(Untitled)

[prickvixen]

So. Interested to learn that they're doing a film version of The Dark Tower, interested that Idris Elba is playing Roland, not especially surprised that many people are going absolutely bugshit over the casting of a black man in this role

Comments

[dustmeat]

I too imagined Clint Eastwood but the only adaptation of the Dark Tower books that bothered me was the comic version. My only concern is that the people who make this film do not ever LOOK at that comic and just read the novels for ideas. Then we can have a movie worth watching.

[prickvixen]

I haven't read the comics, mostly for the reason of not wanting their imagery to supersede mine, but there was also a faint concern that the writing would be terrible. n.n; Or maybe I mean to say that I worried the comics would go places that would crap up the novels, like a bad sequel to a good movie.

[martes]

For the first book (The Gunslinger) there's no story reason he can't be black. In the second book, however, when the Gunslinger encounters Odetta, there is a lot of racial tension & distrust between them due to him being white.

In this case I'm going to have to side with the naysayers. If the author of the book wrote & described him as being white, than that's how he should be cast.

[centauress]

It's interesting, but there's no reason it can't be played another way. No particular story in the series is irreplaceable.

And I think Idris would make an awesome gunslinger.

[prickvixen]

That is an interesting point, but I don't think it would take much rewriting. Detta Walker doesn't fear Roland because he's white, she fears him because he's self-evidently deadly and implacable, because of what his training and experiences have made him. Despite being very sharp herself, it's clear to Detta that she can't put anything past Roland under ordinary circumstances. Even people who aren't crazy are freaked out by Roland. (The fact that he was also inside her head for a time greatly disturbed her.) Detta might hate him because of his whiteness, but I think it's accurate to say that Detta has a generalized hatred and contempt for everyone around her. She's the Hyde half of what ultimately forms Susannah's personality. If Roland wasn't white, she would find or invent some other quality to hold against him. I don't think this would be difficult to rewrite, and a screenplay tends to have much less dialogue than a novel. :)