Stephen King's The Dark Tower

Avatar MIA · 09-10-2017 11:48am

So, having seen it keeping in mind it made $111 on a $60 budget and would be considered a pass finance wise

Where does the story go from here considering the MIB is dead, although, there was that whistle at the end. Or is this a once off

I though Matthew did a decent job, for it entailed. The actors were fine.

Wiki says there's going to be a sequel based on the Drawing of the three, but, see above spoiler? Or does dead not mean dead :rolleyes:

kerplun k · 09-10-2017 12:08pm

Avatar MIA wrote: »

So, having seen it keeping in mind it made $111 on a $60 budget and would be considered a pass finance wise
Where does the story go from here considering the MIB is dead, although, there was that whistle at the end. Or is this a once off

I though Matthew did a decent job, for it entailed. The actors were fine.

Wiki says there's going to be a sequel based on the Drawing of the three, but, see above spoiler? Or does dead not mean dead :rolleyes:

I guess they just left it open ended. I think it was a fail/safe for the fans, in case it under performed, and no sequel was made, then this film works as once off, which shows us just anther time and version around the wheel. One which gives a beginning middle and conclusive end. If, and its a big if, more content is made within this version, they can branch out, finish the intended plan, and expand on this version.

JohnK · 09-10-2017 1:48pm

I watched it last night and speaking as someone who never read any of the books, I thought it was pretty good. Surprised it didn't do all that well in the cinema - wonder were people put off thinking they'd be lost if they hadnt read the books in advance? I'd certainly be open to watching a sequel if they ever bring one out.

s15r330 · 09-10-2017 2:29pm

Read the books and then watched this. After watching this I just totally disassociated it with The Dark Tower. Wiped it from my memory completely!

kerplun k · 09-10-2017 2:45pm

JohnK wrote: »

I watched it last night and speaking as someone who never read any of the books, I thought it was pretty good. Surprised it didn't do all that well in the cinema - wonder were people put off thinking they'd be lost if they hadnt read the books in advance? I'd certainly be open to watching a sequel if they ever bring one out.

The critics killed it. A guy from Variety wrote an article two days before its domestic release, absolutely slating it. The thing is, there was a review embargo at the time, so they couldn't actually review the film, so instead they wrote about the pre-production, and used so called "sources" to paint a pretty grim view of the movie. That set the tone, and then the reviews came out, and before even seeing the film, most already knew what they were going to write about, Once the first "Top Critics" review came in, the rest followed suit. Film reviewing has become what I like to call now, an echo chamber, and every critic jumped onto the "huge blockbuster movie bombs, onset trouble" story. and didn't fairly review it.

Listen, I know this wasn't a masterpiece, but it seems every film that gets reviewed now is either groundbreaking, or worst piece of sh!t ever made. There's no middle ground. Not just critical reviewing, but all news in general has become sensationalised, mainly due to modern cultures need for instant gratification. I think its evident in movie reviewing now when we see bigger gaps in opinions between general audiences reviews on CinemaScore and professional critics on RT. Darren Aronofsky Mother is a prime example.

For TDT, It was a complete sabotage job. Something that cost a good director his job, and deprived TDT fans of a franchise.

I was so annoyed after this, that I actually stopped reading film reviews, and if undecided, I go on word of mouth now.

Glebee · 12-10-2017 10:31am

Tried to watch it last night, lasted about half an hour before I gave up. I only has a vague reference to the books, nothing more.

kerplun k · 12-10-2017 10:56am

Glebee wrote: »

Tried to watch it last night, lasted about half an hour before I gave up. I only has a vague reference to the books, nothing more.

You were halfway there.

Glebee · 12-10-2017 1:52pm

Glebee wrote: »

Tried to watch it last night, lasted about half an hour before I gave up. I only has a vague reference to the books, nothing more.

I went back to give it another go after stopping watching it last night. I guess the the source material is so vast that a film true to be books would be massive, I suppose on A lord of The Rings scale epic. As a stand alone movie im guessing if you did not know the story you would be complete lost. I did think that Idris Elba did make a very impressive Roland though. Is this the end for the Dark Tower franchise???

kerplun k · 12-10-2017 2:53pm

Glebee wrote: »

I went back to give it another go after stopping watching it last night. I guess the the source material is so vast that a film true to be books would be massive, I suppose on A lord of The Rings scale epic. As a stand alone movie im guessing if you did not know the story you would be complete lost. I did think that Idris Elba did make a very impressive Roland though. Is this the end for the Dark Tower franchise???

Yep. I think so. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't. It needed to gross about 200m to stand any chance of continuing.

Xofpod · 12-10-2017 4:34pm

kerplun k wrote: »

Yep. I think so. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't. It needed to gross about 200m to stand any chance of continuing.

Given Hollywood's current grá for all things King-related (I saw just today that a movie of the Talisman is in development) as well as recent history with rapid reboots ( Spiderman X infinity), I wouldn't rule anything out.

Where there's potentially money to be made, without the pesky need for original properties....

faceman · 12-10-2017 4:35pm

kerplun k wrote: »

The critics killed it. A guy from Variety wrote an article two days before its domestic release, absolutely slating it. The thing is, there was a review embargo at the time, so they couldn't actually review the film, so instead they wrote about the pre-production, and used so called "sources" to paint a pretty grim view of the movie. That set the tone, and then the reviews came out, and before even seeing the film, most already knew what they were going to write about, Once the first "Top Critics" review came in, the rest followed suit. Film reviewing has become what I like to call now, an echo chamber, and every critic jumped onto the "huge blockbuster movie bombs, onset trouble" story. and didn't fairly review it.

Listen, I know this wasn't a masterpiece, but it seems every film that gets reviewed now is either groundbreaking, or worst piece of sh!t ever made. There's no middle ground. Not just critical reviewing, but all news in general has become sensationalised, mainly due to modern cultures need for instant gratification. I think its evident in movie reviewing now when we see bigger gaps in opinions between general audiences reviews on CinemaScore and professional critics on RT. Darren Aronofsky Mother is a prime example.

For TDT, It was a complete sabotage job. Something that cost a good director his job, and deprived TDT fans of a franchise.

I was so annoyed after this, that I actually stopped reading film reviews, and if undecided, I go on word of mouth now.

Given some lay movie goers consider Dumb and Dumber the greatest comedy ever made I never go on word of mouth.

kerplun k · 12-10-2017 4:41pm

Xofpod wrote: »

Given Hollywood's current grá for all things King-related (I saw just today that a movie of the Talisman is in development) as well as recent history with rapid reboots ( Spiderman X infinity), I wouldn't rule anything out.

Where there's potentially money to be made, without the pesky need for original properties....

Oh man, if done right, The Talisman would be so awesome. The Tomorrowland trailer gave me ideas of what it could look like. It would have to be handled properly, It would be easy to f**k it up if done cheaply, but there's potential there for a great film.

kerplun k · 12-10-2017 4:49pm

faceman wrote: »

Given some lay movie goers consider Dumb and Dumber the greatest comedy ever made I never go on word of mouth.

Everything is time and place. I watched this film on VHS with a group of friends and we fell around the place laughing, then several years later I caught it on television, and although I looked back on it fondly, it wasn't the same. But for its time, it was hilarious. and, again, for its time, it deserved its success and anyone who recommended during its run was fully justified. You just happened to miss the time/place and mood of watching it. IMO, Word of mouth is the best form of recommendation.

banie01 · 12-10-2017 4:58pm

s15r330 wrote: »

Read the books and then watched this. After watching this I just totally disassociated it with The Dark Tower. Wiped it from my memory completely!

I'm a huge fan of the books.
I had massive reservations regarding Idris Elba being cast as Roland given how integral Rolands description is to the mythos.
I watched this last night and while there are many nods to the source material, the story told bears little relation to books.
Even the revenge driven Roland is at odds with the book.
So much was altered, amended and butchered.

While the multiverse of the Tower offers a storytelling mechanism thst allows tbis to be "canon", it bears no real relationship to the source material.

Heckler · 15-10-2017 4:23pm

struggling to make it half way.

Huge fan of the books up till King went nuts with the last one.

As a movie that's about a gunslinger I can't forgive Roland ( the director)pointing an obviously empty revolver at Jake. And firing 12 rounds in the woods from a six shooter. And then goes on to make a "cool" reload.

The shoehorning in of some aspects of the book were cringy.

Why even bother ? This should have been a HBO mini series to do it any justice.

46 boring minutes in.

faceman · 15-10-2017 9:54pm

Just watched it. God that was awful. Felt more like a YouTube fanfilm more than anything.

Elba was far too charismatic for the role.

....... · 16-10-2017 12:00pm

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Avatar MIA · 16-10-2017 12:35pm

....... wrote: »

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It's not supposed to, the story in the books that is.

CiDeRmAn · 16-10-2017 12:53pm

I understand the relationship of the movie to the story

it's set in the restart at the end of the main story line, hence why Roland has the Horn of Eld with him

but it still was hard to watch a movie so clearly PG13 when it needed to be 18's, all the visceral grunt of the books is missing.
The representation of them using children to break the beams is nothing like on the appropriate scale, plus that they were attacking the tower rather than the beam was unfortunate.
It's not really even good enough to act as prologue to a wider epic, very disappointing.
Even Rolands backstory, which shouldn't have changed, was filled with hate and regret in the books, it was all sh1t upon in the movie.

....... · 16-10-2017 12:55pm

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Avatar MIA · 16-10-2017 1:09pm

....... wrote: »

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The story of the books was that there were many iterations of the story, however I'm not a fan of the tack they took. They should at least have made it clear Roland had the Horn of Eld to indicate it was post the last book.

And, I think casting a black actor cost this movie 10s of millions of dollars, not because the actor was black, but the character in the book was not. And a lot of fans thought, meh!

So, I'm not defending what they did.

kerplun k · 16-10-2017 3:00pm

....... wrote: »

The story in the books IS the story.

Im not sure what this is even meant to be. But whatever its meant to be - its awful.

How would you know what it’s meant to be if you only saw 11 minutes?

kerplun k · 16-10-2017 3:07pm

faceman wrote: »

Just watched it. God that was awful. Felt more like a YouTube fanfilm more than anything.

Elba was far too charismatic for the role.

Wow, can you send me some links to those fan films? I’d love to watch a YT fan made film that looks like a $60m action flick, and has two A list actors. I might just cancel my Netflix subscription as I can watch these for free on YT.

....... · 16-10-2017 3:17pm

This post has been deleted.

faceman · 16-10-2017 6:03pm

kerplun k wrote: »

Wow, can you send me some links to those fan films? I’d love to watch a YT fan made film that looks like a $60m action flick, and has two A list actors. I might just cancel my Netflix subscription as I can watch these for free on YT.

My pleasure. Here’s a few.

Star Trek Renegades. Fan film with some of the original Star Trek cast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE2Wgop9VLM

Batman Dead End

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7d3lIAkes

Power/Rangers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw5vcUPyL90

Avatar MIA · 16-10-2017 6:12pm

faceman wrote: »

My pleasure. Here’s a few.

Star Trek Renegades...

Star trek Continues, with more than a few of TOS actors turning up should get an honourable mention.

Agent Coulson · 22-10-2017 9:26pm

King has said in an interview over the last few day that if the TV series does get made it will be a complete fresh reboot.

banie01 · 22-10-2017 9:33pm

Agent Coulson wrote: »

King has said in an interview over the last few day that if the TV series does get made it will be a complete fresh reboot.

It would have to be. The whole premise and impementation of the Movie version was very poor IMO.
I'd hope that any TV series could better be adapted to the narrative of the books and it offers a real potential for a multi episode, multi series show.
A quality adaptation won't come cheap amd casting wont be easy either but it would be a worthwhile challenge.
It really has a mythos that done right coild easily rival GoT as a TV show.

I honestly feel there is not one redeemable quality or character or interpretation from the movie version worth keeping hold of and if the show does continue, it would be best to forget it ever happened.

kerplun k · 22-10-2017 11:28pm

I dunno. I’m skeptical. I mean, Universal turned it down, Paramount turned it down. One of the most powerful men in Hollywood J. J. Abrams couldn’t get it made. Lindelof and Cuse wouldn’t touch it. It’s one of the best books of all time. There’s a reason why it took over ten years to adapt to film. IMO, it’s a harder adaptation than GoT or LoTR. The only way I see this working is if HBO took it on, something that’s highly unlikely given that Sony hold the rights.

If it’s a total reboot, book one wouldn’t even be that expensive to produce, but you’d need a company like HBO, who I think are the only ones capable of crafting a story with this kind of scope, to do it any justice. But that’s not gonna happen.

The film, and Ron Howards original plan was a valiant attempt at adapting this and I for one am just glad we got a DT film out of it. The reception tells me that it’s not the right time for something like this and any attempted TV show would do the story and Kings books more harm than good. I think in terms of the story as a whole, it’s unfilmable. They should just leave this alone now. Maybe try it again in 10/20years, or never at all.

TerrorFirmer · 10-11-2017 12:21pm

I thought, as someone who's never read the books, this was surprisingly not remotely as bad as I expected based on comments here and general critical reception.

I mean, I was gravely concerned that an enormous volume of works was being shoved into a 90 minute movie, but it works well enough as a standalone movie if you can accept the narrative at face value.

It is a bit frustrating that literally nothing is explained beyond surface level so you're clueless as to the context behind everything in the background of the movie.

The movie vaguely explains who the primary characters are and what motivates them - but pretty much nothing else. But a lot of films do this, admittedly rarely in this genre but all the same I was able to just accept it for what it is.

To me, it was more like the pilot to a new TV show rather than an actual film though. So, so SO much more to be explained.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower

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