So, what went wrong here? - The Dark Tower (2017) Discussion

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

The "creators" were only concerned with making a movie where a white character was made into a black character and daring anyone to comment.

It was solely a vehicle for radical PCness.

Story was a byproduct.

reply

[–] Meleractor (4) 7 years ago

That's pretty much it. SJW agenda backfiring big time.
The funny part is...it wasn't necessary. The Dark Tower already has a prominent Black character. Her name is Susannah Dean and she is fucking awesome.

reply

[–] DracTarashV2 (4493) 7 years ago

Waaah waaaah....

This coming from the same crowd that gets outraged every time they see whitewashing criticism (which is in fact a far more prevalent issue) come up.

If lib Hollywood continues this so-called agenda and triggers your 50s white guys kind, then more power to them.

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

I rarely get outraged over anything and am not outraged over the blackwashing of this movie. If I were, I would not have went to see it the Friday morning after it was released.

I am simply pointing out that PC agenda trumped story in this case. No it is not a good thing if they keep on doing this sort of thing because it robs us all of good movies.

reply

[–] Starduster (268) 7 years ago

In the case of THIS movie, how did making his character black, rob us of a good movie?

reply

[–] Starduster (268) 7 years ago

I am anything but politically correct. I poke fun at PC all of the time.
Your comment is based on a "no win" situation and in the case of this movie it seems irrelevant.
First; what dictates that the character needs to be white (for any particular reason).
Does it matter?
If everyone was white, there would be people complaining that there were no black characters.
If the villain was black, people would complain that the black guys are always cast as "the bad guys". In the case of THIS movie, the villain was white, and the character who stood on the side of GOOD was black. We get complaints about that.
So again it is a "no win" situation.
This is a movie where I honestly dont see a reason why the character shouldn't be black, or why it even matters.
I have been critical of movies from black writers/directors//producers that seem to don nothing but perpetuate negative stereotyping of black characters but will complain about racial unfairness in Hollywood. How asinine is that?
They have the opportunity to elevate the image of black people and they squander the opportunity of changing that and continue to downgrade their image.
What we see here is simply casting a person who can fit into the role comfortably and be on the side of GOOD. Why is that a BAD thing?

reply

[–] jjberkhof (6) 7 years ago

Source material. Roland was always described as old, weathered, lanky, wore a hat, bambardier blue eyes. We got what looks like a recently retired NFL player. If they would have put a hat on him and gave him blue contacts, I might have been ok. But here we are...

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

The source material describes Roland, through his interaction with Detta, as being white.

reply

[–] CraigJamesReview (1717) 7 years ago

Contrary to what the guy above me is saying, the fact they got a black guy instead of a white guy is far from one of the key problems here. The problem was that they tried to do a sequel as well as an adaptation of the King work and only make it 95 minutes long. Also all actors seemed to wanna be any where else, the effects were crap, the direction sloppy. It was mostly just a mess all together.

I'm trying to go for an engaging, funny youtube channel so, if you have the time, take a look. Hope you enjoy what you see. Thanks in advance. A review of the movie here- https://youtu.be/rEXvFXvTxto

reply

[–] grindovermatter (380) 7 years ago

Exactly, race had nothing to do with it. The problems all lie with the script, editing, and direction.

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

It is interesting that you made my point for me. Little thought was given to the script, editing or direction.

The main goal of the movie was to blackwash something in a major way. To the extent that making Roland black completely negates the appearance of an actual black character.

Seems like a hollow victory.

reply

[–] grindovermatter (380) 7 years ago

Your fabled "blackwashing" is a complete non-issue. The movie would not have been made any better by casting a white man in the role. If anything, Elba's presence was one of the only things about the movie that actually worked in its favor.

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

I agree with the last part. Elba was, as usual, very impressive. He made the movie bearable.

Edward Norton is a fantastic character actor. No doubt he could play a fabulous Kunta Kinte but that does not mean that he should.

I am not saying the movie would have been better with a white Roland. I am saying that with a white Roland, the makers of the film would have not spent the rest of their time high-5ing each other over how diverse they are and put some effort into the film. Instead, they rested on their laurels.

The fact that they cast a black man to fill the role of a white character IS blackwashing. As long as whitewashing exists then blackwashing exists. And this was a prime example of it.

Making Roland black renders a very important portion of the story moot completely.

In fact, the story cannot happen if Roland is black.

Without a white Roland, Detta Walker would not exist. Roland was the yin to Detta's yang. Just like Eddie was the yin to Susannah's yang. Detta Walker is integral to the story and Roland would not have found the DT without her. It was Detta who solved the riddle in Blaine's Cradle.

reply

[–] grindovermatter (380) 7 years ago

Having never read the books, I can not speak to the last part, but your original point seems to be that the makers of the film went "Okay, we cast a black guy! Now we don't have to expend any effort on the rest of the movie!" which is just ridiculous. From what I was able to gather from the story as presented by the film, you could have made a cohesive film with better writing and better direction, with the character's race still being a complete and utter non-issue. We know this because there are plenty of films and TV shows that have swapped a character's race and still turned out to be excellent.

The real lesson to take away from this film is that you can cast your movie however you like, just don't hire the guy who wrote Batman & Robin to pen the script.

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

Did you not just read what I wrote? You did not read the books but I did.

The story stops dead with a non-white Roland.

It matters to the story itself.

Casting a black Roland is, story-wise, akin to casting a white Kunta Kinte.

reply

[–] JepGambardella (492) 7 years ago

No it doesn't. That's ridiculous. The screenplay (which is the story of the MOVIE) would have been exactly the same if Roland had been played by a white actor. Not a single comma would have had to be changed.

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

But the story cannot be told as intended. Do you know the story?

Detta Walker is crucial to it. Without a white man to hate, no Detta.

No Detta, and the Ka-Tet would have perished in Blaine's Cradle.

reply

[–] Starduster (268) 7 years ago

Perhaps I would need to read the books to grasp a reason of why this is so important.
From everything I read, the movie strays significantly from the source material which upsets many people. This has been an argument about MANY King adaptations. He writes long complex stories which dont lend themselves well to theatrical movies where running time is an issue. Anything done for TV has been done in multiple installments.
I like to go in and enjoy a movie without any burden or preconceived expectations laid down by a book. Meeting the expectations of a book to movie adaptation presents problems.
I personally have enjoyed MANY of the King movie adaptations. Some have inspired me to read the books. Certainly the differences exist. Since I have done things in reverse order, (movie THEN book) I have not gone back to hate a movie once I have read the book itself.
I like the movie to stand on its own merits.
I found it enjoyable.
Before this, I saw Atomic Blonde. I detested the thing.
When I read the words "based on a "GRAPHIC NOVEL", I pretty much KNEW how I would feel about it.
THATS ME!
I used to enjoy movies made from graphic novels, at least main stream "superheros" like Batman or Spiderman. That is not true anymore. I stay away from anything labeled DC or MARVEL.
The previews of Dark Tower looked interesting so I went to see it. Not because it was based on anything in particular.

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

As I said in another post. The movie did not stray from the source material at all.

It would have first have had to consult the source material in order to have strayed from it.

reply

[–] Barclays (960) 7 years ago

You seem to be educated about what is a good movie and what isn't. I'll take your advice and skip this until Blu ray dvd

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

The key problem is that all the attention was given to blackwashing this film and no attention was given making a good film.

You made my point for me.

reply

[–] CraigJamesReview (1717) 7 years ago

at one point the studio actually wanted to fire the director too because this thing tested so badly. From planning to execution, this was done poorly. Race has very little to do with it. And Edward Norton playing a character meant to be black is different from a character who if i'm not mistaken can be any color. I did not read the books (I want to get to them eventually) but I doubt King specified.

reply

[–] Goliard (1421) 7 years ago

You are mistaken.

The character CANNOT "be any color," unless you're ignoring seven books worth of story. He's described as a blue-eyed white man. Essentially Clint Eastwood, in the "Unknown Gunslinger" archetype. As has been pointed out exhaustively, this is important to the character for several plot-related AND thematic reasons.
No idea why you "doubt King specified". . .he absolutely did.

In any case, the movie was meh. Couldn't decide if it wanted to be an adaptation, sequel, or mashup. So failed across the board. Was mildly amusing watching Idris chew scenery, but that's about all that could be said for the flick.

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

You are mistaken CRAIG. Roland cannot be any color.

Making Roland black renders a very important portion of the story moot completely.

In fact, the story cannot happen if Roland is black.

Without a white Roland, Detta Walker would not exist. Roland was the yin to Detta's yang. Just like Eddie was the yin to Susannah's yang. Detta Walker is integral to the story and Roland would not have found the DT without her. It was Detta who solved the riddle in Blaine's Cradle.

Susannah/Detta is a split-personality character. A black lady who suffered a head injury due to a white man when she was a girl.

It matters as much to this story that Roland be white as it matters to Roots that Kunta Kinte be black.

reply

[–] CraigJamesReview (1717) 7 years ago

i'll have to read the books. I didn't want to because I wanted to be surprised by the movie. But the movie sucked ass. Soooo, I will try to start those soon.

reply

[–] Nosduj (145) 7 years ago

Actually the movie has so little to do with the source material that you can start the books without the movie effecting it at all.

I, having read every word in the series, literally had no idea what I was watching for the first 15 minutes. Had my wife, who has not read the books, not been with me I would have walked out.

In great WWZ fashion, the book series and movie shared little more than a title. As I said in response to a post where someone wrote that the movie was an insult to the source material, it was NOT an insult to the source material as the movie would have had to first consult the source material in order to insult it.

The good news in this is that there is room out there for someone to come in and give it the Game Of Thrones treatment.
Granted GoT, the show, is a paltry representation of the book series from which it was derived, but compared to The Dark Tower it is magnificent.

Beware, those 8 books are a long haul.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

[deleted]

[–] niahflame (24) 7 years ago

I personally thought the movie was a huge bore. I'm a King fan but skipped the Dark Tower series because it didn't interest me. I only went to this because a friend paid.

Why the hell was this PG 13? The violence was cartoonish. The plot was strange and all over the place. I did enjoy Walter. The boy was the main character, Idris was barely in it it seemed.

reply

[–] TandyMan (11097) 7 years ago

Nobody cared about making it right. The version they almost made with Ron Howard and Javier Bardem probably would have been brilliant.

reply

[–] Washingtonnative (2613) 7 years ago

Thats Hollywuss for you.

reply

[–] Xcalat3 (3748) 7 years ago

Atrocious, boring script that's what happened.

reply

[–] Macnickster (33) 7 years ago

Well, first off, for some reason the doors between the world's became Stargate. What should have been the Oracle encounter took a left turn from the source narrative and sent the plot in a downward spiral until interrupted by an abrupt end. had nothing to do with raceswapping the acting was fine.

reply

[–] ZeroWolf (41) 7 years ago

What often happens:

Hollywood sees well-liked and lucrative IP.

Hollywood thinks, "hey, we can easily make money off this well-liked and lucrative IP."

Hollywood follows with, "But of course we know better what people like and what will make money than the guy who made the well-liked and lucrative IP"

They then cut & paste a bunch of stuff from the IP they think is cool, then have a brain(dead)storming session and add a bunch of other garbage, smash it all together haphazardly, release it, and say, "eat this, you idiot pigs."

reply

[–] HedleyLamarr (402) 7 years ago

Here is my two cents worth (This is coming from someone who did not read the books):
1) The plot was not interesting nor original, and they tried to cram too much mess into too little time. There was very little back story.
2) The characters lacked depth. Apart from the gunslinger (and this was barely), I really didn't care for anyone. When the Man in Blacked [spoiler]killed the kid's mom[/spoiler], I really didn't care. Also could the kid's douchebag of a stepdad be any more cliché?
3) The bad guy was completely flat. A movie is only as good as it's antagonist.
4) Apart from idris elba, I felt that casting was wrong.
5) The acting was not good. When everyone is not acting well, that points to bad directing, IMO.
6) Some of the FX were good, other's were laughable.

reply