SunAnvil
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I had no issues with the cast in the 2017 version but the story itself was not even in the realm of close. No book adaptation will be spot on but maybe this time it will be in the ballpark.
https://screenrant.com/dark-tower-show-stephen-king-mike-flanagan-update/
DianNaoChong
In the age of franchises and cinematic universe they turned dozens of books and tie ins onto a one and done. Crazy
rojelioenescabeche
Most of Kings movie adaptations aren’t good because how the hell can you convey everybody’s individual imaginations (which is where king dwells) to the screen.
TheOnlyPtylerdactyl
2017 version had going for it: 1) The sets and props were extremely good "high tech in a ruined world and 2) Idris Elba did excellently with what he was given, no complaints on his casting.
Cons: Tried to do too much with too little runtime, hammering Jake into the tired Precocious Child trope and trying to remake the entire story to focus on him, and extremely weird pacing.
Based on past work, I trust Flanagan to do right by this.
bridgebrain
McConaughey also brought it on his role. Some of his evil moments where he just casually does something with a word without even breaking stride live rent free in my head
DichotomousDuo
Idris is absolutely my Roland.
MrBoopyPutthole
The gunplay was pretty cool but overall .............damn, just damn.
evilcoffeechick
Absolutely tragic waste of casting with the bad writing [Elba can absolutely play a terrible man I'm willing to follow to my death, and I could see Walter/Flagg under that bad writing], and my god the any% speedrun to the Dixie Pig? Without Oy? Without Callahan? Without the scrimshaw turtle--no wait now I'm mad about the breakers.
TheOnlyPtylerdactyl
evilcoffeechick
It just occurred to me to ask my partner if he remembered watching The Dark Tower, and if it made any sense to him at all since he hasn't read past The Gunslinger, and has skipped a lot of other Stephen King books.
He said 'no'. So it's either 'makes no sense' or whatever the hell I'm feeling right now.
chunguswangus
Once I accepted the movie as an alternate reality, and not the book one, I enjoyed it a lot more. Because Book Roland didn't have the Horn of Eld, it was like the whole point of an entire book
MightyIink
This is what I wish we would see more of, reboots of bad movies that deserve another chance instead of rebooting good movies to make them worse.
VipertheFirst
New remake of Eragon when? Not soon enough!
JackBurtonOnThePorkChopExpress
I just did a youtube video on this exact topic. Weird.
MuttMonkey
Stephen King has done this before. He remade the shining because it strayed too far from his creation.
SchrodingersDictator
Wait, he did? When?
MuttMonkey
Kubrick made The Shining in 80. King said it strayed to far from the story and didn't include key details. So he remade it as a miniseries. King followed his book almost exactly. It is a good compare and contrast. To all that say the book is always better than a movie; check out a movie made by the author...
ArkoneAxon
I STILL want to see a remake of Robocop 3. The premise was "Robocop fights the fascist privatized police force, and also a bunch of robot ninjas." It took EFFORT to screw that premise up.
Emuc64
Robo 3 is still on my watch list. Never saw it when it came out because it was terribly reviewed and some blame went to it being PG-13.
pfshfine
The 90's Spawn movie. It *should* have been awesome. It wasn't.
Lun4ticH1gh
I truly believe that a well-made Spawn movie would have kept the comic relevant.
Slashenaar
This is a weird place to get political about this, but... hear me out.. *sigh*
Everyone is scared of losing their job so everyone clings to it and guards it. Which means it's hard to get a job unless you know someone.. So it's not a meritocracy.. there are studio execs making decisions who think it's a good idea to stuff 8 books of stuff into 95 minutes because they're lucky idiots. Even Spielberg wasn't a genius- he was a kid who snuck onto the lot.. and became a genius. Basically.. Ubi/unions
NordicMorrigan
How exciting! Here’s hoping this series gets an adaption worthy of it!
Northwindlowlander
TBH I enjoyed the movie, thought it was an interesting take at least, even though it's basically a failed attempt. But then I think the novels had just enough great moments and great ideas strung through them to make me wade through an ocean of crap, so I reckon it's absolutely ripe for a really brutal adaptation that ditches a lot of the Stephen King 9-5. In the end the movie wasn't that adaption but I really don't want to watch a loyal TV series of honk mafahs and loins and portentious 19s.
ps238principal
If you've read the series, then just about ANY story would be canon. "There are other worlds than these, Gunslinger," and all that.
IzzyB13337
Aww, I heard that in Frank Muller's voice. He did the narration for the first 4 books in the series.
InfocalypseRising
I mean okay but you know that’s not what fans are going to want to see when they hear there’s a dark tower movie
Evo435
I get the distinct feeling they will never have a book accurate Susannah in a movie or tv show.
InfocalypseRising
If you mean the part of her that’s Detta Walker that’s probably for the best tbh
ps238principal
Ehh, it depends. I read the books and while I overall enjoyed them, it does dip in quality from "Song of Susannah" onwards, and don't get me started on how King did Flagg dirty. But anyway, it's why I like the later short stories and comic books, since if they "contradict" the novels, it's just another part of the multiverse King established. But as others have stated, the movie tried too hard to backfill a ton of stuff, which was a mistake.
InfocalypseRising
Well we can agree that it goes off the rails a bit after the 4th book, no argument there
ImaAdultByAppearanceOnly
Yeah even though I love the first books I haven't been able to finish the series and I have tried two times
Sageypie
Almost like getting hit by a van and nearly dying changes your outlook on spending your life writing one long interweaving story.
*bam* "shit, better rush this so I get to finish this tale in my lifetime"
alcamar
I enjoyed the movie on this basis. Ignore the books but keeping the general concept was fun.
Unfortunately it was super rushed because even their version required so much world building to even get into the story. Great movie it was not, but it was entertaining in it's own right.
SunAnvil
I tried about a month ago to watch it again on its own merit and trying to ignore the fact I read the books. I got about half way through and bailed.
zekybomb
Seeing all the ways they invented for speed loading was really cool. Not just the speed loading clips, but the rolling it under the bandolier and pushing the shells in was just a cool scene
alcamar
Mid air reload was awesome. I really loved the field scene where he shot through the buildings to save Jake.
techymonkey
"I had no issues with the cast in the 2017 version" Really? Because the books very clearly had race as a huge part of the story between Roland and Susanna. Pretty sure she wouldn't have been calling a black Roland a "honky-ass motherfucker", but maybe that's just me.
Intabih4
You're right, it wasn't the cast, it is what they did to the story.
pfshfine
Omitting Eddie Dean was one of the biggest crimes in cinema history.
DJOldguy
Not a fan of Stephen King, and never read the book, but did like the 2017 movie, as I had nothing to compare it with. I find that movies rarely meet what the book does, and only 2 trilogies have ever surpassed the books, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. But that could have easily been fucked up, by someone else.
SeldonCrysis
Rereading The Wastelands
HumanCats
I enjoyed the film but I've not read the books.
dingoflickums
Man I read the first book and boyo King is suuuuuuper weird with his child characters. Couldn't read more.
vurcease
If we can wait as long as we did for book 4, we can wait for this to be done right. I'm glad to hear there's another go at it!
Grurim
Could always see if you could find a van to speed up the process again, eh? :D
vurcease
ProtagonistofReality
Needs to be turned into a seven-series TV show. Nothing less will do.
hsalonen3000
I liked the 2017 version. Not great, not terrible. I haven't read the books. And I usually like big budget action / scifi movies.
AllSystemsNominal
The thing I remember about the movie is the shootout where he speedloads his revolvers. That's about it.
MonsieurPoo
Six seasons and a movie!
moBIZmoJIZ
It should be a series - like the book. But they goddam have to finish the series - not get started, half way through, and drop it.
Dakemesh
This has always needed to be a five-season series.
mormonbatman
Mike Flanagan has reached Guillermo Del Toro levels of announcing projects that will probably never get made.
RadioactiveNerfDart
I had dinner at his house when a group I was with was trying to get Hollywood to give us some money for nothing. Nice guy; cooked the meal and cleaned up the mess too.
TheAdjuster
Never read the book or saw the movie but I'd imagine a TV series would be easier to do the material justice
Akistos
i honestly liked the *casting* of the movie- what little they did of it- but yeah, it was *not* the Dark Tower.
That said, i'm in the minority that absolutely hated the books.
NordicMorrigan
I hated all the super long flash backs… most didn’t add to the storyline imo.
ontarioOT
Elba and McConaughey were great choices.
The plot was as if someone read part of the books and then tried to remember them while high a decade later.
TyrannusEquus
If it's successful, then I suppose King will play himself, King as the author of the book the characters were living. Honestly that's one of the parts I did not like all that much. But I really like the whole "world that has moved on" setting.
Bi1chPudding
Dum-a-chum? Ded-a-chek? Did-a-chick?
Aimoss
Gives me goose bumps
Bi1chPudding
It really fucked me up when he lost his fingers
pfshfine
It always kinda irked me that the toe he also lost never came up again. Big toes matter.
Bi1chPudding
Right?! Ded-a-chek?
KaijuIsekai
That was the day I started training my left hand at night.
DidntChooseTheUwULife
I wonder if they'll include the scene where the paraplegic elderly black woman with multiple personalities "has sex" with an invisible demon?
pfunk81
Roland fucked the same demon. Probably not though, for the same reason they didn't include THAT SCENE from It.
pfshfine
She's not elderly, though? Like, late 20's.
ontarioOT
Probably not. But, technically, she's a double-amputee, not a paraplegic.
Alozar
I tried reading the series once and I think I stopped just a few chapters into the first when I read about the gunslinger sticking the barrel of his gun inside a woman to shoot he unborn baby. Too weird for me
tallyhoho
The movie broke my damn heart. Holding out tentative hope
Exdeath5000
Same, I just hope they stay true to the story, and don't inject any bullshit into it
pfshfine
If anyone can do it, it's Mike Flanagan. He's basically a superfan of the novels.
Exdeath5000
That's great to hear
MyRespectableAlterEgo
I trust Mike Flanagan.
pfshfine
I was extremely impressed with what he did with the Doctor Sleep movie. He managed to blend it as an adaptation of the book and a sequel to the film Kubrick messed up (in King's opinion). It was a nearly impossible line to walk, and he managed it. On top of that, he threw in several Dark Tower easter eggs.
MyRespectableAlterEgo
What sets him apart is that he really understands storytelling as being a craft that's separate from just combining plot and dialogue - that's how he's able to put together the nonlinear narratives that he does while keeping everything coherent. A lot of writers/directors don't grasp that, and I think a lot of people don't appreciate how fucking hard it is
Exdeath5000
The 2017 story was shit, but how could it be good when you try to pack 8 (most very large) intricate books into a 1.5 hour movie
BaWitda
I thought the basic idea (this is the loop /after/ the books, where he can change the story) was a good one, but the execution...
FussyZeus
I did still enjoy it tbh, but that's mostly cuz I would watch Idris Elba read a phone book for 90 minutes.
FlatPlutoSociety
Elba and McConaughey were good casting choices, but dear god, that script and direction.
logicaledc
The article mentions it, but dealing with Jake's age is pretty much impossible in a series. We all want good movies or series from our favorite books but I really don't think The Dark Tower can be done.
SuedeWilson
I saw the movie trailer back then and decided to read the books first. It took a few years (I'm not a big reader) I finally watched the movie. I was so excited....total dog shit.
InfocalypseRising
I didn’t see it because I could tell from the TRAILER that it wasn’t even close. Like, goddamn.
JustAnotherRandomCommenter
it wasn't *awful* from what i remember, it just should've been called something else, with a tagline of Inspired By Steven King's Dark Tower books...
Yakeshinu
Wasn't the film supposed to be a sequel to the books? I mean, Roland already HAD THE HORN in the film, and the Man in Black had all of the colors of the orbs, right? So it's just the next (and probably the final) time around.
Ebo352
Not sure which was the origin story book, but that one was soooo good and needs its own movie or 8 episode season of TV
BurntRamen
I was excited to see it when I saw previews in the theater (having never read the books but always hear people saying how much they love the books). Then after it came out I heard how much people hated the 2017 version. I never did see it.
neospor1n
The other option is packing a single short-ish book into 3 movies (looking at you Hobbit)
Whyyouhavenokindness
Lol, definitely some good moments in those, but I always chuckle thinking about how long a bunch of dwarves run around inside an escher painting somehow dodging an albeit impressive dragon that suddenly has crippling ADHD.
TheSecondPiewackit
As someone who didn't read the books, I had no problem with the movie. But I get it.
pfshfine
You have forgotten the face of your father.
meigea11
Give it the Reacher treatment: each book is one season.
PorneliusHubertII
You could try several 2.5 hr movies.
Ionico
Amazon prime's The Wheel of Time has entered the chat.
Exdeath5000
Oh no you had to bring that up. I've read the series 3 times and listened to it on Audible a couple times now. I stopped after season 1, I couldn't take it
Ionico
....yup same friend. And it had nothing to do with race or gender...... PORTALS IN SEASON ONE?! EXCUSE ME, PERRIN IS MARRIED?
damogen
I actually think Perrin being married makes sense.
In the books they spend an insane amount of time on explaining why Perrin is so careful to never hurt anyone accidentally, and it is a huge part of his personality. They simply cannot spent the time to do that properly in a tv show.
So give him a wife and have him kill her by accident. Boom, one scene, personality explained.
Whyyouhavenokindness
Ah hah! My people! I've read the books often and couldn't believe the butchering by the show runners. I'm not trying to be a purist, it just made no sense! They got rid of the most easily filmed plots and scenes and added stuff not even in the books... There wasn't even a need to go to Tar Valon in season 1! just throwing money away. Bringing in characters that for sure need to be recast by the time they become relevant to the story... Just an absolute hilariously overbudget clusterfudgery.
KaminoNeko
Precisely. The fact that Flannigan's doing a series (hopefully one, or at most two, books per season) is already a major improvement.
OmnibusLatinName
Oh, thank the gods. I was going to suggest that you'd need 15-20 episodes per book. Would animated do ya?
IApologizeInAdvanceImProbablyDrunk
Flanigan is one of my favorite directors, right now, and a series is almost always the best way to do a book adaptation. High Hopes!
Exdeath5000
Agreed
Exdeath5000
Did you read The Little Sisters of Eluria? Would be cool if they incorporated that into the movie
yuugian
You would have real trouble just getting the FIRST book in 1.5h. Even if you skipped Tull entirely. And you should never skip Tull
InfocalypseRising
(nods while chewing mouthful of devil-grass)
pfunk81
igglebotato
I think Roland might've preferred to skip Tull, TBH
Intabih4
Yeah. Tull would be quite the eye-opener for the audience.
dissonantcognition
Allie probably should have
Exdeath5000
yuugian
Iaimtomisbehave
"Death Gunslinger, but not for you."
yuugian
Dadachik? Dodachok?
Exdeath5000
I wonder if they will incorporate the Little Sisters of Eluria? Have you read it?
rabensaga
They tried with 3 movies for The Hobbit, and it damn well could've worked out pretty damn good if they didn't put in so, so much bloat. Let's just hope for the best with this one :)
astrangehop
So you're saying the best possible version of the gunslinger would be to have Ralph Bakshi rotoscope it? You're right.
makesense
I mean... you could spend a long time doing The Gunslinger. But I never felt you really had to. It's half the length of any of the other novels.
yuugian
Well; you have Tull, the farmer dude, the solo trek, the waystation, dual trek, foothills/summoning circle, cave, conversation, and i think the lobstrosities are in the first one and all the associated flashbacks. Tull could be an hour episode itself. Farmer, solo, and perhaps waystation for an episode. Second part of the waystation, dual trek, foothills, and summoning circle. I think you could draw out the cave for a full episode but perhaps not, take the circle and cave
yuugian
Then the grief, conversation and all the imagery, the beach and lobstrocities, and end on a view of the door. That's 5 good episodes right there. Maybe squeeze it into 3, maybe stretch it to 6. Not getting it in 1.5 hours though. not while doing it justice
makesense
Like I said. You could. I always felt it would be the hardest to adapt because it is very much more narrative driven than dialog driven. More has to be done to adapt it is all I'm saying.
InfocalypseRising
Lobstrosities don’t show up until Drawing of the Three