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Robert Duvall, there's another guy who could definitely nail Roland... thirty years ago.

In fact King might have mentioned him as often as he mentioned Eastwood.
 
This discussion has inspired me to finally open up The Gunslinger. How deep I go into the Dark Tower beyond that remains to be seen.

The first couple decades of Stephen King were pretty flawless, so I should have at least started on the series a long time ago.
 
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Pet Semetary is one of the most harrowing novels I've ever read. Maybe harrowing isn't quite the right word, it's just the loons down in Prospect.
 
I've always been astounded by the run of books he wrote to start his career:

Carrie, Salem's Lot and The Shining individually would be career defining highlights, and he banged the three of them out in a row out of the gate.
 
Right, I mean, you can go almost straight through to 1991 without hitting TOO many bumps. But to start off your career with those three novels is astounding. Obviously if you skip Bachman, then his 4th book was The Stand, so...
 
I have the bad habit of starting a King novel and reading the first 100 or so pages and then not finishing it. Love him overall, though. Especially the earlier stuff.
 
bono_212 said:
...I just saw that Elba is playing Roland. I'd assumed it was McConaughey and Elba was Walter...um...ok.

I love Idris Elba, he's one of the best actors working right now, but I 100% do not get that casting choice. I trust him to make it work though, cause, yeah, he's incredible.
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Elba is indeed amazing, but I just feel like this changes the story too much. I don't know how the racial elements surrounding Susannah and her backstory work with a black Roland. That's a major piece.
 
I'm not sure about King's most recent decade, though. I mean, it's understandable, he's been at it a long time, but the only two really outstanding novels of his (IMO) since the mid 2000s are 11/22/63 and Under The Dome. My understanding is that both had their genesis much earlier in his career (at least in working draft/germ of an idea form), and so, aren't necessarily as 'recent' as they seem.

Though, I liked Cell a lot more than people in general seem to. Like, a hell of a lot more. Duma Key was... okay... although it sort of got away on him, and I'm not sure Florida is really King country even if he bought a house there. He belongs to the north-east.

Sure, Lisey's Story is highly regarded from what I can gather, but rarely for a King novel, I found it unreadable and put it down three or four pages in (it didn't help that there was a typo on the first page... does nobody edit this guy anymore?)

As for those Bill Hodges detective novels, eh whatever. Nothing special.
 
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stammer476 said:
Elba is indeed amazing, but I just feel like this changes the story too much. I don't know how the racial elements surrounding Susannah and her backstory work with a black Roland. That's a major piece.
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That's just the problem; nothing we know of Roland or his world or his family or who he is/was suggests that he's a black guy. Or an Asian guy, or a Middle Eastern guy. I mean, it's pretty specific. It's not like doing Shakespeare for a modern audience or something, it's more like casting Lincoln.
 
I love Elba, I'm not a purist, and I think producers and directors should be taking more chances like this. Most projects/properties don't even have a prominent black character, which would be the place to do think outside the box with casting.

But when one of the 4 main characters is already black, and as Stammer said above, because there's a lot of pertinent material about race in the story, making Roland black as well removes some of that conflicting/contrasting dynamic.
 
Lancemc said:
Like Lincoln except a totally fictional world
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It either has its own internal reality or it doesn't.

Anyhow, it's not like I'd die in a ditch over it, Elba is a very good actor and I've no doubt he'll give it his own spin. It's a filmed Stephen King adaptation so the cards are stacked against it from the start.
 
No reason it can't still is my point. They can change around the material and world of the books however they please.
 
lazarus said:
But when one of the 4 main characters is already black, and as Stammer said above, because there's a lot of pertinent material about race in the story, making Roland black as well removes some of that conflicting/contrasting dynamic.
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I think everyone is overestimating how important the white Roland/black Detta racial dynamic is to the whole thing. I mean don't get me wrong it's huge for those two characters but a small part of the story on the whole and with this they can easily just change the tambre of that racial conflict now between two black characters, one of whom could be written in a way which the world he comes from is post-racial or something and is driven into contact with an extremely racially charged character from this other time and place. Just one way to slant it anyway, they could do anything if they decide to be creative with this decision. Plus her relationship with Eddie is far more important and interesting anyway.
 
No you're right, there's just the irony that King was already being inclusive when he created his characters, and this is the major property producers chose to take a chance on.
 
Hah yeah true, it's exciting tho. If only a studio like Marvel were half as adventurous.
 
In the end, I'm just glad to see some of this hit the screen. Now if they can just find a way to fix the second half of the last book (especially the demise of the Crimson King), I'll be happy.
 
Kieran McConville said:
I'm not sure about King's most recent decade, though. I mean, it's understandable, he's been at it a long time, but the only two really outstanding novels of his (IMO) since the mid 2000s are 11/22/63 and Under The Dome. My understanding is that both had their genesis much earlier in his career (at least in working draft/germ of an idea form), and so, aren't necessarily as 'recent' as they seem.
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For sure. That's why I said up until 1991. I mean, after that, it gets...weird.
Though, I liked Cell a lot more than people in general seem to. Like, a hell of a lot more
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I'VE FOUND YOU! I've found the other one of us out there!
 
Lots of people hate Cell, but I dunno, it really excels at what it is. Seriously scary in places, the depiction of these survivors forced to tramp the post-society land on foot, trying to avoid the flocks.

As for 1991 as a cutoff, I dunno entirely that I agree. Yes, it gets a bit weird both before (The Dark Half) and after that (Rose Madder anyone?). But I can think of a bunch of King books from 1992 till the end of the decade that are solid. Dolores Clairborne / Gerald's Game; Hearts In Atlantis (probably the best thing he'd done in years); the short story collection; um... I'll even give a shout-out to Insomnia.

Not Bag of Bones though. That was like a... I don't know what that was.
 
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Desperation and The Regulators were both really good and they were mid 90s.
 
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