What's new and what's different in the film version of The Dark Tower?

What does Entertain Weekly's new info reveal about the film adaptation of The Dark Tower?

 

It's been a long time coming, but Stephen King's cult fantasy series The Dark Tower is finally headed to the big screen. As with most adaptations, the retelling of this 8-book-strong fantasy saga will deviate from the source material in some major and minor ways. One of the neatest things about The Dark Tower series is how certain plot developments, particularly in the final book, create opportunities for the creative team behind the film to take the series in unexpected directions without contradicting the text completely.

We won't go into exactly what those developments are in this article, but if you're interested we highly recommend reading through the full cycle of Dark Tower books. Not only will you be able to enjoy one of the finest, as well as weirdest, pieces of epic fiction ever written, but it will give you a deeper appreciation - not to mention, understanding - of just how the first film in the series fits into the larger framework of The Dark Tower universe.

For some time now we've known that the first series in the film adaptation of The Dark Tower would be based, in large part, on the first novel in King's fantasy saga, The Gunslinger. The slimmest volume in the series by a comfortable margin, it recounts Roland of Gilead's efforts to track down the mysterious Man in Black and learn more about the tower after which the saga is named. Unusually for Stephen King, this is a very obtuse, at times ambiguous novel, one that features many elements that only really come into focus the further into the series (or along the path of the beam, say thankya) readers get.

Thanks to King himself, we knew that the first film would be pulling together elements from multiple books, not just The Gunslinger; what we didn't know was how these disparate elements would all fit together. Now, thanks to EW, we have a clearer picture of how the first film in the series will work - the basic gist of the story will be the same; it will still chronicle Roland's attempts to apprehend the Man in Black and learn more about the tower - visions of which have haunted him all the years of his long, long life. Instead of flashing back and forwards, however, the film will introduce elements from the final two books in the series, most notably Algul Siento, the breaker camp located in the arid, sickened wastes of Thunderclap (which is to The Dark Tower as Mordor is to Lord of the Rings).

Breakers are powerful psychics, men and women poached from our world, and worlds like ours, to 'break' the beams that converge on The Dark Tower. Despite its foreboding name, the Tower is the linchpin at the centre of not just our universe, but all universes; if the beams break and the Tower falls, the rest of space and time will fall along with. As the beams break, Roland's world, once a beacon of life and hope, begins to sicken and slide inexorably into chaos. World's begin to bleed together, people and animals begin to mutate, and all manner of dark and unspeakable things begin to crawl out of the dark and unknowable spaces between universes. It all sounds a touch complicated, but (as with most fantasy series) once you look beyond the made up place names, weird creatures and otherworldly trappings you're left with the simple tale of a lone gunslinger trying to save the world from the forces of evil.

The makers of the film version of The Dark Tower are keeping things relatively simple for the first film, no doubt as a concession to those unfamiliar with the books, but the recent EW articles throw up lots of intriguing things that will be of especial concern to long time fans of the Dark Tower series as well as King's work in general.

The Shining

In The Dark Tower books those men and women endowed with the gift of telepathy are described as being strong in 'the touch'. In a clever nod to one of King's best loved books, however, the movie version of DT replaces this with 'shine', a clear reference to The Shining and the latent psychic ability that helps young Danny Torrance stay one step ahead of his axe-wielding old man. On the page, Jake - a young boy from a world very like our own, plagued by visions of a mysterious gunslinger and a tower - is skilled in the touch, but he never ends up breaking beams with those who share in Algul Siento. For the film version, Jake is described as a sort of beam-breaking MVP, a psychic so powerful that The Man in Black is willing to cross dimensions just to find him. From what we can glean, Jake's story will be relatively true to the books, but will deviate in a few key ways. First of all, Jake's origin seems to have been slightly tweaked - in the books he's a gifted psychic, but not powerful enough to draw the gaze of the Crimson King and his minions. By the sounds of it, Jake's story is being rolled into Ted Brautigan's, a man of unparalleled psychic ability who is cozened by the forces of evil into assaulting the beams.

Through a glass darkly

At various points in the books, Roland and co.encounter glass balls from the Wizard's Rainbow. That might sound rather jolly, but these balls (thirteen in all, each with different properties) are just as likely to harm their handlers as they are to help them. Think of the Palantiri from Lord of the Rings and you'll have some idea. In the books, these malignant globes of gaudily coloured glass are rare, not appearing the fourth installment, but in the films we'll see them (or something very like them) almost straightaway. Speaking to EW, Matthew Mc describes  how he and Roland communicate with one another from afar using little glass balls. Although he doesn't refer to them as pieces of the Wizard's Rainbow, it's pretty fair to assume that's exactly what they are. It's a pretty big change from the novels, but it makes sense - after all, you don't hire two actors of Elba and McConaughey's caliber and not have them interact until the end of the film. The glasses will allow the two to bounce off of one another long before they meet in the flesh, and (more importantly) give first time viewers some idea of just how long and acrimonious the history between these characters is.