Originally Posted by
Mystery Train
Hello. New to the forum and was lurking for a while to see what fans thought of the movie. Decided to register to share my own take on it, having watched it yesterday. As a die hard fan of the books, I had adjusted my expectations for the movie to account for all the bad things that book-fans complain about when their cherished quest tales become movies: casting of actors that didn't meet my expectations, cutting/editing out/reducing key characters, simplifying plot lines, excessive "hollywoodization" to capture non-fans' attention, etc., etc. I avoided reading reviews, but did see from headlines that it was getting panned. So I lowered my expectations a bit more, and went in with an open mind, hoping for a mildly entertaining sketch of a few characters from my old Ka-Tet and some of their exploits along the path of The Beam. Unfortunately, I didn't set my expectations low enough. Bottom line: This is a bad piece of fan fiction. At it's heart, DT is a quest tale. This movie is an abduction/revenge story sprinkled with bread crumbs and easter eggs to tease the real fans. I felt like the studio couldn't decide whether to make a film for fans of the books or for non-fans and ended up with a dish that would satisfy neither. I get it. Making this story into a single movie or even a trilogy is the sort of Sysiphusian task that would break even the most talented and honest filmmakers. But even granting these producers and directors and screenwriters that acknowledgement, choosing to focus on the parts of the story they did and wasting the talents of the actors they had (poor Idris!) was a real crime in my eyes. On the bright side: It wasn't awful. But mediocre is somehow worse when compared to the source material and the potential for amazing cinema. I also actually (much to my surprise) really liked McConaughey as Walter. He nailed it, and in some ways, they made this character more interesting than even King's original version. There were glimpses of what this movie could have been, which made it all the more tortuous for me. If you're a fan of the books, you almost have no choice but to go see it, for better or worse. But my advice is to go in expecting to see your favorite tale butchered by studio executives who had no clue about the real soul of the story.