"She's all ready, Captain."
Even a movie as terrifying as this one can have plenty of moments to warm your heart.
For Chapter Two, see here.
Examples from the book go here.
The Film
- At the beginning, Bill making Georgie a paper boat, writing his name on it, and addressing his little brother as "Captain", followed by Georgie hugging him. While Bill is making it too, Georgie is sitting on Bill's lap, head resting on his shoulder, it's definitely an overload of heartwarming and cuteness. Seeing their affection for each other makes what happens to Georgie all the more tragic.
- While it also serves as a Tear Jerker, the fact that Georgie calls for Bill as he's being dragged into the storm drain by Pennywise shows how much Georgie loved and idolized his older brother, to the point where he sees him as his main source of comfort and protection as opposed to most children who see their mom and/or dad as their protectors.
- When the projector starts to go haywire and Pennywise begins to appear, Richie is seen grabbing a hold of Eddie as if either to protect him or for physical support.
- Later, when Pennywise himself appears and corners the Losers, Richie actually turns Eddie's face away from the monster. if you listen closely, you can hear him repeatedly screaming "look at me!".
- The real kicker here is that Richie is established to have a fear of clowns-but when confronted with a literal Monster Clown, his first instinct is to protect his friend.
- That scene is even more heartwarming now that we know Richie had a crush on Eddie.
- Later, when Pennywise himself appears and corners the Losers, Richie actually turns Eddie's face away from the monster. if you listen closely, you can hear him repeatedly screaming "look at me!".
- Ben's crush on Beverly is just adorable. He even writes her a poem, also seeing her intellectual side under her beauty and tough exterior.
- In fact, the way all the boys are with Bev. Beverly has a horrible home life due to being alone with a creepy, sexually abusive father but the boys clearly love her and want to keep her safe from harm and she clearly loves them and wants to keep them united. It really shows how beautiful and important male/female friendships can be.
- Beverly's true Establishing Character Moment has her warning Ben where Bowers and his gang are before offering to sign his yearbook.
- Everything about the Love Triangle is just very sweet. Both Bill and Ben have obvious crushes on Beverly, but the friendship between all three never suffers for it, and Beverly clearly has eyes for Bill, but treasures Ben as well. Even moreso when Ben brings Beverly back from the Deadlights by kissing her while Bill is the last to say goodbye to Beverly and sharing a last kiss before she departs. It all drives home how much they mean to one another, and the boys clearly love and respect Beverly as a person as opposed to an object of desire.
- The actors really sell the friendship the Losers have.
- Ben, Beverly, and Mike, all outcasts for different reasons (Ben's weight, plus the fact he's the new kid in town, Beverly's lower-class background and undeserved reputation for promiscuity, and Mike as a home-schooled black kid), all find comfort and friendship in the Losers.
- Despite the Losers having pretty much broken apart after Eddie's injury at the Neibolt House, being estranged from each other for a month, when Beverly is kidnapped by Pennywise and Bill tries to rally them... not one of them backs down. Nothing stops the gang from rescuing their friend from Pennywise. Not even parents, bullies, or childhood fears stops them, and they would stop at nothing to save Bev from IT. Special mention goes to Mike, who shows up with his bolt gun and a face like fucking granite. If he has to put a spike through this thing's skull to protect his friends, so goddamn be it.
- In a sad, but still heartwarming way, seeing the bodies of IT's previous victims float down after the Losers defeat IT is a sign that now for the time being, at least, the horror and nightmare of children being killed and going missing in Derry is over.
- The way the Losers all rush in to defend Mike with the Apocalyptic Rock War. All they know is that he's a homeschooled kid being bullied by Henry Bowers and co., and that's all they need to know. He's a Loser too.
- The Losers all comforting and hugging Stan after he's separated from the group and brutally attacked by It. He was convinced that they had all left him and they assure him that they would never.
- The group all huddling together around Bill after he finds Georgie's raincoat on the tower-like pile of the remaining items of IT's victims, confirming his death. Barely any of them might have known Georgie, but he was Bill's brother and therefore their brother, too.p
- The finale, wherein all seven Losers bond as blood brothers (and sister) with the help of a broken bottle, vowing to be there for each other the next time Pennywise returns.
- During the climatic fight, Pennywise takes Bill hostage and tells the others he'll let them live if they flee and leave Bill behind. For a minute, it looks like Richie (whose friendship with Bill seemed broken by Bill's obsession with IT) is going to take the offer, as he lists all the things Bill's dragged him into... then he grabs a baseball bat from IT's trophy stash and swings at the bastard, to save his friend.
- In a heartwarming but tragic scene: Bill's entire motivation in the film: He thinks Georgie's actually alive/kidnapped by IT and wants to find him, even though deep inside he knows his little brother's dead and is possibly blaming himself for not being there for when he went outside. It's a kinda twisted heartwarming that he wants to find his brother or at least know he's alive somewhere, even though it's far from the truth.
- The boys all pitching in to help Bev clean up all the blood in her completely wrecked bathroom, when her abusive father is unable to even see the blood. (Especially poignant because the blood is clearly related to Beverly's fears around puberty, sex, and incest — her father's actions are obviously hurting her, even if her father himself refuses to see it, but her friends immediately pitch in to help her and support her.)
- Henry Bowers and his gang don't exactly evoke the warm and fuzzy feelings inside you, behaving horribly in almost every scene they're in. Yet even the Bowers gang manage two moments that are a touch heartwarming. The most obvious one is Victor and Belch being there for Henry after a bad encounter between Henry and his father, showing that genuine friendship does exist between them. The other is relatively minor, yet still worth mentioning. On the last day of school before summer break Henry threatens Bill that they will be coming after him during the summer. He mentions that they have been going easy on Bill since Georgie went missing, but that this free pass is now ended. Despite how horrible they are to the Losers Club (and no doubt a lot of other students as well), even Henry and his gang have the decency and compassion (or understanding that there are lines they can't get away with crossing in the eyes of all their peers and society) to go easy on the kid who lost his younger brother - even if only for eight months or so.
- When Bev finds Ben's New Kids on the Block poster on the back of his door, she doesn't try to embarrass him or tell anyone else in the room. She quietly moves the door so that the others can't see it. She does tease him eventually by making puns about NKOTB songs, but those jokes only make sense if you're in the know like the two of them are.
- Try listening to "January Embers"
and not have a heartwarming feeling. - Leroy's lecture towards Mike in the latter's first scene, if a bit retroactively. At first, it seems like he's just being a hard-ass more concerned with his job than his grandson. But then Mike reveals to the Losers that Leroy seems to know a lot about Derry's ugly history; the man may've even had an encounter with Pennywise at some point in his life. Also, the man knows personal tragedy, due to Mike's parents dying. Callous as he may be, Leroy is looking out for his closest living relative and trying to teach him important survival skills.
- Bill comforting Richie when he starts having a panic attack at seeing a missing poster of himself, mainly as it's one of the few times Richie isn't making jokes.
- A deleted scene shows an extension of the film's ending where Billy and his parents deciding to go on a family vacation. Given Bill has estranged himself from his family for believing in Georgie being alive, it shows after Bill found closure in accepting that Georgie was dead, he attempts to move on and had apparently reconciled with his parents.
