# Dreamcatcher-Is Stephan King a hack?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 31, 2005, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681 "2005-10-31T05:30:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/1 "2005-10-31T05:30:31Z")
I’m watching this on TNT and I remember it getting some bad reviews. I can see why. This is bad. It’s cheesy(the part where Jonesy keeps sporting the fakey british accent, which is really sad because the actor is british, is pretty bad) and the characters are stupid. And of course, the whole “Childhood friends confront evil aliens”(liked it better when it was “IT”) and “Child has magic powers”(I liked it better when it was “The Shining”).
So is the book this bad, or did they just screw up the film version? Who gets the blame for the fact this is pretty bad?
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### Author:  [@parthenokinesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/parthenokinesis)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/2 "2005-10-31T05:36:41Z")
They took a bad book and made a worse film. What got into Morgan Freeman I’ll never know.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/3 "2005-10-31T05:42:58Z")
Yes, Stephen King is a hack.
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### Author:  [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/4 "2005-10-31T06:43:01Z")
The book is that bad. I’ll give King a pass on it though as he wrote it while recovering from being hit by that van and on pretty heavy painkillers.
The fact that it got published, AND that it was made into a movie speaks more for the overreliance on famous names rather than intrinsic worth to sell art these days.
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### Author:  [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/5 "2005-10-31T06:59:14Z")
That movie actually came to me highly recommended by a person whose taste I trust.
Well, trusted.
I think Morgan Freeman was the one on the painkillers. It’s the only acceptable explanation for how he ended up in that waste of film.
That movie is painful to watch. And I didn’t go into it with very high expectations to begin with. King’s books are notorious for not translating (or being translated) very well to film, with few exceptions.
And yeah, the book is bad too.
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### Author:  [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/6 "2005-10-31T07:15:13Z")
> [@soulmurk](#):
>
> That movie is painful to watch. And I didn’t go into it with very high expectations to begin with. King’s books are notorious for not translating (or being translated) very well to film, with few exceptions.
Really? I find Stephen King books tend to make decent movies. Most of the time they cut out the parts of the book that drag or are unnecessary while highlighting the strengths.
That said Dreamcatcher was an unreadable book made into a truly unwatchable movie.
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### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/7 "2005-10-31T07:29:07Z")
> [@parthenokinesis](#):
>
> They took a bad book and made a worse film. What got into Morgan Freeman I’ll never know.
I suspect he needed the money badly(maybe he has an undisclosed gambling problem or something?), or the producers got ahold of some compromising photos of him.
I watched till the end of it. Damn, that was pretty bad. I feel bad for Mr. Freeman and somewhat bad for Damain Lewis, since I rather liked him in “Band of Brothers”.
King…it’s almost like he’s just rewriting the same books as he was before and releasing them under different titles.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/8 "2005-10-31T07:40:07Z")
This is even a question? King’s the biggest hack since Paul Bunyan.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/9 "2005-10-31T09:07:16Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> This is even a question? King’s the biggest hack since Paul Bunyan.
Nuh uh. Stephen King makes Paul Bunyan look like an tiny girly man with a Malibu Barbie chainsaw.
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### Author:  [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/10 "2005-10-31T09:16:37Z")
Thing is, I actually thought it was pretty good for the first 20 minutes or so (right up until they showed “the monster”). It had an interesting set-up and built up a lot of creepy tension. As I was watching it I though, “wow, King still has it.”
And then it all turned to crap. Not “weird idea that just didn’t translate to film” crap, but “let’s play SF-action-horror movie mad libs and make a screenplay from the results” crap.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/11 "2005-10-31T09:21:52Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> Nuh uh. Stephen King makes Paul Bunyan look like an tiny girly man with a Malibu Barbie chainsaw.
Oh man, I blew it. THIS is what I shoulda said:
_Nuh uh. Stephen King makes Paul Bunyan look like a treehugger._
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### Author:  [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/12 "2005-10-31T09:45:36Z")
While I can’t acuse SK of literature, I still think he’s a very accomplished hack. When King is good, he’s vastly superior to most other mega bestseller authors (Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Ludlum, Anne Rice, Dan Brown et al), often with a keen eye for characterization and _mis-en-scene_.
Being as productive and succesful as he’s been, right from the very start, I think his ego has stood in the way a few too many times, where the advice of a strong editor would’ve sent some manuscripts back to go forever unpublished (Dreamcatcher, Tommyknockers), but considering his vast production, he has surprisingly few clunkers.
He has said about his own writing that it’s the “burger, fries and shake of literature” and they are damn good junk food, as junk food goes.
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### Author:  [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/13 "2005-10-31T12:55:26Z")
> [@The Gaspode](#):
>
> While I can’t acuse SK of literature, I still think he’s a very accomplished hack. When King is good, he’s vastly superior to most other mega bestseller authors (Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Ludlum, Anne Rice, Dan Brown et al), often with a keen eye for characterization and _mis-en-scene_.
> Being as productive and succesful as he’s been, right from the very start, I think his ego has stood in the way a few too many times, where the advice of a strong editor would’ve sent some manuscripts back to go forever unpublished (Dreamcatcher, Tommyknockers), but considering his vast production, he has surprisingly few clunkers.
> He has said about his own writing that it’s the “burger, fries and shake of literature” and they are damn good junk food, as junk food goes.
Interesting that both those books borrow ideas from Nigel Kneale’s ‘Quatermass’ TV plays: ‘Buried spaceship is unearthed and starts to mentally influence the locals’ (Quatermasss and the Pit) and ‘Alien absorbs humans and is eventually destroyed by that part of itself that is still human’ (Quatermass)
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/14 "2005-10-31T13:00:56Z")
In all honesty, I wouldn’t judge the _author_ by the quality of _movies_ made from their works. There’s some guy named Shakespeare that penned a ill-concieved vehicle for Mel Gibson called _Hamlet_. :rolleyes: - I’ll never read anything by that bore again! 😉
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/15 "2005-10-31T14:48:13Z")
Well, SK wrote himself into too much success, IMHO. Once he became a hit, he signed a contract to crank out books at about $20 million a pop, and he was obliged to produce said books. Since then he’s fulfilled the contract, and has declared that now he’s only going to write what he wants, when he wants.
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/16 "2005-10-31T14:55:18Z")
I love a lot of Stephen King, but Dreamcatcher was awful. Simply awful…and I read the whole thing, I did.
He has a really hard time ending his books, IMO.
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### Author:  [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/17 "2005-10-31T15:04:32Z")
I found **Dreamcatcher** highly entertaining up to the point where Morgan Freeman shows up. It helps that I like Jason Lee. What also caught my attention was the scene of four truly nice kids going out of their way to help someone. It isn’t often you see that in a movie.
I haven’t read the book. I don’t think I’ve read any Stephen King except **The Stand**.
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### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/18 "2005-10-31T16:29:09Z")
I looked up some definitions of “hack” – one is “a mediocre or disdained writer” and another is “a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well”.
I don’t think he’s a hack. He’s written some excellent stuff, especially his short stories and novellas. I think any of today’s “literary” writers would be proud to claim The Reach, for example.
I think he writes because he has to, it’s a compulsion, and the crap like Dreamcatcher and Tommyknockers gets published because his books will always sell better than just about anybody.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/19 "2005-10-31T18:32:00Z")
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> In all honesty, I wouldn’t judge the _author_ by the quality of _movies_ made from their works. There’s some guy named Shakespeare that penned a ill-concieved vehicle for Mel Gibson called _Hamlet_. :rolleyes: - I’ll never read anything by that bore again! 😉
One of my favorite screen adaptions of Shakespeare, actually.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2005, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreamcatcher-is-stephan-king-a-hack/328681/20 "2005-10-31T19:06:12Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#):
>
> I looked up some definitions of “hack” – one is “a mediocre or disdained writer” and another is “a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well”. . .
See, as this is a matter of opinion, I’d convict him on BOTH counts. And I’d be sure to be there every time he comes up on parole, doing every thing I can to keep him behind bars. Stephen King is hurting literature. [deadpan smiley]
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