FilmFan1983 — 8 years ago(September 20, 2017 07:11 PM)

Read the second draft by Cary and it's pretty damn good. The movie's climax is a lot less confusing than it is in the finished product since the new version removes so much context. We actually see Alvin Marsh die at the hands of Pennywise, we find out that the floating kids are in fact dead (something the final cut left too ambiguous) and we see Bill trick Georgie into revealing his true identity. Ben's character is more fleshed out and we actually see the reason why he turns on Bill after the Niebolt house scene. The relationship triangle with Ben, Bev, and Bill are better defined in the script. That script also emphasizes more subtle scares during the Niebolt house scene and is far more effective because of it. While the new movie tried to include more of the clown, I liked how in Cary's version, Pennywise could change into seemingly benevolent human form. It would have made the movie more unsettling and unpredictable. The kidnapping angle was an addition to the new script, and doesn't really make sense as Pennywise should want to divide the group and not band them together.
Although the more recent draft did a good job of retaining the spirit, if not the content, of certain scenes, some more important scares were left off. In the second draft we see Pennywise possess Bev's dad in a chilling scene, actually get to see the first appearance of the deadlights at the bottom of the lake, and get to see Patrick return as a reanimated corpse.
I'm not saying that that draft was perfect. The flashback scene explaining the origins of It feels narratively out of place, and the condensing of Richie and Stanley's character wasn't the best move, but with just a little more tweaking and reintroduction of Stanley, I think I would have preferred it to what we got. It's worth noting that the final draft did not improve on any of the fundamental weaknesses of the earlier drafts such as the overly broad characterizations of the adults and Mike and Stanley functioning more like background characters. The only good thing the film added (besides Stanley who was still present in the original draft) was more visual flair that wasn't evident in the earlier script.
I'm a little nervous about the second one since so much of what made the movie work was because of Cary's input and as far as I know, he's not coming back in any creative capacity for part 2. The second will be more difficult to adapt as it is.