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Dark Tower Movie Feats

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I'm not a racist, but was there an explication for his skin color change from the novels? I haven't seen the movie yet. Don't spoiled me. I ask because this is a sequel.
 
I wouldn't know, since I haven't seen the movie yet. It won't be out until tomorrow.

As far as his race goes, I'm pretty sure they wanted to cast Idris Elba for his acting skills more than anything else. (a 'Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin' situation, if you will) That's unrelated to the topic at hand, though.
 
I just wonder how he changing color is ignore/explain when he is supposed to be the same white character. Is odd.
 
If it is confirmed to be a sequel, I will let it slide I guess. Although to be honest, the little I know about books compared to the movie is not going to be that helpful.
 
KinkiestSins said:
If it is confirmed to be a sequel, I will let it slide I guess.
Although to be honest, the little I know about books compared to the movie is not going to be that helpful.
It's been confirmed by everyone working on the movie that it's a sequel, but there is also evidence given to support it. In addition to a major plot point/spoiler at the very end of the Dark Tower novel series that allows the movie to exist as a sequel, the movie itself has Roland in possession of an object he acquired in the novel series and kept.
 
I know is a sequel. I know is a continuation/reboot if you know the ending of each book, but changing the way he looks without an explication is "bizarre" I don't mind a person of color to play the main character, i'm not a racist as I said. I just hope they explain it otherwise it wouldn't fit with how his "family" was describe in the books. You know it brakes canon a bit.
 
@AppleLord

Inconsistencies happen like that. The Harry Potter movies made Lavender Brown of European descent in the latter half of the saga when she was of Afro-Caribbean descent in the first few movies. Even more airtight sequels have weird inconsistencies.

Anyway. If the movie is a confirmed sequel, I'd be okay with it.
 
To be fair, the loops Roland is put through make it clear that things change throughout, not being exactly the same each time (ex. he ends the last book where he began in the first book, but this time with the Horn of Eld). This may not even be the loop that began at the end of the last book, so they can probably just write it off as "Roland is black this time because reasons".

Anyway, saw the movie, today. Liked it a lot more than I thought I would. It's far from a great movie, and they expect you to be somewhat familiar with the source material from the get-go, but while going in thinking I was going to hate it, I still had fun. I'll post some notable feats below. SPOILERS will be below, if you care about that.

  • There are some pretty solid speed feats. The most notable would be Walter catching Roland's bullets at close range, which happens quite a few times in the last fight scene alone. However, the most notable would probably be from near the beginning. Roland shoots at Walter as he's walking away, but the sorcerer catches the bullet mere inches from his head without even turning around.
  • Roland's enhanced senses are so good, he can hear sounds as quiet as a single drop of blood hitting the ground across a village...in the middle of a war zone. He lands multiple perfect shots on distant targets he can't see without even looking in their direction.
  • Roland scales to Walter directly. He scales speed wise because he caught the bullets Walter threw back at him (with his gun), and scales AP wise because he shoots that ****** dead. Yes, that's right. In this loop, Roland is actually the one to kill Walter (as he should be) instead of the terrible death he had in the books. Mordred is not in the film, obviously.
  • A notable AP feat for Walter would be casually incinerating a full grown woman to absolutely nothing but ash.
  • Walter also demonstrates some more dangerous applications of his magic, such as forcing things to happen to people just by saying them. Notable instances include when he makes multiple characters choke to death by simply saying "Stop breathing", or when he has two minions dispose of each other against their will by saying "Kill each other". He can apply this to multiple individuals at once, or focus it if he desires.
  • The above ability seems to extend beyond the merely physical, as well, seeming to also work as emotional/mind manipulation when he wants it to (such as making a little girl have nothing but hatred for her mother by simply whispering "Hate" as he walked by).
  • Walter can possess control people from an entirely different universe.
 
Went and saw the movie earlier today as well. Definitely expected it to be worse, even if at the end of the day it's still a great deal below the books in quality.

As for those feats mentioned above:

-All of the speed feats mentioned above are almost perfectly in-line with Walter/Flagg's abilities in both the novels and the prequel comics. He's dodged and outright deflected Roland's bullets a few times before, and has the fairly infamous feat of speed-blitzing three trained gunslingers and turning them into dogs. Roland scaling to him and catching bullets, however, would be a considerable upgrade for the character, since in the novels (IIRC) he was slower than Flagg in terms of combat speed and had slower reactions as well, and never did anything even remotely close to catching bullets in the old media.

-Where would we write Roland's enhanced senses into his profile? Notable Attacks & Techniques?

-Would the casual disintegration feat fall under 'vaporization of the human body'? And if so, would that warrant an upgrade in Walter/Flagg's AP with magic? He already has some great magic feats in the novels (which I plan on addressing in a CRT on a later date), but as far as direct physical/non-transmutation magic goes, that might be the strongest direct attack he's been shown performing as of yet.

-Walter/Flagg's durability is another thing I intended to mention in a CRT, but I feel like it should be brought up now before we go about scaling Roland's AP to him. His physical durability needs a downgrade. He has no feats whatsoever that warrant Building Level durability, and Roland shooting him dead is even further proof that he doesn't deserve such a rating.

-From what I can tell, the mind/emotion manipulation is somewhat new, but it's almost directly akin to the animal manipulation Flagg showed in The Stand and Eyes Of The Dragon, where he was controlling entire hordes of wolves/weasels and forcing mice to sleep/wake/jump/etc at his request, respectively. The nature of the commands, however, means he now has several more ways to ignore conventional durability. (which is honestly really terrifying)

-Would possessing/controlling people from another universe be enough for Walter/Flagg to receive a range upgrade? As it stands, he already had an effective range of several thousand kilometers, but possessing someone from another universe is on another level entirely.
 
-Yeah, it seemed to portray Roland as slower than Walter/Flagg, but not by an overwhelming degree.

-Possibly, yeah. That way it could be better detailed than just "Enhanced Senses".

-Not sure, but it's a pretty solid AP feat, regardless.

-I can agree on that.

-Yeah, especially with how easily he did it.

-I would assume so. I mean, it almost certainly doesn't work on all his magic, but he can project himself and control people from across universes, at least.
 
Alright, so here's what I seem to have gathered.

Roland:

-Upgrade combat speed due to catching bullets and keeping up with Walter/Flagg, who is slightly faster than him.

-Add 'Enhanced Senses' to his Notable Attacks section and expound upon them from there.

Walter/Flagg:

-Use new feats to further justify his current speed ranking. Also note the fact that he's slightly faster than Roland

-Downgrade durability based on the few novel feats he has shown. His earliest appearance in Eyes of the Dragon showed him walking off having an arrow shot through his eye, and in The Waste Lands he boasted that he could survive Blaine The Mono's biological WMD's which were later shown killing normal townspeople within seconds.

-Add Mind Manipulation and Emotion Manipulation to his list of powers, and expound upon those powers further in the Notable Attacks/Techniques section of his profile. Also add/detail his ability to manipulate people on a physical level with mere commands.

-Upgrade range, but only in regards to possession/mind manipulation. Something along the lines of 'Thousands of kilometers with most magic. Multi-Universal with possession/mind manipulation' would probably work.

What we should probably get more input on at some point:

-Walter/Flagg's disintegration feat.

-Walter/Flagg's durability with magic. (May need to save this for the next CRT I post up, but if it can be addressed here, then that would be good)
 
Something occurred to me just now.

I remember there being a seemingly mundane line in the film that basically stated Roland could resist Walter's magic for some reason, more or less handwaving the question of why Walter didn't just have Roland 'stop breathing' like he could do with just about whoever else. Does this mean the character has developed some kind of resistance to possession and mind/emotion manipulation, and if so, shouldn't we add that to his profile as well?
 
Since the movie is an official continuation of the novels, I am also fine with scaling from it.

As for the different skin colour, if the timeline changes with each iteration, this could easily change as well.
 
Btw: Does Roland remember the previous iterations of his story?
 
@Ant

Going by the end of the last book, he doesn't, and he never directly mentions the last loop/iteration in the film, either. However, iirc some lines of dialogue suggest they may have slightly different memories/hints of the past iteration, which would make sense considering things change on a physical scale, as well.

Walter/Randall could definitely have some memories of last iteration, as instead of working under the Crimson King but also pursuing his own goals, this time he directly works alongside the Sombra Corporation with gathering breakers and trying to topple the tower. I may be thinking too deep into this, but that could quite possibly be a result of his ambition being what got him killed by Mordred in the prior loop, since he died trying to take his birthmarked leg.

@MrKingOfNegativity

I would assume so, as it's repeatedly shown and stated that his magic cannot directly affect Roland, so he takes more indirect approaches.
 
Okay. Thank you for the explanation.
 
@Azathoth

Right, so on top of having better speed and 'enhanced senses' that are blatantly superhuman, Roland now has a certain level of hax resistance to add to his belt. Nice.

@Ant

Adding on to what was said by Azzy, the 'prequel' comics are set in a previous cycle to the novels, and due to that, a few of Roland's recollections of past events in the novels have been in direct conflict with what happened in the comics. Basically, whatever little memory he has of previous events ends up changing with the new cycle.


I've written down the more notable feats in the movie to save for later. I do think it wise to wait a little while until clips of the film start surfacing online before anything is added to the profiles. That way, when the changes are made, anyone who doesn't/didn't feel like shilling out money to see the movie will still have something to reference. Once we have clips, there will be something to analyze/properly calc as well.
 
What about having another key on his profile? If he only remembers parts of his life, techniques and abilities would applied too.
 
AppleLord said:
What about having another key on his profile? If he only remembers parts of his life, techniques and abilities would applied too.
I'm not sure. Relatively speaking, Roland himself is still the same person with the same general abilities, no matter what level of the Tower/cycle of his journey he's on. The only thing that is never a constant is his memory of key events (such as the events of the war between the Affiliation and John Farson's rebel army), which changes to reflect each cycle and has even altered itself in the middle of a cycle before. His skillset is still the same, as are almost all of his physical capabilities. The only notable differences are in his speed and his newfound ability to resist possession & mind/emotion-manipulating magic.

His enhanced senses are alluded to in the novels, even if (IIRC) they weren't shown in such great detail as what was depicted in the movie. Him having senses that keen would be fairly in-line with the novels/comics, however, and perfectly explains certain feats like him shooting one of Farson's mooks in the head from a veritable battlefield away with nothing but his pistol.
 
Think of it like this. Like you guys were saying, the book events happened but the movie is just the next chapter in a timeless story. Walter says "one more time around the wheel old friend". After he conquered the tower in King's series, Roland recovered the horn in the last chapter of the books, which he has in the movie. Roland has worn many faces on his journeys to the Tower. The books are 1 journey. The film is start of another.
 
UPDATE:

Someone's posted several GIFs of scenes from the movies in a couple of respect threads. The threads themselves are nothing to write home about (outside of the film stuff, most of the feats have inaccurate contexts attached to them, and some are outright taken from another thread), but the GIFs ought to be useful to us, especially in regards to scaling Roland and Flagg to each other.

I'm copying them onto my Imgur right now. I'll post the links in a little bit.
 
Alright. I've got the GIFs up. Here's what we're looking at.

Roland:

Anyone who's seen the trailers has already seen this one.

It doesn't actually show them, but this is how accurate Roland can be when relying on his enhanced senses. Also, he can ricochet his bullets off things.

Azzy already mentioned that Roland shoots Flagg at the end. Well, this is how he scores the first shot. (Yes, I know this shatters the laws of physics into a million pieces, but still.)

Flagg:

The first person he tells to 'stop breathing' is Roland's father, Steven Deschain. (Naturally, he's black in this film too.)

This is the second person. Also, he's able to put Jake's mom under the influence of his magic a mere moment afterwards.

He's able to 'visualize' people's memories when they're under his control.

This is the aftermath of Flagg incinerating Jake's mom after he'd gotten everything he needed out of her. (Sadly, thanks to PG-13 bullshit, we never got to see the incinerarion on-screen.)

Here's where he tells/forces two of his minions to kill each other in the middle of a bar, then commands all of the people in the immediate vicinity to watch. The two minions are Low-Men (essentially nonhuman shapeshifters who can take human forms), which means his powers aren't limited to human victims.

This is him projecting himself from Mid-World to a store in Keystone Earth in order to talk to/harass Roland. He then proceeds to possess control of the store clerk and force him to fire at Roland with a shotgun. (If you look closely at the clerk's mouth, he's saying the words 'It's not me!')

Here's the scene where he catches a bullet without even looking.

In this one, he manages to TK several pieces of concrete in front of him in order to block Roland's bullets after they're fired. He also actively blocks several them just by moving the stones in the way of each one, meaning he can actually see them mid-flight.

And here, we see that he has no trouble flinging them at Roland with his TK.

Shared:

Roland is fast enough (and accurate enough) to shoot down several shards of glass that Flagg sends towards him with TK. Flagg himself gets a moment here; he's able to impale one of Roland's hands with a shard right as the latter ducks behind cover.

Roland uses his ability to ricochet his bullets as a means of attacking from behind cover. Flagg's speed and awareness are enough for him to catch them anyway.

Flagg sends the bullets he caught back at Roland, who is able to block several of them with his gun before the last one goes through his hand.

Flagg uses his TK to whack the hell out of Roland with a steel beam, then proceeds to bring a huge pile of debris crashing down on top of him. While not shown here, Roland is left knocked out for a brief moment, yet survives his injuries and manages to get back up soon after.

-

The threads didn't have the scene where Flagg controls the little girl into hating her mother, nor did they have another scene I remember where Roland throws one of Flagg's minions into a shelf hard enough to break it. We're also missing a scene that shows what Flagg's possession can do to psychics who try to resist it.

Other than that, though, this seems like a fair amount of stuff to work with. Can't wait to see what we get from all this.
 
This looks good

Yeah reguarding flagg his control seems to go beyond just simple suggestion and contoling the actions of people. Voice commands like hate ( girl and her mother) die (several people in the movie) ,as opposed to telling them to suicide, cause the persons body to do those things even though they arent capable naturally.
 
Yeah, it's pretty insane. When he told Steven to 'stop breathing', it genuinely appeared as if his lungs stopped working, and telling Jake's mom to 'show' him what he wanted to know about Jake was what triggered that visualization thing I posted. He can also take your entire body away from you against your will, seeing as he had complete control over that store clerk until Roland finally shot the poor guy. And the fact that he can affect a gigantic number of people at once (as seen in the bar scene) just makes it worse.

It's also really painful if you try to resist it, even if you've got mental powers of your own. That psychic chick Roland and Jake met somewhere in the middle of the film (I'm blanking on her name right now) was only barely able to resist him, and from what I remember, she started bleeding from her nose from the effort and even passed out afterwards.

EDIT: This means Roland's hax resistance (part of which has already been added to his page due to him having mental resistance in the novels) is particularly strong, since he doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of trouble resisting Flagg as everyone else does.
 
I think Flagg in general was great in the film just due to how wicked powerful they made him. Granted, half of these powers were technically things he's been doing since as far back as The Stand, but the way all of it was portrayed was really cool.

The new feats are just about the best thing to come from the movie though, honestly. That, and the fact that we're probably going to get a TV series soon.
 
Bump.

Also, we should get some of these calc'd at some point. All of the speed feats seem like they'd put both characters at Supersonic at the bare minimum, and Flagg ought to earn himself an actual lifting strength rating from this, if only with his TK. The feat involving the steel beam and rubble ought to justify Roland's Wall level durability rating as well.

EDIT: Also renaming this thread, since the initial question has been answered and approved.
 
I suppose that supersonic speed seems reasonable, but calculation blogs are preferable.
 
I'll try and find someone in the calc request blog who can calc the more physical feats like Flagg's TK and both characters' bullet-timing. We can put up 'Supersonic' on Roland for now, but you're right that it would be better to have hard numbers as soon as possible.
 
I left the feats in the calc request blog and am awaiting a response. In the meantime, is it alright if I add the powers outlined in this thread to these characters' profiles?
 
Please give a summary of what those powers are first.
 
Just Empathic Manipulation for Flagg due to showing that ability in the film (he already has Possession and Mind Manipulation on his profile due to other forms of those abilities appearing in the books/comics), and Resistance to Empathic Manipulation and Possession for Roland due to being immune to Flagg's magic. On top of that, an update to Flagg's range, saying something along the lines of 'Multi-Universal with possession/mind control' due to using his manipulation powers on that store clerk from all the way in Mid-World.

Was also going to write a more detailed description of Roland's enhanced senses in his Notable Attacks/Techniques, along with a description of Flagg's new manipulation powers in his section.
 
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