Hello. I see the movie couple days ago. I like it. I was hoping for more? Yes! Overall nice action movie. (Now here comes the but...) but i have questions.
1) I remember in the books saying that tha gunslingers where peacekeepers and diplomats in gilead. Roland found out about the tower in wisard and glass when he takes a "trip" inside the sphere. In the movie they say gunslingers are knights sworn to protect the dark dark tower.
Am right? Or i understand something wrong?
2) i was expecting roland to go to the tower
last time around! Are they planning to do that on a second movie?
Thats all. (For now)
2) Yes, the plan was to make a a series of movies and TV show.
1) I've been thinking about that. Here's what I came up with: The horn is a powerful item that was lost at Roland's battle of Jericho Hill. In however many tries he's made at the Tower--we don't know how many, but the last chapter of the last book gives the impression that he's made the journey to the top of the tower many times before the one in the books--he's never started again with the horn in his possession. At the end of the book, he had the horn, and we see it in the movie, in his rucksack.
I've thought a lot about why that is significant, and I did some research. In both "Childe Roland to The Dark Tower Came" and in the "Song of Roland" (an old French romantic poem), the horn is used to call ones 'people', to gather the team, so to speak. In Arthurian legend, Cuthbert's horn is used to 'call your dead', when blown at the right place and the right time. It all comes back to calling the ones you love.
Still with me? Okay, so maybe Roland never really loved anyone--at least more than he loved the Tower--since Jericho Hill. Even then, it was "a work of three seconds to pick it up" (quote from the book), but Roland didn't. He didn't care to call anyone, because he was going to do it all himself. And then... he let Jake fall. And he
did care. Then he got Eddie and Susannah, and he cared about them, too. Hell, his heart broke when Oy [what happened to Oy]. Roland grew a heart. And was worthy of the horn.
Now we're to the movieverse. This Roland was overwhelmed by feeling. He FEELS Walter's betrayal, not because it endangers the Tower, but because he HURT PEOPLE. Steven and his mother, to be exact. So he's lost his focus on the Tower because he's overwrought with matters of the heart. The Turtle would be okay with that, in the short term, anyway, because Roland is finally
learning something! Remember, the books tell us that he's a bit thick and singleminded. Roland's challenge in this movie/series is to find his balance between too much heart and not enough. And he gets there, makes the same arc book-Roland took 3 novels to make in a single movie. That makes sense, because he's just getting back to where he was at the end of the last turn of the wheel--the pattern was there already.
I liked this movie way more than I thought I would. I can't wait to see it again. And my heart overflows to think that at the turn of the next wheel Roland might have to ascend alone again (another hallmark of Arthurian legend--quests must be ended alone), but when he gets to the top he can blow that horn, save the Tower, and all those he loved will be with him again: Jake. Susannah. Eddie. Steven. his mother. Susan (Oh, Discordia!). Alain. Cuthbert. Cort. Jamie. Maybe even Mordred. Whoever else he's loved over the however long (decades? Centuries? Millenia?) that he didn't understand that love is the main support for the Tower that supports everything else.
*Sigh* Now I feel teary. I love Roland and his sad, sad eyes (Elba got that exactly, perfectly right).