Saw "The Mist" the other day.
Yeah. Worst ending ever.
Or was it?
Discuss, kittens.
Is it the same as the story? Because I liked the ending in the story. I thought it all felt kinda right considering the tone of the whole thing.
--EDIT: Hmm... just checked on wiki, seems it had a different ending. The movies one sounds interesting, but I'd really have to see it to know if it works effectively, but it does seem kinda... cheap, like it defeats the point of what he was doing.
What? Darabont made the "Dreamcatcher" mistake?!
Dreamcatcher had an ending that made a parody of the whole thing, making it all ridiculous. You're telling me Darabont of Shawshank and Green Mile did the same?!
I haven't seen The Mist, but I could rant about bad endings all day.
A recent one is I am Legend.
Spoiler
Without even mentioning the fact that they completely misinterpreted the meaning of the title, but they also built walls around the safe area that were no higher than your average house, when in the scene just before that we had just seen a load of the vampires climbing up the side of Neville's house. And why didn't Neville poke the grenade through the hole in the glass to blow up the creatures, instead of blowing himself up?
Which was the problem with Green Mile' s film ending, Rui? I' ve read the book and saw the movie and I *think* they were identycal.
(I am not arguing, just checking if my memories are uncorrect) ;)
No, no, I meant that Darabont, who did a wonderful job with Shawshank and Green Mile, went the way those Dreamcatcher idiots went.
That's a shame, as I'm quite fond of The Mist in written form, and the ambiguous nature of the ending suited the tone of the story well. Having said that, I always felt the last few paragraphs to be superfluous, and the narrative could've probably ended a few pages earlier, yet still been effective.
Shawshank, as a story, never really did anything for me, and the same could be said of The Green Mile. I got more from Shawshank as a movie, I guess, but The Green Mile, regardless of my opinion of the source material, was pretty stale.
Dreamcatcher: The Movie was pretty appalling. The book was decent in parts, but on the whole fairly overblown.
Personally, I've always liked From a Buick 8, though I get a lot more enjoyment from Mr. King's short stories than his novels, especially the pre- and post- 'Salem's Lot stories, Jerusalem's Lot and One for the Road.
1408 is also an excellent story, and so is...
...etc, etc... :)
EDIT: Actually, I read Cujo fairly recently, and I was really surprised at the desolate and downbeat tone. And not once did it "read" like a Stephen King novel. Then I remembered that King himself wrote, in On Writing, that Cujo was written during his "booze 'n drugs" period, and he really can't remember writing it.
Which maybe explains it...
Dreamcatcher was by far the worst movie adaption of a King work. That said, I am yet to see the mist.
I think that the worst movie ending is Star Wars 3I enjoyed the film up until the final few scenes, the Darth Vader creation scene was unimaginative and felt like a bad B grade movie ending.
Does anybody have info re: the Dark tower movie(s)?
All I have heard is that the creators of Lost may be working on a movie or mini series.
If the dark tower recieves the dreamcatcher treatment I believe I will quite possibly go crazy.
I have talked about a DT movie with Dave Gilbert, and he recalled what happened to the kids in Harry Potter - how they grew.
A true DT movie would have to be quite big and possibly span several movies. How old would Jake get? Hmmmm... plus, many other King books relate to the Dark Tower saga. It's probably best if it remains in written form - remember how they had to edit out the DT bits in Hearts of Atlantis? From what I hear, it turned the film into something lukewarm at best, but hey.
I agree DT should remain untouched by Hollywood, but the process appears to have started.
The only way I can see to fully keep Jake the right age, is to shoot ALL 7 films at the same time ala The lord of the rings. A big ask but it could be done.
If the director(s) of DT movies were commited enough to the mission they could also remake the films Hearts in Atlantis and IT with DT references intact.
One of the rumours suggests that the saga will be shortened to one movie, This would be a HUGE mistake.
Well, it might be the best approach, though.
Consider it. If we have 7 movies, then we must also have a movie of IT and Hearts in Atlantis. And Insomnia.
And if we have those, why not have all the ones that have touched upon the DT saga? And there's a LOT of them.
Possibly best to make it into a single movie, so long as they KNOW they're gonna need 5 hours to cram it all in and still leave stuff out.
QuoteDreamcatcher was by far the worst movie adaption of a King work.
In my opinion, hardly any movie adaption of King is very good, the original Shining, Misery and Green Mile being the sparkling exceptions from the rule. I used to love his books and was very disappointed by most adaptions. The few that work well are usually based on his short stories (Night Flyer is pretty good), but heavens- King and the silver screen don't mix. These stories are to be played in the cinema
inside the head.
I had not even heard that they did a movie adaption of The Mist, but I fondly recall the original story and can think of almost a dozen ways to make it go ascrew. Anyone knows when it'll reach us here in Germany?
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" PiresConsider it. If we have 7 movies, then we must also have a movie of IT and Hearts in Atlantis. And Insomnia.
The DT series stands alone from the other books. The only one that impacts greatly on the DT is Insomnia and it's only a side story that is not vital to the DT saga.
The don't need to be made for the series to make sense.
One movie for 7 books is never going to work too much is going to be cut out and lost, making the story weaker. I would even go as far ast to say make 8 movies. The wastelands is essentially two novellas in one volume and would be better as seperate films.
Quote from: thewizard on Tue 19/02/2008 22:51:54
Dreamcatcher was by far the worst movie adaption of a King work.
Never seen 'The Dark Half' then?
That's funny, I was quite pleased with the movie versions of -
Dark Half (the GAME was dreadful, though)
Carrie
Christine
Green Mile
Shawshank
The Stand
Rose Red and Storm of the Century are TV made, so they shouldn't count, but hey...
The Langoliers
Misery
Dolores Claiborne
And I thought "Secret Window" was bloody excellent
And others I didn't see yet. Maybe I'm a King-addict?
Wizard, yeah, it's not needed for the stories to make sense, but Imsonia does introduce the Crimson King, and Black House does reveal the effect DT has on our world and on the Territories. Hey, if you're not going to do a thorough job, might as well just put in a couple of movies and be done with it, IMHO.
EDIT - Not having seen the movie, the ending spoiler in IMDB seems ok... it's a different ending, but it seems to work, and climax the feelings of persecution and paranoia which, while in the mist, would be at their utmost. And it has a distinct touch of "Night of the Living Dead" ending. Sure, not as ambiguous, but both ambiguous and paranoia fit the whole "mist" theme rather well.