My other big issue with this film was the retcons to the first film, like it was a mistake to make it so that Ben basically took Mike's role from the book but the way they tried to retcon that by making Mike the history buff just felt strange. I also hated a lot of the kids' scenes since they really should have been in the first film, them suddenly having the clubhouse when it was never mentioned in the first film was problematic. I think the only flashbacks that were worth it (aside from the ending which actually choked me up quite a bit, and the start which was necessary.) were Richie's since they introduced an element to his character that put a whole different spin on how he interacted with others.
The whole Ritual of Chud thing in the book wasn't great but it kinda made sense that it was a thing they'd try since they did it as children so there's a history to it but the way it's introduced in this film is just bad and hackneyed. I liked that they didn't try to shoehorn too much of the cosmic stuff from the books though since I always thought those parts were badly written and pretentious, the way they defeat Pennywise in the film is much better than it was in the book. I also liked how they handled the spider and how they made it essentially just another form of fear instead of IT's true form like in the books, making it a literal spider Pennywise was pretty inspired too since I thought the book (and the miniseries) both suffered horribly in the second half since they didn't make enough use of Pennywise and the creators definitely learned from those mistakes here.
While FAR too much CGI was used, I've got to say that the Restaurant scene and the Spider-Stanley scenes were pretty great. That being said, the weird old woman didn't need to be CGI'd and they definitely could have done something practical with the Pomeranian although that bit was still pretty good as is.
I do think these films are better than the books because they jettisoned a lot of Stephen King being overly Stephen King-ish that ended up dragging down parts of the books. Keeping elements such as the turtle as background cameos works better than trying to explain the ins and outs of the multiverse and the films, despite a bloated second part, definitely felt lighter and better put together than the book. I love the book but it has it's issues.
I also wish that more time was devoted to developing the Losers as adults instead of rehashing the same scares for each Loser.
