The Dark Tower TV series and Film thread

Is book 4 where it goes back to Roland’s youth? Because it was halfway through that I massively fucked it off.

Very entertaining until then though.

Oh yeah it does.

I recall the first time I read it I it was a bit a of a slog. When I read it again I enjoyed that far more.

But I mean in terms of the quality of the storytelling, it’s still far better than the later volumes.

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Yes! I adore them - they’re hugely bloated in parts, and the quality in the last couple is highly dubious at points. But overall it’s an amazing story and a, ahem, towering achievement. As noted elsewhere, King could benefit hugely from a better editor, but I also kinda love him for that.

If you’ve not read The Stand, do that instead first though. Not connected, but it’s his finest work IMO.

I’m gonna hottake you and say I don’t think The Stand is THAT good.

The Shining is definitely King’s best work and for me it’s closely followed by Dolores Claiborne. Then I’d likely pick things like Salem’s Lot and early Dark Tower books…

The Stand is great but it’s just overly long for me.

Each to their own. As stated in that recent thread, it’s in my top 5 of all time. I LOVE apocalyptic fiction, and I really like it in a King book when there’s a full-on no-shades-of-grey good vs. evil thing going on.

I also really enjoyed Under The Dome (book, not seen the series) recently, even if it’s basically The Stand in a much smaller geographical area. Far, far too long, but that’s part of its charm.

IT is obviously the best one. The sheer holistic achievement on that.

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I bought the first book in an attempt to read it before the film comes out (which I do all the time these days by the looks of it) but now I know it’s the first 4 books… should I bother? No way I’ll get through all of them before it comes out.

Ehh… The acting looks Good. Apart from the child

I have no idea how they can do all the first 4 books before it comes out. It’s certainly a huge ask to read all four first. Just stick with book one and see if you enjoy it, I guess.

(A look at the cast implies to me that it’s going to be incorporating the flashback story from Book 4 as background.)

Colour me psyched.

Those reloading shots made me grin like a giant child.

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Third reply, sorry: From the trailer they have used stuff from all over the books in a completely different way so, yeah, no need to read ahead.

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Yeah that flashback went on forever. Every tiny thing the characters did was described and extrapolated upon and pages and pages crawled by without anything happening at all. Hated that.

By the last three it started becoming really obvious he had no idea what he was doing. There was no overarching story and the more crazy shit he threw into the plot the more frustrating it became.

But the ending was good I thought.

The background story is really important to the character of Roland who, until then, was mostly a mystery to us.

It tells us about how he also views his new Ka-Tet and what he expects from them.

I think if he hadn’t decided he had to finish the books no matter what and had made a more coherent ending story, we’d have seen that story entwined more strongly into the fabric of the Dark Tower.

I liked the chance to look at his youth but we could have done it with half the pages.

Okay so going back to the link I originally posted,

[spoiler] Book IV is mainly going to be the TV series but the current film cast includes Susan Delgado who I think only appeared in that bit so I’m not really sure what to make of what they’re doing.

We’ve got Jake but not Eddie or Odetta/Susannah. Seems odd to have the TV series telling that tale if it’s not book-ended by Roland telling it to the whole Ka-Tet? [/spoiler]

Is Idris in the TV series?

I see Ian McShane as head of the Big Coffin Hunters.

Norman Reedus or Charlie wotsit from Sons of Anarchy as The Good Man John Farson maybe?

That original article said he was in the TV show, yeah, although presumably only as a small role? Or maybe as narrator.

Oh yeah it’s mostly flashback is W & G innit.

Well, I mean there is actually a chunk of story in there. I was surprised to remember that when I came back to re-read. But the greater part is certainly the one flashback, yeah.