The Dark Tower

I'll never see it. I stopped reading his books in the '70's. Actually only read 3 before I realized how negative he is. IMO Stephen King is some kind of a nihilist with one of the most negative attitudes about humans and their interactions relations I've ever seen. He seems to celebrate disgusting displays of depravity. No thanks.

jharry3 wrote: He seems to celebrate disgusting displays of depravity.

Something that tends to get tastefully edited out of Stephen King movies...

Huckleberry wrote:

Sky_Render wrote: And please don't say *The Stand*, which may contain the singularly most disappointing *Deus Ex Machina* ending I have ever read.

I think Stephen King finished reading Lucifer's Hammer when he was high and forgot where he got the idea from... then just wrote the same thing only not nearly as well and called it The Stand.

Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle are one of my favorite Sci-Fi duos. I forgot about Lucifer's Hammer, and added it to my reading list.

dculberson wrote:

mad_machine wrote: I don't think any of King's books ever make it into a movie properly. Best to not even try

Really? Shawshank Redemption Stand By me Misery The Shining (Freaking The Shining, man, that is a good movie.) The Green Mile There are more, but all of those are exceptionally good movies.

You forgot lawnmower man

In reply to ProDarwin:

So good that Stephen King had his name removed from it. (It was originally "Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man," and King sued to get his name taken off since it was not really based on his story at all.)

I saw it in the theaters, and enjoyed it, but I think I was 16 at the time... Just my memory of it is enough to know it was not a good movie.

Even setting aside that this is a sequel story rather than a condensation (which makes total sense with how The Dark Tower ended)... it still looks to have nothing to do with the novels aside from a couple character names. Maybe the trailers are just crap created by gee-whiz Hollywood types who create generic action trailers, but it sure doesn't look like it's actually about any of the same things that the Dark Tower series is about.

oldopelguy wrote:

rob_lewis wrote: I've read the Gunslinger series a couple of times and really enjoy it, but I could never get through the Dark Tower series. I think it's the language in the DT series that I stumble with more than anything

The gunslinger series is the dark tower series, gunslinger is the first book and the dark tower is the last. There are references to other books he wrote, but you can read just the dark tower books without them.

That was a mis-type. I meant Lord of the Rings, not Dark Tower. I've updated my original and had some coffee to wake me up.

-Rob

dculberson wrote:

mad_machine wrote: I don't think any of King's books ever make it into a movie properly. Best to not even try

Really? Shawshank Redemption Stand By me Misery The Shining (Freaking The Shining, man, that is a good movie.) The Green Mile There are more, but all of those are exceptionally good movies.

I read the books first. Those movies do not even compare

Huckleberry wrote:

Sky_Render wrote: And please don't say *The Stand*, which may contain the singularly most disappointing *Deus Ex Machina* ending I have ever read.

I think Stephen King finished reading Lucifer's Hammer when he was high and forgot where he got the idea from... then just wrote the same thing only not nearly as well and called it The Stand. The way he writes is to think of a starting point then build and build and build, painting himself into a corner - then tack on a garbage ending when he can't wrap all the madness up. Either his own too big ambitions or impatient publishers wanting a damn book to sell after a bunch of upfront cash maybe. There are nuggets of genius along the way but always some bullE36 M3 conclusion when he starts getting carried away. There is no better example of this than that stupid "Clown in the Sewers" anthem. He hasn't actually concluded a story since the Dead Zone as far as I can tell. I should have stopped reading his crap - but the berkeleyer does manage to get me hooked with the all the imaginative stuff upfront so I keep hoping one day he will finish a story ... but, nope. Not since about 1980 FWIW, I hear the movie is just fine as forgettable, glitzy entertainment on a rainy summer day. Especially if you never read the books. So, maybe start there and see if you are interested enough to want to be terribly disappointed after 4500 pages of commitment before you jump in deeper

I want to disagree with this, but I can't. Well put!

I really enjoyed the "Bill Hodges" (Mister Mercedes) trilogy...until the last 50-100 pages of the last book, where I was saying "Oh god. No. Please don't do this to me again."

Sure enough, another good idea for a book, beaten to death, then quickly wrapped up in a "Well, berkeley it. I have to finish it SOMEHOW."

And for a guy who (in my estimation; correct me if I'm wrong,) seems to hate capitalism, he sure does seem to love playing the game.

If a movie/mini-series/whatever gets great reviews, he's happy to take credit for it. If it bombs (which most of them have,) he's quick to E36 M3 all over it.

Either way, he gets the $$$

In reply to mad_machine:

I read the books first too, and books are almost always better in some ways than movies. But you can not deny that is an amazing list of movies. Every one of those is excellent in some way and shawshank is consistently rated as one of the best movies of all time. To dismiss it as "not as good as the book" is pretty flippant. Maybe you just don't like movies? Nothing wrong with that but to discourage the creation of some of the best movies ever made is pretty extreme.