the darling that needs to be killed is the neat, tidy ending that happens in the middle of the story – because even at over 1000 pages King there’s not enough material for a bow to be there.

And I’ll be honest: No one’s going to read this and hire me, because when they remake this, they know that first part is bulletproof.

So, with that in mind: Good luck to whoever is hired to write part 2. Your part is destined to be disappointing. But it doesn’t have to be. Just find one of the (many!) great set pieces and let it end part 1, and part 2 will take care of itself.