I can understand why some people would prefer the new movie series. In many ways, the 1990 miniseries has not aged well. Its production values are cheap; it uses stop-motion effects that look dated today; it features some bad acting by the children and hammy overacting by the adults; and the climactic battle is highly underwhelming. It was reportedly intended to be much longer but was forced by the network to stay within 3 hours. And of course, if you're looking for gore and raunch, you're not going to find it in a 1990 TV production.

That said, it is much closer in spirit to the book. It does a better job of bringing the characters alive (though the movie makes the characters look more like they were described in the book), and frankly--and this surprised me the most--I found the scare scenes more effective. In case you're wondering, I didn't watch it as a kid; I first saw it just a few years ago.

How about the performance of the clown? Somewhat of a wash, though Tim Curry did it first, the new guy is just imitating and perhaps trying to seem a little less campy.

I understand why the new movie series updated the childhood section to the 1980s, so the grownup section (the upcoming film) could be set in the present day. But I think it does lose something in the process. King really knew how to bring the 1950s (when he was a kid) alive, with the incredible sexual innocence, the casual racism, the birth of rock and roll, and more. (Given that the show Stranger Things which is set in the '80s has some distinct Stephen King influences, the movie version of It seems to come full circle and has moments that are reminiscent of Stranger Things.) I think it also loses something by the (also understandable) attempt to turn the nonlinear storytelling of the novel chronological. The miniseries more or less preserves the alternating-timeline structure.

I always liked the coming-of-age elements to the novel more than the clown stuff (I had similar feelings about The Stand--I liked the story of the characters surviving in the post-apocalyptic world more than the showdown with Randall Flagg). And King's introspective style doesn't always translate well to the screen. (Of course some elements I'm glad weren't brought to either screen version--the childhood orgy, Richie's racist impressions, among other things.) It all ends up seeming like a sort of modern, but relatively tame, retelling of A Nightmare on Elm Street.