The Dark Tower

[GeneChing]

Has anyone read The Dark Tower (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70369-The-Dark-Tower)? Are there really martial arts in it? If so, it'll fit in our East meets West - Wuxia Westerns and Samurai Cowboys (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70310-East-meets-West-Wuxia-Westerns-and-Samurai-Cowboys) thread.


'The Dark Tower' Trailer Promises a Sci-Fi Martial Arts Wild West Movie (http://www.outerplaces.com/science-fiction/item/16407-dark-tower-trailer-sci-fi-martial-arts-wild-west)
Matthew Loffhagen Monday, 10 July 2017 - 6:55PM

http://www.outerplaces.com/media/k2/items/cache/774088bc3853d5efa7cfa6f846c140d3_L.jpg
Columbia Pictures

Looking at the latest trailer for The Dark Tower, the swashbuckling, dimension-hopping cowboy movie adapted from the Stephen King book series of the same name, it's hard to get over just how well cast this movie is.

Sure, Idris Elba's Wild West accent isn't perfect, but then, that's not really what you're paying attention to. The draw here is just how awesomely cool Elba looks as the Gunslinger, loading his gun on the fly and firing out bullets while jumping through the air in a way that makes Serenity, the current standard for sci-fi Westerns, stand up and pay attention.

As if Elba weren't enough, Matthew McConaughey is showing off his range by providing such an impressive, eerie Man in Black that you almost forget that he's ever played any character that hasn't been an unstoppable evil force of nature - it doesn't help that he comes off that way regardless. These two work together so well that, watching this (or any other) trailer for the movie, it's hard not to get excited. See the new international trailer below:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZC5FoJ-cPU

Of course, there are many things that are notably absent from the marketing campaign for The Dark Tower. We've seen suspiciously little of the Earthly side of the story - the protagonist of the movie is the young pre-teen Jake, who acts as our viewpoint in an alternate dimension. Naturally, Sony is pushing their big name stars in the trailers, but one can't help but wonder if perhaps the more pedestrian side of the movie is lackluster by comparison.

The same can be said for any genuine horror themes. Stephen King's reputation precedes him, but it does look an awful like Sony's tried to bend the source material to fit a more comic book superhero aesthetic, dropping the scary stuff to make room for more straight action set pieces.

If so, then Sony is justified in keeping the spotlight on the movie's strengths - after all, let's face it, this movie's going to be completely swallowed up by the bigger blockbusters of the year. 2017 is a fantastic time for cinema with so many heavy hitters already in theaters, or about to release, that a movie based on a less recognizable property doesn't really stand a chance.

After several delays, it seems that Sony has given up on finding the perfect time for this film, and are releasing it quickly without much fanfare to simply get it out of the way as they focus on a slew of more traditional superhero movies.

https://media.giphy.com/media/l0IyiWavIsychLXqM/giphy.gif
via GIPHY

This is a shame, as everything we have seen of The Dark Tower thus far suggests that it's going to be a lot of fun. Unless, of course, this is a classic Stephen King horror story that's being marketed as an action Western to get audiences into theaters. That certainly would explain a lot of the movie's shady, quiet marketing approach.

The Dark Tower hits theaters August 4, 2017.

[GeneChing]

So a long time ago, in a suburb far, far away, I invested in The Dark Tower 1st edition. I was going to make a bundle. Mine is still wrapped in cellophane. Srsly. Which means, of course, I never read it. But now I've seen the movie.

Wow.

Just wow.

That was bad.

Unbelievably bad for something from King. Admittedly he wrote it under a pen name. I get why now.

For a moment, the kid protag had the 'shine,' and I thought, well cool, the Shining in a fantasy setting. But no, it doesn't exploit that, even though it's essentially the same thing only instead of redrum, it's this dark tower. Idris Elba is the Gunslinger, sort of Jedi Ronin with 6 shooters, that completely defies physics with every shot, painfully so. Matthew McConaughey is the villain with seemingly limitless magic powers - he's looking for his Lincoln I guess. He really looks and acts like he just walked out of one of those car commercials. Which explains a lot, actually. Katheryn Winnick from Wu Assassins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70838-Wu-Assassins) is in it. She's the mom and didn't get a proper fight scene, so it was a waste of talent. There's portals to other dimensions, aliens with human masks, children in peril, the threat of multidimensional apocalypse, and a lot of crappy effects. Just dumb. Dumb from every angle.

There is some sword swinging.

I still have that book. It's somewhere buried in my mom's house. Still wrapped in cellophane. I looked for it a few years ago when I needed some money. Didn't find it, but it's there, buried deep.

I will never read it.

[Jimbo]

Gene,

Stephen King-based movies are not always a good indication of how the book it’s based on is. For me, the only “Stephen King” movies that exceeded the stories in book form were the original 1976 Carrie, Stand By Me, Christine, and The Mist.

As far as King’s work goes, I don’t like his fantasy stuff like The Dark Tower series, nor his short stories. The books of his I have liked were one-off suspense/horror novels, like Under The Dome, It, 11/22/63, The Institute, and stuff like that. But even in his best novels, after the usually big buildups, the main antagonists usually end up coming across as weak, and the endings are often anticlimactic.

[GeneChing]

We all remember what a mess Cujo was. And on the same note, The Shining movie was very different than the book, but they were both superb. I still rank the film as one of my all time fav horrors, and the book is my fav of King's full-length novels. For me personally, I enjoy King's short stories the most. I read Night Shift in a castle in Mexico as a teen (a graduation trip my granddad took me on) and was so engrossed that I spent the entire night up reading it. Horror seldom sustains my interest for an entire novel, but I seldom read fiction anymore.

To be direct, my favorite King book is On Writing. That is my go-to recommendation for any aspiring writer (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/about/guidelines.php), and my second recommendation after Strunk & White.

Nevertheless, I was very disappointed in this film. Did you like it? Did you read the book and if so, how did it compare?