Dissecting The Dark Tower Trailer with Over 90 Screenshots

Following the release of the first trailer for Columbia Pictures and MRC’s The Dark Tower, we’ve combed through the video and pulled out over 90 screenshots and added some of our own notes about what it all might mean. Dive into the gallery below and let us know what you think!

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is the most ambitious and expansive story from one of the world’s most celebrated authors. Now the story comes to the big screen starring Idris Elba as Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as Walter O’Dim (AKA Randall Flagg, The Man in Black, in the novels). The film is being directed by Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair).

Elba and McConaughey are joined in The Dark Tower by Tom Taylor as Jake Chambers, Abbey Lee (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Neon Demon) as Tirana, and Fran Kranz (The Cabin in the Woods) as Pimli, the right hand man of Randall Flagg. The film also features Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen, A Nightmare on Elm Street), Katheryn Winnick (Vikings) and Claudia Kiim (Avengers: Age of Ultron).

The Dark Tower series tells the story of Roland Deschain, Mid-World’s last gunslinger, who is traveling southeast across Mid-World’s post-apocalyptic landscape, searching for the powerful but elusive magical edifice known as The Dark Tower. Located in the fey region of End-World, amid a sea of singing red roses, the Dark Tower is the nexus point of the time-space continuum. It is the heart of all worlds, but it is also under threat. Someone, or something, is using the evil technology of the Great Old Ones to destroy it.

The Dark Tower is coming to theaters on August 4, 2017.

Click Full Screen to read the full annotations for the photos!

Dark Tower Trailer screenshots

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This is Mid-World, the home of Roland the Gunslinger. It has "moved on" as Roland says in the novels, which boils down to a world that has continued beyond traditional civilization.
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This is our first look at Walter O' Dim, aka The Man in Black (aka Randall Flagg, The Walkin' Dude, The Dark Man, and (if you're nasty) Marten Broadcloak), the primary antagonist of the series and frequent tormentor of Roland.

Walter serves The Crimson King and hopes to destroy The Dark Tower, which is the center point that holds all realities together.
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Off the top of my head, I'm not 100% what this is supposed to be, but it COULD be The Speaking Demon, one of the Demon Elementals of Midworld, a character that Roland and Jake encounter in the first book of the series.

The demon delivers a stern warning to Roland, saying "While you travel with the boy, the Man in Black travels with your soul in his pocket."
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This is Jake Chambers. Jake's journey through The Dark Tower novels is complicated. In the first book, he dies in our own world but wakes up reborn in Midworld where he joins Roland, later perishing though other circumstances as well.

Eventually though, Jake comes back, having found a different path to Midworld BEFORE his death (an event that he actually remembers occurring. It's complicated).
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It's worth noting when Jake's therapist tells him his visions are "just dreams" and "not real," a slight tremor shakes the office. Now this is no regular Earthquake, but a Beam-quake, meaning one of the beams holding the Tower up has given way (more on those later).
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In the books, Jake is haunted by visions of places and characters from Mid-World, going so far as to write about the tower in an assignment for school.
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This shot almost perfectly captures the opening line of the first novel, "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
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If you squint hard enough to the left you'll find one of Jake's drawings has a series of door frames in the desert, these are the same doors that Roland and Jake's other companions (Eddie and Sussanah) arrive from Earth from in the novels (though they are confirmed to NOT be in the film, it's just an Easter egg for now).
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My my, what's this? That's The Overlook Hotel from The Shining (the Kubrick version funnily enough, which is copyrighted by Warner Brothers). The Dark Tower is the connecting thread through all of Stephen King's work, with tiny references bleeding in and out of other novels and back to his magnum opus.

The connection to "The Shining" is that Danny Torrance's ability to "shine" is a psychic power recognized in The Dark Tower books as well.
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This is The Dutch Hill Mansion, an abandoned home in New York City that holds a portal to Mid-World, which is guarded by a beast. More on him later.
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There's the aforementioned portal to Mid-World.
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Jake arrives in Mid-World....
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...and meets Roland.
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Roland has no shortage of ammunition in his belt and this makes for easy reloading thanks to his lightning-quick reflexes.
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We get a close look at Roland's revolver in this shot, complete with the sigul of the House of Eld on it (Roland's family line).
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It's The Tower!
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This might by The Speaking Demon again, or, given the color, something to do specifically with The Crimson King?
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Perhaps The Speaking Demon after it fights Roland, or another beast? Unsure.
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Walter enters a room with snow behind him, which isn't exactly a scene from the books, so perhaps its one of the Dogans, a building blending science and magic together.
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It's unclear if these are meant to be Taheen (beasts with animal heads and human bodies, The Low Men (servants of The Crimson King and combination of Taheen and Humans) or perhaps The Wolves, but given how they don't appear to be robots (or Doctor Doom rip-offs) that seems unlikely.
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Another King connection! Pennywise the Dancing Clown! This is remarkable for a few reasons, the new IT movie will debut just weeks after The Dark Tower and also the same kind of monster that IT happens to be is seen again in the form of Dandelo.
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This shot is great because it shows the six paths of the beam converging on the Tower.

Each path reaches from one side of Mid-World to the other and holds a guardian on each end, a massive animal that protects the beam. Roland and his group travel the beam of the Bear and the path of the Turtle (another IT connection).
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Roland arrives in New York City! Though he visits our own world in earlier books (though as a passenger in other's bodies), Roland doesnt actually come to our world until the sixth book, so they're clearly remixing moments from all the books here.
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Here's The Man in Black at the Dutch Hill Mansion, caressing a wall with "All Hail the Crimson King" spray painted on it, a sigul of his master.
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Here's Jake fighting the Demon at Dutch Hill! The books talk of it morphing into a face made out of the wood and plaster, so perhaps will see it.
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But this is the best look you're going to get for now.
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Here's where confusion sets in again. Are these MORE Low Men, albeit more human-looking ones on Earth? It would seem so, as they appear to be in The Dixie Pig, a sort of headquarters for The Man in Black on Earth.
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Jake and his mother, who isn't a huge character in the books, but she does wear a wedding ring, meaning Jake's father could also make an appearance.
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Roland reloads! A great moment for those of us wondering how he would do it so quickly on screen.
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Roland begins training Jake as he does in the books.
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It's Dennis Haysbert as Steven Deschain, Roland's father! So yes, Roland is known as "Roland son of Steven," a play on author Stephen King's name.
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Here Roland and Walter begin to battle in front of a portal, though if it's to New York or Mid-World is unclear.
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This scene appears to show Roland and Jake in the village of the Manni, an Amish like culture in Mid-World.
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Headshot.
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