Stephen King is definitely the author with the most adaptations in Hollywood today, bar none. The output of his novels is "rich", the imagery and atmosphere are very strong, the expressions are easy to understand, the plot twists, the rich imagination and the deep connotation themes, etc., are all excellent conditions for adapting them into films. But at the same time, because of its complicated narrative style and some too bizarre plots, many film practitioners have suffered here.
To put it bluntly: Jin's adaptations have been improved - they are masterpieces, such as "Shawshank" and "The Green Mile"; if they are changed, they can be surprisingly bad - such as "Fire Demon" and "Lick Blood". The "Shark Watch" in the film circle. The success or failure of the film and televisionization of novels, apart from the quality of the book works, is more like opening a blind box to the audience.
The original work of "Necessities" is not the best, but it is one of his most interesting, original and narrative works. Personally like it very much, far more than the classics like "Shawshank". The detailed depiction of the inhabitants of Castle Rock and the god-like depiction of the shopkeeper, Gaunt, fascinated me.
Speaking of the movie, I watched the two-hour version, and I knew there was a director-cut version. Therefore, it is not disappointing that the first half of the movie is too exaggerated and simplified, after all, it has been made into a drama according to the method of the novel. Besides, Sydoff's acting skills are really good. I personally think that the old man's image of Gaunt is the biggest highlight of this movie; in addition, the actor Harris is also an old face, and the two-hour duration did not give him much play. Space, but at least it doesn't feel like a drama.
The problem is in the climax of the ending. Jin Ye's black fans often say that he can't write the final battle, the big boss always goes high and low, and the crisis ends in haste. I haven't read all of his books, so I can't comment on it, but in this original book, I think the climax part is a good one, except for the panic in the whole town, the melee between the two sects, the encounters of the protagonist and the group The plot of the villain mayor and Gaunt, and the moment when the demon finally showed up and the clever shot of Norris, made me really surprised and happy. As mentioned at the beginning. Stephen King is very good at creating atmosphere and visual sense.
But the movie chose to let the actor Pangborn use his own power to persuade the residents of the town to stop fighting against the outside world and instigate the mayor to let him die with the devil, which is really stupid. What's even more stupid is that each of the parties involved also talked about the bad things they had done, fearing that the audience would not know what was going on. In addition, the big villain Gaunt-Devil himself was speechless in the face of the male protagonist's criticism. Yes, I have been arguing weakly, like a primary school student who made a mistake and was arrested... It can be said that all the images and narratives built in the whole film for nearly two hours were smashed by this wave of operations at the end, which made me the most unacceptable place.
This "Necessity" is really a pity. If the ending was handled a little more cleverly, even according to the novel, it would not be so anticlimactic.
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