Stephen King's The Dark Tower

Dr.Retarded

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That would work better then making Roland black, but then you'll have someone bitching about portraying them as a junkie. The more I think about it, the more I hope the movie stays in development hell and never see's the light of day. If you're passionate about a project and want to spend millions of dollars and years of your time on something to bring it to the big screen, why the hell would you not attempt to stay as true to the source material as possible?

Guess hollywood is gonna hollywood. In their eyes it's safer to placate the audience with an SJW friendly cast, plus it's a larger demographic tapped for increased ticket sales. I just can't imagine your average Tyrone wanting to see a movie with heavey fantasy / scifi elements, with a cowboy as the protagonist, just because the guy is portrayed by a black man. While they're at it, why not just cast Jake as an asian kid so they have a well-rounded, ethno friendly ka-tet. Hell, you can even make Oy a cat, the interenet says people love cats, and they don't get a lot of screen time.
 

Valishar

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I'm fine with them turning the whole cast black except Detta is now a crazy crippled white chick who goes around calling everyone naggers. That would be a bold choice.
 

Chukzombi

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How would you feel about a latino or black Eddie?
I don't have a problem with that, except it sounds kinda cliche for a black/Latino junkie. Plus he won't be a honkey mofo anymore and won't be as impactful when he hooks up with detta. As I said there are some things you can change and the makeup of Roland's Ka-tet isn't one of them.

And no, you can't make Jake asian , that's gonna look too much like indiana jones temple of doom and Jake ain't no short round.
 

Rime

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I was alright with their choice for Flagg, but I am quite irked if they go with Elba for Roland. Way too big/buff for Roland. Wrong ethnicity (though, in my head, I always sort of imagined Roland as Hispanic-White, not English-White, for whatever reason).

I would rather this get The Stand treatment or better yet, an HBO series. Oh well. I doubt I will buy a ticket unless the opinions of people that I respect say it is incredible.
 

Devlin

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I'm pretty bummed out that Hollywood is taking the easy way out with these changes.

I want to see a down syndrome Spider-Man and a paraplegic James Bond.
 

Jait

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How can a show cast Game of Thrones so perfectly. Every single role. Hell pretty much every HBO show starting with Deadwood/Rome was cast very well.



And yet in 30+ years there's never been a Stephen King book turned movie that was remotely well cast. Langoliers probably comes the closest. And that wasn't a fuckin book.


edit: Still waiting for my LotR with black elves, and a Chinese Aragon.
 

Chukzombi

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well he is qualifying it as book adaptions. The Mist is a novella in Skeleton Crew, which is a compilation of King's short stories published in magazines. ditto for great casting in Shawshank, Green Mile , Stand By Me, etc.
 

Jait

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God damn it. Fuck you all!

Okay, so obviously I'm wrong. But I think of his "Great works" like IT and the Stand, and other than Tim Curry obviously, and a few other good casting choices, the movies still ended up as shit compared to what they SHOULD be. Hence my Game of Thrones reference. Source material is good, the only thing that fucks it up is making it as a 2 hour movie or just bad casting and screenplays. With GoT they took their time and did it right. The Dark Tower deserves no less.

The Stand... much like Dune has been fucked up enough. Just stop.
 

Taloo_sl

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I mean... you folks aren't expecting a 30 movie series where they retell the books word perfect on the big screen right? I'm sorry, Detta isn't going to be Detta. Because there's absolutely zero fucking chance it comes off as anything but caricature. There are other worlds than these motherfuckers. It's going to be the same basic story, in the same basic setting, and hit the same basic high notes. But it's going to be different so stop getting your panties in a fucking wad. I've read TDT multiple times. It had high points. It has some low, low, LOW points. LotR this is fucking not.

There wasn't a grammar school bukkake in IT. There wasn't a mildly retarded early teen sucking off his fucked in the head BFF in IT. Some of this shit is going to have to hit the cutting room floor. We're probably not going to see Jake get raped by a ghost. Chances are Mordred "may" have an origin that strays from "Roland cums in a ghost after it tries to rape Jake so that it tells him sekretz then the ghost turns into a man ghost and rapes the shit out of the black lady while she calls it a honkey mah'fa and puts Rolands semen that is now spider demon semen into her then she gets pregnant and eats frogs and shit because reasons but instead of having the roland spider demon baby from the ghost/roland rape semen theres a machine and it puts her baby in this other lady which is kind of awesome actually since the baby murders the shit out of its new mom. Also it's psychic. And kills Flagg. WIth mind powers then it eats him. When its like 10 minutes old.". I mean maybe they go that route but honestly I hope not. Because that shit is retarded. A LOT of the shit in TDT is retarded. I'm quite happy with cutting 90% of the bullshit to tell the 10% left over that is a damn good story in an amazing world.
 

Chukzombi

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I mean... you folks aren't expecting a 30 movie series where they retell the books word perfect on the big screen right? I'm sorry, Detta isn't going to be Detta. Because there's absolutely zero fucking chance it comes off as anything but caricature. There are other worlds than these motherfuckers. It's going to be the same basic story, in the same basic setting, and hit the same basic high notes. But it's going to be different so stop getting your panties in a fucking wad. I've read TDT multiple times. It had high points. It has some low, low, LOW points. LotR this is fucking not.

There wasn't a grammar school bukkake in IT. There wasn't a mildly retarded early teen sucking off his fucked in the head BFF in IT. Some of this shit is going to have to hit the cutting room floor. We're probably not going to see Jake get raped by a ghost. Chances are Mordred "may" have an origin that strays from "Roland cums in a ghost after it tries to rape Jake so that it tells him sekretz then the ghost turns into a man ghost and rapes the shit out of the black lady while she calls it a honkey mah'fa and puts Rolands semen that is now spider demon semen into her then she gets pregnant and eats frogs and shit because reasons but instead of having the roland spider demon baby from the ghost/roland rape semen theres a machine and it puts her baby in this other lady which is kind of awesome actually since the baby murders the shit out of its new mom. Also it's psychic. And kills Flagg. WIth mind powers then it eats him. When its like 10 minutes old.". I mean maybe they go that route but honestly I hope not. Because that shit is retarded. A LOT of the shit in TDT is retarded. I'm quite happy with cutting 90% of the bullshit to tell the 10% left over that is a damn good story in an amazing world.
you should have read It multiple times, there is no grammar school bukkake, not even a gangbang technically. yeah Beverly took a bunch of dicks, but it was'nt simultaneous and she didnt get poz loads from every one of the loser's club. i think only from Bill Denbrough. Butch Bowers didnt suck off anyone, certainly not Patrick Hockstetter (not his BFF either). Bowers's gang was lighting farts in the junkyard and Belch and Victor had to leave. Bowers and Hockstetter stayed behind to light farts. hockstetter says something like, wanna try something and he proceeds to jack off butch. patrick then offers to blow bowers and then bowers realizes patrick is being a faggot and beats him up. hockstetter says that he liked it. bowers says that he didnt and if patrick told anyone, bowers would tell the cops about patrick and his refrigerators.

yeah lots of stuff from king novels ends up on the cutting room floor, but thats usually ok as long as they get the basics right. sure, casting a black guy for Red in shawshank instead of a white guy in the novella was different, but the story wasnt really about Red, it was about Andy, from the PoV of Red. and also Morgan Freeman utterly killed that role.

i like Elba and i think he easily has the acting ability to pull off some of Roland's scenes, but he is horribly miscast physically for the role, too old, too fat and in this scenario it doesnt work for a black man. black people are super rare in roland's world. imagine how morgan freeman was treated in kevin costner's robin hood. they thought he was some kind of strange creature. its the same with Gilead. Garlan is the only place known to have "dark skinned" people and thats way the fuck away from New Canaan.
 

Taloo_sl

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you should have read It multiple times, there is no grammar school bukkake, not even a gangbang technically. yeah Beverly took a bunch of dicks, but it was'nt simultaneous and she didnt get poz loads from every one of the loser's club. i think only from Bill Denbrough. Butch Bowers didnt suck off anyone, certainly not Patrick Hockstetter (not his BFF either). Bowers's gang was lighting farts in the junkyard and Belch and Victor had to leave. Bowers and Hockstetter stayed behind to light farts. hockstetter says something like, wanna try something and he proceeds to jack off butch. patrick then offers to blow bowers and then bowers realizes patrick is being a faggot and beats him up. hockstetter says that he liked it. bowers says that he didnt and if patrick told anyone, bowers would tell the cops about patrick and his refrigerators.

yeah lots of stuff from king novels ends up on the cutting room floor, but thats usually ok as long as they get the basics right. sure, casting a black guy for Red in shawshank instead of a white guy in the novella was different, but the story wasnt really about Red, it was about Andy, from the PoV of Red. and also Morgan Freeman utterly killed that role.

i like Elba and i think he easily has the acting ability to pull off some of Roland's scenes, but he is horribly miscast physically for the role, too old, too fat and in this scenario it doesnt work for a black man. black people are super rare in roland's world. imagine how morgan freeman was treated in kevin costner's robin hood. they thought he was some kind of strange creature. its the same with Gilead. Garlan is the only place known to have "dark skinned" people and thats way the fuck away from New Canaan.
Black Gunslinger in Black House. "Magic black man" at the same time.

Point is even the basics need to change for a version of the story to work on the big screen in 2015. Some of it because it's dumb. Some of it because it's "quaint" and so fucking outlandish it couldn't be done without detracting from everything else. Clint Eastwood isn't going to be Roland. We wont get "Roland", period. We wont get Susan/Detta either. Deal with it. Is Elba "TDT Roland"? No he's not. Who knows if he'll be "Roland in the movies based on the novels". I think there are certainly worse choices. I know I for one might watch a few movies "based on" TDT. I'll take a fucking pass on "TDT - The Movie" myself, with the exception of the story from Mejis in The Wizard and the Glass.
 

Chukzombi

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It would make more sense if they used present day Clint Eastwood than Idris Elba for Roland. He still meets all the criteria but one. Age.
 

Tenks

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Is there a "ranking" for the books in this series? I just started book 2 and I absolutely am hooked. I actually like book 2 so far much, much better than book 1 which felt a bit all over the place. I wasn't sure if the series stays good enough for it to warrant my time.

-edit-

Just noticed this thread was in movie house not book house.
 

bixxby

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1 2 3 are basically your kings, book 4 is much better on a read through of the series. 5-7 are kinda goofier but enjoyable.
 

BrutulTM

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I think 4 was my favorite but the whole book is a flashback to Roland's youth. I enjoyed book 5 but thought it got kind of stupid in 6 and 7.
 

Eomer

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Books 2 and 3 were far and away the best. Book 4 I wasn't personally a fan of, but it works in the greater context of the series I guess. Book 1 was a bit odd and disjointed, but it's short enough that it doesn't drag. The books after 4 I barely even remember reading. I just kind of plowed through them to get to the end. Nothing particularly memorable in them other than the whole thing completely got away from King.