-Contains some spoilers-
Two time periods
It is made out of two parts. The first part tells the story of seven kids, who form the loser club and try to take revenge for Billy's little brother George, who was killed by a mysterious creature named Pennywise.
The second part takes place 30 years later in 1990. All of them except Mike have moved away from their hometown, but after strange things start to happen again, Mike calls his friends to finally stop Pennywise once and for all.
Fantastic child actors
All the child actors did a very good job here and they really convey that feeling of friendship that is so important to the story. All of them struggle and cope with different things, which makes their characters very relatable and interesting.
On the other side, the adult actors were a bit more awkward and that is probably one of the biggest flaws of this series. They were not completely bad, but just not as good and natural as the younger actors.
Tim Curry is super creepy
But of course the real highlight here is Tim Curry as Pennywise. He is terrifying every time he shows up and you just can't help but stare at him, wondering what he does next. His performance is absolutely mesmerizing and he made this series so much better. It will be a hard job to make the clown as memorable in the remake.
Not very faithful to the book
I heard the remake will actually only focus on part one of the story which makes sense since the book is more than 1000 pages long. I hope there will be a sequel later to show the characters as adults as well.
But even this miniseries with two parts and about 190 minutes running time is much too short to be really faithful to the book.
Maybe it would have been better as a drama with one season for each time period.
Stephen King's IT book - Two things I liked that were not in the TV miniseries - Part 1
There are so many parts that didn't make it onto the screen, but the most disappointing one by far is the ending. The effects of the creature were just horrible and threw everything that Tim Curry build up until that point out of the window. Also it didn't show the real ending of the book which is much more spiritual, but I know that would have been almost impossible to film.
Bottom line
Even with it's flaws, I still like the 1990 version very much due to the fantastic child actors, the likable characters and Tim Curry's iconic performance. The nostalgic mood from that time makes it even more special now.
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