So, seems like The Dark Tower should of stayed closed

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I tried reading the Dark Tower last year and bounced off halfway through the third book. It's wierd, because it's the kind of story, setting and aesthetic I should really enjoy, but I just can't stand King's writing. His prose felt especially poor compared to other authors I was reading at the time.

Sorry to hear the film isn't great though.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Samtemdo8 said:
Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile were not done by Stanley Kubrick and they were good.
Thought Green Mile was pretty boring.

PsychedelicDiamond said:
Samtemdo8 said:
Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile were not done by Stanley Kubrick and they were good.
So were Stand By Me and Carrie but compared to the overall number of King adaptions that 's still not a whole lot.
Misery is pretty good too.
 

Gennadios

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Don't know if I'll see the movie, but the first book worked best, mostly because it wasn't intended to be a series, the series itself started out pretty strong but I eventually got too busy, strange, and overall messy. I eventually lost interest and stopped reading.

In contrast, The Movie, at least the trailer make it pretty obvious that they'll be world building from the get-go. I don't know why, but it was kind of a turn-off.
 

Parasondox

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SONY needs to rethink the project they choose to do because they are falling behind big time. Emoji Movie and now this.

Baby Driver was a hit this year so far. I'm not going to give you full credit for Spider-man: Homecoming because you know deep down Marvel Studios saved your ass.

SONY. Stop fucking up!!!
 

Casual Shinji

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Samtemdo8 said:
You did not think the Green Mile is good.....?
No.

It was pretty bloody obnoxious. All of Frank Darabont's movies are, but The Green Mile takes the cake. It was like watching Harry Potter on death row. The character of Percy shines out in this regard; The depiction of his character was pornographic in how snivling, slimey, and evil he was. This is a problem inherent with Stephen King's writing, but most movie adaptations work around that with subtle acting performances. Acting in a Frank Darabont movie however is almost never subtle. Apart from Sam Rockwell, he gave the only nuanced preformance in that film.
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Could Hollywood stop casting Idris Elba with an American accent? Because in case the casting directors hadn't noticed, he can't do one...

I don't know anything about the books (other than King's name is a turn-off), but it's a shame for Idris. I assume this could've been a potential series for him to appear in.
 

the December King

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Casual Shinji said:
TrulyBritish said:
I've never seen the other version, so I genuinely don't know if this is sarcastic or not.
I mean, it sounds sarcastic but you never know...
Well, has anyone ever shown up Kubrick?

But yeah, take a gander.

I never understood the need to recreate that film. Some of King's original ideas in the novel were unnecessary to the feel of the piece- topiary monsters? This boiler obsession? The dead kid in the yard(forgive me if I'm getting those facts wrong, it's been an age since I read this novel)? I felt that Kubrick distilled what was terrifying out of the novel and made it work.

As an aside, I worked with Mick Garris on the TV series Bag of Bones (2011)!

I didn't like the novel all that much- I was really digging the vibe in Lisey's Story much more that year- but meeting Pierce Brosnan and Annabeth Gish were definitely high points during that job. I did playback flash devices (sort of part of the props department).
 

TrulyBritish

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Casual Shinji said:
TrulyBritish said:
I've never seen the other version, so I genuinely don't know if this is sarcastic or not.
I mean, it sounds sarcastic but you never know...
Well, has anyone ever shown up Kubrick?

But yeah, take a gander.

Well that, err...
Kind of looks like it was an episode of Are you Afraid of the Dark to be honest.
 

Dansen

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PsychedelicDiamond said:
Why does hardly anyone short of Stanley Kubrick seem to be able to do a decent King adaptation? I mean, he's not Bill Burroughs, it's not like his novels are anywhere close to unfilmable. Yet all adaptations, with some notable exceptions, are some degree of schlock.
The Mist is quite good. One of the only horror movies to really stick with me.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Casual Shinji said:
Samtemdo8 said:
You did not think the Green Mile is good.....?
No.

The character of Percy shines out in this regard; The depiction of his character was pornographic in how snivling, slimey, and evil he was.
Meet Karl Tanner:


But going back on topic come on man at the very least the movie is much more preferable to watch thant whatever they have done with The Dark Tower. You can't go wrong with Tom Hanks.
 

SirSullymore

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It's very odd to me, The Gunslinger seems like by far the easiest book to adapt, simple story, two big action set pieces, shocking ending, it could have had a (relatively) low budget, been a modest success and built up interest for the future. Instead Sony didn't want to put the work in to build a new franchise organically and just blew their load trying to include a bunch of stuff from all over the place and make Jake a much bigger focus than he was (grasping for those Young Adult Lit bucks I guess).
 

hermes

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PsychedelicDiamond said:
Samtemdo8 said:
PsychedelicDiamond said:
Why does hardly anyone short of Stanley Kubrick seem to be able to do a decent King adaptation? I mean, he's not Bill Burroughs, it's not like his novels are anywhere close to unfilmable. Yet all adaptations, with some notable exceptions, are some degree of schlock.
Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile were not done by Stanley Kubrick and they were good.
So were Stand By Me and Carrie but compared to the overall number of King adaptions that 's still not a whole lot.
That is because he is a very prolific and marketable author, but not all his books are easy to adapt. So Hollywood studios will buy the rights to all his novels before they are published, and try again and again to turn them into movies, with varying success.

Sure, he has more movies adaptation that didn't just suck, but that is more a testament to how many times they tried.
 

hermes

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Casual Shinji said:
Samtemdo8 said:
You did not think the Green Mile is good.....?
No.

It was pretty bloody obnoxious. All of Frank Darabont's movies are, but The Green Mile takes the cake. It was like watching Harry Potter on death row. The character of Percy shines out in this regard; The depiction of his character was pornographic in how snivling, slimey, and evil he was. This is a problem inherent with Stephen King's writing, but most movie adaptations work around that with subtle acting performances. Acting in a Frank Darabont movie however is almost never subtle. Apart from Sam Rockwell, he gave the only nuanced preformance in that film.
That seems to be a problem with a lot of King's writing. He is interested in creating a pulpy premises and running with it. The Green Mile: the book is "What if Tom Robinson was also Jesus"... not exactly a subtle premise.
 

Casual Shinji

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hermes said:
Casual Shinji said:
No.

It was pretty bloody obnoxious. All of Frank Darabont's movies are, but The Green Mile takes the cake. It was like watching Harry Potter on death row. The character of Percy shines out in this regard; The depiction of his character was pornographic in how snivling, slimey, and evil he was. This is a problem inherent with Stephen King's writing, but most movie adaptations work around that with subtle acting performances. Acting in a Frank Darabont movie however is almost never subtle. Apart from Sam Rockwell, he gave the only nuanced preformance in that film.
That seems to be a problem with a lot of King's writing. He is interested in creating a pulpy premises and running with it. The Green Mile: the book is "What if Tom Robinson was also Jesus"... not exactly a subtle premise.
See, I was sorta digging the premise of 'What if this guy who raped and killed these two little girls is also this gentle, childishly innocent man with healing powers.' It added to the idea of the Lord working in mysterious ways and forgiveness, as well as just being incredibly conflicting. Like, here's a dude who caused so much suffering, but also has the ability and inclination to stop other people from suffering. How do you deal with something like that as a prison guard? But no, he was completely innocent and it was actually this other guy that the movie already established is a total monster. There goes that interesting concept.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Casual Shinji said:
hermes said:
Casual Shinji said:
No.

It was pretty bloody obnoxious. All of Frank Darabont's movies are, but The Green Mile takes the cake. It was like watching Harry Potter on death row. The character of Percy shines out in this regard; The depiction of his character was pornographic in how snivling, slimey, and evil he was. This is a problem inherent with Stephen King's writing, but most movie adaptations work around that with subtle acting performances. Acting in a Frank Darabont movie however is almost never subtle. Apart from Sam Rockwell, he gave the only nuanced preformance in that film.
That seems to be a problem with a lot of King's writing. He is interested in creating a pulpy premises and running with it. The Green Mile: the book is "What if Tom Robinson was also Jesus"... not exactly a subtle premise.
See, I was sorta digging the premise of 'What if this guy who raped and killed these two little girls is also this gentle, childishly innocent man with healing powers.' It added to the idea of the Lord working in mysterious ways and forgiveness, as well as just being incredibly conflicting. Like, here's a dude who caused so much suffering, but also has the ability and inclination to stop other people from suffering. How do you deal with something like that as a prison guard? But no, he was completely innocent and it was actually this other guy that the movie already established is a total monster. There goes that interesting concept.
But didn't that exact same revelation happened in the Shawshank Redemption. Turns out the Protagnist did not kill his wife and her affair, it was some other guy.
 

Scarytown_v1legacy

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TrulyBritish said:
PsychedelicDiamond said:
Why does hardly anyone short of Stanley Kubrick seem to be able to do a decent King adaptation?
Didn't King also say he didn't really like Kubricks version of the Shining? To the extent he later made his own TV version of the Shining?
While I consider Stephen King a great story teller, his taste in movies seems a bit spotty. You have to remember we are talking about the guy that made this:


Granted he was made up of 90% booze and cocaine at the time when he directed it, but I've never really got the impression that his taste changed all that much when he sobered up.

Pyrian said:
Oh, dear, some of this stuff on Rotten Tomatoes is fantastic: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the critics didn't follow."

"Go then, there are other Stephen King adaptations than these."
At least I'm getting a laugh at some of the reviews. But seriously, what I keep reading over and over again is that the movie revolves around Jake being a "chosen" one now and Roland has become a secondary character that has to protect him at all cost. Now I haven't seen the movie, so the reviewers might be exaggerating, but it becomes incredibly disheartening when I keep seeing every damn review point out that the movie feels like a young adult novel.
 

TrulyBritish

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Scarytown said:
While I consider Stephen King a great story teller, his taste in movies seems a bit spotty. You have to remember we are talking about the guy that made this:


Granted he was made up of 90% booze and cocaine at the time when he directed it, but I've never really got the impression that his tasted changed all that much when he sobered up.
It's just so confusing to me that this guy has had direct involvement in a number of the adaptions and yet many of them are poorly received and what is possibly the most well known adaption is one he actively dislikes.
I guess he just can't translate his literary skill to cinema.
 

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Happyninja42 said:
Ogoid said:
Having finally gotten around to reading the books past the first (currently working through Wizard and Glass)... I can't say I'm surprised. It's way too big and just plain weird a story for Hollywood.
I wouldn't bother finishing the series. It's not very good. Especially the last half of it. I can't remember which book it was, (The one that focused entirely on a flashback of a young Roland and his first love). That book got really fucking old quick, with how often King had to type out "If they'd only known what was to come, they would've acted differently" type bullshit. I get it Stephen, their idyllic life ended tragically, we fucking know this because we see Roland as an adult and he's a Tortured Soul Loner archetype. I FUCKING GET IT! MOVE ON WITH THE STORY ALREADY!! ....oh, nope, you're going to exposition for another 400 fucking pages? Great.
Yeah, that's Wizard and Glass, a giant dead spot in the middle of the saga. I don't mind that King decided to do a flashback episode. What I do mind is that instead of giving us more worldbuilding and/or showing the fall of Rolands Homeland, maybe bridging some of the gap between that and the beginning of the gunslinger, we got a huge story about Roland's First love. Except that we already know this is going to end badly because King brought up how tragically it ended in the 3 previous books. And it gets him no closer to the tower.

The only reason to read Wizard and Glass was to resolve the cliffhanger at the end of the Wasteland. Otherwise it's totally skiappble.

At least the next 3 books went a lot faster.
 

RJ Dalton

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PsychedelicDiamond said:
Why does hardly anyone short of Stanley Kubrick seem to be able to do a decent King adaptation? I mean, he's not Bill Burroughs, it's not like his novels are anywhere close to unfilmable. Yet all adaptations, with some notable exceptions, are some degree of schlock.
Kubrick's version of The Shining isn't really a good adaptation of the book because it misses many of the book's core themes and the characters are wildly different from their book counterparts. All of Kubrick's adaptations more or less completely disregard the source material, it's just that Kubrick was very good at making quality films in general.