It: Chapter 2 (Muschetti, September 2019) Movie • Page 21

You’re not reading too much into it. He literally said to not think of it as a suicide note and basically spells out that it was a conscious decision, which is a truly awful message that I can’t believe they actually went with.
I’m feeling less satisfied the longer I sit with everything and stew on it.

 

I just hate the CGI soooooo much. Skarsgard is so fantastic when he's not shaking his head and popping out of things with those stupid teeth lol.

 

Is there more dancing?

 

Taking my mother, who introduced me to King's books (and she loved It: Chapter One), this weekend.

Lowering my expectations, but still looking forward to it.

 

I didn’t mind it as much for Pennywise because I liked them bringing in the shapeshifting and uncanny aspects, but I didn’t like how almost every other vision had that same goofy look to it. The only one where that vibe fit was The Leper. And speaking of that, can we talk about how truly BIZARRE the Juice Newton soundbite was?!

 

No, but Richie mentions it and it’s hilarious. I really did love him.

 

The upsetting and disappointing thing about this shot / sequence for me is that if you just look at Skaarsgard's face - and absolutely nothing else at all no matter how distracting and ridiculous - it is actually pretty scary and frightening.

The more I think about Part 1, the more impressive Skaarsgard's performance as Pennywise becomes. He overcomes A LOT of questionable creative decisions like that above dancing scene to still deliver a great Pennywise. With a little more trust from the filmmakers I think he could have been even more amazing and truly classic.

 

Seeing this tonight!

 

I will always defend that scene. I want my Pennywise goofy and actually clownlike in addition to being an eldritch horror coming for the fears in the pit of my soul.

 

that was by far one of the best scenes in Chapter One. unironically

 

I just don't understand so much about how they chose to execute that scene... I believe you can have a goofy, silly, dancing Pennywise that is still scary and not dumb and works well. Skaarsgard's performance was great enough that I think you could've had him dance and filmed it in a less chaotic more subdued way and it would have been far more effective. That sequence really reinforced for me how it seems like whenever Muschietti was at all unsure of how to proceed he defaulted to augmenting things with CGI and moving his camera around in odd and jerky ways.

 

So I heard that they used CGI to de-age the kids? How did that look?

 

It was fairly noticeable in a few scenes. I’m pretty sure a few voices were dubbed too. It kind of made it feel surreal or like we were in unreliable narrator territory almost, because they sort of had the same look as a lot of the monsters or visions. Not completely immersion breaking but it was certainly uncanny when it popped up.

 

Young Eddie’s voice was definitely altered in a few scenes, at least. I heard him speak plenty while filming, and it didn’t sound anything like that lol

 

He was absolutely the most noticeable one. There was one shot in particular where I really found myself wondering if he was going to turn out to be a negative projection or something because of how off it was.

Georgie also grew up a ton, and that was a bit jarring.

 

I woulda just let the kids look however they do now for their flashback scenes honestly instead of messing with CGI to deage and stuff

 

Agreed. Time is never kind to this sort of thing.

Also @333 GANG can you tell me/us what went on in your scene? I kept wondering all throughout what might have been cut.

 

I will always wish that Fukunga directed this reboot.

 

Sure, now that the movie is out there’s no harm in saying.

I was supposed to be in the scene where young Eddie is in the pharmacy picking up his prescription, along with about a dozen or so others. We went in early the morning of shooting and had our makeup done to make us look like very sickly, diseased customers waiting to see the pharmacist. We were lined up down the stairs to the basement and wrapped around the corner of the shelves toward the back of the basement. Picture a line of zombie-like figures covered in dirt and grime, and large gashes and sores and whatnot covering arms, faces, etc. The way we shot it, I was placed directly at the bottom of the stairs.

Eddie comes down the stairs and gasps and goes “oh my fucking god” (or something to that extent) and gags when he sees us and presumably smells us. He looks right at me and pulls his shirt over his mouth after seeing how gross I was, lol. He continues walking past the line with people moaning and groaning at him until he reaches the back of the basement.

He sees his mom and the pharmacist, Mr. Keane back there, and (it was hard to tell what was playing out because of where I was placed and how they edit things in with CGI late) I believe Keane was performing some sort of procedure on his mother. She then shape shifts into Pennywise and he chases him out of the basement.

So they must have decided to rewrite and reshoot the scene on a different date, because we were there for a good 10 hours and what was used was very different than what we shot. Not sure why they decided to hire 15 of us, go buy us costumes, spend hours on makeup, feed us, and pay us we’ll only to not use us, and I legitimately think it would have made the scene even creepier (though I’m admittedly biased), but I suppose that’s Hollywood and is a small example of why these movies cost so much to make haha.

Fun fact: that pharmacy they used is an actual, functional pharmacy that has been open for a LONG time in that town close to where I live, and the original owner of it hung himself in the same basement (which has largely sat untouched for decades). I got the sense the production crew, Muschietti included, didn’t know about that. It wasn’t widely publicized at the time.

 

Also a fun fact, my brother is visible in the scene in the park where Hader sees Pennywise floating down off the shoulder of the Paul Bunyan statue.

 

Wait, they de-aged the kids? Silly question but is it just because they actors are a few years older now then when the first one was made so they wanted it to look as close as possible?

If so, did the kids age that much in 2-3 years to have to de-age them through CGI? I feel like that is such a wasted amount of time, money, and energy for something we all as humans totally understand with sequels that the younger actors will grow up lol.

 

Wow! That’s all super interesting. I definitely felt like something small was missing from that scene, and more of an actual procedure might have done it. Sounds like there are still snippets left, because I remember that gagging in particular. Maybe that will eventually come out in some deleted scenes. I remember when you first mentioned it that I couldn’t imagine what you would be. My hopes of Stan’s dead boys were dashed.

That’s super creepy and sad about the real pharmacy too. Now I’m curious if they did know about that history or not.

 

Yeah, that’s the reasoning. A few of the kids look a decent bit older now than when they shot the first film, Jack Dylan Grazer in particular, and the callback scenes in this one are supposed to have taken place at time the exact same time as the first. I understand why they did it, but some of it was definitely a little jarring.

 

I completely understand why they feel like they have to do it, but I personally would rather just suspend disbelief a little bit as an audience member if the kids look a bit older.

 

I thought so too, but again I’m probably biased simply for wanting it to be the way I saw it play out myself. I thought they still did a fairly okay job with it, but I hope you’re right and that the initial script for that scene will see the light of day in some capacity in time. Would be very cool to see and compare the two.

I asked one of the guys assisting Muschietti during filming (not exactly sure what his job title would have been) if they happened to know what had happened “down here” in between takes, and he asked what I meant before being quickly called off to grab part of a different lighting rig, so I got the sense that they didn’t.