This is a good quote. You and Vulcan Ghost Child make a good argument regarding the adult Losers' amnesia.

So you’ve rebutted one sentence of my original essay. What about the rest?

If I were writing that essay now, one change I would make is to emphasize how the movies and book are so divergent, they seem like two different stories rather than different versions of the same story. This is how Shakespeare scholars regard the competing quartos of plays like King Lear.

There is no question that book Richie is not gay. And if book Eddie has a crush on any Loser, it’s Bill. Movie Richie could be gay, though, even if book Richie isn’t. That was the director’s intent. Bill Hader’s, too.

I would still argue that they didn’t take it far enough. The three or four hints that I address in my essay are too timidly done. That is what I meant my thesis to be: that the change in Richie’s character from book to movie wasn’t convincing.

Was it needed? That’s an essay for a different day.