Why Do I Bother?

I fell prey to bad judgment yesterday. I allowed myself to buy into the hype that maybe, just maybe, the TV adaptation of Stephen King's "Desperation" would live up to the press.

That was stupid.

Those who know me know that there was a time when I was an avid King reader. Some of his earlier works, such as The Stand and Needful Things, are still masterpieces in my mind. However, I eventually grew away from his material for a number of reasons. But even when I was a fan, I was always sorely disappointed by the screen adaptations of his work. They never captured the essence of his writing. Sadly, as the 90's continued on, even his own novels ceased to capture that essence as they became clunky, cliche, tired, and self-important.

And yet, here I sat, hoping that one of those very books being adapted to that very medium that has failed every time would offer some sense of the old magic that his stories used to have. Ha ha.

Maybe I was optimistic because of the cast or just the overall reviews that were positive. I usually enjoy Steven Webber and Annabeth Gish. But even they couldn't do anything with this mess. They were as flat and as lifeless as the rest of the cast. And while I'm on the cast...Ron Perlman. The guy really has potential. The problem is, it's only come out once in a movie that virtually no one saw (The City of Lost Children.) I can't believe I just endorsed a French movie, but that'll have to wait. Perlman was the center of much of the critical raving going on around "Desperation." After having seen the movie, I can only guess the critics received some sort of compensation for their words. He was absolutely awful, and he was only in half the movie anyway. The rest of the cast is as forgettable as...Hmmmm...I forget.

The story was nothing more than a rehash of five or six other King stories with new flesh on very old creaky bones that should have been buried long ago. I knew from the first half-hour who would die (and how they would die) and who would live. And I could deal with King's obsession with loading his stories with many many many many characters just so that he can needlessly kill them off. I could deal with it when his stories at least tried to bring those characters into the narrative even briefly. But here, they were along for no reason other than to die. That is cheap writing at its worst. Now granted, after reading Stephen Baxter, King seems like a saint in comparison with this writing sin, but still the point remains. (Is it just something with writers named Stephen?)

But it's all good. Because between this awful stinking excuse of entertainment and the abysmal failure that the Dark Tower series suffered (Another victim of King's continued obsession with self-importance,) I can safely say that anything King had to offer the literary world has already been contributed, and his time is truly passed. I will not feel the need to experience any more of his material, knowing that his best days are truly behind him and anything further is simple vanity.