It’s that big battle in Book 7 that I’m worried about. This link is to a fan fiction I read that has what I think is a plausible ending that is a lot better. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2747620/1/Dark-Tower-Coda-Redux If posting a link like that isn’t allowed, please let me know. I think an ending like that is plausible and would have made me happy.
I just have to chime in so that the minority is slightly larger - I actually loved the ending. The last 3 books were definitely flawed but it seems like a lot of the material is divisive. Wizard and Glass was my favorite but I’ve met a lot of people that hated it and thought it was pointless to the greater story. I also agree with the poster above that it would be awesome of the movie started out with Roland having the horn. It would be the perfect way to honor the original series while having the freedom to make the more-than-likely necessary changes.
I didn’t mind the ending. How else could you end such a saga? (Although I did like the fanfic version. But this is King we’re talking about.)
The latest news on this movie is that Abbey Lee from Fury Road has been cast as the female lead.
She’ll be playing the part of… “Tirana”, who is “sexy and dangerous” and “has fake human skin and cold snake-like eyes”.
…What?
It’s going to be a stinker.
It will be a miracle if the movie isn’t a complete butchering of the story as written. :smack:
In other confounding casting news: they cast Idris Elba, who is Black, as Roland.
Why not a Black man as Roland, aside from the fact that Roland is sorta described in the books as a Clint Eastwood avatar?
Because a big part of the plot of the second book hinges on the conflict between Roland and Eddie Dean, both White guys, and the alternate personality of Odetta (“Detta”), who is a Black woman from the '60s, active in civil rights (injured by being pushed in from of a train). Odetta eventually falls in love with Eddie (and, initially, tolerates Roland), but “Detta” hates them both because they are White; and this conflict drives major character development. Having Roland as Black screws this up, for no reason.
Sure, they can write around it (and no doubt will). But it will change part of what made the story great in the first place.
Add that to apparently elevating minor characters (again for no apparent reason), and it starts to look like what they are filming has only a tangential resemblance to the books.
Wow, that alternate ending was pretty damned good.
Slee
Agree!
I’m black so that may skew my opinion but I doubt it. I don’t see anything in the series means Roland has to be white.
Detta/Odetta was much more about Odetta’s mental illness/brain damage than Detta’s mostly ridiculous racism. (King did have a couple of decent insights, in think.) Odetta and Detta were forced together, they didn’t evolve, so I don’t think that counts as character development. IMO.
Gonna be a bit odd when she starts calling Idris Elba a “honky muhfuh”, though.
Not to mention potential copyright issues involving some of the antagonists/weapons in “Calla.”
I’m usually all about being faithful to the original source, but in this case I really hope they will just ignore a lot of stuff from the latter books.
Of course, Akiva Goldsman is doing the writing. I have very little hope for this anyway.
Huh? It’s a major plot-point “The Drawing of the Three” that Odetta (Detta) reacts badly to being kidnapped by “two honkeys” - and how Roland later resolves this conflict. Why doesn’t that “count”? 
Change that conflict by having Roland be a Black man, and you have a different book.
Detta’s racism was “ridiculous” because she wasn’t a fully-formed real person - she was just a projection of Odetta’s rage and frustration at being “good” all the time in a world that treated her unjustly, that found no positive outlet in her life. Her alter-ego reacted, not as an actual lower-class Black woman would react, but rather as an upper-middle-class Black woman imagined a lower-class Black woman would react - stereotypically, taken to an absurd extreme.
I’d have the same reaction to making Odetta a White woman, or having her come from some era other than the 60s - it’s a bad sign, that the movie isn’t really going to track the book.
We mostly agree about Detta’s racism was ridiculous. It was too over the top. My parents and grandparents lived through the Civil Rights era in the south. Detta would not have survived luring white men to her car and rejecting them. It’s part of the story but it doesn’t resonate with me. We’ll never know but I think Detta would have been just as murderous had her kidnappers not been white.
The reason I don’t see Susannah Dean’s emergence as character development is that we don’t see Odetta and Detta grow or evolve. They are still the same people until they are forced together effectively creating a completely different person.
I think Eddie’s character was developed. The way we see him grow out of the eminent sage’s (I can’t remember his name) influence.
These are just my opinions, they could be flawed. I was reading the books for entertainment not studying them so I’m sure there are nuances I missed.
No, you don’t have a different book - you have a slightly different minor plot line that’s better fleshed out in the context of a seven volume epic book series than in a movie.
I think I will pass on seeing this, if it ever actually reaches the screen. Nothing I have heard about it so far inspires confidence.
My understanding is that this is intended as the first in a movie series.
However, given that it has been in development hell for some time, I have no idea if that is the current plan.
Assuming you are correct and they plan to make only one movie - then that is even worse. There is simply no way to adapt a massive seven-book series into a single movie and not have it turn into a totally different product.
It may be good or bad, but it will not be a version of the Dark Tower.
BTW - describing it as a “minor plot line”. Really? Have you read the book The Drawing of the Three recently? I would not, objectively, describe the interaction between Odetta/Detta, Roland, and Eddie as a “minor plot line”. More like “the central plot line”.
Or put it this way - if the casting decision was made to cast Odetta as a White woman, would you claim that this was “… a slightly different minor plot line that’s better fleshed out in the context of a seven volume epic book series than in a movie”, or more as a ‘complete travesty of the original’? I know I’d say the latter.
Edit: of course, there is no guarantee that this movie will even have an “Odetta”. She’s not cast yet!