'The Dark Tower' Trailer Hints at Big Changes From Stephen King's Book Series

There is a temptation for fans of any series -- be it book, television, or film -- to become somewhat entitled and maybe even a little demanding depending on the situation at hand. For some, after dedicating huge chunks of your time to a certain piece of entertainment, your relationship with it slowly evolves from mere fan to something akin to a caretaker. You feel the need to protect the thing you love, but since caretaker is an actual job that exists in our worlds (just ask Jack Torrance as he’s been one from the very beginning), you begin to feel the need for, like you would with any job, compensation. And this compensation can come in the form of the thing you love being translated into a different medium exactly the way you think it should be.

I am only human and have felt the tug of fan entitlement. Heck, for the last few months, I have been moaning and groaning about the fact that Sony will be ready to reboot the freaking Dark Tower series before we ever get a trailer for the first one. I insisted quite strongly that they release the trailer because I wanted people to have time to absorb it so that they’ll go see it, which will in turn allow the movie to do well and make little baby Dark Tower sequels. This was certainly something that I did and do actually think, but in reality I was just an anxious fan who wanted what he wanted. But who am I to make demands of Sony’s advertising department? Maybe they have a plan of attack for this film and their rollout of it, and if that’s true, then they don’t need to ruin it by catering to my desires. I mean, I’m just the guy who read all 7 books in a two-month period and championed its adaptation from the very beginning with articles and Facebook posts and...*takes chill pill*. Anywhoo, here’s the trailer for The Dark Tower.

And now we will go through this trailer frame by frame so that I may pelt you with theories!

I’m kidding of course, although that was a pretty sweet little picture of The Overlook Hotel in that shrink’s office, am I right? I’m right. Okay, so, there are some concerns floating about in regards to this trailer, and I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t share some of them. I know full well that this adaptation is more of a sequel/reimagining then anything else, and that’s fine because the book series allows for that, and no I ain’t telling you how that is because that would spoilerize things for y’all. They’re going to change things and that’s alright(alrightalright), as change doesn’t necessarily spell doom for the things you love, and sometimes it is warranted when trying to realize a vision of written words. I would, however, like to point out that this is Roland’s (Idris Elba) story, and the fact that we seem to come at the film from Jake’s (Tom Taylor) point of view is a little distressing. The film seems to present Roland as more of a “man from dreams” as opposed to presenting Jake as a “stranger from another world”. Now, in the books, Jake does dream about Mid-World and The Gunslinger, but it’s important to note that we don’t start things off from that point but instead come around to it after a period of time. Look, it could work the way it’s presented in the trailer, and Jake is, after all, a leading character in the story. It’s just that there is a hefty amount of world-building to do in Roland’s reality, and to start things off in our world with Jake seems like a misstep. But hey, sequels I guess.

Again, though, it could be the way the trailer is cut. We won’t really know until we see it. And speaking of seeing things... (t-minus 3-second countdown for nitpick)... we sure do see a fair amount of that Dark Tower in the trailer. Yup, we see a lot of a certain thing that our characters don’t even get anywhere near until the end of Book 7. But hey, the movie is called The Dark Tower and it’s not unreasonable for the audience to be able to see the damn thing. At this point, it’s all speculation, and while certain folks may feel the trailer is a little top-heavy when it comes to action (it’s a little top-heavy with action), we honestly won’t know a blessed thing until we get into the theater. Hell, the movie could be 2 hours of Roland and Jake walking around and all the action in the trailer could happen at the very end of the film (that’s not going to happen). Concerns aside, I’m still onboard with this film as I cling to the hope that my fandom will be further rewarded. Idris Elba and Matthew McCounaghey are perfect casting choices for their respective roles, and that alone is enough of a reward regardless that the trailer does show them fighting even though that never happens in the--okay, last nitpick, I swear. Ka is a circle, and it was always eventually going to lead us to a big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s greatest work. But enough about 2017’s IT, go see The Dark Tower in theaters on August 4th, or any time after that specific date that is convenient for you.

(Image via Sony/YouTube)

- Greg McIver, YH Contributing Writer