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Author: Subject: Ron Howard to Tackle Stephen King's Dark Tower Series
williamssl
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posted on 8-5-2015 at 11:40 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
I count on being dead by the time they get to books 5-7, so I'll just enjoy my extended spaghetti western and if what kills me is slow then I'll be all doped up for Wizard and Glass and enjoy it even more before I croak.





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posted on 8-5-2015 at 11:57 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Going by the aforementioned butchery of the Tolkienverse by the movies and the increasing dissatisfaction of GOT book fans as the HBO show moves farther and farther away from the source works, do you really want/need to have the DT epic be filmed? At least 90% of the adaptations of any Stephen King work gloriously suck no matter who acts in or directs them. I know my own imagination as a 12-year-old put together a better battle of Helm's Deep from just reading the book than the Two Towers movie did with inserting idiocies like Legolas "skateboarding" down a flight of stairs on a discarded orc shield. Like kindly old Professor Tolkien himself openly said when he was questioned about his opposition to any of his works being made into movies, sometime it's better that some things not be converted to film at all. Alan Moore is a kook and sometimes as arrogant as hell but he's not entirely wrong (going by the lacklustre results of Watchmen, V For Vendetta, or From Hell) when he tells Hollywood to keep the money and take his name off the product altogether when they contact him to tell him that they're going to be adapting one of his stories.

[Edited on 8/5/2015 by Paddlefoot]





You know, everyone says it's not supposed to make sense, like that's the whole point, dude. And I'm just saying, you know, that's like an excuse for lazy storytelling. Just don't sell me shite and tell me it's gold, all right? I might be stoned, but I'm not high. You know what I mean?
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posted on 8-6-2015 at 01:08 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
These guys for Roland or GTFO...



Some English dude will play this guy, no doubt...



And I sure as shit can't wait to see how our pussy culture gets this character watered down for the first three or so books. No, not Susannah. The other one. Fo' sho' gonna fuck dat up.







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posted on 9-21-2015 at 09:02 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
I just finished re-reading back to back to ......back all of the DT books (including 4.5 and Little Sisters). I had previously read all but #s 6 and 7 twice, most notably re-reading previous books prior to release of a new one back when there were loooong spells in between, but had done this. It took about 5 months...but I'm glad I did it to get one uninterrupted view of the story, which let me...knowing how things played out...pick up on things and foreshadowing that I didn't previously catch (the Horn getting mentions throughout...as example)

I knew 5-7 (and moreso 6 and 7) were so different from the previous ones, but this really made the contrast super loud, especially the Can-toi / taheen / portal shit.

Anyhow...my rankings, from favorite to least, FWIW

1) 4: Wizard and Glass
2) 2: Drawing of the 3
3) 3: Wastelands
4) 7: Dark Tower
5) 1: Gunslinger
6) 4.5 Wind in the Keyhole
7) 5 Wolves of the Calla
8) Song of Susannah





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posted on 12-15-2015 at 12:13 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
The 2017 first installment is looking more and more plausible. Some real traction with regard to casting, anyway:

http://nerdist.com/idris-elba-the-dark-tower-roland-deschain-stephen-king/

Idris Elba as Roland obviously goes counter to the character, as written and illustrated.... but just as with James Bond, there's no real reason why the character can't be black. Roland is a guy who has to ACT a certain way to hold the story together, how he looks is secondary.

McConaughey as Flagg/The Man in Black is interesting. My first ever take on Flagg (I read The Stand and Eyes of the Dragon before I did the Dark Tower and discovered the wider tie-ins) was that he was older and just plain mean and scary. But upon re-reading, and seeing the TV mini-series of The Stand, you realize that Flagg has to have that element of easy-going charm to make him truly evil. McConaughey could be perfect, and he's also reportedly in talks to play Flagg in a totally separate/iindependant adaptation of The Stand, too, which is doubly interesting.

Aaron Paul is openly campaigning for Eddie, too.



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williamssl
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posted on 12-15-2015 at 01:29 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
King's comments on the casting:

"To me, the color of the gunslinger doesn't matter. What I care about is how fast he can draw...and that he takes care of the ka-tet."





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posted on 12-15-2015 at 02:16 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Intellectual Savior and Queer FAIL. 'Splain me the extremely important Detta/Odetta vs. Honkey Muhfucka Gunslinger dynamic now, geniuseses.





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posted on 12-17-2015 at 06:45 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Not sure if you meant that as a genuine challenge, or just a snarky one-liner, janerd.... if the latter, you got me. I loves me some sass-mouthed ebony quickdraw honey.

But if it's the former, it's really not a big deal. You could fix it two ways. One: just not even go there, because nobody likes racism, not even ironic reverse-racism, anymore. Or two: just replace every instance of "honkey mofo" with "uncle tom mofo." Fixed.



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posted on 12-17-2015 at 08:27 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
The first sentence was sassmouth directed to your hither and Tex's yon. The second was more seriouslike. While I kinda think the latter Dark Tower books shit the bed post-accident, the first three are absolute gold. I'm all for a pure, unadulterated book-to-screen rendering with little to no alterations of the material, because they don't need to be changed. Perhaps not the wisest move and even perhapsier you can see it reflected in some of my posts, but I learned, for better or worse*, how to write from Stephen King. So, he and I have been on quite the long walk together.

Anywho, I read "It" at twelve (yeah, that might could have been a bad idea) and "The Gunslinger" not much long after. Now, betwixt those two, with the extremely graphic description of a psychic clown sewer monster tearing a little boy's arm from his socket, Patrick Hockstetter fellating Henry Bowers, a bunch of tweens running a train on their willing female friend to thwart evil in "It" and young Jake Chambers letting himself fall to his death to the Slow Mutants and then the eventual meeting of Detta Walker/Odetta Holmes with Roland in 1964 in the Dark Tower series (yes that 1964) all with the very liberal (#IronyLL) use of the word "nigger" peppered throughout both works, amongst other extremely colorful slurs and swears, I personally think any alterations dim the bold storytelling and important themes discussed, especially when it comes to racism and particularly how it applies in Year of Our Lord 2015. Elba, as brilliant as he is, is simply not the right fit for a character molded directly from the attitude and appearance of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name characters.

I agree, nobody likes racism except for maybe Trump and the #BLM clown show (Say WHAAAA!), but editing a magnum opus that has millions...(sing it with me here)...aaaaand millions! of fans around the world that can handle the themes contained therein and eagerly look forward to it being put to film, I don't see the value in altering it for the pusstastically useless PC brigade or watering it down because the world has moved on, if you wheel. Duthtay/Ka combo, baybeh. Look at me. Look at me. I am The Rick now.



http://stephenking.wikia.com/wiki/Odetta_Holmes

http://stephenking.wikia.com/wiki/Detta_Walker

Also, and this bears mentioning due to its importancery in the development of janerd, but do you know who my favoritist writer/blogger is that I've been r̶e̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ following since 1997? Do you, uh, ever make it down South Florida way?



*Okay worse you cockadoodie dirty birds.





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posted on 12-17-2015 at 08:54 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by janerd75
Perhaps not the wisest move and even perhapsier you can see it reflected in some of my posts, but I learned, for better or worse*, how to write from Stephen King. So, he and I have been on quite the long walk together.


I see what you did there.

quote:
Anywho, I read "It" at twelve (yeah, that might could have been a bad idea) and "The Gunslinger" not much long after.


My first King book was also at age 12, but was Pet Sematary instead. Compared to the depravity in It, I think I made out better and am kinda glad I didn't read that one until I was a bit older. As for the Dark Tower books, I somehow never got around to reading any of the series, despite collecting them all, until well after book VI came out.

quote:
Now, betwixt those two, with the extremely graphic description of a psychic clown sewer monster tearing a little boy's arm from his socket, Patrick Hockstetter fellating Henry Bowers, a bunch of tweens running a train on their willing female friend to thwart evil in "It" and young Jake Chambers letting himself fall to his death to the Slow Mutants and then the eventual meeting of Detta Walker/Odetta Holmes with Roland in 1964 in the Dark Tower series (yes that 1964) all with the very liberal (#IronyLL) use of the word "nigger" peppered throughout both works, amongst other extremely colorful slurs and swears, I personally think any alterations dim the bold storytelling and important themes discussed, especially when it comes to racism and particularly how it applies in Year of Our Lord 2015. Elba, as brilliant as he is, is simply not the right fit for a character molded directly from the attitude and appearance of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name characters.

I agree, nobody likes racism except for maybe Trump and the #BLM clown show (Say WHAAAA!), but editing a magnum opus that has millions...(sing it with me here)...aaaaand millions! of fans around the world that can handle the themes contained therein and eagerly look forward to it being put to film, I don't see the value in altering it for the pusstastically useless PC brigade or watering it down because the world has moved on, if you wheel.


I agree to a large extent that the racism doesn't have to be left out just to satisfy PC Principal. I could, I guess, live with it not playing as major a role in the story in film as it did in print if it means I'd get to see it finally get on screen. Honestly though, I've seen so many of his stories over the years get badly hacked up when they make it to film, I'm kind of used to it now anyway. Of course with King's typical content they pretty much have no choice but to hack stuff out because you simply can't allow on-screen "a bunch of tweens running a train on their willing female friend to thwart evil" as you so eloquently put it.





Screw you guys, I'm going home.

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posted on 12-17-2015 at 10:26 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Yeah, It and the Stand (probably my second King read, IIRC) have some gruesome shit and extremely twisted situations that happen in the book that really only could maybe, possibly, kinda make it on a channel like HBO or, like, some bootleg Eastern European version filmed somewhere in Serbia with real kids. But then again, the movie "Kids" was A Thing at one point. So yeah, those books are tricky. The Gunslinger's first few books, not so much, especially when it's only racism and not kid fucking or weird rape scenes. Yeah, yeah, I know OOutrage Brigade, "only racism".

I guess the thing about the possible casting of Elba that bums me out so much is that they don't really need to do it. Play it as it lies, y'know? The Dark Tower books don't really get all that complicated until "Wizard and Glass" and beyond. In fact, the first three, "The Gunslinger", The Drawing of The Three", and "The Waste Lands" are somewhat simple western/sci-fi/fantasy adventure stories. But again, a critical element, especially with TDoTT and TWL is Odetta/Detta's inner Struggle� over some of the racism she faced that literally and figuratively broke her brain, contrasted with how she interacted with the very stoic and very white Roland. Perhaps all that would get dumped into Eddie's lap if that casting goes through. Much respect to the bOOssman, but I don't think you can uproot that tree by changing out "honkey mahfah" to a more fitting to Elba's potential "Uncle Tom mahfah", without losing a ton of important subtext branches for her eventual transformation into Sussannah. That cat won't stalk, Đức �ng





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posted on 12-17-2015 at 11:10 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
You guys have pretty much accurately isolated why literature and (sometimes) comic books will always be the best avenue for certain kinds of disturbing scenes. There's things that movies and TV simply won't be able to touch because of the shit-storm it would set off unless, like Da Nerd just said, it's some kind of vile snuff film coming out of Serbia or Brazil. Check out what Alan Moore's been up to for Avatar Comics with things like Neonomicon and Providence because he's upped the insanity in his stroll through the nightmare landscape of HP Lovecraft. There was one scene in the last issue of Providence that made me start worrying that someone was going to call the child abuse hotline on him and artist Jacen Burrows for what they'd just put into print. This was the kind of thing that got a few comic book stores boycotted by evangelicals, investigated by the cops, and run out of business back in the 1980's.





You know, everyone says it's not supposed to make sense, like that's the whole point, dude. And I'm just saying, you know, that's like an excuse for lazy storytelling. Just don't sell me shite and tell me it's gold, all right? I might be stoned, but I'm not high. You know what I mean?
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posted on 4-15-2016 at 01:47 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Jackie Earle Haley cast as Sayre


I like this...but between this and the earlier announcement of Abbey Lee (Mad Max: Fury Road) as Tirana....I've got to wonder how this film adaptation is going to play out.

Tirana first and only showed up in Book 7 in a significant-yet-minor role.

Sayre played major role in books 5-7.

Either they're locking up cast members for the future (could apply to either), they're accelerating appearances and elements of existing storylines (maybe makes sense on Sayre), or they're majorly changing roles and/or storlyline (could apply to both but much moreso Tirana).





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posted on 5-3-2017 at 06:31 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
No thank you.







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posted on 5-4-2017 at 03:10 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
The hell is up with Mcconaughey's accent?
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posted on 5-4-2017 at 03:43 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by janerd75
No thank you.






Yeah...kinda left me with a 'meh' vibe myself. I will absolutely see it because it's the Dark frickin' Tower finally brought to screen, but I do not come away from watching that trailer with a 'OMG this is gonna be awesome!!11!!!!" vibe.


And Matthew McConaughey is just doing a Lincoln commercial without the car.





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posted on 5-4-2017 at 04:47 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by First 9
The hell is up with Mcconaughey's accent?


Yew don't liiike that there drawl a' hiz? Be a lot keuler if you diiiid.

quote:
Originally posted by williamssl
quote:
Originally posted by janerd75
No thank you.




Yeah...kinda left me with a 'meh' vibe myself. I will absolutely see it because it's the Dark frickin' Tower finally brought to screen, but I do not come away from watching that trailer with a 'OMG this is gonna be awesome!!11!!!!" vibe.

And Matthew McConaughey is just doing a Lincoln commercial without the car.


To your last point first, while I blanked on those commercials, your comment brought them back to the forefront of my mind. Thank and damn ye both. Now if I see this abomination I'll wonder if Walter is more concerned with moving inventory for Crimson King Auto Sales.

As to the 'meh'? Yup, in spades with a side o' spite. It's The Dark Tower processed though the Underworld Films filter by way of studio committee. Despite his approval of the project (re:moneybucks), this wouldn't even look like a King adaptation if his name weren't on it and the title of the film didn't coincide with his most magnum of opuses. If only the swirling dicks brewing up this maelstrom of mediocrity could have waited a fucking second for the Netflix/Amazon/FX Way to unfold. I care not that this is technically a sequel to the novels. A two-hour film is not the place to tell this story. I'm sure early Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson would confirm this theory.

And to get to the main figure in the woodpile, Idris Elba while dark of skin and long of talent, IS NOT THE RIGHT ACTOR TO PLAY ROLAND. I loves me some Gary Oldman, but I don't want to see him as Frank Castle. I loves me some Andre Braugher, but I don't want to see him as Shaft. I loves me some batshit, cargo-cult, life-ruining Scientology member berry Tom Cruise, but I don't want to see him as Jack Reacher. The casting for this film is all kinds of fucked. If anything, you could almost reverse the roles of Roland and The Man In Black for this film and it'd be pretty great casting. The MIB has always changed forms and has been established as a dynamic inter-dimensional presence across many King books. The Gunslinger, however, is white-toast static and unchanging. So somehow (spoiler alert to aboot 2 people) in the books he picks up the Horn of Eld when he does the journey all over agayn it adds an overdose of magic melanin? But Jake remains unchanged? Get fucked Akiva Goldsman.

Now, you have to excuse me as I've got an Alt-Right rally to attend and there are some Antifa hippies whut need roughhoused and some Ethnics to subjugate , but suffice it to say these are the fellows the Gunslinger was based on and should have been kept in mind for the casting of this film. This ain't Larry Fishburne as Perry White. His coloration is not essential to the character or story. If you've read the books, you know why Roland's blue-eyed whiteosity IS. And no, just shunting those duties off to Eddie when Odetta/Susannah's time to shine (hehheh) comes doesn't work either. Roland's entire person is essential to uniting the Ka-Tet and the conflict betwixt him and Odetta was crucial because of his honkiness relative to her lack thereof.







Bulk of the series, Dude. And yet this adaptation was made by dunces.



Apologies for Autistic Racist White Power Hour Rantings, but The Dark Tower was critical to Young Janerd.

[Edited on 5-4-2017 by janerd75]





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posted on 5-4-2017 at 05:07 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
And here I thought Game of Thrones purists were excessively whackadoodle about changes and deviations from the books.





You know, everyone says it's not supposed to make sense, like that's the whole point, dude. And I'm just saying, you know, that's like an excuse for lazy storytelling. Just don't sell me shite and tell me it's gold, all right? I might be stoned, but I'm not high. You know what I mean?
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posted on 5-4-2017 at 05:45 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Paddlefoot
And here I thought Game of Thrones purists were excessively whackadoodle about changes and deviations from the books.


Hollywood cunts need 2 lern 2 reed.





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posted on 5-4-2017 at 06:07 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
I don't disagree with that issue. This day and age though we should get used to the reality that the canon in books and comics isn't going to perfectly match what appears on TV or film. Especially not with an epic like Dark Tower (or GOT or LOTR or X-Men or Justice League or......) because they're all just too huge and sweeping for an exact conversion to screen. At this stage at Marvel or DC, as examples, they're not really even bothering any more to keep the continuity intact because time and the success of the movie franchises have permanently altered what was created from the early sixties through to the launch of the cinematic universe.

As for Dark Tower it's in a difficult economic and political position. For one they're probably not going to be able to get someone like McConaughey for seven or eight movies in the same character. And there was probably no way in hell that in today's climate they could have avoided diversity casting to meet the expectations of those who are basically demanding that every bit of fiction on screen now match their socio-political agenda. These are the times we live in now and there's no chance anymore of them sticking with the original source material.

Between Ron Howard and two premiere actors like McConaughey and Elba there is reason to hope that what they're made will work out and be good. It might be something that needs to be judges on it's own merit alone. The last time I read LOTR, for example, several years ago I didn't think much at all about the Jackson movies. It was the same thing I always visualized in my mind from when I first read the works, not the bloated oversized things that were completely lacking in any sense of proper scale that appeared on the movie screen.





You know, everyone says it's not supposed to make sense, like that's the whole point, dude. And I'm just saying, you know, that's like an excuse for lazy storytelling. Just don't sell me shite and tell me it's gold, all right? I might be stoned, but I'm not high. You know what I mean?
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posted on 8-3-2017 at 06:23 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
It releases Friday. The reviews are coming in. The best I've seen is 6/10 with average seeming to be around a 4.5. I did not know the movie was only 95 minutes.

Honestly not sure if I'll see it on theaters or wait for home release. I don't want to drag my family to it and risk them coming away thinking that this massive set of books that I've read at least 2x and the first 4 4x is a bucket of suck.





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posted on 8-3-2017 at 11:45 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
I think I'm in the same boat you are. The series of books are my favorite. I've read Wizard and Glass (especially the middle Susan part) more than any other book, and...I don't know. They're apparently moving forward with the TV series with only Roland and Jake set to be in that too, flashing back and forth to Roland's time with his original ka-tet. The main review I keep reading is "had promise, but wasn't executed right" which I feel is 99% of Stephen King adaptations. It's my favorite book series and they seemingly have fucked it up, which is literally what they do to every book series that isn't Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Le sigh.
The only hope now is that it's such a disaster that they scrap it and then some smaller production team that TRULY wants to make the series based on the books can. I think it works best as a 10-episode multi-season netflix or hulu type show. You don't need ungodly visual effects. I think the best thing I saw was on twitter where someone posted the original artwork from The Gunslinger by Michael Whelan and was just like "if the movie had just those pictures alone, it would have been worth it..." oh well.

How about that Stranger Things 2?!?!

"Bird and bear and hare and fish..." At least IT doesn't seem to look shitty.

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posted on 8-4-2017 at 01:15 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
I was a big fan of the Dark Tower books as well (though I like the first four books better than the last three; once Stephen King himself became part of the story, I kind of checked out), so it's a shame the movie is getting average reviews. Though to be honest, from the trailers, I wasn't exactly super-hyped for it.

And it's too bad, because I always kind of envisioned that they could have gone "Lord of the Rings" big with a film adaptation of The Dark Tower, but instead we apparently have gotten a movie that barely cracks 90 minutes.

On a sidenote, It is looking really good, so I'm much more excited for that than I've been for The Dark Tower these last few months.





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posted on 8-4-2017 at 03:05 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
I caught this tonight, and while I enjoyed it I can see how and why many are calling it a failed adaptation (although some critics are saying it is one of the better Stephen King movies, which outside of a handful of adaptations are fairly bad, to meh...).

As far as being faithful to the Dark Tower series I'll put it like this; I read the first three books a little over 20 years ago (this was well before King got hit by that van and then got around to finishing the series); I have them all and will get around to reading them eventually, but it would be a lot like me having written a screenplay of the movie based on 20 year old memories, and incomplete work, and a handful of scenes that I maybe heard from a friend... blend it into a far too short hour and half run time and you've got an interesting and at times good movie, but think Ralph Bashki's Lord of the Rings being the definite version in lieu of Peter Jackson's saga.... Some good ideas, but a movie that for whatever reason wasn't prepared to take it's time with some ideas and development... Now maybe this is because the planning and concept of the Dark Tower went from a series of movies, to a TV series with a jump on movie, to something distilled down into a single idea (if the tower falls, bad stuff will happen) that probably works as far as an entertaining way to kill an hour and half, but not as something fans of the series were likely looking forward to.

Idris Elba, and the kid who plays Jake both do a nice job; McConaughey does an okay job... certainly brooding enough, but he kind of falls between I'm a bad guy cause I'm a bad guy, and something overly omnipotent... most of my encounters/memories with Flagg/The man in black come more from The Eye's of the Dragon and the Stand where there was something devilishly charming about him... Jamey Sheridan from the Stand mini-series in the 90's for example really nailed him... the kind of guy who's all smiles, but who could turn on a dime...

I also think they missed the boat on exploring mid-world a bit more... there's a few clues in the background and as they pass through a town, but you get a bit of a disconnect when they have no idea what an amusement park was, but have this portal hoping technology laying around. I think they could have had a lot more fun with the old world tech. The mythology of the series is also under developed... we're told Gunslingers are important, but outside of a throwaway line that Roland's guns are made from Excalibur we don't get any real connection to any bigger ideas... there's definitely hints and outright spots of magic, but those are often overtaken by fancy tech here and there that makes for a weird combination... I'm not comparing this movie to Highlander 2 as this is far better, but remember how you had this wonderful mythology in the first movie only for a bunch of futuristic alien crap to be shoehorned over top of it in the second... same kind of vibe, just nowhere near as bad.

There's some nice action scenes in the movie, and the special effects are well done... certainly a sense of style to the movie that if you've seen the trailer you probably have an idea of already... just again; a real missed opportunity on letting the characters and story breathe a bit. I'd say in closing it's worth watching, but I think if you are a big fan of the books it will probably be hard to watch unless you can say hey, this is just one person's idea of the books, but it's not THE BOOKS... if you haven't read them yet then you will probably enjoy it enough as a kind of Sci-Fi movie that might then make you want to go out and buy the books.

Just as a last word about this; for fans of the books I'd recommend the Marvel Comics Dark Tower series of graphic novels; they all kind of stand alone on their own and fill in a lot about Roland's early years that was (to my understanding) more hinted at then told in the novels themselves. They were done under King's direct supervision, and written by King's assistant (Robin Firth I think is her name) and Peter David. The art is done by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove, and is just gorgeous (Lee has a very distinct style, and Isanove takes that and almost turns every page into a painting). I'd be more interested to go back and re-read them after I get around to reading the books in full as I'm sure some of the big stuff that happens in these comics would be a bit more profound and meaningful when put into context, but even without it they were nice fantasy fare.

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