Although IT: Chapter One did a wonderful job of capturing the characters and the feel of
the book, a lot of the novel's specifics were significantly altered.
Now that the story is complete with the release of IT: Chapter Two, we have a more complete
picture of how the films match up to the book.
Both the book and the movie jump back and forth between two different time periods nearly
three decades apart, but while the book alternates between 1957 and 1985, the films are set in
1989 and 2016.
Considering the novel was originally released in 1986, making the '80s timeline feel tangibly
recent to its readers, it makes sense that director Andy Muschietti and his team would
update the film to feel contemporary to today's audiences.
Although much of Derry and the story of IT exists in what feels like a sort of timeless
bubble, making the decade almost irrelevant, the modern-day setting does alter the story
in a few minor but effective ways.
Although both the book and the films focus on the same group of characters in two different
time periods, the films draw a much firmer line between past and present, with none of
the adult versions of the characters even making an appearance in IT: Chapter One.
While Chapter Two isn't quite as distinct in its focus and includes a fair number of
flashbacks, it's still accurate to say that Chapter One is about the kids and Chapter
Two is about the adults.
This is very different from King's book, which braids the two time periods together.
Streamlining King's narrative likely worked to the films' benefit, since it may have felt
jarring to visually jump between time periods as often as the book does.
Splitting the films into a children-centric film and an adult-centric film allowed each
one to end with a climactic showdown against Pennywise, even if the kids' victory would
prove tragically impermanent.
When we first meet the adult Losers, they haven't spoken in many years, and the book
reveals what each of them has been up to since they moved away from Derry.
"I'll be forty and far away from here.
I thought you said you wanted to get out of this town too."
Some of their professions remained the same from the book to the film — Ben is an architect,
Beverly is a fashion designer, Bill is an author and screenwriter, and Mike is the Derry
town librarian.
But two of the Losers' professions were changed for the film.
The screen version of Richie Tozier is now a stand-up comedian rather than a radio DJ,
and instead of a limo driver, Chapter Two's Eddie Kaspbrak is now a risk assessment analyst.
In King's version of the story, none of the characters were exactly happy about having
to fight IT again, but still felt bound by the promise they made as children.
In contrast, the adult characters in the movie are all determined to leave Derry once they
figure out what's going on, leaving the town at the mercy of IT, and need to be dragged
back into the Losers Club kicking and screaming.
We never learn exactly what IT is, in either the book or the movies, but both attempt to
give at least a partial explanation.
IT is some sort of ancient malevolent force that crashed into the Earth millions of years
ago, in the spot that would one day become Derry.
In both versions of the story, characters learn this backstory through a vision, but
the circumstances surrounding that vision are very different in the films than in the
book.
The way King wrote it, the child Losers attempt to mimic a Native ritual that Ben read about
to try to induce visions that will help them learn more about IT.
Only Mike and Richie end up being successful, and are temporarily transported millions of
years into the past, where they witness IT's arrival on Earth.
However, in the movie, it's the adult Mike that gets the vision, through seeking out
a Native tribe who give him drugs that enable him to see the arrival of IT, along with the
ritual their tribe used to fight IT.
"Can you torch me?"
Another big reveal the book made about IT is the fact that IT is female, and the version
of IT that the adult Losers encounter is pregnant.
It's probably for the best that the films left this part out, leaving IT as a genderless,
ageless entity.
The film feels more self-contained and definitive, without the sense that it might be teasing
a sequel.
In the book, after the Losers' reunion dinner at the Asian restaurant, the six adults decide
to split up and move around Derry on their own, allowing instinct to guide them.
The characters in the book have a feeling that in order to defeat IT, they'll need to
get back into the mindset they had as children, casting aside their adult tendencies to make
plans, and following their guts instead.
In the film, while the Losers still split up, their motivation is completely reversed.
Mike tasks each of them with recovering their childhood memories through finding a "token,"
some sort of significant object that will help empower them to defeat IT.
Having such a defined plan seems to work against the book's insistence that defeating IT will
require the adult Losers to embrace the uncertainty and imagination of childhood.
In a big departure from the novel, Richie is revealed to have been harboring romantic
feelings for Eddie ever since they were kids.
In the book, the adult Richie is single, but his sexuality never really comes into play.
However, IT: Chapter Two spends much of the film hinting that Richie is hiding his sexuality,
and Pennywise preys on his fear of someone discovering the truth.
Richie's big fear in the book is eyeballs, which is definitely creepy, but doesn't have
much of an emotional weight to it.
On the other hand, Richie's heartbreaking reaction to Eddie's death at the end of Chapter
Two helps drive home just how high the cost of the Losers' victory was.
And at the end of the film, Richie's visit to the fence where he carved his and Eddie's
initials as kids, and his smile as he traces the letters with his fingers, hints that his
fear of discovery is now gone, killed with Pennywise.
In the book, while IT does assume the appearance of Pennywise a fair amount of the time, it
also spends a lot of time in a number of other forms.
Some of these guises are included in the films, but several others are either not included
or are only shown extremely briefly.
In the book, IT appears to several of the children as a gigantic bird, and during the
climactic battle in the tunnels, it turns into a giant eyeball and then a massive spider.
The films did include a version of the spider, but cut way back on the rest, substituting
them with new, equally disturbing Pennywise scenes, such as when the clown comes out of
the projector to the kids in Chapter One.
The way IT plays with the Losers' perception of reality was also altered for the films.
In the book, during the scene when Beverly goes to visit her childhood home, Mrs. Kersh's
house transforms into sticky, sugary candy, playing on Beverly's childhood fear of the
witch from Hansel and Gretel, while the film just sees it change from the warm apartment
Beverly had perceived at first to the dilapidated building it truly was.
This is just one of the many changes the films make to ITs many appearances, while still
maintaining the terrifying sense that IT can be anywhere, at any time, and we may never
know until it's too late.
In the book, Henry Bowers attacks Mike at the library, stabbing him in the femoral artery
and putting him in the hospital, before heading to the hotel, where he's killed by Eddie.
In the film, these events are reversed, with Henry appearing in Eddie's room first.
Henry then attacks Mike at the library, but the other Losers are right behind him after
his attack on Eddie, and Henry is killed by Richie before he can do any serious damage
to Mike.
This sets up an extremely different dynamic for the final showdown between the adult Losers
and IT, since in the book, Mike is in the hospital and the rest of the group is forced
to take IT on with only five people, one of whom has a broken arm.
In the film, all six are present and able-bodied when they take on IT.
IT is not the only ancient supernatural force present in Stephen King's book.
There's also an ancient, cosmic turtle, which assists the child Losers in their quest to
defeat IT.
The turtle exists in a sort of void outside of our reality, where Bill interacts with
it and it gives him the Ritual of Chüd, a battle of wills that draws on the power of
Bill's childhood imagination.
While the films contain a few subtle visual nods to the turtle, that's as far as its involvement
goes.
Instead, the Ritual of Chüd is a Native ritual which involves the burning of the Losers'
tokens in a mysterious artifact, chanting, and strong belief.
It's eventually revealed that the ritual failed the Native tribe who attempted to use it,
and that Mike knew the whole time.
The ritual fails, and it is ultimately the Losers coming together to make Pennywise small
in their minds that allows them to defeat IT.
The town of Derry is much more of a character in the novel than in the films, and it is
strongly implied that the town itself is linked to IT and sustained by the same ancient evil.
So when the adult Losers go on their final quest through the sewers to destroy IT, the
town gets increasingly more wounded.
Derry gets pummeled by a vicious storm, and the townspeople begin to awaken from IT's
thrall, feeling for the first time as though something may be wrong.
The closer the Losers get to their goal, the more Derry suffers, with pipes exploding violently
and buildings collapsing, until eventually all of downtown Derry is destroyed.
The film keeps the destruction of Pennywise much more contained, with only the house on
Neibolt Street collapsing in on itself after the Losers succeed.
Presumably the tunnels underneath the town have also caved in, but it doesn't seem to
have any impact at all on the conditions on the surface.
One of the strange things about living in Derry, in both the book and the films, is
that once you leave the town, your memory of it slowly fades, until you don't even remember
that you ever lived there.
A big part of the adult Losers' storylines is the effort to recover their lost memories,
since until Mike called, none of them remembered knowing each other, or that they'd ever fought
IT as children.
In the book, this forgetting effect doesn't change after the defeat of Pennywise.
Mike ends the novel musing that this forgetting must mean that IT is truly dead now, and wondering
how long it will be until even his journal entries are completely erased.
However, IT: Chapter Two takes the complete opposite approach.
Instead of bidding each other sad farewells, knowing they'll never see or remember one
another again, they keep in touch.
While the film's happy ending is not as bittersweet as King's, it still serves to convey that
this time, the Losers were successful, and Pennywise is indeed gone for good.
The tragic death of Stan Uris by his own hand hangs heavy over the characters in both the
book and IT: Chapter Two, with his friends all assuming that he took his life because
he was afraid.
However, the film gives Stan a last goodbye that the book never does, in the form of identical
letters he writes to each of the Losers, which he leaves for his wife to mail at some point
following his death.
He explains that he didn't take his life for the reasons they probably thought.
He says that he knew he couldn't bring himself to return to Derry, but that he also knew
that the cosmic strength that the Losers held when they were all together might not reach
its full potential if one of them didn't believe.
Giving Stan some of the final words is an effective way of communicating that, even
in death, Losers stick together.
“But if we stick together, all of us, we'll win."
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