The Dark Tower (2017) - My Review

[Mal12345]

I'll let Stephen King have the last word on this subject:

“They’ve done a wonderful job here telling a story that’s coherent and that pulls a lot of the element of the novel in The Dark Tower. Purists may not like it. I can’t tell about that for sure, because it doesn’t start where the book starts. But at the same time, they’ll fall right into it because they’ll know exactly what’s going on.”

“You have to keep in mind that of all the books that I’ve written, the fans of the Dark Tower books are the most zealous, the most fervent fans of all,” he added later. “But they make a small subgroup of the people who read books like The Shining and Misery, that sort of thing. [The books] are an acquired taste. They’re fantasy.”

 

[Totenkindly]

You're quoting him from weeks back, I think. Most recent quote (last week):

In a new interview over at Vulture (where, full disclosure, this critic also regularly runs work), King discussed everything he’s been up to lately and touched on the failed Dark Tower movie. King’s a pro with media; his quote below is critical but diplomatic:

“The major challenge was to do a film based on a series of books that’s really long, about 3,000 pages. The other part of it was the decision to do a PG-13 feature adaptation of books that are extremely violent and deal with violent behavior in a fairly graphic way. That was something that had to be overcome, although I’ve gotta say, I thought [screenwriter] Akiva Goldsman did a terrific job in taking a central part of the book and turning it into what I thought was a pretty good movie. The TV series they’re developing now … we’ll see what happens with that. It would be like a complete reboot, so we’ll just have to see.”

Indeed, the story stretches out over a long canvas, but hey, the U.S. versions of Harry Potter shake out to around 4,100 pages. Maybe the real lesson was not to condense multiple books defined by their arcane, elaborate plotting into a single movie?

Considering King's taste in movies... I'm not sure any praise he offered means much. He can write prose, but he's also thought a lot of shitty movies are good. His artistic skills and assessments don't really map well into cinema.


Anyway... appeals to authority? Whatever.