Is the Dark Tower a Little too . . . Dark?

After years of wrangling and missed opportunities, Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’ is finally hitting a screen, and hard. I expected it to be a small screen, a series of mini-series like the new Sherlock Holmes, but it’s to the big screen the dusty Gunslinger travels and I think he’d chuckle at that. Of course it’s not happening without a hitch and the backlash is coming mainly from the fans. Without warning, and according to the mainstream press, all The Dark Tower fans have shown their racist hands, because the title character is being played by a black guy from London. What a bunch of assholes, right? Each one is clearly little more than a racist bag of dicks. I mean, that’s the only reason they’d be so annoyed, right?

Well.

That includes me then.

Wagering on the fall of the Tower

One day in the early noughties, while minding my own business, I was drawn into a conversation with my brother about the writer Stephen King. My brother was lying on a bed in my parents’ house one hand propped behind his head and the other holding open a book. I read the title and sniggered, “Song of Susannah”.

“What’s so funny” asked he not looking away from the page.

“Well,” I said smiling, and being a little facetious, “it’s unusual to see you reading a book about songs.”

“I don’t really care what’s in it as long as it’s good” he replied, “you should read this, this series is amazing.”

Now I laughed out loud. “But its Stephen King” I said, “ninety-nine percent of the effort goes into the characters and less than one percent is used for a tacked on ending. They drive me nuts.”

“So you read just to see what happens at the end?”

“No” I answered a little annoyed. By my early twenties I had spent hundreds of hours poring over copies of old manuscripts, manuscripts I knew to be riddled with gaps and to have an ending lost and forgotten centuries ago. And I loved every second of it. “You know I don’t care how it ends” I said, “but I like to think the journey is actually going somewhere.”

“I don’t think they’re all going to be there in the end” said my brother abstractedly and I could actually see that this thought made him sad. “But it’s . . .”

“What?”

“It’s everything, the world, the characters, the stories; it’s not a book or a series it’s like a real thing with real people in a real world.”

I thought about that. I love fantasy and horror. No matter what happens I always have a copy nearby of Bram Stokers ‘Dracula’, Brian Lumley’s ‘Necroscope’, Emily Bronté’s ‘Wuthering Heights’, Stephen R Donaldson’s ‘Lord Foul’s Bane’ and ‘The Forever War’ by Joe Haldeman. Mix these with ‘The Táin’, ‘Orkneyinga Saga’, Wallis Budge’s ‘The Gods of the Egyptians’ and the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ and I’m happy to get lost in those worlds over and over again.

And to be fair, I don’t really mind Kings ending’s either, I just feel that by the time he gets there he doesn’t want to say good bye to the characters and it shows.

I smile, “Bet I know how it ends” I say.

“Doubt it” my brother says turning a page.

“I bet nothing happens, I’d bet it doesn’t even have an ending” I say smugly.

My brother closes the book and glares at me. “The last book is out in a few months, that’ll be the seventh of the series. So when I’m done I’ll ask you what happens and we’ll see” says he, “I bet it’s an epic ending.”

We were both right.

What is The Dark Tower?

I will do my best here not to ruin what is in my opinion the greatest series I have ever read. I will if given any latitude at all turn full fanboy, so in as few words and spoilers as is possible, here is The Dark Tower.

The tale begins with the best opening line I know,

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

The gunslinger is Roland Deschain, described as a cross between Clint Eastwood and Stephen King. He’s a knight in a world where knights carry six shooters instead of swords and that world has, ‘moved on’. This ‘moved on’ idea is a central point to the story. It’s the reason Roland is on his quest to The Dark Tower, but it’s not the only point. Perception, how we perceive our world, our lives and the roles we play are massive themes throughout the series.

Along the way, Roland picks up some friends from our world but in different points in time. They take with them the baggage of their era. Eddie is a drug addict, a smart mouth wise guy of the 1980’s and the first along the path of the beam. Then there comes, Odetta Susannah Holmes. She’s a young black woman from the American Civil Rights era. She lost her legs when a lunatic pushed her in front of a train, but more than that, she lost control of other personalities within her own mind. The loudest voice in her head, though not the one always in control, is Detta Susannah Walker, a crazed parody of stereotypes and murderous ideas. Odetta enters the gunslingers world, fearful and confused. Detta enters the world knowing full well that two white honkies have taken her and intend on mocking her for being a cripple before raping and torturing her to death. Detta Walker will try and kill them all first. Roland, in a bit that would take a considerable amount of words to set up and explain, essentially forces the two halves of Odetta/Detta to confront themselves and Susannah is born. She’s every bit as understanding and forthright as Odetta while every bit as murderous and crafty as Detta.

Next in line is Jake, and while Jakes importance and relevance in the story can’t be understated. He’s not the issue the fans have.

You see, Detta Walker hates white people, she despises them. She never comes to terms with the relationships Susannah takes part in and never misses an opportunity to spit venom and hate at her white companions, especially Roland, the kidnapping honkie bogeyman than took her from her where and when. This malice continues the whole way through the Dark Tower, it’s a major theme and the actions of Roland, Susannah and Detta play no small part in the story.

Roland is the last of his kind, until Eddie, Susannah and Jake arrives. Now for the first time in a very, very long time, a Ka-tet of gunslingers are abroad in the world and they must reach the Dark Tower to prevent it from falling, and with it, reality and all the worlds therein. Detta, is the part of Susannah’s mind that is the natural gunslinger, she is Susannah’s violent heart. And so the group must put up with the foul mouthed lunatic for as long as it takes.

I’ll stop there. So much happens that I could never do it all justice in a few hundred words, suffice to say, the quest is long and treacherous and full of interesting characters and places.

The Road to the Tower

By the time the final book was released and read by my brother, I had read the first and second book of the series (‘The Gunslinger’ & ‘The Drawing of the Three’) and was beginning the third book (‘The Waste Lands’). So as he read the last page of the finale, I paced about nearby to complete our little wager. My opinion had changed drastically by that point but curiously, my answer hadn’t.

“Done” say’s he as he stretches his arms, “wow that was something.”

“Was it worth it” I asked playing it straight but eager for him to say yes, as by then I was already addicted.

It was late 2004, three years before we learned that the franchise was about to become a movie, and thirteen before it actually does.

In 2007, J.J. Abrams got the option to make the film adaptation for $19. This will seem strange to those who aren’t fans and perfect for those who are. He and Damon Lindelof would bring Roland and his Ka-tet to movie going audiences, and we all say “thankee sai”.

By mid-2009, Lindelof said there was a problem with the adaptation. He and Abrams wanted seven films, one per book but he needed to adapt the books first, he needed creative license and his admiration for King’s work prevented him from messing with the original subject matter.

“[My] reverence for Stephen King is now getting in the way of what any good writer would do first when they’re adapting a book, which is take creative license”

- Lindelof (2009)

In less than a year, Abrams and Lindelof had left the project for Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman to pick up the torch. They planned three movies with a TV series between each of them. Later, in 2011, they announced, Javier Bardem was to play Roland and hinted at Naomie Harris as Susannah.

Again nothing came of all this. Three years later, Aaron Paul was being considered to play Eddie Dean with first, Russell Crowe and then Liam Neeson taking the role of Roland.

A year later and with new money backing it, the film was fast tracked. A date for release was set. Actors were hired to play in a Nikolaj Arcel film. Roland was cast.

The Dark Tower & its Players

The confirmed actors for this movie give me pause. It’s not that they’re not good actors; it’s the roles they play or at least the roles we are told about.

Mathew McConaughey as the Man in Black? Yes. What a great start.

Abbey Lee, who I really only know from “Mad Max: Fury Road” is playing Tirana. Ok. Wait, Tirana is a bit part player in the stories and only appears on a few pages at the end of the series. Why is she in the first film and why is she one of eight named actors cast?

For that matter, Jackie Earle Haley is playing, Sayre, who again is a late series character though more important by far than Tirana, whose only actual role in the books includes sitting, shrieking and slapping.

The Pimli character (Fran Kranz) is literally from the middle of the last book in the Dark Tower series. The last fucking book!

What’s going on here?

Look, I’m not a complete idiot; I know that an adaptation is not the same as the original. I know that with such a huge resource of characters and events the makers of the film could find a multitude of places to start or finish in a first movie. But it seems odd that so little is known of the tale they’re telling or who is playing who, even in this age of injunctions.

The first book has no Eddie or Susannah and so the first movie may likewise begin without them, so why are we getting late story characters?

It doesn’t mean much but I’m just enough of an asshole to ramble on about it.

With that in mind, I would like to speculate on one cast member. Katheryn Winnick is to play an unspecified role in The Gunslinger. I think she might be Allie in Tull, which if correct would be a pity as the character doesn’t move far beyond the stories beginning and if you’ve ever watched Vikings, you know Katheryn rocks.

Is it The Dark Tower?

And now I enter the realm of the bedsheet wearing clown, because it’s time to talk about a black Roland.

Let me preface this with two points. The first is the opinion bit. Idris Elba is a fine actor and a cool guy. The idea that he’s the frontman in a big project is anything other than a bum note. Whether it’s his small screen or big screen work, you’d have to be blind or mental not to recognise his talent. When folks started asking about the Bond franchise after Craig, I too thought Elba would be perfect for the role. I mean, yeah, he’s an Arsenal supporter but fuck me, no one’s perfect.

The second point I want to make is on canon. It’s short and sweet. The character of Roland is a cross between, Clint Eastwood in, “the Man with no Name” and Stephen King. We know this because he is described as such throughout the series and by King himself. There is a little hesitation here though. In the second book, a character goes bananas after watching the first Terminator movie. He sees Schwarzenegger and freaks out because the Terminator is a ringer for Roland. But maybe this has more to do with the gunslingers movement than how he looks.

Now consider the Susannah character. So much of who she is, is predicated on the madness of Detta Walker. And a lot of the series is about Detta’s hatred of white folk. Now I know that our failing educational systems are allowing nonsense like the changes of word meanings to go forth and prosper, but normal people get that racism can happen to anyone and some people are driven to do terrible things by their bigotry. It’s not simply a character tick, it can and in the form of Detta Walker, is, a motivation for words and deeds. It also affects her character in an intimate way. Susannah falls in love with Eddie. Now Detta is being led through a broken world by a white guy her other personality loves and is there when that same personality uses their shared body to be with Eddie. It’s all rather horrible and seemingly gone from the story entirely.

A black Roland means Susannah is just a girl in a wheelchair. I know it sounds mean but when you talk about characters and their fundamentals you talk about motivators and descriptions. No Detta and her hate means no central conflict for Susannah, Susannah is the one who keeps Detta from killing Roland, Eddie and Jake in their sleep.

Is it necessary for that conflict in a movie, does changing important character points ruin the show?

No.

Look at Rambo. There are a lot of differences between the David Morrell novel and the movie. In the movie, John Rambo only kills one guy and it’s indirectly. In the book, he loses count of how many he has killed, that includes innocent civilians. In the book he goes out of his way for the Chief (now a sheriff) to kill him, give him a warrior’s death, to the film were he and the chief survive.

Did it change the story, as in what we the audience were to take from it? The book was trying to draw attention to the mental suffering of GI’s returning from Vietnam and the conflict there. The film was made ten years later and rather than go over old ground the makers attempted to show the trauma and psychological problems using a more relatable character. It succeeded.

In The Last Samurai, we’re shown a man who has lost his bearings. He has no place to be in the world and is haunted by his own guilt and weakness. We follow him to Japan where he drinks and rambles and completes nothing, only to be taken captive by a samurai. He learns to appreciate the culture and dedication of his captors, even going so far as to see in them kindred spirits. Is this the true history of the time? No. by the time of the story, the main characters are already moving toward industrialisation — the main conflict of the movie. This future is no place for and has no need of the samurai. The movie shows a samurai trying to fight back against the mechanical tide. In the film, Katsumoto is trying to slow the “westernization” of Japan. We see this in his dislike of guns and modern ethics. Katsumoto is based on, Saigō Takamori, an influential samurai and politician who helped organise and arm Japans military with guns.

Is this contradiction a problem? In real life it would be slander, but in a movie it’s all about motivation. This is a fictional account of the Satsuma Rebellion, not a documentary. The Captain Algren character is a mix of an American in China and an earlier French soldier. As a history the whole thing is fucked. But as a movie it’s great. Algren is coming from the states, confused and horrified by the treatment of the Native Americans only to be a part of a similar annihilation of native culture in Japan. Katsumoto is a representation of Japan’s native culture.

The result is a tale with themes and ideas unsullied by time consuming facts. There is no test after the move, other than to be asked if you understood it and more importantly did you enjoy it.

The Long Tall & Ugly

Does this mean the casting of Idris Elba will have no effect on the story of The Dark Tower?

Yes . . . and no.

To tell Stephen King’s and Roland Deschain’s story, we need Detta Walker. But that doesn’t mean we need the conflict to be about race. It could be about her dislocation from her where and when or her psychological reality. It could be something else altogether.

For the adaptation to be true and consistent, we need the right cast playing the right characters with the right motivations. How these motivations are expressed might not be the most important part of the storytelling. But if you start to cut out whole swathes of material from the story’s tapestry, the thing will unravel. The picture, literally and figuratively will be different.

Eddie calls Roland, old long tall and ugly. It’s hard to see Elba like that but it’s not a necessity. It’s a tick. If you take Susannah out of her –various- wheelchairs, she will by necessity be someone else. That is not a tick, it’s a full on trait. So what of Roland’s race?

Roland is from Gilead which I’ve seen placed in Central America. That’s why Javier Bardem was my favourite choice. To me he was Roland in all but name. But Roland’s world is not on the same timeline as ours so who knows what Central America is like there and then.

In the end there are two things to consider.

One.

Is Idris Elba capable of playing Roland Deschain? In my opinion he is more than capable.

Two.

Will changing the character of Odetta/Detta/Susannah Mia change the movie and the story it’s telling? No. I don’t think so, because with such a huge amount of material to work with, they (the film makers) could focus the audience’s attention elsewhere. But now they will have to do that, they have no choice without fundamentally changing the character of Susannah.

On Reaching The Dark Tower . . . & a Black Gandalf

“Well” my brother asked me in 2004, “how does it end?”

I waited a moment before answering because I suddenly thought my answer was stupid. I’ll say it out loud and he’ll laugh his ass off.

“Will I tell you” he asks.

“No” I answer, “I can’t give an exact answer, because I don’t have all the parts yet but I have a feeling.”

“Go on then.”

“Roland will win his tower, and then . . .”

“What?”

“We start again” I answer. “There is no real ending. It’s about the journey.”

My brother says nothing more, he just nods and we go about our day. I don’t want to know the specifics, I want to be surprised, and I want the journey.

A lot of people have been waiting a long time to see this story on a big screen; some have been waiting most of their lives.

The media, who needs conflict to exist and the Social Justice Warrior plague want to build a narrative as they have done with the new Ghostbusters movie, saying, all men hate women and all white people hate other races. Unless you are deluded or crazy, you can easily see the nonsense in those ideas.

Like Ghostbuster fans (of which I am also one), fans of The Dark Tower don’t care about the myopic politics of irrational people or the bias of organisations that just want to drum up conflict. We love these stories and want them to be as they are. We want Roland as he is in the books. We want Susannah — and isn’t she the actual point of the argument, her character rather than Roland’s — to be her badass self.

If Peter Jackson had cast a black actor to be Gandalf, fans would have shit themselves, and not because they are racist but because Gandalf isn’t a nebulous character to them. He is a real world being in a real world. Any asshole who argues, ‘why do you care it’s not real’ is an asshole who doesn’t understand the medium or imagination. They are assholes who haven’t experienced what we have and think there’s something wrong with us for falling in love with fiction. They are assholes.

Massive functioning assholes.

But a black Gandalf doesn’t change the story, a black Roland does, if it’s allowed to. And therein lays the rub. Having waited so long and watched as the Hollywood machine and its esoteric vagaries first shuddered into action with the Tower and then, it seems, garbled the transcript, we the fans have held our breath for the story we love. Changing a character might mean very little or it might be everything. Having waited so long, our worry is that so many liberties will be taken with the source material that we won’t recognise the end product. It won’t be the thing we love, just a shiny bauble with the same name.

So are we racists?

No.

We are fans. And that means we want the thing we love and not a token copy. I will go to see The Gunslinger when it’s released in February of 2017 and I can almost guarantee that Idris Elba will be great in it. But when I lift up my copy of the Gunslinger (for the ninth time!), it won’t be Idris I see in the Golgotha of bones speaking to the man in black. It’ll be the Roland I fell in love with.

So will the Tower fall? I guess, not as long as there’s a Gunslinger.

Originally posted on House of Frittata (May 2nd 2016)