The Stand Redux
So the Hollywood Powers That Be are making Stephen King's The Stand into a feature film. Holy crap, what?
I think I've said here a million times that The Stand is my favorite book. Still is. I re-read it this summer because I forced encouraged Jimmy to read it (Wow. I am sensing a pattern here.). And though some of the references are dated, the themes and ideas and characters still hold up, even after 20 years (I have the re-released 1990 extended version).
So after reading it again this summer, we decided to watch the miniseries. And it's terrible. Cheesy. Laugh-out-loud hilarious. The casting is atrocious -- Molly Ringwald as Frannie? Randall Flagg, who's supposed to be the biggest, baddest, scariest creature-demon in the world, is portrayed as a Billy Ray Cyrus-wannabe with a skanky curly mullet?
And "Baby Can You Dig Your Man" sounds nothing like I'd heard in my head -- isn't Larry Underwood supposed to sound smoky and soulful? Isn't that why his mother says he'll be mistaken for a black man on the radio? In the movie, the song is complete '80s synthesized cheddar and is something that no one in their right mind, regardless of decade, would ever listen to. Seriously, the best thing about that movie is Dauber from Coach as Tom Cullen, probably because the character is so over-the-top anyway.
The mini-series is six hours, and there's a ton of stuff they eliminated from the books. They had to -- it's 1100+ densely packed pages. And your standard feature film -- assuming they don't hop on that bandwagon trend of "splitting" movies -- only lasts around two hours... three hours tops, and pushing it. If the huge cast of characters couldn't be given justice in six hours, how could they be in a third of that time?
Hmmm. I'm sure I'll go see this thing when/if it ever comes out, but I don't have very high hopes. I really think The Stand is an unfilmable book. However, people also said that about Lord of the Rings, and Peter Jackson knocked that out of the park, so... we shall see.
I think I've said here a million times that The Stand is my favorite book. Still is. I re-read it this summer because I forced encouraged Jimmy to read it (Wow. I am sensing a pattern here.). And though some of the references are dated, the themes and ideas and characters still hold up, even after 20 years (I have the re-released 1990 extended version).
So after reading it again this summer, we decided to watch the miniseries. And it's terrible. Cheesy. Laugh-out-loud hilarious. The casting is atrocious -- Molly Ringwald as Frannie? Randall Flagg, who's supposed to be the biggest, baddest, scariest creature-demon in the world, is portrayed as a Billy Ray Cyrus-wannabe with a skanky curly mullet?
And "Baby Can You Dig Your Man" sounds nothing like I'd heard in my head -- isn't Larry Underwood supposed to sound smoky and soulful? Isn't that why his mother says he'll be mistaken for a black man on the radio? In the movie, the song is complete '80s synthesized cheddar and is something that no one in their right mind, regardless of decade, would ever listen to. Seriously, the best thing about that movie is Dauber from Coach as Tom Cullen, probably because the character is so over-the-top anyway.
The mini-series is six hours, and there's a ton of stuff they eliminated from the books. They had to -- it's 1100+ densely packed pages. And your standard feature film -- assuming they don't hop on that bandwagon trend of "splitting" movies -- only lasts around two hours... three hours tops, and pushing it. If the huge cast of characters couldn't be given justice in six hours, how could they be in a third of that time?
Hmmm. I'm sure I'll go see this thing when/if it ever comes out, but I don't have very high hopes. I really think The Stand is an unfilmable book. However, people also said that about Lord of the Rings, and Peter Jackson knocked that out of the park, so... we shall see.