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Idris Elba as Roland Deschain?!

Started by Glebe, December 10, 2015, 11:58:51 AM

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Glebe

First trailer.

Hmmm. I dunno. Not a particularly thrilling tease, if you ask me. The jury's still out.

Twit 2

Looks very generic. Needs someone like Hillcoat giving it a bit of grit.

mothman

Yes, generic. Now, I was massively into the DT series at one time, especially the connections to other King works, but I abandoned Wizard & Glass halfway through, then read Wolves of the Calla and no further. I have also been thoroughly spoiled as to the ending. But I still think the first three books are very good. And the first one has a simplicity that feels like purity. Whatever... this... is, it's not that.


wooders1978

Another in the not impressed pile - looks absolutely pants to be frank
Did they learn nothing from the Pullman dark materials movie conversion? It appears not
Predicting a flop

Bazooka

Basically no Ka-tet, which is a huge fuck up.Where is Roland?, I just see Idris Elba dressed up as a pseudo Roland minus any grit.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Glebe on December 10, 2015, 11:58:51 AM
The Frontrunner For Roland In THE DARK TOWER Is Canceling The Apocalypse!

I'm all for Elba as James Bond - we've had plenty of iterations of Bond, a change in ethnicity won't hurt - but I don't think it's in any way politically incorrect to suggest that this doesn't make a lot of sense, although several movie site reports sound positively elated by the idea. I mean, even a white Roland that didn't look like Roland - let's face it, an emaciated Clint Eastwood - would bother me.

What do YOU think?

I'm all for that because the amount of boorish Clarkson types it would upset would be hilarious. They're so precious some of them got upset that Daniel Craig had blond hair.

Bad Ambassador

Annoying pinhead racists is always fun, but Bond is one of the few major fictional characters of modern times whose identity is inextricable bound to his skin colour, gender and sexual orientation. Idris Elba would be terrible anyway because he has no sense of lightness or charm, but even the best black actor would be wrong for the role because Bond is a relic of the British Empire, and needs to act as a representative of the glories of the past projected into the present. I know it's not fair, but you need a white male playing a straight character to do that.

greenman

Quote from: Twit 2 on May 03, 2017, 09:11:02 PM
Looks very generic. Needs someone like Hillcoat giving it a bit of grit.

To be fair to look generic these days it would need to be full of camp meta one liners.

mothman

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on May 05, 2017, 11:52:22 AM
Annoying pinhead racists is always fun, but Bond is one of the few major fictional characters of modern times whose identity is inextricable bound to his skin colour, gender and sexual orientation. Idris Elba would be terrible anyway because he has no sense of lightness or charm, but even the best black actor would be wrong for the role because Bond is a relic of the British Empire, and needs to act as a representative of the glories of the past projected into the present. I know it's not fair, but you need a white male playing a straight character to do that.

This. The problem is I find myself wondering whether the same argument precludes a non-White/female Doctor Who, which would be something I'd like to see. The way I rationalise it, the Doctor has moved far enough away from his original depiction (venerable/scholarly/paternal/mysterious old man) in his subsequent incarnations, to no detrimental effect. He's more of an idea than a person, and there's no reason why those ideas don't translate into a different paradigm. Bond, however, has his masculinity as an integral part of the character concept, a deliberately male sexual presence in contrast to the Doctor's asexuality.

I worry though that this film's failure will be laid at the feet of the central casting decision. Likely totally unfairly, but we know all too well how Hollywood, and certain portions of the population, think.

Bad Ambassador

They might try to blame that, but The Force Awakens, Rogue One and The Fate of the Furious have all been major hits despite the lack of a white male lead. There's more than enough numbers to slap down such a jelly-brained excuse. Get Out is the third-highest grossing horror film of all time in the US.

Shit Good Nose

How does Akiva Goldsman keep getting work?

Also, was there our modern world and a kid in the books?  Admittedly it's been years (must be getting on for 20) since I read them, and I never read past book 3 (mainly down to availability in the UK or, rather, lack thereof, but also because the story was clearly getting shitter), but I don't remember either of those in any of the first three books...

colacentral

The boy was in it from book one. The modern world was mostly book two I think (I didn't read anything after book four). This looks like it combines elements of all of the first four.

Glebe

Quote from: mothman on May 03, 2017, 10:37:20 PMYes, generic. Now, I was massively into the DT series at one time, especially the connections to other King works, but I abandoned Wizard & Glass halfway through, then read Wolves of the Calla and no further. I have also been thoroughly spoiled as to the ending. But I still think the first three books are very good. And the first one has a simplicity that feels like purity. Whatever... this... is, it's not that.

Nah, I liked 'em all (The Drawing of the Three is probably my fave, though), although granted the end of the saga is a bit anticlimactic.

Here's a few motion posters... and here's a couple of 'regular' posters:




[nbnotworking]The Roland motion poster reminds of the bomb dog graphic in The Day Today.[/nbnotworking]

Glebe

'The Legacy of the Gunslinger' featurette.

Suppose I was expecting too much from Hollywood, but did they have to go so broad with this?

Mister Six

Quote from: mothman on May 05, 2017, 12:55:25 PM
The problem is I find myself wondering whether the same argument precludes a non-White/female Doctor Who, which would be something I'd like to see. The way I rationalise it, the Doctor has moved far enough away from his original depiction (venerable/scholarly/paternal/mysterious)

None of those traits save for paternal are exclusively male or white or straight but yeah - The Doctor is one of the few major protagonists whose personality and stories at no point preclude a female or non-white iteration.

I do think a black Bond can work, and would actually be beneficial to the franchise because it opens up loads of interesting thematic avenues. Of course a bloody Aryan Etonian is going to be fine upholding the status quo - but why would a black Brit feel so determined to maintain an order that in many ways doesn't benefit him? What does being "British" mean today? It's a nice new lens through which to view a pretty staid franchise.

(I also don't get the "Elba has no lightness of touch" argument because he's a thousand times more capable at comedy than Daniel "Vladimir Putin's sexy younger brother" Craig, and Craig is one of the best Bonds yet.)

Erm, anyway. I think it's telling how the chatter on this thread has dropped off since the trailer ran. Really wouldn't get my hopes up for the sequels, let alone the TV spin-off on this showing. It's so... Generic-looking, with its murky palette and its sub-sub-sub-Matrix Reloaded bullet nonsense. Does Roland do that shit "firing without looking" thing in the books? I hate that - it always looks to phoney and teenage.

And the world of the books is so distinctive and weird - this seems to have normalised it too much.

Phil_A

Apparently King has been claiming this is supposedly a canonical sequel to the final book, set after the story loops back to the start, to try and justify why it bears no resemblance to the original stories at all.

It really frustrates me how average this looks, as I would've loved to've seen Elba and McConaughey play these characters in a better film, not one based on a script by the writer of Batman and Robin.

Mister Six

There were three other writers so I'm guessing at at some point it was a bit weirder and more interesting. IIRC, Goldsman is often brought in to perform final rewrites of movies to make them more Hollywood glossy. He did an uncredited rewrite on Constantine and look how that turned out.

Phil_A

Quote from: Mister Six on June 27, 2017, 05:44:40 PM
There were three other writers so I'm guessing at at some point it was a bit weirder and more interesting. IIRC, Goldsman is often brought in to perform final rewrites of movies to make them more Hollywood glossy. He did an uncredited rewrite on Constantine and look how that turned out.

Yes, it's been through a ton of directors and treatments over the last ten years, at least four other major studios passed on it according to Wikipedia. Ron Howard was attached to direct this version before shooting started,

Cuellar

Right...but this Roland character (haven't read the books) is as fictional as James Bond, isn't he? So why would a black Bond be alright but a black Roland be weird?

Glebe

International trailer #2.

That's a bit more like it. Still gonna be shit though, innit?

Dex Sawash

Quote from: Sam on December 11, 2015, 05:07:10 PM
He was good as Golli in The Thick of It.

^ i missed this first read-through.
COME BACK SAM

New Jack

Quote from: Cuellar on June 28, 2017, 10:15:38 AM
Right...but this Roland character (haven't read the books) is as fictional as James Bond, isn't he? So why would a black Bond be alright but a black Roland be weird?

I can even say it makes sense in universe,  as the basic premise is reality itself is messed up, and various characters get reintroduced in various magical ways, and...

Little things change each time with each trip around the Tower including aspects of Roland
, so why can't Roland end up black instead of fat and from Grange Hill?

Bad Ambassador

It runs to 95 minutes, according to the BBFC. That'll make it closer to 88 minutes once you take the credits off. As someone elsewhere said, imagine this was 2001 and The Lord of the Rings was about to come out, and it was only one film, and it was barely an hour-and-a-half. That's how pissed off a lot of people are. This will be a horrible disaster.

Glebe

#144
Getting numerous 5-star reviews, folks saying it's Nolan's best movie and that... Cinemablend only give it 3/5, and complain about lack of plot/filled out characters, which, from what I gather from other reviews (a couple saying it could almost be a silent movie), seems to be misunderstanding the kind of film it is.

Wrong thead. Soz.

Bazooka

Quote from: Glebe on July 18, 2017, 12:54:09 PM
Getting numerous 5-star reviews, folks saying it's Nolan's best movie and that... Cinemablend only give it 3/5, and complain about lack of plot/filled out characters, which, from what I gather from other reviews (a couple saying it could almost be a silent movie), seems to be misunderstanding the kind of film it is.

Pretty brazen claim to say its Nolans best film, even though he didn't direct The Dark Tower and its not out, maybe it is, we shall see.

Glebe


BritishHobo

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on July 18, 2017, 09:06:44 AM
It runs to 95 minutes, according to the BBFC. That'll make it closer to 88 minutes once you take the credits off. As someone elsewhere said, imagine this was 2001 and The Lord of the Rings was about to come out, and it was only one film, and it was barely an hour-and-a-half. That's how pissed off a lot of people are. This will be a horrible disaster.

But it's not one film. Where's this rumour come from? I keep seeing people say it, but it's never come from official sources; quite the opposite, they've been open about this being the first in a franchise, being The Gunslinger with some elements (primarily Jake) brought forward.

New Jack

Well. The rest of that franchise is predicated on how well this is done.

If it's a standalone 90 minute romp it's not gonna be particularly good without cutting a load of shit / conflating a load of shit

Glebe

The Gunslinger is the shortest novel in the series, but this is skipping around and introducing material from later in the saga, plus characters need introducing and the whole situation needs setting up, so, yeah, an-hour-and-a-half does seem like a little on the 'rushing-things' side.