The Dark Tower to be a movie trilogy and T.V. show (1 Viewer)

[kcirdor]

Roland is the last descendant of king arthur... merlin fits.

 

[kcirdor]

And then King puts himself in the story, and it lost me. (Yes, Stephen King is a character in The Dark Tower)

The series overall arc was about the worlds he created all held together by the dark tower, his mind. Putting the actual creator into the story links his worlds to our world.

 

[kcirdor]

The series overall arc was about the worlds he created all held together by the dark tower, his mind. Putting the actual creator into the story links his worlds to our world.

Roland represents King's psyche(motivation, sanity, ego etc.) when writing one of his stories. King's character in the books merely expresses this concept to any reader that hasn't caught on yet, or doesn't have experience with his prior work to be able to link everything with the other stories. Without spoiling anything further, I'll leave it at that. But the King portion of the story is actually thought provoking.

 

[tenordas]

Roland is the last descendant of king arthur... merlin fits.

Yes, I know he forced Camelot into it. It was a ridiculous stretch to me, and nearly stopped me at that first book. I should have, then I wouldn't have made it far enough to read all that annoying "Thankee sai" garbage.

 

[kcirdor]

So why is incorporating a legend into the story a bad thing?

 

[tenordas]

So why is incorporating a legend into the story a bad thing?

You realize he thus is making himself the last descendant of Arthur, right?

Also, write your own story. Don't paste in stuff to legitimize it somehow. That's just always been a pet peeve of my mine that was further cemented when taking creative writing classes in college.

 

[kcirdor]

I just don't see the downside of incorporating myths and legends into a story.

So no story should use anything from Greek/Roman mythology? No religion too? Imagine that.

 

[Sun Wukong]

I just don't see the downside of incorporating myths and legends into a story.

So no story should use anything from Greek/Roman mythology? No religion too? Imagine that.

There is no downside. Some of the greatest stories ever told have been stories about stories. Greek myth itself was very self-referential and incorporated things from other stories, as have countless other myth cycles, legends, etc. Arthurian Legend itself is almost entirely dependent on Christian tales and iconography. Every culture has their own version of dragons, or a flood story, or what have you. Roman works were little more than fanfiction for Greek characters and stories. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a story featuring numerous characters from fable and myth. Shakespeare wasn't exactly a hack.

And, to use a modern example, Neil Gaiman's Sandman is one of the great works of narrative fiction of the 20th century and it's literally a story about stories.

Tenordas doesn't like the books, that's fine. They're not for everyone. But the complaint about incorporating other stories/myths/etc. is a pretty easy to one pick apart. Stories have been doing it since the beginning. It's a fundamental part of storytelling.

 

[BarBar]

Take this with a grain of salt because I'm not a big fan of Stephen King in the first place. Other than The Shining, I've never read any other book he wrote that I truly found impressive, and I read a lot of them expecting him to live up to that one again. Some are okay and some are dreadfully bad. My biggest complaint is that I wish he would not write on a third grade vocabulary level.

As for The Dark Tower series, I had my reservations with the first book when he tried to throw Merlin into the story. However, it was Wizard and Glass with the incredibly hokey "old-time high speech" that ended the series for me. That book just too stupid to take, and I didn't read any more of the series.

Wizard and Glass is my favorite book in the series.

I just saw the movie and it was dreadful. An insult really.

 

[SaintsFanInLA]

The movie was an incredible let down. I mean like a complete bastageization of the works. The only movie that did a worse job of transitioning from the books was Dean Koontz Watchers, IMHO.

The first 3 books in the series were the best of the group. But my favorite was The Drawing of the Three. But the movie was just SO SO SO bad.

 

[BarBar]

The movie was an incredible let down. I mean like a complete bastageization of the works. The only movie that did a worse job of transitioning from the books was Dean Koontz Watchers, IMHO.

The first 3 books in the series were the best of the group. But my favorite was The Drawing of the Three. But the movie was just SO SO SO bad.

yep. Complete failure. it was a joke.

 

[Hawkeye Saint]

Granted the movie wasn't a literal interpretation of the book, Elba and McConnahey were still fun to watch (some serious scenery chewing there), but in order to do the books justice it will need to be serialized. Even a trilogy ala Tolkien wouldn't suffice. I'm holding out hopes for Netflix or some other streaming service to produce one eventually.

But the ending of the movie was too Disney for me.

 

[antipop]

“Game of Thrones” Star Jerome Flynn Climbs Amazon’s “The Dark Tower”

Jerome Flynn, who plays Bronn on HBO’s “Game of Thrones”, is climbing Amazon’s small screen take on Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower”, reports Mirror. “’Game of Thrones’ has opened doors to some great stuff,” he told the site. I’m getting offered stuff I never would have.” He will play a cowboy in...

bloody-disgusting.com

so it looks like this will start with Roland's backstory...i am not sure about it but at least it will be a series instead of trying to cram it into a movie

 

[MLU]

Jasper Pääkkönen has been cast as the Man in Black, not to be confused with Michael Biehn...

 

[Dago]

when will Hollywood learn to stop destroying source material, especially when it comes to fantasy and scifi?

I understand that changes are inevitable when it comes to translating from a book to a movie or series, but it isn't that hard to stick to the core. They basically alienate the fans that made a book series popular enough to be made into a movie in a ridiculous effort to appeal to a broader audience