Stephen King's The Dark Tower

beans

I'd love to see a massive, sprawling straight-up adaptation that includes all the madder parts of the story such as

Shardak, Blaine, Tick-Tock Man, Dandelo, Stephen King playing himself, lobstrocities

etc. This done as an animated series would be amazing, either. I really don't think that'd ever get made, though.

I like what they're trying with this film, a continuation rather than an adaptation. Expectations are low, so I think I'm really going to enjoy this.

faceman

2 reviews of the movie are up on AICN and it gets slated. Reviews contain spoilers so won't link directly.

kerplun k

I cant say I'm shocked. The reviews are a shame, but It was to be expected. When it came to the reviews I think it was always a case of "How bad".

TBF, It was doomed since the cast was announced. As with the likes of BvS, The Lone Ranger, World War Z, before it, The critics made up their minds a long time ago, before they seen the actual film.

Irish release is still two weeks away and I absolutely still plan on going to see it. I still hope its a financial success and spawns sequels/TV series.

Cynics will say its another example of Hollywood big wigs attempting to cash in on a beloved story, ignoring the source material for profit, but I can tel you that this wasn't. The people who made it, cared very much. A lot of thought, planning and effort went into TDT. The makers made this with love and tried their absolute best to it justice. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't, but it's through no lack to effort. In any case, I plan on making my own mind up in two weeks.

In a time of remakes, reboots and sequels, my hats go off to the producers for at least, trying something a little different. I hope the gamble pays off.

Harry Palmr

95 minutes long must tell us a lot - far too short in this day and age (and for the source material) sounds like a huge amount got filleted or even filmed and binned in an attempt to rescue it.

faceman

kerplun k wrote: »

Cynics will say its another example of Hollywood big wigs attempting to cash in on a beloved story, ignoring the source material for profit, but I can tel you that this wasn't. The people who made it, cared very much. A lot of thought, planning and effort went into TDT. The makers made this with love and tried their absolute best to it justice. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't, but it's through no lack to effort.

Perhaps they needed to care a bit more.

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Avatar MIA

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Will watch it, but it wont be at the cinema. Based on reviews (likely project loss) it's likely to be a stand alone movie. Maybe not a bad thing.

kerplun k

Harry Palmr wrote: »

95 minutes long must tell us a lot - far too short in this day and age (and for the source material) sounds like a huge amount got filleted or even filmed and binned in an attempt to rescue it.

The first book was short. This film was supposed to serve as an entry point. An introduction to the worlds and characters. If you try cram everything into one movie, people would also have complained.

Dunkirk was only 106 minutes long, which IMO, has been the best film this year.
Also, I don't hear anyone complaining about the highly anticipated Thor: Ragnarok, which is said to be close to the 100-minute mark.

kerplun k

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J. J. Abrams. the man who resurrected Star wars and Star Trek bought the rights to this and decided he couldn't do it. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof couldn't do it. They described it as too ambitious and frightening.

For better or worse, this is it. I haven't seen the film yet, but maybe Abrams was right, and it should never have been adapted onto screen, but we'll see.

At least these guys done something Abrams didn't and tried.

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GhostyMcGhost

kerplun k wrote: »

J. J. Abrams. the man who resurrected Star wars and Star Trek bought the rights to this and decided he couldn't do it. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof couldn't do it. They described it as too ambitious and frightening.

For better or worse, this is it. I haven't seen the film yet, but maybe Abrams was right, and it should never have been adapted onto screen, but we'll see.

At least these guys done something Abrams didn't and tried.

Same things were said about lord of the rings. They all said Peter Jackson was crazy to attempt it....

Agent Coulson

95 minutes seems about right to me for The Gunslinger.

I'm more surprised they didn't try to make a 3 hour film out of it and fill it full of crap but it seems they did that in 95 minutes by the reviews anyway.

kerplun k

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Apologies, I didn't mean to say its all BS, but to casually write this off before its released, and hope for a better remake in 25 years is a bit ridiculous.

This is it. we wont see another version of TDT in our lifetime, which as one poster has said... maybe not a bad thing.... I don't know. I'll make up my mind when I see it.

Mickeroo

Agent Coulson wrote: »

95 minutes seems about right to me for The Gunslinger.

I'm more surprised they didn't try to make a 3 hour film out of it and fill it full of crap but it seems they did that in 95 minutes by the reviews anyway.

Didn't look like this was an adaptation of The Gunslinger from the trailer I saw.

kerplun k

GhostyMcGhost wrote: »

Same things were said about lord of the rings. They all said Peter Jackson was crazy to attempt it....

That's true,
I don't know if you remember this, but there was a LOTR animated film, which Peter Jackson basically used as a blueprint for his own movies. At first he denied it, but if you watch it, you can see clear as day it had a massive influence on Jackson's movies and I genuinely believe, without the animated film, Jackon's LOTR wouldn't have turned out as well as it did. The film had lots going for it, and in fairness he pulled it off.

IMO, the dark tower was/is a harder adaptation than LOTR.

Mr E

Mickeroo wrote: »

Didn't look like this was an adaptation of The Gunslinger from the trailer I saw.

In the overall timeline, this movie takes place

after the book series

.

kerplun k

Mickeroo wrote: »

Didn't look like this was an adaptation of The Gunslinger from the trailer I saw.

I think the idea was to adapt The Gunslinger, and borrow Jake's early arc from The Waste Lands, which make total sense,

Remember, Jake dies in the first book and is reintroduced in The Waste Lands. this is a good way of merging the two plots and streamlining the story

This is what I got from the trailers anyway.

Of the ones I've read they seem to all mention the drawing of things from Kings other works like The Stand , Salems Lot etc. That was a massive aspect to the books and for the most part worked really, really well imo but sounds like they've crammed too much of it into this ???

faceman

Another review, this one from The Verge. Paints a grim picture. A messy one at that. Spoiler free.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/3/16088532/dark-tower-movie-review-adaptation-stephen-king-idris-elba

Avatar MIA

Mr E wrote: »

In the overall timeline, this movie takes place

after the book series

.

Shouldn't it be practically

the same thing, albeit with an ultimate different ending because he has the horn (almost obligatory CARRY ON reference considered and rejected)

and if not, calling it

TDT

is bogus.

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faceman

faceman wrote: »

Another review, this one from The Verge. Paints a grim picture. A messy one at that. Spoiler free.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/3/16088532/dark-tower-movie-review-adaptation-stephen-king-idris-elba

Even if I wasn't familiar with the source the other problems mentioned there would send me running for the hills and not a cinema seat.

L'prof

Mr E wrote: »

In the overall timeline, this movie takes place

after the book series

.

Not sure it warranted spoiler tags, but since you did I'll do the same. I'm on the last book at the moment. Should I finish that before the movie comes out? Maybe the prequel too?

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Dial Hard

faceman wrote:

Another review, this one from The Verge. Paints a grim picture. A messy one at that. Spoiler free.

I think that's the final nail in the coffin for any remaining thought of going to see this I may have been harbouring.

kerplun k

Dial Hard wrote: »

I think that's the final nail in the coffin for any remaining thought of going to see this I may have been harbouring.

Not all bad, The below review from variety is spoiler free, and has lots of positive things to say about it.

http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/the-dark-tower-review-idris-elba-matthew-mcconaughey-1202512401/

Snake Plisken

Chris Stuckmann's review Classes it as just alright

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOYLBoXdqlo

Avatar MIA

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Chris Stuckmann's review Classes it as just alright

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOYLBoXdqlo

So there's a mix of different books in it :rolleyes:... Not even particularly enthused about watching online now.

L'prof

Going by the reviews they seem to have made a right mess of this. If this was another movie I wouldn't be giving it the time of day!

Dial Hard

Buzzfeed have absolutely slated it too - https://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/the-dark-tower-review-for-book-fans?utm_term=.mjV7qZqr2#.lcBOkJkGD

(Warning: this review is dark and full of spoilers.)