The Dark Tower

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Anakin McFly
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Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 5:40 am

The Dark Tower

Post by Anakin McFly »

I loved it. Haters gonna hate. [none]

As an adaptation it was a complete failure in that it was a completely different story from the novels, but the filmmakers and Stephen King had made it clear early on it wasn't going to be a straight adaptation anyway. (The least spoilery way to explain it is that the series deals with parallel worlds and messing about with time.) But a lot of fans weren't aware of that and are going ballistic at how Hollywood ruined their favourite R-rated series by turning it into a generic PG-13 YA adventure.

As a standalone film it was a mediocre YA adventure story with a thin plot, insufficient character building and pretty weak dialogue.

But as fan fiction, it's glorious and perfect.

It's one of those movies where it's only great if you know the source material, because then all the random throwaway lines and blink-and-you-miss it references spark off really exciting revelations about the story from the books and make it all into a much bigger and more amazing whole. It's a weird kind of genius in its own way: a greater story hidden within the lines of an average-to-bad one, where you've got to make those connections yourself.

I don't think I've had that experience with a movie before. Objectively I can understand why so many people hated it, and see all its flaws, but at the same time I genuinely enjoyed the movie and came away feeling very happy.
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