Stephen KIng's "The Stand", particularlyi its television adaptation.

That scene is hated? I can't deny it comes out of nowhere but it's so much a part of my experience of the novel that I can't imagine a version not having it. Like, I neither hate it nor love it, it just seems like part of what The Stand IS.

It’s one that comes up when people discuss the conventional wisdom that King sucks at endings - there is definitely something very lazy about it, if mother Abigail is the purest example of a magical negro then this is surely the purest example of deus ex machina

I think I simultaneously understand (and even understood reading it as a kid) that it's a cheap ending, while being unable to imagine it any other way. That said, I have a lot of faith in El Rey and if he's writing a new ending I believe he has something that will feel right.

I have a degree of affection for King's 'let's say...Moe' endings. I know what to expect generally and am pleasantly surprised when he sticks the landing.

...and then everyone in The Boulder Free Zone went down into the sewers and had sex with Frannie. The End.

Interesting that one of his best Big Book Endings, 11-22-63, came from a suggestion from Joe Hill

Good casting - I always like Marsden, the John Barrowman Who Can Act, Kinnear and Skarsgard both seem like good fits for their roles too. Plus bonus points for not casting Michael Sheen, who must never play an American again

“We love old people. We just do,” said Goldberg. “On top of everything else they have been, and seen, and have different ideas and are probably trying to lead us in a good way.

hm this has not been my experience of the last 6 months.

Everyone sure looks well-dressed for this apocalypse.

I am really attached to Jamey Sheridan's denim-clad, grinning Boomer Flagg, but I'll try my best to accept Skarsgard, who is ofc a good actor.

Sheridans face is enormous

Like they make this latex demon face for him later and it just looks like his face

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d2/fe/14/d2fe143bbf358271a6f11ee8519ac594.jpg

How is this not a makeup effect

Seriously! Dude's face is inherently demonic

i have too much hope invested in this.

I bet "Baby can You Dig Your Man" will be a JOhn Mayer-esque piece

Yeah, I’m probably too stoked for this as well. I just started rereading the book for the third time in anticipation, but I’m not sure I’ll finish it.

I only ever got through it the once in full, but it was worthwhile. I was screaming for a retry at the miniseries for years after I couldn't take Parker Lewis and Molly Ringwald in their roles. please don't fuggitup.

the version I read was the expanded version, so I never had the experience of reading the original edit to compare it to.

My one read was the expanded. If I get around to rereading it it’s gonna be the standard text (which one is currently in print?)

AFAIK only the expanded is in print, but I’m sure you could pick up the original used for cheap. I’ve read both, and felt the expanded one really added nothing but length. And a minor character who’s like juvenile delinquent Elvis in a hot rod.

The Kid. I love love love the chapters with him and trashcan man together. But other expanded material was less salutary. Especially the coda.

There’s all the weird cultural ephemera updates too, like adding references to Madonna and Deathrace 2000 arcade game that seemed pointless to me.

I do hope they use 'Don't Fear the Reaper' some place in the new version, as that song was so perfect in the title sequence in the original.

Thinking about it, I would LOVE to hear a Cliff Martinez do an arrangement of 'Don't Fear the Reaper' in his style say ala "Solaris" soundtrack.

we'll get Burt Stanton's "Grim Reapah burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb"

James Marsden should only do comedy or comedy-adjacent roles imo

I like the extended version. In for a penny, etc. Still much less of a commitment than The Dark Tower

Starting in the middle of the story sounds like a really weird and bad thing to do

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-reviews/stand-stephen-king-cbs-all-access-review-1102209/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Whuuuuut

I'd read something about an overabundance of flashbacks but I just assumed they meant flashbacks to the pre-Trips lives of the characters.

I...think I might not actually be interested in this now?

Like...THE UNFOLDING OF THE PLAGUE IS THE BEST PART OF THE BOOK, you numbnuts creatives.

THE UNFOLDING OF THE PLAGUE IS THE BEST PART OF THE BOOK

tied with the downfall of Harold Lauder, but basically yes, this restructuring sounds like a lousy idea

I still remember my crushing disappointment after the book switched from a grand, sweeping narrative about the spread of the plague and the ruin of modernity to a people sitting around planning a strategy for a town hall meeting

The book sorta flashes forward and back throughout, IIRC. When I was reading it in 2007-ish, I remember thinking, "Oh that's why the Lost guys keep mentioning it".

But yeah, given that "normality is slowly and imperceptibly invaded by chaos" is one of King's main motifs, it's weird to junk that.

X-post is OTM, though. Once they're all gathered in Boulder, most of the best parts of the book are done.

I think King thought the same, though? Wasn't he, like, "fuck it, if I blow up the blind guy, it'll juice the novel a little"?

Godfuckingdammit

Been waiting for this for years and they're gonna junk the best part of the book.

Might as well be 9 episodes of a Larry Underwood concert

This is making me a little IA, I think because I had been planning to avoid it, as seemingly every King adaptation since The Mist has been a turd, but then the hype was starting to get to me and I was like 'y'know, it'll at least be better than the original miniseries.' But now I'm not so sure of that.

Pretty much every shitty King movie is shitty because the shitty hacks making it think they know better than King how to make his stories work. Good luck with that, ya goofballs.

The Outsider was alright, at least for the first half

For all of its early 90s cheese, for all of what it gets wrong and bad, I actually love the original mini series. Some of the casting is absolutely pitch perfect and there's no way I can disconnect the TV versions from my mental image of the characters. Maybe some of it is nostalgia as I used to rewatch it a lot as a teen, but I do still think it has a lot going for it... it really does take it's time and not rush things, the score is lovely too

plus it has both Don't Fear The Reaper AND Don't Dream It's Over.

Oh right, The Outsider was indeed good. How soon I forget.

I'm sure there are others that are dece but high-profile stuff like The Dark Tower and the It remake really stick in my craw.

This is making me a little IA, I think because I had been planning to avoid it, as seemingly every King adaptation since _The Mist_ has been a turd, but then the hype was starting to get to me and I was like 'y'know, it'll at least be better than the original miniseries.' But now I'm not so sure of that.

Pretty much every shitty King movie is shitty because the shitty hacks making it think they know better than King how to make his stories work. Good luck with that, ya goofballs.

I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by the OG Stand miniseries but I recently bought a three-fer Stephen King Television Craptacular set (that, The Langoliers, and Golden Years) so maybe I'll waste my time rewatching Captain Dan instead.

xpost TBF, I don't condone King writing his own screenplays (Creepshow and Silver Bullet excepted).

you definitely have to turn off critical parts of your brain and return to a teenage enthusiast mindset for it... but it's definitely not the total washout some are describing it as.

It’s funny because “fucking around with the structure” is probably the least egregious thing you could do with the avg sk thing but it does seem like it would be v point-missing in this case and it certainly was with It - the conventional wisdom that “the adult bits are the worst” I’m convinced comes from the adaptations cause in the book the adult & kids bits aren’t really separable which is a big part of the bleak horror!

Mike Flanagan's version of Gerald's Game was decent but makes the mistake of being _too_ faithful to King (specifically with that godawful ending)

Just caught up with this thread and, wow, even this year I'm not watching this if it doesn't spend at least half its running time on the plague. "People sitting around planning a strategy for a town hall meeting" is a devastatingly accurate way to describe the latter half of the book and why I never ranked it among his greats.

I don't think those parts of the book are bad - but they kind of require you having been on the journey with teh characters first, so you don't see it as 'just a board meeting', but them looking to restart society.

otherwise, who gives a fuck about them? the plague spreading bits were fascinating in the way they depicted the slow societal breakdown and its impact on the specific characters who would wind up making "The Stand", and the details like the dying family driving into Hap's gas pumps, the government trying to infect Stu with Captain Trips without telling him, Frannie burying her father in their backyard, these were devastating details, really the height of the book.

might as well be 9 hours of the slow descent of a huge hand from the sky

Just scanning through early reviews, I keep seeing 'mess' and 'messy' and then I saw 'Lost-like structure' and...yeah, nope. Just fucken nope.

IT'S NOT A GODDAMN MYSTERY TO BE DOLED OUT IN BITE-SIZE CHUNKS AND SLOWLY SOLVED, YOU DUMBSHITS.