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Turns out that 11/22/63 is already optioned and is in the planning stages to be made into a movie by Jonathan Demme.
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Aug 12, 2011 23:19
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King should never have bothered with the Dark Tower franchise to begin with and if he hadn't we might've had in the place of those books more stand-alone masterpieces. Maybe where he went wrong was self-consciously aiming for a magnum opus. That said, I remember mildly liking the first book and tremendously enjoying the second and having to slog through the third (never bothered with the rest.) If the series was as consistently good as "The Drawing of the Three" and lived up to the promise of that book then the series as a whole would have been among the best fantasy series.
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Aug 13, 2011 16:02
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ZoDiAC_ posted:He was using pop culture references and or poo poo from other fiction before Calla. Book 4's Wizard of Oz poo poo for example. Waste Land's "Velcro Fly". "Hey Jude" in Tull. . . Yeah, I think it's just that people somehow forgot that it's just as implausible that Beatles songs are folk songs in one part of the fantasy world and that Nazi airplanes and ZZ Top tapes show up in another as that an evil overlord would model their weapons after Harry Potter stuff.
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Aug 13, 2011 16:25
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trandorian posted:Yeah, I think it's just that people somehow forgot that it's just as implausible that Beatles songs are folk songs in one part of the fantasy world and that Nazi airplanes and ZZ Top tapes show up in another as that an evil overlord would model their weapons after Harry Potter stuff. For the songs, it's a matter of contrast- Velcro Fly and Hey Jude were elements of our world in a completely alien one and gave it some mystery/creep factor. "Was it our world in the far future?", for instance. When it's "Here come the doombots with the harry potter bombs!" and no subtlety at all it comes across as ridiculous.
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Aug 13, 2011 19:17
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Ugly In The Morning posted:For the songs, it's a matter of contrast- Velcro Fly and Hey Jude were elements of our world in a completely alien one and gave it some mystery/creep factor. "Was it our world in the far future?", for instance. When it's "Here come the doombots with the harry potter bombs!" and no subtlety at all it comes across as ridiculous. Same goes for the oil fields and gas station remains. They'd obviously been in Roland's world for centuries and nobody knows how to explain them.
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Aug 13, 2011 19:58
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Mister Kingdom posted:Same goes for the oil fields and gas station remains. They'd obviously been in Roland's world for centuries and nobody knows how to explain them. Yeah, it was all things that made sense, and gave it an apocalyptic vibe. It had logic to it. I'm having a hard time picturing someone making Doombots and Snitches as weapons and taking it seriously. That's the biggest problem right there- I couldn't take it seriously, so there wasn't even any goddamn menace.
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Aug 13, 2011 22:27
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trandorian posted:Yeah, I think it's just that people somehow forgot that it's just as implausible that Beatles songs are folk songs in one part of the fantasy world and that Nazi airplanes and ZZ Top tapes show up in another as that an evil overlord would model their weapons after Harry Potter stuff. The Dark Tower series is set in a place where multiple universes leak into each other either in the form of actual objects slipping through "thin" places, or just echoes of information being passed down through a series of worlds. So a Beatles song or a Nazi plane is actually far, far more plausible than Dr. Doom and Harry Potter military technology.
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Aug 14, 2011 01:15
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Locus posted:The Dark Tower series is set in a place where multiple universes leak into each other either in the form of actual objects slipping through "thin" places, or just echoes of information being passed down through a series of worlds. I thought the entire idea behind Doom-bots and sneetches was because they where both built by NCP. Where as Nazi planes and "Hey Jude" was not and is therefore much more subtle.
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Aug 14, 2011 01:39
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Ridonkulous posted:I thought the entire idea behind Doom-bots and sneetches was because they where both built by NCP. Where as Nazi planes and "Hey Jude" was not and is therefore much more subtle. Yeah, I don't have Calla at hand to check, but at one point don't they find an ad or label for the sneetches that basically says that these weapons of war were manufactured by NCP and explicitly modeled on Harry Potter for, like, no obvious reason at all?
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Aug 14, 2011 01:47
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H.P. Shivcraft posted:Yeah, I don't have Calla at hand to check, but at one point don't they find an ad or label for the sneetches that basically says that these weapons of war were manufactured by NCP and explicitly modeled on Harry Potter for, like, no obvious reason at all? Yeah, the "no obvious reason at all" part is what gets me. It's fine if a robotics company owned by an ineffectual satan figure makes killer robots and flying explodo-drones, but it was just really jarring for them to be pop-culture references. I can sort of see re-purposed amusement park animatronics or whatever the explanation was, as a cool and/or creepy kind of thing, but it wasn't handled well in my opinion. And Dr. Doom is pretty drat silly looking himself.
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Aug 14, 2011 01:55
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Locus posted:Yeah, the "no obvious reason at all" part is what gets me. It's fine if a robotics company owned by an ineffectual satan figure makes killer robots and flying explodo-drones, but it was just really jarring for them to be pop-culture references. Even an uncanny resemblance type thing might have been cool, in a "bleeding between worlds" type thing but it had to be literally Dr Doom and golden snitches. gently caress that noise. I even liked the last three books but that poo poo was just loving dumb. It annoyed me the whole time it was there.
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Aug 14, 2011 02:41
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Mid World or whatever the gently caress its called is a fictional world written by "real" Stephen King within the context of the series. Why wouldn't other fictional worlds fall into it or have things happen like that? I don't even remember who in the story recognizes them as Harry Potter stuff either.
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Aug 14, 2011 06:33
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trandorian posted:Mid World or whatever the gently caress its called is a fictional world written by "real" Stephen King within the context of the series. Why wouldn't other fictional worlds fall into it or have things happen like that? Because it's dumb.  So was having Stephen King in there.
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Aug 14, 2011 06:42
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Even an uncanny resemblance type thing might have been cool, in a "bleeding between worlds" type thing but it had to be literally Dr Doom and golden snitches. gently caress that noise. I even liked the last three books but that poo poo was just loving dumb. It annoyed me the whole time it was there. Not to be glib or anything but King kinda does "outsider art." Pretty much the best way to create things that are original or "pure" is to cut yourself off from mainstream media. I know that's tons of smug but we're social creatures and well, yeah I didn't like it either. He got lazy. And we sorta egged him on to finish the loving story and don't you go dying on us.
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Aug 14, 2011 06:51
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trandorian posted:Mid World or whatever the gently caress its called is a fictional world written by "real" Stephen King within the context of the series. Why wouldn't other fictional worlds fall into it or have things happen like that? Nobody recognizes them, they say "SNEETCH" Harry Potter Model right on the side of them, and Eddie intuits that they are some reference from the future. That's one of the things I don't like about him using them, they don't even mean anything to any of the characters so it might as well have been any other thing he could have made up except for then he wouldn't have been nudging the audience and saying "See? See? Isn't that weird?" See also them stowing away something (black 13 maybe? I don't even remember) in a locker in the World Trade Center pre-9/11 and saying to each other "Welp, that's now safe forever".
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Aug 14, 2011 07:03
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muscles like this? posted:Turns out that 11/22/63 is already optioned and is in the planning stages to be made into a movie by Jonathan Demme. Hold on. What? Jonathan Demme?
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Aug 14, 2011 14:13
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scary ghost dog posted:Hold on. What? Jonathan Demme? http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/stephen-king-jfk-jonathan-demme-222328 Also David Yates (director of the last four Harry Potter movies) is working to turn The Stand into at least a couple of movies.
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Aug 14, 2011 17:31
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muscles like this? posted:http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/stephen-king-jfk-jonathan-demme-222328 Holy moly, this could be a huge return to form for Demme. I'm excited. Assuming the book is good.
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Aug 15, 2011 10:51
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Opus125 posted:That said, I remember mildly liking the first book and tremendously enjoying the second and having to slog through the third (never bothered with the rest.) If the series was as consistently good as "The Drawing of the Three" and lived up to the promise of that book then the series as a whole would have been among the best fantasy series. I think you're the only person I've seen agree with me that the third book was huge downgrade from the second. I think the series picks back up with the fourth and fifth books, just be aware that the endings of both books are abysmal.
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Aug 15, 2011 20:45
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scary ghost dog posted:Holy moly, this could be a huge return to form for Demme. I'm excited. Assuming the book is good. The book as in the Stand? Barring the usual King caveats (ending), it has some of his best work.
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Aug 16, 2011 00:12
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ZoDiAC_ posted:The book as in the Stand? Barring the usual King caveats (ending), it has some of his best work. Demme is doing 11/22/63, King's new book out this fall about time travel and the Kennedy assassination. Yates is doing The Stand.
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Aug 16, 2011 00:23
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Ahh my bad, sorry. 11/22/63 sounds pretty cool though.
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Aug 16, 2011 23:36
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As someone who was waiting from the 80s for the end, I also hated the end. However, the point made about reading them straight through is a good idea. Assuming I can rebut them for not that much on the kindle (haven't checked yet), I will buy all seven and read them straight through. If I can't get original versions, I guess I will have to go to a used book store or something. If nothing else, the tone changes should be interesting. I read the first three in a library, bought the rest, but tended not to reread the prior novels before buying the new one. This will probably give a different perspective.
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Aug 17, 2011 01:59
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I wouldnt say dark tower was actually particularly bad. No, bad is when he started pulling random crap out of his vault. Cell sticks out as one I absolutely hated, and I to this day have not read past the back cover of Under the Dome or whatever.
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Aug 17, 2011 06:43
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I re-read Under the Dome the other day. For as well done he makes the small town, and tries to bring in a realistic point of view on when a small town becomes its own world, gently caress the ending. One of the worst god damned endings King has managed to pull out of his rear end in a long, long time. I had to put the fucker down the moment he owned up to what the dome was caused by, and forced myself to read to the end for closure's sake.
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Aug 17, 2011 10:51
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Wasn't King going to tinker with Drawing and Waste Lands the same way he did with Gunslinger, or did that fall by the wayside?
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Aug 17, 2011 11:12
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ZoDiAC_ posted:Wasn't King going to tinker with Drawing and Waste Lands the same way he did with Gunslinger, or did that fall by the wayside? Jesus, I hope not.
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Aug 17, 2011 14:29
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Under the Dome was overall above average. The ending was weak, but it didn't override the rest of the novel to me. That and Duma Key are the only novels I've actually overall "liked" since his accident.
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Aug 17, 2011 14:47
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ZoDiAC_ posted:Wasn't King going to tinker with Drawing and Waste Lands the same way he did with Gunslinger, or did that fall by the wayside? I would really like to see this, especially if he also does the same to Wizard and Glass, Wolves of the Calla, Susannah's Song and The Dark Tower. The revised Gunslinger honestly works better with the series than the original, which took over a decade to write and was made from what, 6 different short stories? The original Gunslinger is a good book if you consider it apart from the Dark Tower series, the revised one works better in the series. By the way, does anyone have that huge map from a few years ago that basically plots out Roland's path through the books?
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Aug 17, 2011 17:56
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trandorian posted:I would really like to see this, especially if he also does the same to Wizard and Glass, Wolves of the Calla, Susannah's Song and The Dark Tower. The revised edition rips out all the poetic weirdness of the first book and replaces it with a bunch of Phantom Menace-esque "YOU'RE GONNA COME TO A BAD END, GREEDO" type horseshit
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Aug 18, 2011 03:55
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:The revised edition rips out all the poetic weirdness of the first book and replaces it with a bunch of Phantom Menace-esque "YOU'RE GONNA COME TO A BAD END, GREEDO" type horseshit The same poetic weirdness that doesn't quite jive with the next 2 books, let alone the rest though.
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Aug 18, 2011 05:58
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I need to actually finish reading the last Dark Tower book some day. But I fear I would need to re-read Song of Susannah to make any sense of it, and all I can recall of that book is it seeming exceedingly stupid.
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Aug 18, 2011 11:06
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trandorian posted:The same poetic weirdness that doesn't quite jive with the next 2 books, let alone the rest though. Which is a failing of the other six books, not The Gunslinger.
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Aug 18, 2011 14:22
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Ornamented Death posted:Which is a failing of the other six books, not The Gunslinger. Which is why I said that the original Gunslinger is a good book on its own, while the revised Gunslinger is a good book in the Dark Tower series. If you get my meaning?
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Aug 18, 2011 17:33
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Yeah, I get it. I've read both. In fact I started on Wizard and Glass, but read Gunslinger before the revised edition. The Gunslinger was basically a bunch of shorter stories anyway from some sci fi magazine or something, it seems to be its own absolute book just fine . . . but the revised edition has edits to revise plot points that didn't gel with the rest of the books, which is both good and bad. I prefer the original.
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Aug 18, 2011 18:38
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King states he wrote The Gunslinger as a whole and a Publisher split it into a series of short stories. Take that as you will.
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Aug 18, 2011 19:04
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trandorian posted:The same poetic weirdness that doesn't quite jive with the next 2 books, let alone the rest though. There's a right way and a wrong way to make it fit in with the rest of the series. King chose the wrong way.
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Aug 19, 2011 04:08
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Ridonkulous posted:King states he wrote The Gunslinger as a whole and a Publisher split it into a series of short stories. Odd. These are the publication dates of the "stories": "The Gunslinger" (October 1978) "The Way Station" (April 1980) "The Oracle and the Mountains" (February 1981) "The Slow Mutants" (July 1981) "The Gunslinger and the Dark Man" (November 1981) I guess it's possible, but Wiki (and I know the usual Wiki caveat) lists each of these as a seperate novella, but that could well mean the publisher split the whole up (but weird to me to think they essentially sat on the full thing for like three years, and they published it as a whole in 1982 . . . why not publish it as a whole right away? I guess to milk it and make the most profit.)
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Aug 19, 2011 16:15
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I've got the July 1981 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and can confirm that it contains "The Slow Mutants" section of The Gunslinger. I don't think it was a publisher's decision to originally release the book in parts, otherwise the gaps between sections would be more uniform. Or rather, I don't think the magazine's publisher had the full manuscript in front of him and made that call, he just published the sections as he got them instead of waiting for the completed book.
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Aug 19, 2011 16:34
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The Gunslinger book was originally published as a limited edition, incidentally. Eyes of the dragon was too, for that matter.
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Aug 19, 2011 18:33
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