The deal is that when a writer spends hundreds, thousands of hours on a book, the development and description of characters is as important, if not more, than the story itself. In his own words, with the Dark Tower he wanted to write an epic series of books set in a fantasy far-west world and all of this was inspired by Leone’s movies of the 60s and 70s. The Gunslinger figure is a clone of Clint Eastwood: a tall, slim, white person with blue eyes and a fairly thin build (possibly due to the lack of food in the world of the Dark Tower). People have been reading the books for a very long time and the figure of the Gunslinger in etched in everyone’s mind, so when you get to watch the movie (which was shit) and the iconic Gunslinger is played by an actor that only matches King’s character because he owns a penis, then we have a problem.
It was either:
a) Someone legitimally thought that Elba was the best fit for the Gunslinger’s role, and that person should be fired and considered un-hirable by anyone forever
b) They knew the movie was shit (spoiler: it is), so they picked a popular actor and they carefully picked one that doesn’t match the description at all and is politically-correcteness friendly to create free advertisemente a la Ghostbusters (spoiler: it was shit as well)
I’m more inclined towards b), mainly because if King & his friends were interested in bringing the Dark tower to the big screen in a proper way, the could have planned 3 movies. In this way they wouldn’t have been forced to leave out an absurd amount of original material that is not even touched in the movie.
Trying to tell the story of the Dark Tower in a 90 minutes movie is impossible, which means it was a cash grab, which means Elba was there just for the free “you don’t like the movie because you’re racist!!” advertisement.
For James Bond it’s a different issue because basically half of Hollywood has already played that role. I wouldn’t mind Mr Bond to be asian, black, latino or whatever, but if a book or comic describes a character in a certain way then the casting should be done accordingly.
What about Shawshank? In the story, Red was white. Well, Irish. Morgan Freeman pulled it off wonderfully. Nothing PC about that, just a fine actor in a role.
Vic Morrow died for that role! And his daughter always plays these emotional broke characters. What does that have to do with anything? I have no idea.
It’s the same issue, if a novel has a character that is described in one way, the casting should be done accordingly. I’m pretty sure there are some fine Irish or Irish-looking actors, don’t you think? Or Irish people can’t act?
You know what I was thinking? If the main actors had been reversed, the characters would have played better. But actual racist concerns keep black actors from playing “evil” guys.
That would have probably been better. Not enough to save a crappy movie, but still more reasonable in terms of original material.
A black guy as the evil rival in 2017 in a major movie release = not going to happen
FWIW, Elba could play the walking dude. Oh. That voice. Nobody plays eviler characters than the English. Sorry. They have that one. Say all his lines like Luther. You see what I mean?
And, as I mentioned, it specifically states he isn’t of African descent.
If only because he spends time infiltrating the Klan to incite their violent agenda.
It is wonderful how people get all worked up over fictional characters. People who do not really exist. Never have. Never will. Make believe. I mean, it is not like a real life person has ever had their race swapped in a bio.
Hey, he transcends time. So…with that in mind…he could become anyone.
They could have found someone else to play him either way, in either adaptation. Julian Sands, Christoph Waltz, anyone except a dope smoking Texan and Jamey Sheridan.
The Stand was the worst. Darabond should get the re-write and do it again.
Lieutenant Dan was pretty good in it. Also…uh…oh yeah Cicely Tyson as old Granny Whatsername (although @IbisWtf would have hated it, what with her being a colored and all).
Other than that, well…
Yeah, pretty much stink, stank, stunk.
Not sure where the remake stands ( get it??) currently
FWIW, Susannah consistently refers to him that way early on.
Yep.
I never saw him as Eastwood, but definitely saw him as white. Doesn’t matter to me though.
King was completely involved in the development. I’d assume he was totally on board with the idea.
I’ve only seen Elba in The Wire where he annoyed me in a few ways. I wasn’t excited when I heard the choice, and given the reviews I’m not rushing to see it. I’ll have to watch some of his other stuff as people seem to like him.
I thought they were.
Wow, how do you get there? I know if I was an actor I wouldn’t turn down that role if I had the chance. Trying to ascribe anything racial to it is pretty weird.
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