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The only scene that worked for me (and seemed to prompt much of a reaction from the audience I saw it with on opening night) was the "fish out of water in NYC" hospital scene. That was a major part of what I liked about Drawing of the Three, too, Roland trying to get his head around strange Earth customs and practices. Walter/Randall menacing Jake's parents could have worked if they'd let it breathe a bit more, give him a bit more smarmy menace before he went full on kill-crazy. Overall though this very much looked like the studio-committee-designed troubled-production mess it was. Even Elba wasn't that great, which I'd probably peg on bad writing and direction and the difficulty of him having to go from aloof, laconic jerk to Revolver Dad in like 60 minutes of screen time. The Walter-Roland fight reminded me like nothing so much as Count Dooku and Yoda throwing CGI rocks at each other and the "Hey we saved the Tower, but get in the Delorean for more great adventures, The Sony Studios logo has become the mark of licensed property trash flailing to be the next ~cinematic universe~. They should have just adapted The Gunslinger. Give creative freedom and 30 milly to an auteur who gets the source material. 200 lean, evocative pages written when King was at his coke-fueled best. That would have been a better movie or at least a less costly failure.
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Aug 9, 2017 15:47
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 12:37 |
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Krispy Kareem posted:Did Roland's bullets seem to be small or larger based on the scene? Like when he's reloading they look like .22 caliber but then he gets .45's. I think we've finally gotten to the root of why this film just wasn't working.
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Aug 11, 2017 00:38
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*in a very Holywood Guy voice* "We can shoot it cheap, it's got a famous author's name behind it, and there's nudity in like every scene!"
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Aug 11, 2017 16:44
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The Jaunt would work better as an episode of some Twighlight Zone/Outer Limits-esque anthology. It's great but there's not enough there to hold up a feature.
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Aug 11, 2017 18:19
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What if teleportation, but subjectively way too slow?
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Aug 11, 2017 19:00
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I guess if we want to be charitable Revolver Dad and Nake might make returning them their first excellent adventure but in something as insipid and paint-by-numbers it feels like a misfire not to have the feel good rescue and reunion montage in your denounment.
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Aug 18, 2017 16:09
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business hammocks posted:The first Dark Tower book is peak young cokehead Steve. I haven't read the revised version, but I'm guessing it's less nuts and therefore bad. He adds a bunch of bullshit call-forwards to the later, worse books and it is to my great regret that my copy of an early printing with all the cool glossy illo pages got destroyed in a basement flood.  http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?15058-The-Gunslinger-Revised-A-Side-by-Side-Comparison
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Sep 1, 2017 17:16
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Still can't get over how this turned into such a soul-less mess of a film that went through a nightmarish production, when it could have been such a good movie as a faithful adaptation of The Gunslinger. Like the books get insanely unfilmable later in the series but the first one is 100% totally perfect as basically a screenplay as-written with a really modest budget. Could have been made in the 80's and been good.
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Oct 16, 2017 17:15
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In an age where Ant Man and guardians of the galaxy get greenlit, I don't think The Gunslinger is that weird of a pitch. "A guy who's like a combination old west lawman and knight chases an evil wizard in a fantasy world. Along the way he has to battle a mind-controlled town, savage mutants, and a demon bound to standing stones. He befriends a boy from our world, and in the climax he shows that he is bound to duty over love by chosing to pursue the wizard instead of saving the boy from peril." It's a really simple, linear narrative with a handful of fairly prosaic setpieces. The only remotely hard part to adapt would be the paliver on the beach. The problem is they put the cart before the horse and wanted to do a remix of everything, where when you want to kitchen sink all the books together yeah it does get really wild and difficult to film.
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Oct 19, 2017 16:45
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Groovelord Neato posted:they shoulda just made gunslinger a movie. Seriously that novel could basically be used as-is as a screenplay and be good.
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Feb 25, 2018 18:21
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 12:37 |
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I have a friend who works as a CO in a federal prison. She said they loved this at movie night.  I guess when you're starving a saltine is a feast.
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Mar 28, 2018 15:01
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