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

there's an expanded edition beyond the one published in the 80s?

There’s a really funny review of king’s last book by one of the younger generation of thriller writers where they basically spend the whole review going on about how every character’s frame of reference is all just stuff from 40 years ago

Xp the expanded edition is from 1991 I think

ah you're right it was published in 1991!

I always figured Larry Underwood had an Eddie Money thing going on or at least that is how I imagined "Baby, Can You Dig your Man" as sounding.

i guess part of it is SK had the opportunity to create a debauched rock star character with a massive (iirc) chart-topping hit and he gives him the name of this really good accountant you should see.

lol i didn't realize that he'd updated the timeframe when he did the expansion -- that explains a good bit of strangeness

the first quote in the epigraph is springsteen's jungleland! of course he's normcore

yeah the book is so powerfully 70s I just sorta blanked on any actual year references in it

the most unbelievable part of the novel is a rock star named "Larry Underwood" having a hit called "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?"

he's a righteous man

subtext is obviously "Baby, Can You Dig Your (Trashcan) Man"

DIGYOMAN

you like that happy crappy?

that brown sound sure do get around.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/05/stephen-kings-the-stand-exclusive-first-look

This has been remade, to be released in December. Most of this article just lays out who the characters are. Whoopi Goldberg is playing Mother Abigail and mentions that “I’ve been fighting with not making her the Magic Negro because she’s complicated.” Also, Larry Underwood is portrayed by Jovan Adepo, a black actor. No word yet on how they will update Baby, Can You Dig Your Man.

The timing of this is kind of amazing and I’m actually surprised they didn’t try and bring the release forward a bit - even though the pandemic part fades from the story and is really scene-setting for the supernatural post-apocalyptic stuff, if this is any good at all it could be huge

Oh dear lord no not now.

Whoopi Goldberg is playing Mother Abigail and mentions that “I’ve been fighting with not making her the Magic Negro because she’s complicated.”

Seems hard given this character is almost the purest example of the trope ever put to the page.

No word yet on how they will update Baby, Can You Dig Your Man.

No updates needed, he's a righteous man

Newer adaptations of king’s bid novels are very keen to preempt common complaints and it never seems to result in better films

Speaking of which, king himself has apparently written the last episode and given it a new ending to replace the hated hand of god comes down and pokes a nuke sequence

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.

this (1994 version anyway) is on Horror Channel UK at 1 tomorrow afternoon, boxing day, for ~8 hours

When the 2020 series came out I signed up for a trial Paramount subscription, watched two episodes and didn’t care for them. Currently have access again so I finished the series. I really didn’t end up liking this much.

Some of the casting didn’t work as we well for me as the old TV version. Didn’t like Whoopi as Mother A, and Harold was okay but too one-note psycho as noted above. Hard to know what to do with Tom Cullen, but that wasn’t it. Others were bland and uninteresting.

Agree that the non-linear storyline in the first episodes hinders way more than it helps. Also disliked Vegas; Lloyd, Julie Lawry and Ratwoman were hammy and horrible. New epilogue was pretty meh.

Overall I give it C-.