This story was first published by The Weekend Collective, which has since gone under and no longer hosts the article.
*Written by me, but originally published 09.16.2016
Stephen King adaptations have always rankled his most ardent fans in one way or another, either because he was too involved in the production or not involved enough. And let’s be honest, it’s not like Hollywood has a fantastic track record when adapting books to film either. Regardless, his latest venture into the adaptation world comes with some of the most rabid part of his fan-base, those who follow the gunslinger Roland Deschain and his group of friends (or ka-tet) through Mid-World in search of the Dark Tower, which sits precariously at the center of everything.
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” That’s how the first book of seven begins, finding our gunslinging protagonist upon the back of a dying horse, chasing after a man who may or may not be able to be caught. Yet through seven books, readers joined Roland and his crew across the multi-verse in the hopes that they would stop the Dark Tower from crumbling down around them, which in turn would crumble the entirety of existence around them. The sprawling epic is equal parts western, Jedi tale, legend of King Arthur, and bizarre sci-fi.
And yet, it all works. It’s obvious that the books are the culmination of King’s literary influences all rolled into one great sprawling story parsed out into seven incredibly epic mini-stories along the way.
However, the movie adaptation(first taken on by JJ Abrams; then Ron Howard, but currently spearheaded by director and co-writer Nikolaj Arcel) has plans that differ from the narrative of the book series. Normally, this would be an issue – a HUGE issue – but for those that have read the series, there’s an argument to be made that this current iteration of the story makes absolutely perfect sense. It’s difficult to sum up the series in any kind of brief or succinct way, and it’s much harder to make this case to people who’ve never read the series without completely ruining the ending, but let’s try.
Roland’s mother was cheating on Roland’s father with the man in black. The man in black is like our version of Merlin, but significantly less friendly. He has information that will lead Roland to the Dark Tower, which is essentially dying and killing off the rest of Roland’s world slowly. They meet, they talk (or palaver), Roland sleeps. Roland wakes up several hundred years later, pulls three people through doors on a beach from different eras of our version of New York City. He teaches these three to become gunslingers themselves in their own ways. They travel across Mid-World and End-World, fighting against the forces actively trying to stop them from reaching the tower.
That’s the vastly oversimplified version. Suffice it to say, it’s been hinted at in multiple ways that a certain artifact of Roland’s history makes an appearance in the film adaptation. This artifact appeared briefly, but very importantly, within the series and it affects the ENTIRE narrative going forward. Which is why a straight adaptation, while something rabid fans have ached for, was the wrong way to go in this instance. In fact, it may be the most brilliant way to go as it will bring the series completely to its end. The wheel of ka, this particular world’s idea of fate (“There will be water if God wills it”)or determinism, will come full circle. Roland’s story will stop moving forward...eventually.
Idris Elba as Roland Deschain (Image from Entertainment Weekly)
Four points of contention that the devout readers will have with the movie adaptation:
1.) Idris Elba, a black man, has been cast as Roland Deschain…described in the books as closer to a gaunt and sickly Clint Eastwood type. This has been the biggest sticking point for fans of the novels as Idris is none of those things. Actors previously rumored to fill the role: Viggo Mortensen, Tom Hardy, Daniel Craig, and Javier Bardem. All very solid choices to play the role.
2.) The movie will play out of order, narratively, compared to the books. Characters that appear in later books are appearing in this first movie. Considering the presence of the artifact mentioned earlier, issues with points 1 & 2 are negligible; the whole world will have changed in drastic ways because of the artifact, so these narrative and character changes can be totally believable and explained away just fine, given the circumstances.
3.) New characters will be introduced that weren’t in the original timeline. Again, because of the appearance of this artifact in Roland’s possession, this should surprise no one. The timeline has changed, the goals have shifted, the journey has been altered in ways that only the author himself might have envisioned or divined.
4.) It’s simply not a straight adaptation and fidelity to the source material is important for fans. And this is a fair pointsince readers have waited with bated breath for years to see this story come to the screen. Talks of an episodic TV show happened, then dissipated like so much smoke. Then talks of a mini-series, a movie, then again, all dissipated. But if this current iteration, which is actually (finally!) filming is treated as a sequel to the books (which is how it’s being filmed and presented), true fans should know and recognize what Roland’s possession of the Horn of Eld at the end of book 7 means – they’re now getting twice the story. The story will definitively end.
Matthew McConaughey as "The Man in Black" (Image from Entertainment Weekly)
And why should fans of the books be so ready to accept this film as a continuation of the series rather than as a direct adaptation of what is certainly an unfinished tale? Because, as Jake Chambers said in the first book, and was repeated often in the others: “Go then. There are other worlds than these.”
This cinematic world just happens to be another world in need of exploring and saving. And because the hero Roland will finally get his much needed rest after so much travelling across time and space.
