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

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.

fuck it, making my own The Stand miniseries.

if you all would like to audition, please have a one-minute monologue prepared - dramatic or comedic/dramatic. No "original" monologues - must be from a produced movie, television show, or play.

Also - no cowboy hats allowed, we will not let you in the door.

Sign-up sheet below:

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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.

This is very very otm. Without that first half, I'd have no interest in following through them in the second half. This "restructuring" sounds like a terrible idea.

Neanderthal, might I suggest a bold new reimagining wherein you pick up right after the book ends and never mention or even allude to the events that occurred previously? If so, I'd like to audition for the role of the adult version of Stu and Franny's baby from the multitude of flashforwards your film will contain.

This is like making a movie about the mundane life of a boy named Pinocchio as he occasionally reflects upon the wild adventures he had when he was still a puppet.

Larry Underwood's 'journey' was one of the most fascinating things of the book for me, and what, now he's just going to be portrayed as an aging rockstar stuck in a municipal center talking about intrastate commerce?

might as well rename him "Sonny Bono"

Kind of wish Jovan Adepo and Marsden has switched roles. Adepo could make Stuart less of a boring leading man role, and Larry Underwood would give Marsden more chance to be funny

I am simultaneously hyped for this AND setting a low bar. Really don't want to know anything about structure, casting, or anything else so I'm not opening this thread again for a while. (Don't tell me, I'll tell you! You believe that happy crappy?) Meet you in the Boulder Free Zone.

This is like making a movie about the mundane life of a boy named Pinocchio as he occasionally reflects upon the wild adventures he had when he was still a puppet.

Richard Linklater will 100% make this someday

I’m around halfway through the 1st ep and this is pretty much exactly as good as I expected it to be. So far the things that are bad are nothing to do with the things you guys are worried about.

like, 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. — the entire first episode is basically what’s described here and nothing else! (so far anyway)

The non-linearity feels sorta in unnecessary but isn’t much of a hindrance from what I’ve watched, also given everyone’s opinion that the plague stuff is so much stronger than the good v evil material it might even help to have the former spread throughout instead of relegated to the first third of the series

anyway so far it’s decent king-nostalgia comfort viewing and also plague-schlock that is taking me back to the distant days of lockdown 1 and watching stuff like outbreak — connoisseurs of day players going BIG with the foreboding sneeze will enjoy. Kid who plays Harold is great.

(so far)

that's reassuring. ok, I'll give it a whirl!

Just finished the ep - don’t want to oversell it, it is really ropy in places!

right now my father and I are watching this, and he read the book as well as I, and I suddenly don't care if it sucks. glad we can see this together

lot of vomiting in this ep

the flu gives people Jabba the Hutt neck too

I liked this ep, but there are flaws. a lot of the ep is dedicated to the outbreak, but the time jumps around arbitrarily with no aim or purpose, and would probably have confused me if I didn't know the story.

managed to capture the dread of a society slowly rotting, and a bit of time during the naive period where they thought it was just a bad flu they would outlast.

Presidential address was pretty chilling.

Overreliance on "coughing to make it obvious I'm fatally sick", like Eazy E in Straight OUtta Compton

having Harold be totally crazy incel with a manifesto maniac from the start seems like a mistake - it leaves out any room for character development, proper story arc or any tension as to how things will play out? I feel like the original mini series did that storyline fairly well, because Franny did sympathise with him somewhat and the audience could too despite him being a total dork. With the new version we know he's going to try to kill them from episode 1, and we know Franny and Stu will be a couple... just feels weird.
Overall despite totally not liking how they're going back and forth in the timeline, which wrecks so much of what makes the book great, I thought it wasn't too bad and i'm curious to see all the characters they left out of Ep 1

also they must have spent a shit ton on sync rights for the music on this

Yes, those are weird choices that I do not like the sound of.

I’m all in on this Harold. I thought I recognised him from somewhere - same guy who played Patrick hockstetter in crappy It adaptation (talk about a waste!)

The more I think about it the more I like this opening ep but worry about how it’s going to play out. I didn’t watch lost but I don’t get the sense they are trying to make a puzzle, felt more like what gerwig did with little women - telling a familiar story non-linearly gives a sense of simultaneity, everything happening all at once, that adds some immediacy (also maybe they’re trying to supply the missing Yeats line). And it is a familiar story, even if you haven’t read it or seen the old series - it’s no work at all to fill in the gaps from everyone is sick —> everyone is dead.

Obv it’s less assured than gerwig and I think going forward it may fuck with the momentum a bit but I didn’t mind the structure at all, my main problems were with how some of the scenes themselves were realised (I expected that tho). Not convinced by marsden yet, I know redman is kind of a boring stoic hero type but he didn’t react much at all to the actual end of the world/other scary stuff happening.

Supernatural side of things feels like where it could really go off the rails, it may not be possible - or even desirable - to do the dreams in a non-cheesy way (and they certainly haven’t) but the glimpses we have so far are p bad

Second ep much more jarring with the time jumps. Nadine and Joe show up in present day without explanation about how they met Larry. Why not....just show that first?

It was ok. Got bored.

Lloyd Heinreid and Poke appear. As does Rita.

lol I’m still waiting to be annoyed by this

They attempted a version of the scariest scene in the book (+ one of the most disturbing) and kinda flubbed it but a lot of other big moments from the novel - larrys mum dying, Larry meeting Harold, Lloyd in prison were well done

Casting is good, I really like this Lloyd

It’s definitely following a modern tv formula - I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see too much of mother Abigail and then midway through a whole episode just about her

I will feel cheated if we don’t actually get to hear baby can you dig your man

I definitely liked the Lloyd/Flagg scene.

They're showing more of the outbreak times than people feared. In alarming visual detail.

They really went for it with the swollen neck, it’s gross

They attempted a version of the scariest scene in the book (+ one of the most disturbing) and kinda flubbed it

The tunnel?

Yea although they changed it up and also sorta seemed to combine it with another bit (the zoo) - didn’t really work for me

Honestly don't think that scene can possibly translate to film and have the same impact.

The Baby Can You Dig Your Man in this series sounds way more like what i expected in the book