It's not nearly as long as the book it's based on!
I'm glad my book knowledge could help. It feels like a book everybody has read, but that's probably just because I read it several times (and assigned it in class once, at least sections of it). I'm glad all my book talk wasn't in vain.
Both filmed versions of the story so far will have been split similarly by the time all is said and done. I do wonder what more time and a more intertwined version would actually look like. I hate the cliche, but a Netflix or HBO (or whatever) mini-season would really do the trick, I think. Too bad we'll have to wait for at least a decade before that happens, probably.
Yeah, the thing in the book is a, um, serial copulation scene with almost all the boys and Bev after they defeat It the first time. It helps them find the way out or something. It's really unnecessary, though I can almost see what he was going for with the maturation theme. It just feels kinda pretty very gross. The kiss, while obviously tamer, accomplishes much of the same things without the squick factor.
I didn't really have a problem with Bev in her underwear. They talked about this in relation to a letter on one of the recent episodes of The Last Picture Show (about Blade Runner, I think) and I agree with them that pretty much everything to do with Bev outside the damsel in distress stuff at the end was actually a really well done version of that kind of character. It's important to note that she's not afraid of her sexuality but rather the danger she feels from her dad as a result of that sexuality. I think that lets the underwear scene and the kiss and stuff be benign and the dad stuff be suitably gross but doesn't account for the dumb damsel in distress (that was absent from the book).
A friend of mine wrote
this great article about how the monster (and house) stand in for the corruption in Derry. While I agree with all of that, I still feel a lack, though I think it's more about the lack of danger that I talked about later.
I'm pretty sure Bev's father dies. She's moving in with her aunt elsewhere at the end and I don't think a living version of her father would let her do that. It is a bit ambiguous, though.
There's a distinct possibility that they'll do the imagination stuff in the sequel. We'll have to wait and see.