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Nroo posted:Well they weren't going to give him a multi-colored suit, that wouldn't film well. So instead there's a simplified design of mostly grey with red/orange highlights. It's a slight, inconsequential change to better suit the medium. The way the main character (one of the most iconic characters in the entire horror genre) looks obviously has to do with the tone of the new movie and isn't inconsequential at all. It's glaringly obvious that they went for a darker, younger look and I doubt it's because "a multi-colored suit wouldn't film well". It would totally film well in a movie that doesn't look this grim. Now I don't know how this Pennywise lures children with a 24/7 murder face, but in the interest of conversation, whether the casting of Skarsgard was right or not we at least know the actor is good and might pull it off. Being a big King fan I'd rather be wrong and watch a good movie than the opposite, but still wish they didn't change this much of Pennywise's feel because as good as Curry was, there were times where he was a bit too light and istrionic. So I absolutely welcomed a darker interpretation when the new IT was announced, just not as hamfisted as it looks in the little material we have. Kawabata fucked around with this message at 01:10 on May 21, 2017 |
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May 21, 2017 01:07
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Kawabata posted:The way the main character (one of the most iconic characters in the entire horror genre) looks obviously has to do with the tone of the new movie and isn't inconsequential at all. It's glaringly obvious that they went for a darker, younger look and I doubt it's because "a multi-colored suit wouldn't film well". It would totally film well in a movie that doesn't look this grim. Yes because from the multiple seconds of video we've seen we can extrapolate that he has a murder face on 24/7. I'm going to start using that for comedy movies. "Oh the trailers made me laugh so this movie is a non-stop laugh riot!" since that is pretty much your argument right now
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May 21, 2017 01:29
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Len posted:Yes because from the multiple seconds of video we've seen we can extrapolate that he has a murder face on 24/7. They are certainly trying to market the movie as if he has a tryhard murder face, you are correct. Whether this is exaggerated to lure younger audiences or not we don't know, but right now we can at least assume he looks much more dangerous than a clown should, because how is he supposed to lure children then? Please do use that argument for comedy movies as well because the really disappointing ones don't even have good gags in the trailer. If the trailer makes you laugh you can absolutely expect the movie to have those 3 gags at the very minimum which is still better than nothing at all.
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May 21, 2017 01:44
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holy poo poo I just saw Pennywise manifest himself as the last couple of pages of this thread
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May 21, 2017 01:54
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In the book he did it with his weird otherwordly magic (Georgie) and by just straight up going murder beast on every other one we were given details on. There was no luring of Eddie Cochran he just showed up as his dead brother and ate him. There was no leadup for Patrick either just one day he opened the fridge and got eaten by leeches. Hell the only time he didn't go straight to murderbeast that I remember was Ben and even then he wasn't a happy clown. He had no shadow and was holding balloons that flew against the wind.
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May 21, 2017 01:55
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The main problem is how in the hell you stage an adult "plausibly" luring a child while dressed as a clown. Cat's kinda out of the bag on that one.
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May 21, 2017 02:06
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Teenagers circa 1989 just loved balloons that much.
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May 21, 2017 02:18
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To me the open question is just whether lil Skarsgard can act. Or pantomime or move weird or whatever it is he's called upon to do in the movie. Has anyone seen him in anything?
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May 21, 2017 02:52
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He's in Hemlock Grove which is an abysmal show but I think he pulls off the 'not quite right' vibe. I dunno I like him and I've really enjoyed the trailer so far. I'm glad the costume design is going a different way from the original Pennywise. I don't want to compare them. It's okay if they are different. Old Pennywise is great and maybe this Pennywise will be great too. They can be good seperately.
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May 21, 2017 03:21
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It's not so much that the book and Curry's Pennywise is alluring so much as he is disarming. He makes kids feel isolated and helpless, but most importantly, he makes them feel unreasonable. The new version might be fine, but it's definitely a direction that looks like it looses some of the thematics.
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May 21, 2017 03:32
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I'm not going to say what's the "right" way to do Pennywise, but I can 100% guarantee the marketing is focused on the "scary clown" angle because they want all the teenagers to come see the movie and teenagers would look at a trailer with "friendly, unassuming" Pennywise and say "What's this dumb clown? That doesn't sound scary, that sounds dumb." Because teenagers are all about looking cool and brave and not so much about respecting source material and the analogy of adults ignoring the menaces children face. We won't know know the full performance until we get the full movie, so for now remember that trailers are misleading.
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May 21, 2017 05:41
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:holy poo poo I just saw Pennywise manifest himself as the last couple of pages of this thread I saw 50 new replies and assumed there was some news. Then I noticed the posters were all dressed in silver diapers with big orange pompoms running down the front...
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May 21, 2017 05:47
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IT, the tv miniseries, has a cold open that's drat near perfect, and it's not the part with the boat and the storm drain. There's a girl playing with dolls in her backyard while her mom hangs the laundry. Mom goes inside to get the phone, cue Curry-as-Pennywise showing up behind the sheets billowing in the wind looking like his usual cheerful self, balloons and all. The girl looks surprised at first, then amused at the funny clown man. And then, just before the sheet blows back in front of him again, you see his face start to change. Not transform, or anything supernatural, just a shift in expression. This lasts like half a second, so that you're still trying to decide what it looked like (probably the beginning of a snarl), when they cut back to Mom reemerging and looking for her daughter. Her gaze find she the sheet again, which might have a drop or two of blood on it? Maybe? And then she starts screaming at the top of her lungs and they cut to the title. I bring this up because that tiny, brilliant flash of menace from Curry is the kind of thing the trailer lacks. It's not the creepiness that gets under your skin, it's the moment things shift. You can only judge the trailer by what it shows, so I can't fault people for taking issue with it, but Pennywise functions as a threat on a couple different levels. Like, yes, he is a clown who wants to eat you, and that's the trailer's focus. But he is also the creeping desperation of confronting adults who simply refuse to acknowledge the threat of the monster under the bed, or the weird gurgling of water going down the drain that sounds like someone inside the pipes is laughing and screaming at the same time. Now I still like the trailer despite it lacking that element, but that's because I accept that it's a hard sell to pull that off in 90 seconds. It's not an aspect of the film that you can fairly evaluate with the scant evidence we've got.
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May 21, 2017 06:03
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 An underrated part of the IT miniseries is the music. Richard Bellis created some really memorable themes that work quite well to establish the appropriate mood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Yj5oPgnXo el oso fucked around with this message at 06:43 on May 21, 2017 |
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May 21, 2017 06:31
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One of the main themes in It is a lack of safe spaces for children. We're taught by society that there are supposed to be certain sanctuaries for kids, no matter what the circumstances: school, home, etc. But in the book, that's repeatedly shown to be false. Ben is ruthlessly bullied at and around the comfort zone of school (to the point of being mutilated by Henry Bowers), and Bev's father is an abusive lunatic, just as two example. The impact of the falsity of this lie is compounded greatly by the book being set in the time period it is, well before the standard concept of "stranger danger" had so thoroughly bled into the American subconscious. So much of the book is about the idea of false faces - of evil hiding behind a wall of comfort - that it's hard to read Pennywise's clown appearance as being anything other than commentary on that. The book was set in the fifties. Clowns were everywhere at that time. I mean, go and look up some of the old school packaging for cereal; it seems like goddamn near every one of the most popular brands had a clown on it at some point. Under that context, Pennywise taking on the form of a jovial clown in the fifties is like a serial killer disguising himself as, say, Mister Rogers. Now, since then public opinion certainly has turned against clowns. It itself actually had a lot to do with that, especially for people of my generation who are in their early/mid thirties. But just because the movie takes place in a different time period than the book, the concept shouldn't be abandoned. If - if Pennywise spends the majority of this adaption looking like Little Lord Faunlteroy Of The Tuberculosis Ward, that would be a huge mistake because it takes the subtext of evil in plain sight and makes the threat explicit, which is very much against what the book is trying to explore. Plus, not for nothing, it's a creative misstep. Having a Pennywise that looks goofy and silly at a distance, only to reveal itself as mottled and sickly when its too late is far creepier, and it stays true to the heart of the source material. Tart Kitty fucked around with this message at 07:10 on May 21, 2017 |
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May 21, 2017 07:04
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Anybody who is legit afraid of clowns because of a scary monster story they read is weirder than the stories they read. Absolute fuckin' nutso basketcases. They don't even deserve to float down here.
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May 21, 2017 07:22
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I think my main gripe with how nu-Pennywise is presented is how muted his colours look. Curry's Pennywise is bright and loud, but this clown's colours are the same dark, desaturated hues as the surrounding environment and so he looks a bit drab and run-down like (I know, I know) something out of a horror movie. In the age of digital colour correction they could make him really visually interesting imo by cranking up his levels and leaving his surroundings as they are, emphasize how uncanny and out of place he really is. Then again, I'm not making this movie and it still looks like it's gonna be pretty great from everything I've seen.
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May 21, 2017 07:35
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It looking like a clown is kind of iconic to the story but if I were remaking it I'd swap the clown for someone in a mascot costume, because those things hit a lot of the same "children are supposed to love and trust them" notes for a more modern audience and setting, whilst also looking incredibly creepy. Like make It an off - brand Mickie mouse.
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May 21, 2017 07:52
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Kawabata posted:They are certainly trying to market the movie as if he has a tryhard murder face, you are correct. Whether this is exaggerated to lure younger audiences or not we don't know, but right now we can at least assume he looks much more dangerous than a clown should, because how is he supposed to lure children then? That's the problem with trailers; you have to sell the audience on it in about 90 seconds, so of course you're gonna go 'spooky scary evil murder clown jumpscare' and I guess try to ride off of that whole 'scary clown' craze that was happening, what, last year? I know it wasn't a huge plot thing, but with the time shift, Ben's dad dying in the Korean War will now be Ben's dad dying in ???. That was one of the more eerie scenes in the miniseries, when It appears as his dad, in uniform, at first it's normal, but in the next shot he's holding balloons and has big orange pompoms on the suit.
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May 21, 2017 08:17
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What I'm hearing is that IT should take form of Iron Man. Or, since it's the early 90s/late 80s--the Ninja Turtles.
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May 21, 2017 10:47
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porfiria posted:What I'm hearing is that IT should take form of Iron Man. Or, since it's the early 90s/late 80s--the Ninja Turtles. Ironically, the original 'clown sightings' in the early 90's were of stuff like the Ninja Turtles and guys in Bart Simpson costumes kidnapping kids in a van.
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May 21, 2017 10:55
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LadyPictureShow posted:That's the problem with trailers; you have to sell the audience on it in about 90 seconds, so of course you're gonna go 'spooky scary evil murder clown jumpscare' and I guess try to ride off of that whole 'scary clown' craze that was happening, what, last year? His dad dies in Vietnam 2: Electric Boogaloo.
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May 21, 2017 13:03
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Or alternatively he's one of the 19 guys killed during the invasion of Grenada.
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May 21, 2017 13:05
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Ya'll are talking about how clowns weren't really a thing when the movie take place. You're neglecting how big Ronald McDonald was at the time. I've said it before but my ideal would be like Tom Kenny playing a very guidance counselor like Pennywise.
Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 14:36 on May 21, 2017 |
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May 21, 2017 13:33
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Timeless Appeal posted:Ya'll are talking about how clowns weren't really a thing when the movie take solace. It you're honestly neglecting how big Ronald McDonald was at the time. I've said it before but my ideal would be like Tom Kenny playing a very guidance counselor like Pennywise. That's a good point. That fucker was everywhere in the 80's (I believe this movie takes place in '88 or '89, not the '90's). The comedy option would have been to go for Grimace or the Hamburgler. They also had that nightmare fueled moon-thing that sang a hosed up version of Mack the Knife with lyrics about eating at McDonalds. I'm still not sure why anyone thought that was a good idea.
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May 21, 2017 14:35
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Besides Georgie, are there any instances in the book of It, as Pennywise, luring anyone by pretending to be a benign clown? (and even Georgie realizes that hosed up clowns shouldn't be in the sewer.) He mostly shows up looking creepy, as a monster you remember and/or dead relative, then tries to eat you. And when he shows up in clown form none of the kids are excited for balloons. If they're drawn to him it's a strange lure, not a "oh boy a clown!" Sometimes he'll ask you to come with him but it's never in a pleasant way, it's your dead brother's rotten corpse in a clown outfit inviting you into the sewer. He's always explicitly spooky and supernatural. Given it's set in the 80s and the shapeshifting will probably be little-to-none other than dead relatives, I think a creepy clown is a pretty good representation. Masked serial killers, evil clowns, and so on are that generations Mummy and Wolf Man. Tim Curry's Krusty was good but he's not The Definitive Pennywise.
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May 21, 2017 16:26
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IT the clown wanders around town as a "regular" clown in flashbacks, so he's not ALWAYS super-murdery outside of the start of the boat scene. However, the trailer only shows IT as he's actively attacking/scaring someone, so there's nothing to judge that on.
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May 21, 2017 16:58
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Besides Georgie, are there any instances in the book of It, as Pennywise, luring anyone by pretending to be a benign clown? (and even Georgie realizes that hosed up clowns shouldn't be in the sewer.) He mostly shows up looking creepy, as a monster you remember and/or dead relative, then tries to eat you. And when he shows up in clown form none of the kids are excited for balloons. If they're drawn to him it's a strange lure, not a "oh boy a clown!" Sometimes he'll ask you to come with him but it's never in a pleasant way, it's your dead brother's rotten corpse in a clown outfit inviting you into the sewer. He's always explicitly spooky and supernatural.
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May 21, 2017 20:24
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I'm vaguely remembering that one of the kids, a really young kid maybe 2 or 3, was dragged into the toilet and "drowned" by IT. Only, you know, it was so brutally that the poor kid's head was crushed. But Mike Hanlon's journal recalls that the mother heard a voice from the bathroom just before it happened. Presumably, IT did the same thing to the kid that it did to George.
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May 22, 2017 01:01
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Besides Georgie, are there any instances in the book of It, as Pennywise, luring anyone by pretending to be a benign clown? No, there aren't. But it's gotten to the point where Curry's performance has cemented the character as much as King's novel so people have forgotten what they read.
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May 22, 2017 04:17
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BiggerBoat posted:No, there aren't. But it's gotten to the point where Curry's performance has cemented the character as much as King's novel so people have forgotten what they read. I just finished the book and I couldn't remember any other than that. Does he show up as a clown and not murder people? Yes but at no point are any of the descriptions favorable that he's a good happy thing. There's that flashback photo where the description says the kids are staring at him like they're afraid while adults ignore him. Ben seeing him on the ice with no shadow holding balloons that float against the wind. The bit about that gun fight where multiple people reported seeing a clown only they all saw him in different places and in varying states of  I believe one of them said he was leaning out of a window shooting guns at the baddies only he was hanging out the window from the knees up and not casting a shadow.I'm honestly not sure where happy venus flytrap clown is coming from.
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May 22, 2017 04:21
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Ironically, the original 'clown sightings' in the early 90's were of stuff like the Ninja Turtles and guys in Bart Simpson costumes kidnapping kids in a van. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD3aNn1A0Ek
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May 22, 2017 04:48
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Timeless Appeal posted:It's not that he's not menacing. It's that up until the very end he acts condescending and bullying but most importantly there is this weird air of authority to him. He's definitively an adult. This is a fantastic point, by the way.
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May 22, 2017 05:06
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Len posted:I'm honestly not sure where happy venus flytrap clown is coming from.
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May 22, 2017 05:12
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Timeless Appeal posted:From the really definitive and iconic scene that most people remember. So like 5 minutes of the miniseries and maybe ten pages of the monstrous book?
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May 22, 2017 05:23
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Fart City posted:This is a fantastic point, by the way. Yeah, that's a really good take on it.
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May 22, 2017 13:14
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There's a meta point about this discussion of a luring, false expectation clown. The trailer pulls the same trick. It comes to a full stop for the laugh of the child Georgie running face first into the road block. At first it's fun and light-hearted but it turns dark and deadly very quickly. I've been wondering if the trailer was cut that way to set the tone for how Pennywise operates in the film.
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May 22, 2017 21:11
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Len posted:So like 5 minutes of the miniseries and maybe ten pages of the monstrous book? Pennywise being a clown works so well because for a lot of kids a clown is something that adults present to kids and go "Here, here's this thing you're supposed to enjoy and find funny and love" and for a lot of kids that's just baffling because that thing is clearly a monster. And I think for me that's my hangup with their version of It. Because a clown is also just a guy in make-up who can tell you that his real name is Bob. It's a monster that can reason with you and convince you that you were silly for ever thinking he was scary in the first place. And turning Pennywise from a clown that looks slightly unnerving to a straight up monster does take away something that works thematically well. Still excited for the film.
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May 23, 2017 00:02
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With Georgie we only see Pennywise's endgame, he has already "salted the meat", so to speak. He's just trying to get close enough to Georgie to drag him into the sewers.
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May 23, 2017 00:09
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Y'know, I'd be willing to bet that we do get a couple of different versions of Pennywise's clown suit in the movie given his shape shifting nature. Maybe his "history of Derry" look will be different from his 80s and 00s look? And as far as dismissing Skaarsgard out of turn, I'd say I learned my lesson against jumping the gun back in '08 when that pretty boy Heath Ledger made me look like a fool by perfectly playing a killer clown.
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May 24, 2017 04:20
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