IT Chapters 1 & 2 Review

 

    The IT Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 movies of 2017 and 2019 are an adaptation of Stephen King's successful novel of the same name. The novel was published in 1985 and it tells the story of a group of kids coming of age who must face a creature who takes the shape of their greatest fear to terrorize them. To beat the creature, IT as they name it, the kids must work together. After beating IT, they make a pact that if the creature ever returns, they will reconvene in Derry, their hometown, to destroy it. To their surprise, the creature does return to Derry 27 years later. 

Bill Skarsgard as IT

    The novel is considered one of King's greatest achievements and it already had a successful adaptation for television with Tim Curry playing the terrifying IT which gained him a lot of praise from critics and King fans. Maybe this was the main reason why the announcement of these remakes initially received a lukewarm response from fans of the original adaptation, because let's be honest, who could replace Tim Curry? That impossible task came to reside on the newcomer actor Bill Skarsgard who decided on the right path on giving the character its own new take. The movie producers and director also decided to set the two time periods in the movies in the 1980s and in the current decade as opposed to the 1950s and the late 1970s-80s as in the novel.    

    Discussing the mass appeal or marketability of the adaptation of IT is like beating a dead horse. Stephen King is one of the most famous authors worldwide with over 450 million copies of books sold and only one of his novels being out of print, by his own choice. The novel IT happens to be his #7 best seller and these movie adaptations took place at a moment when King adaptations are in high demand. We also have to consider that Stephen King fans are extremely loyal and devour all his material as soon as it hit the market whether it is a novel, novella, short story, movie, etc. As Michael Garret, King's first editor and publisher once commented in a now infamous interview drawing Stephen's ire and therefore creating his alter ego Richard Bachman; "Stephen King could sell his grocery list." The phrase means that King's name had become greater than his actual writing, but it was misunderstood, and the rest is history. 

   I also consider that the movie adaptations of IT work better to tell the story than the novel. My reason for saying this is that when it comes to King's prowess as a storyteller there are various lines of thought and one of them is that his best stories are those that are centered around children or younger characters. I tend to agree with that theory. The fact that IT is a novel where the story keeps bouncing back and forth between the kids and their twenty-year-older version of themselves made the pace of the plot awkward for me. I would have preferred to read the novel in a two-part format, kind of how the movies are set. But let me go a step further, by the time I had to watch these two movies for these reviews I have to admit that I already had a copy of the first Chapter. I sat down and watched that chapter for what must have been the twentieth time. Chapter 2 was a little more difficult to watch. I had to get a copy since I had only watched it once in theaters, and yes, it was as horrible as I remembered it. But I have the same feedback from the second part on the first adaptation and I feel the same about the adult story in the novel. 

Loser's Club vs It at Neibolt House

    IT is a two-part story that works and succeeds extremely well in the first act when the focus is on the kids. The kids are relatable with their struggles and coming-of-age stories. IT, the creature, feels like a real threat around the kids, we care for them, we want them to come through, we want them to win and overcome all of the challenges they are facing. But then, in the second act, they return as adults twenty-seven years later, and I have to be honest, I really don't care about them that second time around. Not only have the characters grown up, but somehow King managed to make them not relatable and boring. He found a way to kill the souls of those characters in that novel as they grew up, and in my opinion, in both adaptations, the grown-up characters have not been able to escape those awful character arcs. The one scene that I enjoyed in the second chapter that made the movie worth it for me is when Bill Denbrough walks into the Second-Hand store to buy the bicycle and King is playing the store owner. Bill then offers to sign a copy of his book that King is reading but King declines to state that "I didn't like the ending." A meta statement for many fans of King that consider his book endings one of his major weaknesses.   

     As much as Stephen King fans drool and can't stop talking about the creatures and horrors that he creates in his novels, The Losers club in IT captivates our hearts. That's the name of the group of kids who end up banding together to face up against IT. They are not your typical group heroes, they are actually the outcasts, the misfits, the geeks, the underdogs, but when they work together they become stronger and their love for each other makes them a threat to IT since it allows them to overcome their fear of him. And if there is one thing I have always admired in King's work is the two themes that flourish out of The Lover's club which make readers love each of these characters so much. First, the detailed backstory in each of these characters makes them relatable for each of the readers and real. Second, the well-paced storytelling with the right amount of detail pulls the reader into the story not only of the characters but where King builds the setting and even his creatures into strong characters too.   

IT Original Book cover,          1990 TV Series Promo,           2017 Promo Poster 

FIRST BLOOD BOOK REVIEW

 

First Blood Movie Poster

    I still remember watching the movie First Blood for the first time when I was a kid. It was sometime during the Alpha Male era that dominated the 80's movie theaters. Although there was a plethora of steroids juiced up heroes to pick from, I have to admit that as a child, I always had a soft spot for John J Rambo. The scenes of the Sheriff trying to kick him out of the town, his visions during the jail scenes, and the ending scene when he is claiming to Colonel Trautman that he used to be someone in Vietnam but that now he couldn't even hold a job as a parking attendant dig deep into my subconscious. 

    At that age, I didn't understand the concept of war. But if there was one thing that I could easily find at the time in my scarce family, family of friends, neighbors, etc It was veterans of the Vietnam war. Sadly, I can say that many of the things I saw and heard Rambo complain about during the movie, I had witnessed myself. Veterans falling prey of drug abuse. Being kicked out of their homes by their families due to their frustration on knowing how to deal with their traumas. So many of them getting sick of what eventually would be cancer and practically wasting away. To summarize, this was a movie and a main character that hit home for me. 

But this is a review of the First Blood book, not the movie. David Morell's book was published ten years earlier before the Stallone's infamous movie came out, 1972. This was basically a full three years before the end of the Vietnam war, the war Rambo is a Veteran of. Just like in the movie, the book opens up with Rambo about to cross the town of Madison, Kentucky, when he is intercepted by the town's Sheriff who ends up dropping him off on the other side of town. Teasle, the Sheriff, tells him he doesn't want the likes of him in the town since it can become an open invitation for other vagrants. This results in Rambo turning around to go back to town and the Sheriff arresting him for vagrancy. 

    Basically, this is where the similarities between the book and the movie find a pitch fork in the road. In the book, we are provided with a more in depth look at the Sheriff's state of mind when he decides to challenge and to a certain state even harass Rambo. He is preparing to what seems to be an eventual divorce, witnesses the death of his men under his watch, and even his foster parent. At the same time, we also get to witness a Rambo that when pushed to the edge, did not hesitate to hold back. The book version of Rambo makes Stallone's version look like a tepid Teddy Bear. While in the movie we see a Rambo who apologized and tried to surrender when he accidentally killed the deputy that was shooting at him from the chopper, in the book we see a Rambo that shows no remorse after each kill, doesn't know when to give up, just like the Sheriff, and has become a danger to himself and others. 

    As a fan of the movie, I have to admit that I had a copy of the book on my bookshelf for years but didn't read it until this class. After reading it, I have to wonder what was the marketability for this book back in 1972. If I had to answer that question based on my knowledge of the movie I would say that the movie is a cautionary tale that we have to take care of our Veterans. That we have to invest in their health care and benefits just like they invested in defending our country. But when I try to explain the marketability for the book, I'm not sure if that applies. I dreaded the Rambo version we got in the book. Not because is darker, but because in my opinion is one that shows that there was never hope for Rambo. No hope, no future, society entirely failed him, the institutions that were supposed to support him abandoned him, and in the end, those same institutions are the ones that eliminated him. And the clear representation of that is by being Trautman himself the one who pulls the trigger in the end. 

Every institution that eventually failed Rambo

    Unfortunately, maybe that is the most accurate representation that our Vietnam Veterans had of the support they received from their government and country when they were returning from Vietnam back in the 70's. If that is the case, I just hope we have learn our lesson, and things have changed for the best. I liked David Morrell's original book and story...I'm just happy I found the movie version first and that it was that Rambo the one I grew up with.   

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Review

                    

    Sometime during the fall of 2001, I was sitting at a movie theater when the preview for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings started playing. That preview was my introduction to a trilogy of movies that I fervently awaited for their release in the upcoming three years and were part of a universe that until that day, I had no idea existed, JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. 

    During the three years that it took to release the trilogy of movies in The Lord of the Rings saga, I was able to get acquainted with the mythology and the background universe that surrounded the entire story Tolkien had built around the rings but especially around the hobbits and the characters that originated from the shire. As the trilogy of movies ended, a lot of interest picked up in Hollywood with making up a series of prequels that would tell the stories of Bilbo Baggins, a precursor story to actually set the events in Fellowship of the Rings. These movies were also to be inspired by some of Tolkien's work in his novel The Hobbit.

    The marketability of this new trilogy was very appealing to the masses. Not only were they already adapting the fantasy work of one of the top writers in the genre, but the adaptation of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and the entire trilogy was being handled by the same director who successfully handled the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Peter Jackson. Fans waited for the movie and packed movie theaters for a chance to return to Middle Earth.  

    Personally, I think this movie had mass appeal because the characters are well-liked, and the fans saw this story as an opportunity to learn more about their characters. Now as much as I did enjoy the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, I did not watch the Hobbit movies when they came out in theaters. As a fan, there is something about prequels that don't really pique my interest. I believe that if the author was really interested in telling me a prequel story, he would have told me before the actual story. When he is doing it in this format, I feel he is just avoiding calling it a gimmick. 

    I also have to admit that I don't tend to be a fan of long movies. They really have to be very good for me to enjoy them if they are long movies. Now, I will admit that I did enjoy the three Lord of the Rings movies, but I will also admit that I have only watched each of them once in its totality and if you are wondering, yes, it was that one time in the movie theater. So for me to consider watching the Hobbit movies was a long proposal in the making. One, that I will admit, finally happened as part of this course. I actually sat one afternoon to watch the first one and shut it off when everyone started singing in Bilbo's kitchen. Eventually, two weeks later I gave the movie a second chance and I was able to watch it through. I also watched the two sequels since I knew that it was then, or never again. I will say that the movies were not terrible, but were not as great as the Ring trilogy either. At least for my taste.