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The 7 - Random - movie version of The Talisman
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The King of Keith
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#1 Posted on 13.5.04 1038.37
Reposted on: 13.5.11 1038.59
So, according to Ain't It Cool News (http://www.aintitcool.com/ display.cgi?id=17520) there will be a bastardized version of Stephen King and Peter Straub's masterpiece The Talisman hitting theatres. While I've heard that they were making a movie for some time, and was excited, these new details make me cringe.

How can you make a movie without the Sunlight Gardener home???? Awful, just awful.
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OlFuzzyBastard
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#2 Posted on 13.5.04 1104.35
Reposted on: 13.5.11 1105.01
I'm still annoyed about comparatively minor plot changes in the TV-movie version of "It". You can imagine the red this script has me seeing. This makes "The Running Man" look accurate to the source material.
Rudoublesedoublel
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#3 Posted on 13.5.04 1225.39
Reposted on: 13.5.11 1225.53
I really enjoyed reading "The Talisman", and I even enjoyed reading the sequel, "The Dark House" (I think that was the name).

I can't get the page to load, but I hate to read that the movie doesn't look good on paper. It's a shame too, that's a pretty cool premise and if done properly would make for a fine movie.
The King of Keith
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#4 Posted on 13.5.04 1236.21
Reposted on: 13.5.11 1236.39
The sequel is actually titled "Black House", and yes, it is a wonderful book. I love how it is written in the present tense.

Ain't It Cool's website is hard to access sometimes b/c of so much traffic and so little bandwidth.
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#5 Posted on 13.5.04 1244.27
Reposted on: 13.5.11 1245.52
I loved the Talisman but I don't really see how it would translate into a watchable movie without changing it quite a bit.

I haven't gotten the page to load either so I'm not sure if THESE changes will make it work or not.

Black House, on the other hand, almost seemed to be written for movie-making.
OlFuzzyBastard
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#6 Posted on 13.5.04 1249.17
Reposted on: 13.5.11 1250.03
These changes are overwhelming and pointless, destructive to the point of completely changing the narrative.

    Originally posted by Ain't It Cool News

    Spoiler Below: Highlight text to read



    The opening of the script gave me some hope. Kruger seems to really understand the character of Jack and shows us a lot of his personality in the hectic move to the lonely Alhambra Hotel. He also really nails Jack's loving, but strained relationship with his mom, an ailing and aging B movie star of the '70s. Shortly after Jack meets Speedy Parker and is given his quest any similarity between the script and the original novel, with the exception of character names, disappear.

    Let's start with "The Quest." In the novel, the quest young Jack is put on is to travel from the East Coast to the West Coast to liberate The Talisman from an evil house. He can then use this Talisman to heal his mother and by doing so, will heal The Queen of the Territories. In the book, there are certain people who have "Twinners" which are alternate versions of that person that exist in the Territories. Lily Cavanaugh's "Twinner" is the fair Queen of the Territories. If she dies, the Territories will be overrun by an evil bastard known as Morgan of Orris, who has an equally slimy and evil "Twinner" in Jack's world by the name of Morgan Sloat, ex-partner of Jack's father and Uncle to the boy. And if the Queen dies, so does Lily.

    In Kruger's screenplay, Jack STARTS OUT with the Talisman (contained in a guitar case given to the boy by Speedy Parker) and has to carry it to the Queen, who is held captive in a castle on the West Coast. This castle is the property of "The Alchemist," an evil man by the name of Morgan Strong. There is no Morgan Sloat (thus no Richard Sloat, either, for you fans) or Morgan of Orris... just this Morgan Strong who doesn't have half the menace of either of the two characters in the original novel.

    In the screenplay, Morgan Strong has figured out a way to travel between worlds and is trying to use this power to woo the Queen, whom he loves. She'll have no part of him and is slowly starving herself to death while held captive by the Alchemist. Oh, and as an added insult to the fans of the book Jack Sawyer's father is revealed to be Morgan Strong... He couldn't sweet talk the Queen, so he traveled between worlds and got the second best thing: Jack's mom.

    I know, I know... that change is really stupid and completely unnecessary, but the insanity doesn't stop there.

    For a fantasy story, this script sure has very little fantasy involved. Of the 145 pages, I'd say roughly 10 of them takes place in the Territories and most of those happen at the very end of the script during the ridiculous raid on Morgan's castle. That's right, they took out the fantasy realm and set Jack's journey almost 100% in the real world.

    That leads me to Wolf, one of King and Straub's most faithful and loveable characters. One, we never see Wolf in the Territories. Not once. Kruger also writes his dialogue as if he were half Autistic and half Mongoloid. It really is upsetting to see Wolf written this way. There are a few moments where Kruger does nail Wolf's temperament, but hardly enough to make it count. It also feels like Kruger took all the bonding of Wolf and Jack out of the story and decided to keep in all the whiney Jack-pissed-at-Wolf stuff instead. I never really bought their friendship in this script and as that's one of the strongest threads in the original book it came as a huge disappointment to me.

    How about the bad guy you love to hate... Sunlight Gardner. Gardner appears very, very early on in the story (he tracks down Speedy and snatches him up) and is the constant threat, always two steps behind Jack Sawyer on his journey. I understand the need to give Jack's quest a sense of urgency, but they turn Sunlight Gardner into more of an evil detective than the quietly malevolent threat that the character needs to be. Gardner is threatening in the way he manipulates the people around him, not because he's plowing through cornfields in a limo with his two bumbling henchmen...

    Oh, yes... The bumbling henchmen... Sissy and Roy are their names, but they're just creatures wearing human masks. So much of their stuff isn't played threateningly, like the Oately Tunnel sequence is in the book, but rather silly. They are fishes out of water and constantly make American pop culture mistakes... Terrible!

    There's so much that doesn't work... the train sequence with Wolf's transformation, the "hypno-ring," the rescue of the Queen, the revelation of who Jack's father is... And you know why it doesn't work? Because it shares absolutely no relation whatsoever to the book. Are screenwriter's egos so fragile that they can't be faithful to the original material, even just a little bit? No matter what your opinion of the LOTR films are, you have to admire how Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and the Queen of the Geeks pulled the film out of the novels. What was added not only aided in telling the story, but also stayed true to character and tone. What was changed was necessary to a successful film version. Not so with this abortion.

The Amazing Salami
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#7 Posted on 13.5.04 1257.38
Reposted on: 13.5.11 1257.42
OK. Yeah, that's pretty terrible (and I won't elaborate for spoiler reasons). I don't know if it's quite as bad as the Running Man, but it's pretty darn close.

Speaking of Running Man, I've always thought the actual Bachman Running Man story would make a helluva movie. Why they never ran with it, who knows?
The King of Keith
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#8 Posted on 13.5.04 1303.00
Reposted on: 13.5.11 1304.52
Although it is true that the Running Man book is far different from the movie, I have to say that I enjoy the movie simply based on its cheesiness. And Jesse's hairpiece.
Big G
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#9 Posted on 13.5.04 1922.26
Reposted on: 13.5.11 1922.36
This has made me want to go back and re-read the talisman. I haven't read it since forever.

I actually bought the Backman version of the running man after I watched the movie. I liked the movie for the cheesiness of your classic future 80's action, but was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the book. I agree that the book would translate well into a film. Not so much in the 80's action era, but now.

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