The Dark Tower series filmed adaptation

[Iwritecode]

I've always been under the impression that Mejis was the Mid-world version on Mexico. I could be mistaken. I'm rereading the books and I'm not at that point yet. I do remember that the folks there had a different accent. I don't see why they'd have a second thought about a black gunslinger. Folks throughout that entire world seem accepting of a lot of weird shit actually (mutants, Andy, talking trains, magic etc.) So we're going to have to strongly disagree on this one.

I seem to remember the people of River Crossing being a little surprised about Susannah for some reason. I just don't remember if it was the color of her skin or the fact that she's female.

[Brian861]

I still disagree that all we have to do to accept a black Roland is tell ourselves it's a fictional character in a fictional world and that gives us (or the story adapters) the obligation to accept it without pause. Robin Hood was a fictional character. Could you imagine a movie where he was Chinese? What about a black Paul Bunyan? If a movie had a Chinese Robin Hood walking up to a peasant cottage in Nottingham Forest with a bag of coins, don't you think there would be a reaction of WTF? These people would never have seen a Chinese fellow and it would have rocked their world.

I don't get from my reading of the DT books that folks in the Baronies, or Mejis, or Mid-World, would nonchalantly accept a black gunslinger, given the mythology King created around the character of Roland and the guild of the gunslingers. Sure, it would work fine in the scenes in the modern world, where no one would bat an eye, but not in the World of the Dark Tower.

That's why I see this as completely different from changing the character of "Red" in Shawshank from Irish to black. That's easy. In the world created for the story, the internal logic still holds. A black prisoner. Ho-hum. No big deal. I do not see this holding in the DT world King created.

Now, having said all that, I can see the writers changing the DT world to accommodate a black Roland. How? I don't know. But given the wholesale changes hinted at above regarding all the other characters and storylines (which I am NOT a fan of at this point), I guess they could create a world where there are black folks living amongst the various Mid-World/Barony communities and that they would be just as likely to come from a heraldic line than anyone else. A world where a black gunslinger could show up and no one would bat an eye. Sure, such a world could be created. But King did not create that world.

But once you change the DT world to such an extent, change the characters (again, to a major extent), substantially change the plot, well, you pretty much lose my interest. The movie might indeed be great, but at some point it ceases to be a "Dark Tower" movie and becomes a random fantasy action/adventure movie.

So would it be a fair assumption then that TDT films will be 'based' on the novel series, not necessarily adapted from it? Now that I think about it, maybe that could be said of The Shining film also.

[fernandito]

Based on that article I am seeing the vision. They are going to bring Jake in via the method in the Wastelands because they don't intend to drop him in the mountains and have him die.

Spoiler:

Roland has the horn so this is the next path and King has pointed out that the most crucial choice Roland makes is letting Jake die. So he is going to save Jake in the mountain thus making this a fundamentally different loop with a potentially very different ending. So if he doesn't die there than bringing in him in the way he does in the Wastelands makes some sense because it's more interesting

Great write up. Lots of good points here.

Yes..

Spoiler:

Roland having the horn this time around certainly shakes the structure of the story up quite a bit. I would imagine that not letting Jake die this time will see a cosmic tip in Roland's favor.

I still disagree that all we have to do to accept a black Roland is tell ourselves it's a fictional character in a fictional world and that gives us (or the story adapters) the obligation to accept it without pause. Robin Hood was a fictional character. Could you imagine a movie where he was Chinese? What about a black Paul Bunyan? If a movie had a Chinese Robin Hood walking up to a peasant cottage in Nottingham Forest with a bag of coins, don't you think there would be a reaction of WTF? These people would never have seen a Chinese fellow and it would have rocked their world.

Yeah but Robin Hood is an English folklore hero, China is an actual place. These are actual places with established physiological traits.

I've always been under the impression that Mejis was the Mid-world version on Mexico. I could be mistaken..

No I definitely remember reading that. Where was that? Perhaps in Bev's book?

Susan's last name is Delgado, a common surname in Mexico.

[fernandito]

Attention users whom have completed The Dark Tower..

Spoiler:

As a courtesy to those whom have yet to complete the series, can we please spoiler tag any talks regarding the 'loop'?

Now that the film series has been made official, we are going to be greeted with an influx of new members and many of them will not be aware of how the story ends. We have to assume that many will begin their journey based on discussions on this site.

Johnny Alien - I went back to your original post and put Spoiler tags around it. Just a precaution.

Thanks everyone.

[Brian861]

I've always been under the impression that Mejis was the Mid-world version on Mexico. I could be mistaken..

No I definitely remember reading that. Where was that? Perhaps in Bev's book?

Susan's last name is Delgado, a common surname in Mexico.

It's stated so in Bev's book for sure. I read through that section earlier this morning.

[mtdman]

I've changed my mind and can't wait to see this.

[Johnny Alien]

Attention users whom have completed The Dark Tower..

Spoiler:

As a courtesy to those whom have yet to complete the series, can we please spoiler tag any talks regarding the 'loop'?

Now that the film series has been made official, we are going to be greeted with an influx of new members and many of them will not be aware of how the story ends. We have to assume that many will begin their journey based on discussions on this site.

Johnny Alien - I went back to your original post and put Spoiler tags around it. Just a precaution.

Thanks everyone.

Thanks! I should have thought of that myself!

[Bev Vincent]

It's stated so in Bev's book for sure. I read through that section earlier this morning.

King identifies it as an analog of Mexico in the coda of Song of Susannah.

I want to write about Susan, Roland's first love, and I want to set their "cowboy romance" in a fictional part of Mid-World called Mejis (i.e., Mexico).

[Brian861]

I've changed my mind and can't wait to see this.

Getting there myself.

[CyberGhostface]

I don't remember King describing different ethnicities or races of most characters the ka-tet encounters. Why assume they're Caucasian? Is that a default race people have in their mind's eye? That reminds me when white folks freaked out when a black girl played Hermoine in a play. Rowling herself said she never wrote her as a white girl, people assumed she was. Skin colour was never specified. Ditto for Mid-World's inhabitants. They're not in medivial England.

I wonder why people thought Rowling intended her to be white...

[WeDealInLead]

Take it up with Rowling. She said skin colour was never mentioned.

[CyberGhostface]

I don't care about the casting but if she said that Hermione's race was ambiguous and that people only assumed that she was white then she's being disengenious.

Also both King and Rowling are writers who specify when a character isn't white. The one time King didn't was when Mike Hanlon was introduced in It which was deliberate on his part.

[Iwritecode]

I've changed my mind and can't wait to see this.

Getting there myself.

Same here. Although I'm starting to realize that really wanting to see it and thinking it's going to be bad are two mutually exclusive feelings.

[T-Dogz_AK47]

I don't remember King describing different ethnicities or races of most characters the ka-tet encounters. Why assume they're Caucasian? Is that a default race people have in their mind's eye? That reminds me when white folks freaked out when a black girl played Hermoine in a play. Rowling herself said she never wrote her as a white girl, people assumed she was. Skin colour was never specified. Ditto for Mid-World's inhabitants. They're not in medivial England.

I wonder why people thought Rowling intended her to be white...

Take it up with Rowling. She said skin colour was never mentioned.

From J K Rowling herself....

"Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione."

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/678888094339366914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

I don't care about the casting but if she said that Hermione's race was ambiguous and that people only assumed that she was white then she's being disengenious.

Also both King and Rowling are writers who specify when a character isn't white. The one time King didn't was when Mike Hanlon was introduced in It which was deliberate on his part.

There is nothing disingenuous in not specifying skin colour. It just means that race is not an issue to the story being told. If it's not a concern for the author, then it should not be a concern for the reader.

J K Rowling publically endorsed a black Hermione. Stephen King publically endorsed a black Roland. The characters in question are the intellectual property of those who created them. Whom is anyone to question the veracity of their endorsements?

Black or white. It matters not.

[CyberGhostface]

There is nothing disingenuous in not specifying skin colour.

I never suggested otherwise.

What I said was disingenuous was the idea that people only assumed Hermione was white due to subconscious racism even though Rowling herself had depicted her as such in her own personal illustrations and not once in the close to two decades since the first book ever clarified or corrected authorized depictions of her as such.

It just means that race is not an issue to the story being told.

Perhaps but Rowling went out of her way to specify when other characters were black even when they had no relevance to the plot. (I.E. Angelina Johnson and Dean Thomas) So she thought it was more relevant to say that a character with no significance to the plot was black but didn't specify once in seven books that Hermione was.

[Lookwhoitis]

Attention users whom have completed The Dark Tower..

Spoiler:

As a courtesy to those whom have yet to complete the series, can we please spoiler tag any talks regarding the 'loop'?

Now that the film series has been made official, we are going to be greeted with an influx of new members and many of them will not be aware of how the story ends. We have to assume that many will begin their journey based on discussions on this site.

Johnny Alien - I went back to your original post and put Spoiler tags around it. Just a precaution.

Thanks everyone.

...great...

[T-Dogz_AK47]

Perhaps but Rowling went out of her way to specify when other characters were black even when they had no relevance to the plot. (I.E. Angelina Johnson and Dean Thomas) So she thought it was more relevant to say that a character with no significance to the plot was black but didn't specify once in seven books that Hermione was.

Or wasn't! It doesn't matter either way. The colour of Hermione's skin (or any character in Harry Potter) is irrelevant.

[CyberGhostface]

The colour of Hermione's skin (or any character in Harry Potter) is irrelevant.

I'm not arguing otherwise.

[fernandito]

I've changed my mind and can't wait to see this.

Getting there myself.

Same here. Although I'm starting to realize that really wanting to see it and thinking it's going to be bad are two mutually exclusive feelings.

I've been on the "can't wait to see this" camp ever since the possibility of a film even came up.

I just wish I could fully embrace it and not be wary of so many of the decisions they're taking.

I'm slowly coming around though..

[Randall Flagg]

Just make and release a movie. I'll be ecstatic to provide my opinion/review then.
It's easy to see why making any movie is damn near impossible.

[Tommy]

If the film(s) are flops, would that affect the value of the limited editions? I would assume that if the adaptation were a huge hit that the values would increase. It's just a question and I'm sorry if I upset anyone with it.

[Rahfa]

"White privilege" would apply in any case where your default assumption is the character looks like "you," with "you" being a white reader.

THAT is privilege - as in you are privileged to go through life assuming that the heroes will look like you unless you are specifically told otherwise. You're "privileged" to be the default position.

It's like Jesus Christ - he's not white, by any stretch of the imagination. He would look - at best - like a dark-skinned Israeli, and probably more like a Palestinian Arab. And yet, western culture has appropriated his image to fit our cultural expectations.

In Hermoine's case there is actually a brief reference to her skin color in the first book - and I'm pretty sure we had the discussion that Roland's color is mentioned as far as 'bronzed in the sun' or whatever.

The fact that SK especially draws attention to BLACK characters is privilige - not in a racist way, but just in the way "white skin" is the default of America. He doesn't say "this character is white," but DOES say "this character is black." So he's dividing the characters along one category, not the other category.

It's not racist, but when you live in a culture where the cultural assumption goes toward one skin color/religion/ethnicity/gender, THAT is what privilege is - so if you're a white male with a Christian/Protestant background you can expect American culture to generally look like, and skew toward you and your perspective. If you are not in that category, then you will often be the "other."

As in: "Oh, he's my Jewish friend so he has to wear that funny hat." or "It's so great that's she going to law school - great for women to get ahead!" or "I don't understand why black people complain about getting pulled over - I just hand them my license and they don't bother me!"

So privilege is not racism or bigotry or sexism, but simply drawing attention to how the "other" is not part of what is considered the mainstream (considered by who? White male Christians of course!)...when we say "Roland is white and should always will be white," what you're really saying is "Why does my cultural history have to change? Why can't it the stay the same as it always did? Why do I have to adapt?"

[Rahfa]

If the film(s) are flops, would that affect the value of the limited editions? I would assume that if the adaptation were a huge hit that the values would increase. It's just a question and I'm sorry if I upset anyone with it.

I used to think so, but I don't think the two audiences -movie viewers and collectors - really overlap. There was a slight skew for comic books, for example, but it wasn't dramatic. So I don't think it will hurt, but I don't think it's going to matter that much.

The problem is the books are finished - so a new collector has no way to start NOW. It's not like you can say "okay, well let me try to get 'Book 10.'" It's already at the finish line.

[Isamu Dyson]

Can't wait to see Jack team up with Draven.

[ladysai]

[QUOTE=Rahfa;986200...when we say "Roland is white and should always will be white," what you're really saying is "Why does my cultural history have to change? Why can't it the stay the same as it always did? Why do I have to adapt?"[/QUOTE]

In my humble opinion:
Roland=Honk Mufah
therefore, he's a white guy. The white guys are the honky motherfuckers, after all.

I dont think this opinion has any bearing on my opinions of real, living people of color, or on my opinions of their various cultures.
Im sure some of you disagree, but that's simply my perspective on the situation.