Dark Tower

What the fuck

I just got back from this and I'm kinda mad

There's a ton of cool ideas and shit in here, but none of it ever gets explored. Roland and the Man In Black are both really cool characters, but we never get to see them being cool beyond a couple moments (Man In Black doing his Kilgrave/Purple Man shtick and Roland shooting fucking everything in the final battle). Beyond that all we see is a bunch of expositionary shit and a couple really awesome looking vistas in the beginning, but like 70% of the movie has to do with this fucking kid who I just couldn't give less of a fuck about.

People keep saying "Oh the books are so much better" and "This shit is nothing like the books" but is it really? Do they explore any of the concepts involved in the movie?

And if so, how did they fuck up THIS badly with This kind of source material?

Is Roland basically a magical negro?

The book was horrible imho. King cant write for shit.

In that he's literally a negro with magic guns, yeah.

I dunno, I quite enjoyed reading Carrie (and the movie didn't do the book justice but is an outstandingly weird piece in it's own right).

Stephen KANG everybody

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>People keep saying "Oh the books are so much better" and "This shit is nothing like the books" but is it really? Do they explore any of the concepts involved in the movie?

yes yes and yes

>And if so, how did they fuck up THIS badly with This kind of source material?

brain drain from hollywood to tv

Fuck, I guess I should take a look at them then

Damn, I think nobody was expecting a RT score like that.
I was of course suspicious about it being so short and apparently not starting from the beginning, but I still thought it was gonna be a 60% at least.

I guessed in the 40's myself.

>vistas

as someone who didn't read the book did you feel roland is the main character, or just some guy jake met along the way?

honestly the only things that related to the books felt more like small little nods hidden as easter eggs or throw away lines/bad jokes that probably confused people who didn't read the books.

i haven't read all the books but the whole thing about using kids to destroy the tower i don't recall ever happening.

Didn't see the movie but they use telepaths as beam breakers in the books. break the beams you break the tower

Roland is absolutely the main character. Jake fucking dies at the end of the first book. Jake doesn't come back until the end if the second book.

It's Sony.
What do you expect?

This pleases me. I hope they fucking cancel this franchise and reboot it with a tv series with hbo or something like that.

But then again, If this succeeds financially, well fuck, they're gonna keep shitting these movies like the dan brown adaptations, which Akiva "the hack" Goldsman also wrote.

The Gunslinger is way better. The rest of the books are just as disappointing as the movie in exactly the same way.

>Jake fucking dies at the end of the first book.
In fact, Roland kills him.

Just saw it. It was fairly meh, but Idris Elba was fun to watch. Can't wait to reread the series now, it was one of my favorites as a kid.

I ever read the book. Does he do all that retard gun shit in the book?

So this movie must of had a conservative message or should something realistically for the (((critics))) to not like it.

I don't remember the action parts of the books very clearly. In fact, they were often the weakest parts.

>There will never be a 3-hour movie adaptation of The Talisman made with the same love that was given to the LOTR films.
That book was better than the entirety of the Dark Tower series. And this is coming from someone who liked the series.

>19%
It's like poetry.

they should have NEVER made Dark Tower into a film

Books 1 to 4 are fantastic. Great atmosphere and setting. Roland's level of the Tower is essentially so far in the future that reality is collapsing in on itself, and King really nails the feeling of a dying world. That's not a spoiler btw, Roland runs into nuclear-powered water well pumps and shit in book 1 that are so old, they barely work anymore. I suggest reading books 1 to 4 if you haven't already. 5 is readable, but not in the same class, then 6 and 7 are pretty bad. There are moments of greatness in the last two (Castle Discordia, Eddie's fate), but they don't satisfactorily wrap up the series, in my opinion.

Is Pennywise one of the demons from outside the universe? What about the monsters from The Mist?

it can only work as a TV series, King's just too complicated and dense and boring for Hollywood-tier distillation

He doesn't do acrobatic shots and shit, he's so fast in the books that he ends most fights before they really begin by just pulling leather at the speed of light and blowing the fuckers away.

which one had charlie the choo choo train and shit? that one was my favorite

There is actually a monster heavily hinted to be part of IT's species in the last book, albeit a weaker version.

First four books are god tier. The last three are rushed shit with harry potter, and doctor doom referenced because King had a bout of "muh mortality" and wrote them to quick.

JUST

Book 3.

Blaine is a pain.

I felt like Roland was the main character in a much better movie. As it stood here all he was was a reluctant guide, with Jake being the main character.

WE WUZ ROLAND

>but they don't satisfactorily wrap up the series, in my opinion.

That's probably because King felt the necessity to end the series and rushed it out after he had that car accident. I still like the ending, but I believe the set up to it wasn't good.

the first 4 books are great, after that everything kinda goes to shit.

blaine was my fuckin nigga, I was all about the evil train and Roland finally getting the stick out of his ass over Eddie

>not WE WAS DESCHAINS N SHIEEET
You've forgotten the face of your father.

Who wins in a Mexican standoff? Saint of Killers or Magic Negro?

Saint of Killers is indestructible and killed literally every angel in heaven, and then even killed god.

But can a white character beat a black one in a Hollywood movie?

I'm interested now, since post-apoc shit was my jam for a good long while and it'd be nice to get back into it.

Always thought the apocalypse would be a good revival point for Westerns anyhow. New Frontiers and all that.

>People keep saying "Oh the books are so much better" and "This shit is nothing like the books" but is it really?
There are eight books, you can't possibly pack all of that content into a 90 min movie

have you read The Stand? I'd rec. that over the Dark Tower series

>not reading all of King's best works

Also see

>not realizing it is the will of Ka and Kek that is has a 19% score

SoK is celestial/divinly powers

Roland just has guns made out of a melted down Excalibur knockoff and some pseudo jedi like mind powers

>but none of it ever gets explored.
That's because it's saved for future movies ya fuck
>i haven't read all the books but the whole thing about using kids to destroy the tower i don't recall ever happening.
I believe it's in Book 6. They are The Breakers, and in the book it's any telepaths, not just children.
>5 is readable, but not in the same class, then 6 and 7 are pretty bad.
Christ am I the only one who liked them all? They were all great and the ending is fitting.

>They were all great and the ending is fitting.
the Coda that King urges us not to read is great and fitting. The rest of the ending is an abomination.

Why?

>Crimson King: FUCKING GUNSLINGER GET OUT REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

So?

You're only saying that because you didn't read Harry Potter at 11 or 12

Stop breathing.

spider king man who's played up as the most evil and powerful entity in all of creation is literally just an old man in a crimson cloak throwing explosive snitches

yes snitches as in those tiny flying golden balls from Harry Potter

So?

One dumb thing ruins a whole book?

>one thing

he was literally the final boss, the main orchestrator of everything that's ever happened in most of King's books, the man who makes Randal Flagg/the Man in Black his bitch

he was built up as a half spider demigod spawn who is the son of King Arthur and a literal spider monster queen from another dimension who commands legions of humans, rat people, mutants and untold numbers of lovecraftian and demonic abominations

and his last stand is him literally locking himself out of the Tower on a balcony and just chucking Harry Potter knockoff artifacts at Roland

>he was literally the final boss
Not really. Roland was his own final boss

>8 books of material in 88 minutes

Who could have seen this happening?

You're beyond all hope.

>You're only saying that because you didn't read Harry Potter at 11 or 12
'No!'

There are more dumb things than that in the book by a lot, the Crimson King is just the epitome of all the series' problems. If you can't understand that there's no point exhaustively listing the many, many other bits of appalling writing.

>The Crimson King is exactly what he's built up to be
>In His unimaginable power, He sought to scale the Dark Tower and claim it for His own
>But the Tower is so far beyond even His comprehension that he became trapped on one of the lower floors, tortured by infinite vistas of reality and driven mad
>Unable to raise above or return below, utterly insane, the Crimson King's only recourse is to escape to the peace of oblivion by destroying the Tower itself

Is this a better version, Towerfags?

If you can't explain it, it's probably not true

Nice try though

>and his last stand is him literally locking himself out of the Tower on a balcony and just chucking Harry Potter knockoff artifacts at Roland
What possessed him to bring a crate of those up with him to the Tower anyway?

to be fair the eight books didn't have eight books of material either

>Is Roland basically a magical negro?

That's not even what the trope means, buddy. You should probably Google it.

This was SoK's response to getting nuked, so I'll give the win to him.

Post spoilers. I read the books. Does Flagg give Roland the Tarot card reading like he does at the end of the gunslinger? Are there lobrstosities in the movie? Are Eddie and Sussana in the movie?

>Does Flagg give Roland the Tarot card reading like he does at the end of the gunslinger?
No. None of that shit is in the movie. The first book is pretty much rewritten.
>Are there lobrstosities in the movie? Are Eddie and Sussana in the movie?
No that's all presumably in the second film.

For fuck's sake his name is Walter, not Flagg, not the Man in Black. FUCKING WALTER

Someone didn't read the book

Affirmative Action: The Movie

Oh I didnt know the movie is mainly based on the Gunslinger. So Roland doesnt reach the Tower at the end of the movie?

Those are all aliases. Walter was his real name.

>So Roland doesnt reach the Tower at the end of the movie?
Correct. This one has bits and pieces of all the books, but functions as The Gunslinger, as the first book-- although Jake doesn't die and it just ends with them going back to Mid World, presumably to find The Tower
Same guy, different names.

>Correct. This one has bits and pieces of all the books, but functions as The Gunslinger, as the first book-- although Jake doesn't die and it just ends with them going back to Mid World, presumably to find The Tower
Sounds like complete trash.

the first book, as it was originally written when King of a drunk in the 70's is pretty cool, part 2 is also ok, then in the 90's he decided it was his magnum opus or someshit and it really went off the rails

Nah I thought it was pretty great, even if it didn't follow the first book.

The first book was by far my favorite one so doubt I'd like this.

Does the movie truly try to do that?

Nah. I liked them all too. There's some shit in the last one I didn't care for. The Crimson King being some lame ass Evil Santa Claus was dumb. But leaving him as just a pair of eyes locked out of the tower forever was some good shit.

Fair enough. It wraps in a lot of mythos from the later books, which isn't in the first book.

No. It's been publicized again and again this is the first of several movies and a TV series.
That was cool too. I will admit, 7 is my least favorite because I did think the Crimson King was an anticlimax and also the son-of-roland spider creature was dumb. But the rest of it I liked, and I liked the ending.

Mordred killing Flagg was the biggest bullshit in the series.

Whew, good. I was going to say, they deserve shit ratings if they tried.

I predicted they wouldn't take the risks needed to produce a movie true to the book. Just like how they won't with the new IT movies.

I mean seriously, an atom bomb at the end of The Stand didn't kill Flagg, but some spider could just eat him?

Come the fuck on Stephen

>Whew, good. I was going to say, they deserve shit ratings if they tried.
As I said, they do cram a bunch of exposition from the later books into it, because if they didn't, it wouldn't make much sense of why Roland is after Walter, what the Dark Tower is and why Walter is trying to bring it down. They spent more time building that world, rather than following The Gunslinger to a T. They pretty much had no choice though, they needed an action-packed first movie that explains the premise in order to set it up for more films. In all honesty the first book doesn't do that. I really don't blame them, I really enjoyed it, and I was a hardcore fan of the novels.

Also the Low Men are in this, and they're cool as fuck

Man, say what you want about the movie, but they did a great job with the Low Men. Sayre's casting was great too.

Yeah that was great! I feel they didn't do as much as they could with him though, and it's unclear if Roland killed him or not. I hope he's in future films.

There's taheen in it? Does he have a phaser?

Unfortunately no. But they've got the weird ill fitting human masks and skin and all that.

Big fan of the books. Tend to agree with most that the first 3 are great. The 4th is still pretty good, although I like the graphic novel stories of Roland's childhood more.

Books 5-7 have some good stuff but the whole King writing himself into the story kinda soured me on the story.

Saw the movie today. Mixed emotions. Clearly it's own thing using Dark Tower mythology. But Mcconaughay felt flat, only really seemed menacing in the kitchen scene cooking chicken. Elba was good, telling the sluts on bus they've forgotten the face of their fathers was funny and calling people savages for eating hot "dogs" drew a chuckle.

Thought the kid was decent enough. The scene with him and Roland finding what Walter did to his mom was the one scene that showed them having a bond.

Props to whoever included the scene with Roland watching tv and seeing a commercial with talking Racoons and asking if animals still talk in our world as an Oy Easter egg.

They took a series of books that are 2000+ pages total in length and tried to fit them into a single movie. What the fuck did you expect? The people in charge must be legitimately retarded to think this would work as a movie instead of a series.

Would love to see talisman explored t b h

That book was a trip

No one asked for this movie. So Im thinking it was made too soon.

Wizard and Glass is the best one though

4>1>3>2>7>5>6

Except it's an adaptation of the first book and had additional movies/TV shows planned.

I mean it's still bad, but it's not meant to eight fucking books in one movie.

you forget the part where he gets erased out of existence by an autist with a magical pencil and paper

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