Mistakes That Are Hard To Ignore In The It Movies
Andy Muschietti's 2017 and 2019 adaptations of Stephen King's magnum opus, It, are both incredible horror films and two of the best King movies ever made. After all, they're filled to the brim with wild imagery and Easter eggs that continue to tantalize fans. Bill Skarsgård's terrifying portrayal of the killer alien clown Pennywise as he torments the town of Derry is the stuff of nightmares. And the showdowns between Pennywise and the Losers' Club, both as children and adults, are battles for the ages. Like we said, these are fantastic films.
But unfortunately, while we were all floating down here, the creators of the It movies were also busy making a number of on-screen technical mistakes that are hard to ignore, even aside from the major divergences from King's book that can be as distracting as Pennywise's eyes veering off in two directions. What exactly did they get wrong? Well, let's put on our yellow slickers and pop down into the sewer to investigate all the mistakes that are hard to ignore in the It movies.
An anachronistic turtle in It
The first installment of Andy Muschietti's It adaptation opens strong with a number of Stephen King multiverse Easter eggs, one of them a bright green Lego turtle being handled by young Bill (Jaeden Martell) that scatters when he drops it on the floor. In King's It novel, the turtle Maturin is the creator of the known universe and the spiritual foil of Pennywise the Clown. The turtle helps the Losers both as children and adults. But in 1989, when It Chapter One takes place, there were no commercially available green Legos. The dark green ones weren't on the market until 1996, and the lime green ones that accent the turtle weren't available until 2003. The turtle is a meaningful reference to the bigger picture of King's story, but the mishandled execution is hard to ignore.
That disappearing smiley face
While Bill makes Georgie's (Jackson Robert Scott) paper boat, Georgie looks out the window at the pouring rain and draws a smiley face on the glass. It's an Easter egg referencing the Stephen King novel Doctor Sleep, and this sweet scene is in stark contrast to the brutal murder that's about to come. However, as Bill and Georgie share their last moments together before George is killed, the smiley face appears and reappears behind him. We'd love this to be magic, but it's actually just a continuity error that breaks the somber mood once you've spotted it.
Shedding some light on a big mistake in It
There are a lot of murders in the first installment of It, which means there are a lot of police cars that appear on-screen, starting with Georgie's disappearance right at the start of the movie. However, this scene lets us know that the movie wasn't actually filmed in Maine, where the story takes place. How so? Well, all the cop cars have flashing blue and red lights. But police cars in Maine only have blue lights, so for people familiar with the region, the mistake is rather jarring.
We're not sure Stanley can read Hebrew
Stanley's father (Ari Cohen) is the town rabbi, and he isn't just grooming his son to possibly follow in his footsteps as spiritual leader, he's also preparing Stan for his upcoming bar mitzvah. And in one scene, Stanley (Wyatt Oleff) is reading from the Torah, fighting the desire to snark back at his dad's constant criticism, and the moment ends with Stanley closing the book and storming off. But when he closes the sacred text, we can see that the book is upside down. The set dresser either didn't know or forgot that Hebrew is read from right to left, not left to right like in English. Oy vey, that's a big whoops.
Some wonky product placement in the first It film
When Beverly runs into the rest of the Losers' Club in the pharmacy, she's trying to figure out which tampons to buy, while the boys are there gathering first aid supplies for Ben after his run-in with Henry Bowers. Everyone is super awkward with each other, especially Beverly as she wants to keep her period a secret from the boys. On the shelf, we see a number of Olay skincare products. The only problem is, in 1989, the brand was called Oil of Olay. It didn't get rebranded into Olay until 1999. Dial and Ivory Soap also use their modern-day packaging in the pharmacy scenes, and Covidien Curity bandages weren't called that until 2007. These errors show just how hard it is to make a contemporary period piece look authentic to the year its taking place in.
Eating desserts and making mistakes
In the first It installment, Eddie's mother Sonia (Molly Atkinson) is a woman of particular tastes, and one of those is for a certain brand of sweet snacks, Mrs. Freshley's Delicious Deals. From Oatmeal Creme Pie Cookies to Iced Honey Buns, these treats dominate Eddie's kitchen. When the Losers are over at Eddie's house, he tells them to not touch his mom's Delicious Deals. The only thing is, that particular company wasn't established until 1994, a good four years after It takes place. Also, the packaging here is the design you can find in stores today. Honestly, if the filmmakers needed some product placement, a Twinkie or Hostess cupcake would've worked better with the timeline.
The mystery of the vanishing gunk
In 2017's It, Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis) is getting bullied from all sides. Her father is abusive, and the girls at school torment her mercilessly because she's poor. They also slut-shame her because she kissed a boy in the school play, and they make her life hell. Eventually, Beverly tries to hide from the mean girls in the bathroom, but when they find her, they dump a bunch of wet garbage into her toilet stall. Fortunately, Beverly has her backpack, and she uses it to block most of the gunk raining down on her. But just moments later when she runs into Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) outside, her backpack is totally clean and totally dry. It should also smell really bad, but if it does, Ben doesn't give any indication.
The reappearing pen
In a movie filled with terrible events and monstrous killings of children, there are only a few moments of lightness and hope that grace the screen. One of them is when the two outsider misfits, Ben and Beverly, have a sweet encounter on the last day of school. Beverly teases him about being the new kid on the block who also listens to New Kid on the Block, and then she signs his yearbook. (Sadly, hers is the only signature in it.) As she signs the book, Beverly sticks the pen lid in her mouth, but in a continuity error, the lid disappears and reappears as she's writing. Yes, Bev is a special girl, but she's not a magician.
The rock fight escalates way too quickly
The Losers' Club aren't only battling a vicious clown creature. They also have a group of human enemies in the form of Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) and his gang. One day, Bowers and company chase Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) into the Barrens where the Losers hang out, and a rock fight ensues in Mike's defense. This is the first time the rest of the group meets Mike, who makes their lucky number seven. But an unfortunate continuity error comes when Belch (Jake Sim) begins bleeding before Beverly's rock actually hits him. We know she's an excellent shot and all, but even that's going too far.
Richie's insult is outside of time
Richie "Trashmouth" Tozier (Finn Wolfhard) is a kid who's constantly making snarky quips, and his comments often solicit a "beep beep, Richie" from his friends who would kindly prefer him to shut his pie hole. Which, of course, he never does. For example, during the rock fight between the Losers and Henry Bowers' gang, Richie calls one of the bullies a "mullet-wearing a**hole." But while the term "mullet" was first coined in 1967's Cool Hand Luke, it didn't actually enter popular usage until after the 1994 Beastie Boys song "Mullet Head." Since the first installment of It takes place in 1989, Richie's comment has no context for that time period, even though it does for modern-day viewers.
Oh, Canada!
There are a number of errors in both It movies that shatter the illusion we're in Derry, Maine, and instead, we often get a Canadian vibe. (After all, the movie was primarily shot in, you guessed it, Canada.) For example, take the Derry town square that features a huge war memorial. Yes, there are, of course, war memorials all over America, but we know this one's Canadian because it has "For King and Country" inscribed on it. America was founded in rebellion of the British monarchy, so American war memorabilia wouldn't have that particular phrase anywhere.
Eddie's broken arm
When the kids in the Losers' Club have their first battle with Pennywise the Clown in the house on Neibolt Street, it's a huge mess of chaos, blood, and screaming. At one point, Eddie falls through the floor and lands in a heap. At first his arm is totally fine, but then all of a sudden, a quick cut shows that his arm is grotesquely broken. Unlike other mistakes in It that are hard to ignore, you'd almost miss this one amid all the madness of that fight scene. But once you see it, it's one of the few things that drags you back into reality and out of an immersive confrontation with one of the scariest monsters ever put to screen.
What's going on with Bev's leggings?
Diverging from Stephen King's source material, in the 2017 It, Pennywise kidnaps Beverly and holds her hostage in his deadlights along with the other missing and murdered Derry kids. In the scene, she's wearing a flowery dress that comes down to her knees and floats around her in the air. She's not wearing leggings under her dress. But once the rest of the Losers break that aspect of Pennywise's spell and Beverly comes back down to the ground, she's suddenly wearing leggings. It makes sense that the production wouldn't want Beverly flashing her underwear in that particular moment (even though they did that already during the quarry swimming scene), but the continuity error is glaring in an otherwise emotional moment.
Bill's bloody piece of glass
After the Losers' Club think they've defeated Pennywise, Bill still isn't 100 percent convinced the ordeal is over. He asks everyone to swear that if Pennywise is still alive, they'll all return to Derry to help him defeat It. In spite of it being 1989 and the HIV/AIDS crisis being all over the news, Bill uses a broken piece of glass to cut everyone's palms so they can make a blood oath, promising to see the confrontation through if they need to. This is another powerful and somber moment where a group of children have just become adults, only to be marred by another continuity error. The glass doesn't stay bloody as Bill uses it, and in some frames, it looks like a new piece of glass entirely.
A mortal mistake in It Chapter Two
It Chapter Two flips between 1989 and 2019 as the Losers' Club returns to Derry to end the battle between the town and Pennywise once and for all. One of the flashbacks to 1989 features a key scene at the video game arcade between Richie Tozier and Connor (Ry Prior) that suggests Richie might be gay. This scene is also vital because, years later, a video game token ends up being the talisman adult Richie (Bill Hader) uses for the Ritual of Chüd that aims to destroy Pennywise. But unfortunately, there's a huge gaffe to go along with these important events. We see the games Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II in the background of the arcade. However, those games were released in 1992 and 1993, respectively. Unless there's a time travel aspect of It that nobody knows about, this error is massive.
What's happening with Beverly's bike?
In It's first installment, Pennywise kidnaps young Beverly and hypnotizes her with his deadlights, storing her in a kind of stasis in the sewer, along with all the other dead and missing children. The rest of the Losers' Club go to rescue her, using the entrance in the haunted house on Neibolt Street. In a flashback in It Chapter Two, though, we see Beverly pushing her bike through Derry after the showdown. Since she was kidnapped, she wouldn't have had her bike there at all. She should've been riding on someone else's to get away or simply gone on foot.
Adult Eddie's shifting bandage
Just because the Losers' Club grew up, that doesn't mean their childhood bullies didn't follow them into adulthood. In It Chapter Two, adult Henry Bowers (Teach Grant) escapes from the institution for criminally insane where he's been living since taking the fall for all of Pennywise's murders back in 1989. On the clown's orders, Henry goes after the surviving Losers, stabbing Eddie (James Ransone) straight through the cheek. Knowing that they can't halt the mission, Eddie and Beverly (Jessica Chastain) patch his face up, and they proceed down into the sewers to finish Pennywise. But the emotional tension is interrupted when Eddie's bandage briefly flips from one side of his cheek to the other. This can happen when a negative gets reversed, but for a film with such a huge budget, it should've been an easy thing to catch and fix.
The tokens in It Chapter Two
For the adult Losers to vanquish Pennywise, Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) discovers they need to perform the Ritual of Chüd down in Pennywise's feeding lair. But in order to fully complete the ritual, each Loser must bring a token that represents something significant from the summer of 1989, when they faced the monster the first time. Eddie's token is his asthma inhaler. Richie's is a video game token. Ben's (Jay Ryan) is the page of his yearbook that only Beverly signed. Bev's is the postcard poem Ben wrote her. And Bill's (James McAvoy) is the paper boat he made for his little brother. But somehow, even as our heroes are fully immersed and wading in neck-deep water, the paper tokens belonging to Bev, Ben, and Bill are bone-dry before they burn them in the ritual. Yes, they're all magic tokens, but unless we're missing something, they aren't that kind of magic.
It Chapter Two's Canadian company
At the end of It Chapter Two, when all is set right by the adult Losers, the camera pans over the town of Derry, which is back to its idyllic Maine state and free of the threat of child-eating monsters. However, there's still one problem. A sign gives away the fact that this isn't Maine at all ... or even America. Royal LePage has a billboard clearly visible, and it's exclusively a Canadian real estate company. It Chapter Two wasn't actually filmed in New England, and this prominent Canadian sign breaks the illusion that it was.