Dark Tower Film/TV Series In The Works

[Mynock]

Let the waiting begin.
http://www.stephenking.com/promo/dark_t ... s_tracker/

[quagmire_uk]

I read the very first book - The Gunslinger. Wasn't massively gripped, but it was OK, and was thinking about reading the others. But then someone told me how the very final book ends.

The Dark Tower is "all about the journey, not the destination" - and I can't see that translating well to film or television. What with people saying they "wasted" years watching Lost because it had an unsatisfactory ending.

[Billie Bonce]

The Dark Tower is "all about the journey, not the destination" - and I can't see that translating well to film or television. What with people saying they "wasted" years watching Lost because it had an unsatisfactory ending.

The best anime series ever, Cowboy Bebop, is exactly "all about the journey, not the destination". Perhaps, such a concept doesn't appeal to American audience, but in the other parts of the world it may be appreciated well.

[quagmire_uk]

You say that, but Cowboy Bebop had an excellent ending. They could have done a hundred more episodes of random entertaining hijinks, but when it came to doing a final episode, they didn't disapoint.

And personally, my favourite anime is RahXephon. Yeah, it's just an Evangelion rip-off... but unlike Evangelion, they had the whole story planned out from beginning to end and it all makes sense and has a proper ending. It's a rip off that is better than the original. I'll probably get tomatoes thrown at me for saying that!

(Don't watch the RahXephon movie - it compresses a 26 episode series into two hours, gives away the series' major plot twist in the first few minutes, removes some of the best characters from the story, and has a different ending. What were they thinking?)

There's plenty of stories where the journey is better than the destination, but at least there should be a destination, some kind of conclusion. A short story might not need one, but if you're going to spend 30 years doing a long book series, and you finally do a 7th, final book, there's better be something interesting at the end. I haven't read the whole last book (I've only read the first book!), but I had a friend ranting and raving about how pissed off he was cause he'd spent years reading the whole series and felt like the ending was a cruel practical joke and told me it to discourage me from reading the books!

I mentioned Lost earlier. There were many people that watched all 6 or 7 seasons of Lost absolutely gripped, but got concerned about all the crazy plot twists, and various sub-plots being completely dropped and forgotten about, and said to the creators "You do know what is really going on, right? You've got a plan for a proper ending?" and they claimed they did. And then it ended and many fans were very disapointed. The creators explained "We could either do an ending that solved the mysteries and the plot, or one that gave a satisfying resolution to the characters, and we decided to go with the characters." The ones that were watching it like a soap opera and only cared about the characters and love triangles were happy, but those that were watching it as a serious sci-fi show and were expecting some big answers to the big mysteries were pissed off as it was all explained away as being some supernatural spirtual symbolism - this guy is good personified, this one is evil personified, it's just a battle between good and evil. Characters ask "Why did you do blah blah blah?!" Mysterious character replies mysteriously and cryptically, "it's all part of the game" or some shit.

I never got to see much of Lost, as here on UK TV they only showed the first two seasons on terrestrial TV, and at the time I didn't have satellite/cable. I never made the effort to buy it on DVD or download it or anything cause I was very concerned that the series would go downhill and never have a proper resolution. After the series ended, the internet was ablaze with people going WTF about the ending so that's how I know what happens. But now that I know how Lost ends, and it is basically "yeah its mysterious and supernatural, deal with it"... I'm actually willing to watch it, because I'm sure I can watch it and appreciate the journey, and I won't be anxiously trying to figure out the mysteries.

Similarly with The Dark Tower, I'm a bit pissed that I've had the ending spoilt for me... but I think that's the lesser of two evils, cause if I'd spent £100 getting all 7 books and spent a year or two reading them all (the later ones are pretty thick), to discover it doesn't have a proper final conclusion, I imagine I'd be rather more pissed. (Amazingly Stephen King actually warns the reader to close the book and not read the final chapter! How many readers would read a 7 book series and then not read the final chapter?!)

I'm still willing to read the series, cause the journey is supposed to be amazing. But I'm thinking that a big movie or TV series project isn't going to work unless they change the ending. Cause people that become fans but have not read the books will be gripped for years, and then will be pissed off at the end, and they'll go "Great, just another fucking Lost, the writer didn't know where the story was going."

And then there won't be any more complicated series with twisty turny plotlines and lots of mysteries, viewers will be afraid to get into them, cause they have been burned too many times. And TV execs will realise this and not make such series any more. At the moment there is a series called The Event, has some similarities to Lost, but there's aren't a whole lot of big mysteries, they made sure that what was really going on was clear by episode 2, and now by episode 7 what the aliens are up to has been revealed, there's no mysteries, just a complicated plot structure with lots of flashbacks.

Writers doing complicated stories with lots of big mysteries and not having satisfying answers prepared in advance is WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.

Sorry, rant over. Yeah, I hope that the movie and TC adaptations of The Dark Tower are good. I'll probably enjoy them. But I anticapte much internet drama and rage when it ends.

[nachtjaeger]

Did not like The Dark Tower series. IMHO Stephen King should have either stuck with the alternate universe of the Gunslinger, or else set it in our universe. The mix of the two really didn't work well.

[Mynock]

...the ending was a cruel practical joke...

Of coarse it was. It's Stephen King, not a golden book fairytail where everybody lives happily ever after. Remember that while this series crosses over multiple genres at it's core it is a horror story, and the best horror stories never have good endings.
Give the rest of the books a chance. You wont' be sorry.

[quagmire_uk]

Hah, that's a fair point. Though Stephen King did say his goal with the Dark Tower was a Lord of the Rings type epic, so I guess I didn't really think of it from THAT perspective.

But I've read other King books (and seen countless film and TV adaptations). There's often some loss or sacrifice, but usually there's an actual ending that wraps everything up. And especially given the multi-genere nature of The Dark Tower, and its huge size and scope, to say "You're expecting an ending? Tough you aren't getting one," just seems like a cop-out to me!

Except... looking on wikipedia, an eight book is in the works. So if the "ending" of book 7 is a red herring and there might be more to come, well then that's fair enough. Apparently book 8 is actually a side-story set between 4 and 5, but the fact that the series is continuing in some way means that there's always the possibility that of some other continuation or ending in the future.