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Ken_McAlinden

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ken_mcalinden

It Blu-ray Review

It-Banner-1024x413.jpg


The 1990 miniseries of Stephen King's It took on the daunting task of adapting the massive (>1100 pages in my paperback edition) and massively popular (14 weeks at the top of The New York Times Best Sellers list in 1986 and 1987) novel into a two episode miniseries. It was a ratings success at the time, and Tim Curry's interpretation of Pennywise the Clown has been haunting the...
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Malcolm R

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Sounds like my DVD version is good enough, based on the disappointing technical results here.
 

Scott Merryfield

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Thanks for the review, Ken. While I loved the book, I have never seen the TV movie. I had this on pre-order with Amazon, but based on your lackluster review, I decided to cancel. I can always rent it for $3 if I decide I want to see the film.
 

Randy Korstick

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And unfortunately it is still cut like the DVD. Only the VHS and Laserdisc releases have been uncut so far. No Sale.
 

The Drifter

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A while back I finally watched the 1990 TV mini-series It on Blu. I had never seen this before - either on TV or in any previous home video version. I did read the Stephen King novel in the late 1980's, almost 30 years ago.

Technical review:

-Excellent PQ, color, sound. This was especially impressive given that this was an early '90's made-for-TV mini-series.

-I didn't mind the edits between the two segments, since the "cuts" seemed relatively seamless & since this was obviously done to make this seem more like one long film. That being said, I'm sure I would have been bothered more by this if I had seen this on TV - or on VHS - when the two parts were included in their entirety.

Re: the TV mini-series itself:

-Fantastic adaptation of the ST novel. I am extremely impressed, especially given that this was a network TV mini-series, and obviously didn't have the budget of an expensive Hollywood film. Much of the dialogue was right out of the book itself, including many of the quotes. Also, the story (towards the end) that Ben Hanscom (John Ritter) told to his friends about losing weight in high school - so he could try out & run on the track team - was also right out of the King book. Very nice, since I'm a purist when it comes to screen adaptations based on novels. Obviously, they couldn't put everything on screen given that the novel was so huge, but considering this mini-series was close to 3 hours long they included a lot.

-Excellent story & great casting. Well-done efforts to have at least a couple of the kid actors look a lot like the later adults, including the young actress who played Beverly - she looked quite a bit like Annette O'Toole, her adult self (other than the hair color). Also, it was a nice touch to have the young Bill Denbrough (J. Brandis) have a mole on his face, like the older Denbrough (Richard Thomas).

-Very disturbing story & above average special effects, especially by early '90's TV standards. Pennywise was quite frightening in all of his incarnations, especially as the seemingly harmless clown (even before you saw him with the fangs & eyes). The grotesque lobster creature at the end was well-done as well.

-Good job of recreating a small town in both the 1960 & 1990 time-frames; the transition between the two eras was seamless re: seeing similar storefronts, houses, etc. - with the obvious differences that 30 years will bring.

-Nostalgia obviously was very strong in this story - i.e., going back & forth between childhood & adulthood - and the adult selves slowly remembering a lot of the things that happened in their youth. I'm sure a lot of adults (myself included) can relate to having a group of friends you hung out with as kids/teenagers, and then losing touch with them as you get older & move on - as in this story.

RIP JB & JR (both passed in 2003).
 

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