#Andy x Johnny is the cutest ship ever

[stew-skys-husband]

Life is so unfair, all I want is to see my oc smooching Johnny Cade

[jennifersbod]

ooh i forgot to ask you but what did you think about chapter 2??

asdfghjkl i have Feelings™ and i’m making this public to see if other feels the same because rn i feel kinda lonely in my criticisms (anyway doron ily and feel free to dm me if you wanted this to be a private convo asdfghj). that said, i still really loved the movie as a whole, and i feel like it did hit the most important parts of the book in a mostly satisfying way. this answer is gonna be spoiler-heavy so like anyone reading this who doesn’t want spoilers can yeet themselves now.

starting with cons because i like saving the best things for last:

bev’s cycle of abuse storyline NEVER getting fully resolved. in the book tom has a super satisfying death and the movie completely ignored the entire thing. this felt messy/problematic as most abuse survivors will know that abusers tend to track their victims. knowing he’s still out there, if i were bev, would leave me forever nervous.

also bev’s being psychic from the deadlights (???) and saying they’ll all die if they don’t help is a moralistic cop out because it changes their basic motivations from love and goodness and light to just being scared they’re all going to die (meaning they didn’t fully conquer their fear or overcome it because they’d die anyway). (wouldn’t this also mean that richie became psychic after his run-in with the deadlights in the third act?? who knows because it wasn’t fleshed out any further)

eddie’s being used as comic relief. i laughed with everyone else when angel of the morning came on but like where’d it come from, y’all??? if anything paul bunyun should’ve been the comic relief scare.

mike’s parents being crackheads and dying in a fire (i know they did this in the first film too and it pissed me off just as much then). mike and his relationship with his father at his death bed was such a HUGE part of the book for me and they scrapped it completely for a racist trope AND robbed us of a black spot scene and the giant bird

barely anything of stan before he yeeted himself off the board. just like as a jew, i loved how the book handled the antisemitism of derry and the world at large. if handled correctly, it could’ve been super timely and relevant, but nope.

they left out don talking to the cops after adrian

henry bowers’s whole subplot was rushed and honestly could’ve been left out completely if they were just going to do it wrong like that

audra, where tf is audra

ALL THE CGI was laughable- mrs. kersh was honestly ruined for me with that last bit of cgi. it’s something that so easily could’ve been accomplished with practical effects (it’s basically the same makeup they could’ve copied from the bathtub scene in the shining), but this is a problem that’s pretty pervasive in the genre right now that andy falls into way too much

this is kind of a more arguable one, but leaving out the turtle and 'He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts’

amy adams not being cast over jessica chastain only because i really miss sharp objects and sofia/amy playing the same character

i also wish they’d gone into ben’s whole architect thing more and included how he’d subconsciously replicated part of the derry library in one of his buildings

the ending being so small in scale, like, the book had a bigger scope of the town and i missed that (also IT’s eggs)

i’m sure i have more but that feels like a lot so imma stop there

tldr; i have petty opinions on what they should’ve kept from the book and the look of the cgi

pros!!!

bill hader, BILL HADER, BILL HADER- an actor i’ve loved and believe in since his snl days a decade ago playing a character i’ve always related to and loved from a book i read a decade ago is more than i ever could’ve asked for and he stole the movie #hader2020

the expansion of richie’s sexuality. never explicit in the book, but a wonderfully worthwhile storyline in the film that hader and wolfhard both absolutely kill

THE BIRD PUZZLE !!!!

stan’s death being portrayed the way it was and not being used for shock value in the least!!! and andy bean in general!!!

xavier dolan as adrian was heartbreaking and he made me cry (people have mixed feelings about it being included in the movie but it’s important to recognize that it was based on a true story that largely inspired the book’s themes)

all the eddie x richie content… even 2 months ago i could never see this happening even though i’ve shipped it since i read the book and i’m still in shock tbh. the hammock scene was the cutest fucking thing i’ve ever seen in my entire life and i want it to play on my gravestone.

james ransone was perfect casting and i love him with all my heart, he played it perfectly and somehow made reddie mutual when the script didn’t make it fully clear

the scene transitions were gorgeous and almost made up for the shoddy cgi

STEPHEN KING’S CAMEO bitch give me $300

“ayooo silver away!!” being included

eddie getting stabbed in the face and still criticizing bower’s mullet and people still think he’s straight

 the “here’s johnny” moment

tHE BRIDGE

the turtle in ben’s classroom !!!

richie’s going to temple for stan !!!

benverly endgame!!!

my favorite addition was honestly the pomeranian and richie and eddie fawning over it (dog dads au pls)

i could literally mention every loser’s interaction with each other but this post would get even longer so yeah no

kiss me, fatboy

beep beep richie even if it was only really once

beverly smashing the mirror when ben is being carved up isn’t talked about enough but i loved that moment

the losers not forgetting each other was a welcome change from the book for me personally and i’m glad to see a stephen king adaptation somehow make the ending lighter than the book’s

i feel like most of the pros have been touched on at length on this website so i don’t want to list anymore and end up being repetitive, but i did adore the movie and i think it’s unlikely anyone would’ve made a version that would satisfy me more so i’m really thankful we got what we got.