Stephen King's The Dark Tower

I've only read the first 1.5 books (plus some of the Marvel comic prequel series), but my mother absolutely loves The Dark Tower series. She thinks the ending is perfect, which makes me want to read the other books but...I can't quite get into them. I was still looking forward to watching the film anyway, and the tv series if that's even still a thing (I haven't been keeping up with news).

I was talking to my mom yesterday, and asked what she thought of the trailer. Being a huge fan, I didn't know how she'd react to the adaptation. She actually wants to come in town in August to see the film in theatres. The last film she saw in theatres was Star Trek (2009), and only because it was a treat from me for Mother's Day that year and she had to come in for another reason anyway.

Now I'm really looking forward to seeing the film. I just hope my mom doesn't expect me to read through the other books so we can discuss the differences between the source material and the film. That's a lot of pages.

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i thought it had vampires in it? And not the good kind....

If I wrote ALL the things the series has, we would be here all day. There's werewolves, vampires, cave monsters, robotic bears, demon babies, characters from other King stories (like Father Callahan from 'Salem's Lot). It's just a hodgepodge.

Talk about cornering the market.

Elba is on Fallon tonight, while Rust Cole is on Colbert.

I've heard the books are good, but I can't muster up the enthusiasm for the movie. I think I'll get a hold of the first book, and also see about seeing the movie, provided my enthusiasm isn't squashed by trailers et al.

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Thanks again, Mr Portridge.

Idris Elba is listed as being on Good Morning America tomorrow morning, so I'll probably check that out and see what he's got to say. King has gone on record saying that if the movie is a hit and it continues as a series and movies, that they'll probably add new material to the story. He's even talked about re-writing the whole series! Apparently there's things in the series that he wants to change, like . If he wants to write new "in-between" books, I might go for that but for now, if the movie's good, I'm in.

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"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."

The slim 95 minute runtime has me a bit worried. Most of the 2 hour films I've seen lately could easily be cut down, but I feel as though something like The Dark Tower (with expansive source material to draw upon) should be longer. Also, the fact that there haven't been any advanced screening reviews is not a great indicator.

I just bought my tickets anyway though. My mom is coming in town to see it, and like I said earlier in the thread, it's been about 8 years since she's seen a film in theatres. I hope it's not absolute garbage for her sake haha.

I saw the trailer for this the other day at the gym and it just looked...blue. Looked like any other action movie made today, which, I know it's not action. Hopefully the trailer was deceitful?

It's been panned.
18% on RT.


One reviewer said "For a film that's so incredibly convoluted, it still manages to be boring".
Some reviewers have said to steer well clear and simply ignore it, spend your cash elsewhere.


yet another Stephen King adaption that doesn't translate to the screen.

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The movie suffered from weak logic. The gunslinger shot a bullet at Walter, but Walter caught the bullet behind his head (without even looking) with his hand and tossed it aside like a bug - wouldn't you think the gunslinger would then change his strategy in attacking Walter?
The movie was also far too short for a sweeping epic, and the plot failed to follow the books.

Watch Time Bandits instead. It's got a dark tower, a dark lord, and people using dimensional gateways between worlds too.

Oh dear. Think I'll give it a pass. Thanks for the heads up, rattus

Would've been good if the RT % had stayed at 19%, but we can't have nice things.

Also, lol at Raven's post.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

It's not nice to laugh at people.

This is what happens when you try to shove seven books into a 90 minute movie. Good god. Just a silly waste of time. Hopefully this series gets an HBO kind of treatment someday.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

It's just funny to me that you went into an obvious fantasy movie and then complain about the lack of realism/logic, especially when you've apparently read the books already so you should definitely know what to expect even from such a structurally loose adaptation. The movie goes to great length to establish that Roland really is that good a gunslinger (this seems especially rich coming from an apparent Star Wars fan - that's like if I said Luke simply shouldn't be able to fight his way out of being surrounded by blaster-wielding soldiers using only a lightsaber). As for Walter...he's magic, what more do you need (although, if I must, I'd contend that "stop breathing" targets people's subconscious mind so that they wouldn't start breathing again after passing out). Also consider the possibility that his minions work for him because they either believe in his mission or consider it safer to work for him than to suffer along with everyone else who would be targeted.

My review.


In short: I hated it.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Your second reply was better.
You are entitled to your opinion and I would never laugh at it.

I'm not going to argue with you about which of the three movies is more believable or less believable. Movies in the fantasy genre always run the risk of the audience disbelieving what they are presented with. I was willing to suspend my disbelief with the Star Wars movies and with Time Bandits, but I was not with Dark Tower which was obviously not a strong movie in any sense.

I really don't care that the movie didn't follow the books - I was just pointing out that it is always a gamble when you're adapting a popular book series and make radical changes to it.