The books were mid and you missed nothing, but very few scifi/fantasy series got a complete set of movies at that level of quality, and that's a pretty novel concept even today. So many competing books with arguably superior aspects get canceled after season 2 or end up feeling like filler slop.

Many of us grew up with LotR and HP wondering why there are so few tv shows and movie adaptations of similar quality.

[–] wolfinthewoods@hexbear.net 8 points 14 hours ago

So, at the time the first book came out I was 14 and lived in a group home, and to have a fascimile of 'school' (I had yet to be enrolled at the local HS) one of the staff stuck me in a room and tried forcing me to read Harry Potter and I adamantly refused because it read like such crap after a few pages. Mind you, I was already a teen and had been reading Dragonlance stuff by Weiss and Hickman for a few years, so this fantasy world seemed rather dull to me. To this day still never had any interest.

[–] Johnny_Arson@hexbear.net 12 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

In a better timeline we would have an equivalent adaptation of every Dark Tower novel.

Which funnily enough, actually riff on the sneech from quidditch except instead of being a sports ball, it's just a hand launched guided drone bomb that kills children and is wielded by omnicidal cultists of the Crimson King who seeks to use tortured psychic neurodivergent children's unmarked the universe.

Stephen King is a shitlib but there are many strokes of genius in that series which make it still one of my favorite fantasy/sci fi works of all time.

[–] emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

The dark tower getting a good adaptation would be nice, but my ideal would be a really good Wheel of time series. It would have to be LONG but that's also what would be so appealing about it

[–] Johnny_Arson@hexbear.net 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Currently it is in the hands of Mike Flanagan, who previously worked on Midnight Mass, Doctor Sleep (a Stephen King adaptation that was good, and Fall of the House of Usher which is a Poe adaptation which was also real good. Given all the stuff he has worked on (good and not so good) I think he is perfect for it.

As far as longevity I really hope his take on it lives up to the hype because there are seven very dense books to adapt (excluding Gunslinger which advantageously was originally written as a standalone story and is fairly short).

They could both milk the series for a lot and also result in a very great adaptation since there are a few novellas too. It's both a blessing and a curse that there is so much material because it's going to require some incredible creative vision but also has the potential to span a decade of television.

And unlike GoT this epic fantasy tale actually got finished...