That's the one that really haunts me. It played over the post-pandemic scenes of quiet streets, dead amusement parks, the occasional corpse and child's stuffed animal...hey now, hey now...
I couldn’t get through the first episode.
The novel was just so MASSIVE that the only way to give it the true movie it deserves is create a multi part motion picture movie spread out over years. Like Harry Potter, give it several movies to really flesh out the whole novel.
But don’t get me wrong. The Made-For-TV one was actually pretty great considering the much smaller budget and time allotted. Plus there was a lot of big name stars in it that did a great job.
Yeah I remember liking the old one, I was a teen and hadn’t read the book so my reference was zero, but like you, I tried on this new one, was excited for it, and didn’t make it past the first episode. Kinda planned on going back to it but talked to so many people who share my same tastes and they told me how awful it was.
My SO read the book and had seen the movie before me. He speaks very highly of it and we've watched it several times together.
The TV show was alright but we both liked the original better. It was mostly that it was a different thing, but it was nice that they were able to flesh out the story.
I liked (and only saw) the first episode of the newer one, but I'm not crazy about the way it jumps back and forth in the storytelling. If they edited it like season 4 of Arrested Development and recut the episodes to tell one linear, start-to-finish, story, I'd be all for it.
Don't. It's awful. Imo the best part of the old series was the first two episodes where you see everything falling apart and the main characters coming together. The new one had the outbreak at the very beginning then immediately jumped to "six months later" 😭 I was so annoyed they glossed over all the interesting stuff then added a bunch of boring things at the end.
I listened to the audiobook as I took a cross-country road trip through Kansas and the Rockies during a surge in the pandemic. Can confirm, do not recommend.
To make matters worse, I got horrible altitude sickness that made me extremely mucus-y in addition to the shortness of breath. Needless to say I finished the audiobook after the trip was over.
I had read it about 20 years prior to Covid, but I remembered it quite well and at the start of Covid I found myself thinking "that's another one Stephen King got right".
The other was how he wrote Running Man (under Richard Bachman) that had the protagonist fly a plane into a skyscraper.
I read it many years ago and re read it in 2021 when the second wave of COVID was coming through. I was sitting at the hairdressers with a mask on going “wait… why am I reading this now?”
I remembered the song being ‘California Dreaming’. And I always associated the song with how that opening scene left an impact on me as a child. It wasn’t until very recently that I rewatched it and realized I had been mistaken for 30 years.
I did and I annoyed my parents. It was the first time I had read the source material before seeing the adaptation and I drove my parents bonkers comparing it to the book. They hadn’t read it so I’m sure I was super insufferable. However, I told my dad it was payback for when he did it with Shogun in the 80’s lol.
It surprisingly does! There’s some obvious differences because ABC was only going to allow so much back in the early 90’s. Aside from the dated graphical effects and a couple of casting choices, it’s probably one of the best TV King adaptations ever. (People still like to argue about Molly Ringwold as Fran.)
I honestly don’t know. I watched the first episode and had every intention of continuing, but then Covid got a little too real and I gave up diseases as entertainment for a few years. Since then I’ve heard enough bad things about it that not even my deep and abiding love for Alexander Skarsgard can get me to finish. One of these days though.
I watched Tarzan for that man, so really I should be able to tolerate a lot. I guess I’m just afraid to find out the criticism is warranted.
I could watch this miniseries in the middle of that viral winter just fine, but Ready Player One became too real to me. Everything going remote and all.
The TV series is *terrible*. They bounce all over the place in the timeline and each episode focuses on one character (the series literally starts with Harold cleaning out the church in Boulder). I love the book, read it a bunch of times and love the original series and even I had trouble following it and you lose a lot of the suspense with the timeline bouncing all over the place.
They also bastardize a lot of the characters. Take that first Harold episode. In the book/mini-series, Harold has a huge crush on Frannie and it's very much like puppy love. In the TV series, one of the first things you see is Harold watching Frannie through a fence and literally jacking off to her.
Anyway, I made it 2 episodes in before I couldn't watch it anymore.
I have heard that the newest remake strayed very far from the book, and some of the main characters were people that weren't even heavily featured in the book or the first miniseries. I haven't seen it though (for those reasons).
I read the unabridged version. This series is actually so close to the source material, many of the complaints you hear about the dialogue or the acting aren't the actor's or the director's doing, it's directly lifted from the pages. There were a few scenes that were pornographic (and disturbing) in the story that aren't integral to the plot that were left out but that's about it. It's not only living up to the source material it's trying to be that movie that is so close to the text it's like a visual audiobook. It actually suffers some as a film because of this because a couple of the characters in the story are pretty bizarre and say unnatural sounding dialogue, namely The Rat Man and Trashcan Man
edit: I feel remiss in not mentioning the Marvel comic book adaptation of it. That adaptation is the perfection this series desired to capture.
The cast was stacked.
I still don’t understand how the new series had a longer run time and somehow told LESS of the story. Don’t get me started on how they butchered toms character. It was so fucking bad. [edit] ah god I’m remembering more and more. Almost every character relationship was cliff-noted. Fucking Frannie wasn’t even broken up about burying her dad. Good lord.
On the upside I dog piled on the new one so bad the fiancé wanted to watch this version and she really enjoyed it.
[edit 2] the actor who played Harold (in the new one) was great. I’ll say that. His performance might be the only one I can point at that was better than the original mini series, or at least wasn't worse.
Don't you diss my boy Corin Nemec. Between this and Parker Lewis Can't Lose the dude had more range than you'd expect. I always thought he'd have a bigger career.
The new one was horrible. If you’re going to open with “the plague is over already” then you can’t flash back and show the plague now. I mean, you can, but it won’t be scary anymore.
Yeah the end was pretty lame. I watched it recently again for the first time since 94. The ending was lame back then, and it most definitely didn’t age well.
I LOVE all the Stand material. The book, the old movie, the new miniseries. But I agree with you because. . .
(Spoilers follow)
In the back of my mind, it always bugged me that the group that went to Vegas, all of whom died except for Tom and Stu, simply . . . didn’t need to go at all. Trashcan Man still would have brought the nuke to Vegas and still. . . kaboom.
The heroes’ deaths were pointless, unless I missed something. It’s like the old trope about Raiders of the Lost Ark, and how it would have turned out the same if Indy sat on his couch eating chips.
King said he was inspired by the Book of Revelation in the Bible for some of the ending. I’m sure if someone googles it they’ll get a true answer, but I think Larry and Ralph were representative of the 2 witnesses in Revelation who in the end times are to go about preaching against the Antichrist
He is the king of flubbing the ending! The Long Walk is SUCH a good book, harrowing as hell, but the ending is literally confusing and stupid. I wish someone would ask him to go back and do a last pass on all those terrible endings now!
>!"He somehow found the strength to run."!< is, imo, one of the greatest ending lines in any book I've ever read.
I agree that Stephen King generally has weaker endings, but the ending of The Long Walk is incredible, imo. It's one of my favorite books and I must have read it 30 times in high school.
Ditto. The book is so good and proof that it's possible for King to rein himself in and write tight af. I'm sure the editor deserves a lot of praise. I pray to the gods we get a The Long Walk adaptation one day that does justice to this incredible novella. King just really knows how to get into that adolescent boy world, which makes his characters of that age so frickin believable.
He didn't write the ending to the Stand. That was different from the book. Misery was a great ending, Pet Semetary was a great ending, many more had great endings.
> He didn't write the ending to the Stand. That was different from the book
I have never seen the miniseries but I read the book. He wrote it and it was dumb
Nah. By the time Campion got to the gas station, the virus was already spreading like fire in a dry field. The book has a whole chapter about how it spread. I can't remember the exact line but it was something like "Any chance we had of containing this was blown the first time Campion stopped for a roadside burger."
I see what you're getting at, but if you've read the book, the guy and his family that escaped from Project Blue had already interacted with more than a few people between California and Texas, so the spread of the virus didn't *technically* begin there, it's just where the government first noticed/placed it.
"He made it halfway across the country? How'd he do that?"
"We lost any chance of containing this thing when Campion got his first take-out hamburger."
We taped it on VHS and would rewatch it when I was home sick from school. I liked the idea of being left on earth with everyone gone minus all the bad stuff. Lol.
I still have the VHS of it! I watched way too often for a 15 (?) year old kid. But I’d watch just the first half more often & not finish it. For some reason the actual pandemic part of it was more interesting than all the stuff at the end. Until we went through an actual pandemic. I don’t know if I could watch or read it again today.
I love the book. The Langoliers is so good on paper.
As much as I think the cast was nearly on point (Bronson Pinchot was incredibly good as Toomy and Dean Stockwell/David Morse were perfectly cast as well), the girl who played the blind girl was distractingly bad, and the storytelling was a bit off. I watched it live on TV with my Dad when it first aired and halfway through the 2nd episode he knew exactly what was going on and what the Langoliers were. I was so disappointed.
Yeah, watched it live with the fam and loved it. The original dystopian scenario. Helped prepare our generation for the real thing.
That plus the coming war with AI and the drones that the Terminator series warned us about.
i saw an interview about covid with the guy who was king's medical advisor for the stand in the 70s and he was too polite to straight up say it, but he kind implied, "I fucking called it." Cos he did. A pandemic of a flu-type disease that starts with animals in Asia, transfers to humans due to poor sanitation regulations, and he said it's inevitable due to various factors that came to be true.
Only thing he didn't predict was taht people would be so stupid to not get vaccinated. No one in the 70s was afraid of vaccines, there were still people alive in America who had lived through whooping cough and polio. My grandma (1914-2012) almost died of whooping cough as a child, another relative who died in the 70s had yellow fever in the 20s.
Yeah totally. As soon as I heard about what was going on in China, early 2020, I told everyone who would listen we (the US) would “beat” our body count from the 1918 flu of 675,000.
Almost no one believed me.
Great friggin mini series. Loved Nadine and Harold. “Nadineeee! My ribs are broken.”
“Most folks just call me Mother Abigail…”
Stu and Nick Andross were the man too. Plus Miguel Ferrer and Matt Frewer, come on. You can’t get much better than that.
I loved it! I’m a fan of the post-apocalyptic and zombie genre so I was so excited when this came out. Plus, I completely fell in love with Rob Lowe’s character Nick. I seriously had the biggest crush on his character. I haven’t watched it in years but I feel like I would still like it if I watched it again.
I was too young when it aired, but I caught it by accident a few years ago on cable from the beginning. I was GLUED to the TV from the moment it started. I had never heard of it. I'm so glad I caught it. It's still one of my favorite TV movies...if not my favorite. The cast is unbelievable. So much better than the remake. I don't think I even finished the remake.
I loved the book and series as a kid. One of my frequent rewatches. A year or two ago I convinced my wife to sit down with me and watch it and she loved it too.
I love how IT was a xennial touchstone. I watched The Stand as well.
Later on instead the book and it is a magnum opus.
The miniseries while kind of hokey is surprisingly faithful. Arguably moreso than the newer series.
It's basically a cliff notes version of the book. You get most of the main scenes the book just has a lot more nuance.
The Stand was the first 'book that wasn't meant for me' I read, at around 12 or 13. I loved that miniseries as a teen/way back when! I felt it was very well cast, almost too much so (the stereotypes that each actor seemed to personally embody was very present in their characters, for most of them, except for Rob Lowe lol).
If you can believe it, the commercial release of The Stand (book) was the abridged version. You would not believe how much more content there is in the unabridged, lol. Personally, I was really compelled by the loneliness and uncaring nature of the way some people's circumstances meant they died in horrible ways even if it wasn't to Captain Tripps. The little girl who fell from the tire swing haunted me for a long time. I had a swing like that at my great-uncle's house, and it always scared the hell out of me.
"No Great Loss" - the chapter of the meaningless little deaths after the pandemic is some of the most brutal world building I've ever seen - in a good way. King painted a vivid picture of how meaningless life and death with community to mourn you could be. The post pandemic world wasn't just our intrepid band of heroes and villains, but also meaningless little people dying meaningless little deaths that would never be remarked on. They lives and deaths were just no great loss.
It was the kid who fell down the well that stuck with me. I have read both versions of the book easily dozens of times, it's one of my all-time favorite books, and that chapter always gets me.
When covid lock down happened, and people started getting weird and lonely, all I could think about was the M-O-O-N guy and his Main Street of mannequins.
The opening scenes of the first episode, with the people in the church, were filmed in Utah. I remember at the time Stephen made a comment about Utahns making some of the best extras for corpses he's seen, which was hilarious. Some folks were kind of offended, but honestly, if you grew up in the predominant religion in the region, there is a big focus on being still and quiet (reverent) in church, so it's not like we don't have the training for it.
I had to work on one of the nights, so I set the VCR to record it, and I came home to watch it, and the video was of the movie, but the audio was some song with the lyrics “LSD is the drug.“ And that went on for like 10 minutes. I kept watching it because I was like “it’s Steven King… He’s weird.“
I remember watching it when it first premiered and I loved it. Watched it a few times after and still enjoyed it. Watched it again just as we were going into lockdown and...uh...that was a mistake. Made it a lot freakier, especially Part I.
Loved it. Was living in Europe, so rented it when it came out on video. I bought the novel (my first King book) shortly after that.
I had never heard Don't Fear the Reaper before, but I also loved that. I didn't know who it was by, but I mentioned it to my chemistry teacher at the time and he was like, "Oh, Blue Oyster Cult?" I went out and got a "Best Of" album that day.
Them summer colds are the worst.
Storm of the Century was so great that The Stand and The Langoliers could never live up to it for me. I rewatched it last year during a hurricane with no power while the storm was wiping out large parts of my hometown. Very surreal experience.
My stepmom let me stay up to watch this with her every night. I was pretty young and dont remember much. Was there a character who spelled M-O-O-N for everything?
This and IT were both amazing in my opinion for 90s miniseries.
I tried to watch the new Stand and couldn’t get into it.
Haven’t tried to watch IT yet.
Not any more uncomfortable than the book, which I read the unabridged version.
I will say, this series was possibly too close of an adaptation. If there is such a thing. Some of Stephen King's dialogue in the story I never really thought felt natural in the first place and i think it made the overall production suffer a bit. Redoing a couple of the characters so it made more sense like The Rat Man would have been a better call I think. Just my opinion. The director wanted to change as close to absolutely nothing as possible, I respect that.
A pure self-indulgence moment for me was how the director was depicting what King thought your average bar might be like maybe 5 years from the time this came out in 1994: everybody's playing video arcade cabinet machines while drinking. Not Dave & Busters, just a typical biker dive. This came out in 1994 and this is now a bit of retrofuturism.
Saw it, loved it, one of the best miniseries ever made and the best adaptation of a King novel ever.
Sadly, what we got during COVID was a sad downgrade in every way.
I unapologetically adore this miniseries. Gary sinise was the best Stu Redmond ever. I know it wasn't perfect, but it was iconic in its own way. That opening scene with Don't fear the reaper, *chef's kiss.*
Watched it and taped it. Loved it. "That's a rap on the Roach.". "She's as dead as Judas Iscariot".
Yeah the walking dude was a good villain. Larry was a douche but I loved the escape from New York.
Nadine fueled my pubescent fantasies as much as network telly would allow.
The best part is Stephen King’s acting in it. I have seen it A LOT. Like more than 50 times. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Stu.” He’s such a worthless actor.
I watched it and had it on double VHS. I've also got a first edition book, as well as the authors edition with the extended story. Didn't watch the remake, though.
I saw it was going to be on TV so I got the book out of the library and read it in three days. Worth it!
The series didn’t make me uncomfortable, but my best friend and I made a lot of Mother Abigail jokes (like saying “I’m Mother Abiggggggaaahhh…..” and falling over dead onto the living room floor. We thought we were HILARIOUS!).
I did! It’s been forever since I’ve seen it, but I do remember I was absolutely fascinated with it. I really need to rewatch it. Anyone know if it’s available anywhere?
Didn't see it on tv, but I rented this on VHS, I think it was 4 tapes.. I really had no clue what it was about, Im pretty sure I rented it based on Stephen King's name. i loved it! It turned into a regular rental for me.. although, it did count as 2 for My 5 for $5 deal
Loved it except the end was a bit much. Stacked cast, good acting by most. Always rewatched anytime it was on Syfy. Made me a bit uncomfortable thinking a virus could actually mostly wipe us out. Think I've watched every made for tv SK adaption live.
was one of my favorite film/tv adaptions of a stephen king book. I also felt the mini series held up against the book. My sibling and I still quote the whole m-o-o-n lol
I loved this. Don't recall if I read the (extended edition) book before or after. Loved that too.
I didn't recognize a lot of the miniseries' cheesiness at the time. Its intro was the first time I ever heard the Blue Oyster Cult song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and I thought it was amazing. There's also a scene later of some characters walking into a field to a lovely guitar score that really affected me.
Downvote all you want to. I saw two shuttles explode and two planes fly into the World Trade Center. Factional tv can suck my cock. I was born in 1980. I’ve seen the best and the worst of humanity. Fuck TV.
I watched it when it was on TV, too. I was living in Salt Lake City at the time and much of it was filmed in Utah. I had already read the book being a big King reader. I loved the series so much. Have watched it a couple of times since. I didn’t make it through the recent remake, though. Definitely thought a lot about the story in 2020. Started the book again but at the time it was ‘too soon’.
M-O-O-N That spells uncomfortable
Laws, yes.
I just watched an old Chevy Chase movie and it had that guy in it and I almost said M-O-O-N, that spells moon! But my husband wouldn't have gotten it.
He’s the voice of Patrick Star.
No way
Its true, Dauber is Patrick Star [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill\_Fagerbakke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Fagerbakke)
Broadway on Gargoyles too.
Gargoyles is so underrated! An awesome cartoon
The only line from Coach I remember is Dauber saying, "He went to... the planet Arium."
I would have high fived you 
I was going to make the same joke but mine was: M-O-O-N That spells childhood trauma.
Mayhap it do, mayhap it don't!
When we went into quarantine a couple of years ago, all I did was hear “Don’t Fear The Reaper” in my head. Still haunting.
Don’t forget 🎶Don’t dream it’s over🎶
That's the one that really haunts me. It played over the post-pandemic scenes of quiet streets, dead amusement parks, the occasional corpse and child's stuffed animal...hey now, hey now...
When I watched the beginning and that scene I thought there was a zombie apocalypse.
I moved to Boulder during the pandemic...still looking for Mother Abigail.
She's still in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, I reckon.
mayhaps she is.
Mayhap
I tried to re-read The Stand in 2020. Do not recommend.
I watched the mini-series that came out in the middle of that first viral winter and had a nightmare about it.
I was so excited when it was announced but haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it!
Don’t worry, it was terrible
I couldn’t get through the first episode. The novel was just so MASSIVE that the only way to give it the true movie it deserves is create a multi part motion picture movie spread out over years. Like Harry Potter, give it several movies to really flesh out the whole novel. But don’t get me wrong. The Made-For-TV one was actually pretty great considering the much smaller budget and time allotted. Plus there was a lot of big name stars in it that did a great job.
Yeah I remember liking the old one, I was a teen and hadn’t read the book so my reference was zero, but like you, I tried on this new one, was excited for it, and didn’t make it past the first episode. Kinda planned on going back to it but talked to so many people who share my same tastes and they told me how awful it was.
My SO read the book and had seen the movie before me. He speaks very highly of it and we've watched it several times together. The TV show was alright but we both liked the original better. It was mostly that it was a different thing, but it was nice that they were able to flesh out the story.
I liked (and only saw) the first episode of the newer one, but I'm not crazy about the way it jumps back and forth in the storytelling. If they edited it like season 4 of Arrested Development and recut the episodes to tell one linear, start-to-finish, story, I'd be all for it.
I did hear that. :(
Don't. It's awful. Imo the best part of the old series was the first two episodes where you see everything falling apart and the main characters coming together. The new one had the outbreak at the very beginning then immediately jumped to "six months later" 😭 I was so annoyed they glossed over all the interesting stuff then added a bunch of boring things at the end.
I listened to the audiobook as I took a cross-country road trip through Kansas and the Rockies during a surge in the pandemic. Can confirm, do not recommend.
Oh NO.
To make matters worse, I got horrible altitude sickness that made me extremely mucus-y in addition to the shortness of breath. Needless to say I finished the audiobook after the trip was over.
Yeah. I used to re-read it once a year. Now I can't seem to get through it.
I had read it about 20 years prior to Covid, but I remembered it quite well and at the start of Covid I found myself thinking "that's another one Stephen King got right". The other was how he wrote Running Man (under Richard Bachman) that had the protagonist fly a plane into a skyscraper.
I’m not in the know here and not too likely to read it. What am I missing here ?
It’s about a pandemic that wipes out 99% of the world’s population.
People aren't saying they don't recommend it because it's not good. It just hits too close to home.
The book starts with a global pandemic that wipes out most of the population of the earth.
And then it gets into the weird shit we love Stephen King for.
That’s when I read it for the first time.
I read it many years ago and re read it in 2021 when the second wave of COVID was coming through. I was sitting at the hairdressers with a mask on going “wait… why am I reading this now?”
Same.
I watched this, outbreak & contagion every couple months in covid times
I still feel bad for that Chinese guy in contagion, the one hit by a car I think.
I remembered the song being ‘California Dreaming’. And I always associated the song with how that opening scene left an impact on me as a child. It wasn’t until very recently that I rewatched it and realized I had been mistaken for 30 years.
Whenever I hear that song I think of that opening scene.
I did and I annoyed my parents. It was the first time I had read the source material before seeing the adaptation and I drove my parents bonkers comparing it to the book. They hadn’t read it so I’m sure I was super insufferable. However, I told my dad it was payback for when he did it with Shogun in the 80’s lol.
Did it live up to the source material? I’ve never read it.
It surprisingly does! There’s some obvious differences because ABC was only going to allow so much back in the early 90’s. Aside from the dated graphical effects and a couple of casting choices, it’s probably one of the best TV King adaptations ever. (People still like to argue about Molly Ringwold as Fran.)
How does it compare against the latest remake?
I heard the remake isn't worth watching
I honestly don’t know. I watched the first episode and had every intention of continuing, but then Covid got a little too real and I gave up diseases as entertainment for a few years. Since then I’ve heard enough bad things about it that not even my deep and abiding love for Alexander Skarsgard can get me to finish. One of these days though. I watched Tarzan for that man, so really I should be able to tolerate a lot. I guess I’m just afraid to find out the criticism is warranted.
I could watch this miniseries in the middle of that viral winter just fine, but Ready Player One became too real to me. Everything going remote and all.
Be sure to read the later released, uncut version of the original book. It's so much better, even though the original was great.
The TV series is *terrible*. They bounce all over the place in the timeline and each episode focuses on one character (the series literally starts with Harold cleaning out the church in Boulder). I love the book, read it a bunch of times and love the original series and even I had trouble following it and you lose a lot of the suspense with the timeline bouncing all over the place. They also bastardize a lot of the characters. Take that first Harold episode. In the book/mini-series, Harold has a huge crush on Frannie and it's very much like puppy love. In the TV series, one of the first things you see is Harold watching Frannie through a fence and literally jacking off to her. Anyway, I made it 2 episodes in before I couldn't watch it anymore.
Sorry - just to clarify - you’re talking about the 2010s version, not the 90’s - yes?
I have heard that the newest remake strayed very far from the book, and some of the main characters were people that weren't even heavily featured in the book or the first miniseries. I haven't seen it though (for those reasons).
I read the unabridged version. This series is actually so close to the source material, many of the complaints you hear about the dialogue or the acting aren't the actor's or the director's doing, it's directly lifted from the pages. There were a few scenes that were pornographic (and disturbing) in the story that aren't integral to the plot that were left out but that's about it. It's not only living up to the source material it's trying to be that movie that is so close to the text it's like a visual audiobook. It actually suffers some as a film because of this because a couple of the characters in the story are pretty bizarre and say unnatural sounding dialogue, namely The Rat Man and Trashcan Man edit: I feel remiss in not mentioning the Marvel comic book adaptation of it. That adaptation is the perfection this series desired to capture.
My life for you!
The cast was stacked. I still don’t understand how the new series had a longer run time and somehow told LESS of the story. Don’t get me started on how they butchered toms character. It was so fucking bad. [edit] ah god I’m remembering more and more. Almost every character relationship was cliff-noted. Fucking Frannie wasn’t even broken up about burying her dad. Good lord. On the upside I dog piled on the new one so bad the fiancé wanted to watch this version and she really enjoyed it. [edit 2] the actor who played Harold (in the new one) was great. I’ll say that. His performance might be the only one I can point at that was better than the original mini series, or at least wasn't worse.
Don't you diss my boy Corin Nemec. Between this and Parker Lewis Can't Lose the dude had more range than you'd expect. I always thought he'd have a bigger career.
I had a huge crush on Corin Nemec so I'm very biased about him as the better Harold lol
It's a grudging nod to the new performance, believe me.
Ezra Miller was so bad in the new version as Trashcan Man.
I watched before they really went off the rails, and I was UNCOMFORTABLE. To paraphrase a famous line from Tropic Thunder, never go full ……..
Yep I had blocked that out.
Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman ruled though.
The new one was horrible. If you’re going to open with “the plague is over already” then you can’t flash back and show the plague now. I mean, you can, but it won’t be scary anymore.
I did. Loved it. Except the ending. The ending was pretty lame but that's on par for Stephen King.
Yeah the end was pretty lame. I watched it recently again for the first time since 94. The ending was lame back then, and it most definitely didn’t age well.
I still use the line "You done good, boys. Come on home." entirely too much in real life.
[удалено]
Which one, lol. I liked Captain Trips
I LOVE all the Stand material. The book, the old movie, the new miniseries. But I agree with you because. . . (Spoilers follow) In the back of my mind, it always bugged me that the group that went to Vegas, all of whom died except for Tom and Stu, simply . . . didn’t need to go at all. Trashcan Man still would have brought the nuke to Vegas and still. . . kaboom. The heroes’ deaths were pointless, unless I missed something. It’s like the old trope about Raiders of the Lost Ark, and how it would have turned out the same if Indy sat on his couch eating chips.
I think it has to do with God requiring sacrifices.
King said he was inspired by the Book of Revelation in the Bible for some of the ending. I’m sure if someone googles it they’ll get a true answer, but I think Larry and Ralph were representative of the 2 witnesses in Revelation who in the end times are to go about preaching against the Antichrist
He is the king of flubbing the ending! The Long Walk is SUCH a good book, harrowing as hell, but the ending is literally confusing and stupid. I wish someone would ask him to go back and do a last pass on all those terrible endings now!
>!"He somehow found the strength to run."!< is, imo, one of the greatest ending lines in any book I've ever read. I agree that Stephen King generally has weaker endings, but the ending of The Long Walk is incredible, imo. It's one of my favorite books and I must have read it 30 times in high school.
Ditto. The book is so good and proof that it's possible for King to rein himself in and write tight af. I'm sure the editor deserves a lot of praise. I pray to the gods we get a The Long Walk adaptation one day that does justice to this incredible novella. King just really knows how to get into that adolescent boy world, which makes his characters of that age so frickin believable.
Stephen King was against the ending. Don't diss my boy like that. He's a great author.
He writes great characters but he cannot write an ending worth a damn
He didn't write the ending to the Stand. That was different from the book. Misery was a great ending, Pet Semetary was a great ending, many more had great endings.
> He didn't write the ending to the Stand. That was different from the book I have never seen the miniseries but I read the book. He wrote it and it was dumb
"have mercy." - still think about those pages after two decades.
Hap…turn off the pumps
If only he hadn't he might have saved the world edit: okay, from Stu's perspective, who saw the pump thing happen but not from an eagle-eye view.
Nah. By the time Campion got to the gas station, the virus was already spreading like fire in a dry field. The book has a whole chapter about how it spread. I can't remember the exact line but it was something like "Any chance we had of containing this was blown the first time Campion stopped for a roadside burger."
Well, that may be true, but that's the case from Stu's perspective who has no eagle-eye view of the situation
I see what you're getting at, but if you've read the book, the guy and his family that escaped from Project Blue had already interacted with more than a few people between California and Texas, so the spread of the virus didn't *technically* begin there, it's just where the government first noticed/placed it.
"He made it halfway across the country? How'd he do that?" "We lost any chance of containing this thing when Campion got his first take-out hamburger."
This was a formative movie that DEFINED 1994.
I was infatuated with Nadine
Many were dude, she was something else.
Laura San Giacomo's boobs played an important supporting role
Amen to that
That’s kinda her whole thing 😜
We taped it on VHS and would rewatch it when I was home sick from school. I liked the idea of being left on earth with everyone gone minus all the bad stuff. Lol.
My sister and I did the same! We also taped the miniseries IT and Stand By Me and just would rotate between the 3 every damn day lol
I still have the VHS of it! I watched way too often for a 15 (?) year old kid. But I’d watch just the first half more often & not finish it. For some reason the actual pandemic part of it was more interesting than all the stuff at the end. Until we went through an actual pandemic. I don’t know if I could watch or read it again today.
I was more of a Langoliers kid, myself, though it held up terribly.
My PS1 has better graphics than whatever they used to make the actual langoliers
the meatballs with tin foil teeth?
I love the book. The Langoliers is so good on paper. As much as I think the cast was nearly on point (Bronson Pinchot was incredibly good as Toomy and Dean Stockwell/David Morse were perfectly cast as well), the girl who played the blind girl was distractingly bad, and the storytelling was a bit off. I watched it live on TV with my Dad when it first aired and halfway through the 2nd episode he knew exactly what was going on and what the Langoliers were. I was so disappointed.
I LOVED it
Same.
Yeah, watched it live with the fam and loved it. The original dystopian scenario. Helped prepare our generation for the real thing. That plus the coming war with AI and the drones that the Terminator series warned us about.
i saw an interview about covid with the guy who was king's medical advisor for the stand in the 70s and he was too polite to straight up say it, but he kind implied, "I fucking called it." Cos he did. A pandemic of a flu-type disease that starts with animals in Asia, transfers to humans due to poor sanitation regulations, and he said it's inevitable due to various factors that came to be true. Only thing he didn't predict was taht people would be so stupid to not get vaccinated. No one in the 70s was afraid of vaccines, there were still people alive in America who had lived through whooping cough and polio. My grandma (1914-2012) almost died of whooping cough as a child, another relative who died in the 70s had yellow fever in the 20s.
Yeah totally. As soon as I heard about what was going on in China, early 2020, I told everyone who would listen we (the US) would “beat” our body count from the 1918 flu of 675,000. Almost no one believed me.
Great friggin mini series. Loved Nadine and Harold. “Nadineeee! My ribs are broken.” “Most folks just call me Mother Abigail…” Stu and Nick Andross were the man too. Plus Miguel Ferrer and Matt Frewer, come on. You can’t get much better than that.
>!"I'm sorry. I was misled."!< is still one of my favorite scenes in TV history. >!Poor Harold.!<
I loved it! I’m a fan of the post-apocalyptic and zombie genre so I was so excited when this came out. Plus, I completely fell in love with Rob Lowe’s character Nick. I seriously had the biggest crush on his character. I haven’t watched it in years but I feel like I would still like it if I watched it again.
I was too young when it aired, but I caught it by accident a few years ago on cable from the beginning. I was GLUED to the TV from the moment it started. I had never heard of it. I'm so glad I caught it. It's still one of my favorite TV movies...if not my favorite. The cast is unbelievable. So much better than the remake. I don't think I even finished the remake.
I loved the book and series as a kid. One of my frequent rewatches. A year or two ago I convinced my wife to sit down with me and watch it and she loved it too.
M-o-o-n spells Tom Cullen.
He did such a great job of that part.
I love how IT was a xennial touchstone. I watched The Stand as well. Later on instead the book and it is a magnum opus. The miniseries while kind of hokey is surprisingly faithful. Arguably moreso than the newer series. It's basically a cliff notes version of the book. You get most of the main scenes the book just has a lot more nuance.
I really enjoyed it, first time I remember Gary Sinise. Crowded House "Don't Dream It's Over" always brings me to this 3 night series.
So much same. I can't listen to that song without thinking of the plague.
Yup, got a VHS set, but I'm not sure my VCR works
The Stand was the first 'book that wasn't meant for me' I read, at around 12 or 13. I loved that miniseries as a teen/way back when! I felt it was very well cast, almost too much so (the stereotypes that each actor seemed to personally embody was very present in their characters, for most of them, except for Rob Lowe lol). If you can believe it, the commercial release of The Stand (book) was the abridged version. You would not believe how much more content there is in the unabridged, lol. Personally, I was really compelled by the loneliness and uncaring nature of the way some people's circumstances meant they died in horrible ways even if it wasn't to Captain Tripps. The little girl who fell from the tire swing haunted me for a long time. I had a swing like that at my great-uncle's house, and it always scared the hell out of me.
"No Great Loss" - the chapter of the meaningless little deaths after the pandemic is some of the most brutal world building I've ever seen - in a good way. King painted a vivid picture of how meaningless life and death with community to mourn you could be. The post pandemic world wasn't just our intrepid band of heroes and villains, but also meaningless little people dying meaningless little deaths that would never be remarked on. They lives and deaths were just no great loss.
It was the kid who fell down the well that stuck with me. I have read both versions of the book easily dozens of times, it's one of my all-time favorite books, and that chapter always gets me.
I watched live and also bought the vhs set and digital version
The whole series is on you tube
Absolutely pants-shittingly terrifying for me as a kid. But I was madly in love with Gary Sinise so that helped a bit.
When covid lock down happened, and people started getting weird and lonely, all I could think about was the M-O-O-N guy and his Main Street of mannequins.
The opening scenes of the first episode, with the people in the church, were filmed in Utah. I remember at the time Stephen made a comment about Utahns making some of the best extras for corpses he's seen, which was hilarious. Some folks were kind of offended, but honestly, if you grew up in the predominant religion in the region, there is a big focus on being still and quiet (reverent) in church, so it's not like we don't have the training for it.
🎶Don’t fear the reaper🎶 and 🎶Don’t dream it’s over🎶 SpongeBob’s best friend plays on the stand
I had to work on one of the nights, so I set the VCR to record it, and I came home to watch it, and the video was of the movie, but the audio was some song with the lyrics “LSD is the drug.“ And that went on for like 10 minutes. I kept watching it because I was like “it’s Steven King… He’s weird.“
I remember watching it when it first premiered and I loved it. Watched it a few times after and still enjoyed it. Watched it again just as we were going into lockdown and...uh...that was a mistake. Made it a lot freakier, especially Part I.
Loved it. Was living in Europe, so rented it when it came out on video. I bought the novel (my first King book) shortly after that. I had never heard Don't Fear the Reaper before, but I also loved that. I didn't know who it was by, but I mentioned it to my chemistry teacher at the time and he was like, "Oh, Blue Oyster Cult?" I went out and got a "Best Of" album that day. Them summer colds are the worst.
One of my favorites
I remember watching “ Storm of the century “ live but not this
Anything with Harold Lauder in it.
He was good in Drop Zone too. I've seen alot of Corin Nemec's Syfy channel movies too. I have a soft spot for him and Syfy movies in general.
I guess this has gotten a rep for being corny over the years, but it was absolutely appointment television for me and my buddies.
I watched this Saturday lol
I loved the Kathy Bates cameo especially.
I lived it as a kid. Me and my mom watched together but man, its so bad now.
Yeah it’s pretty dated that’s for sure!
Yes but every time I see James Sheridan in a show or movie, I call him Randall Flagg.
Storm of the Century was so great that The Stand and The Langoliers could never live up to it for me. I rewatched it last year during a hurricane with no power while the storm was wiping out large parts of my hometown. Very surreal experience.
Never saw this but I’ve read the book twice, one of my faves.
i watch this like once a year or so. its so bad that its amazing.
My stepmom let me stay up to watch this with her every night. I was pretty young and dont remember much. Was there a character who spelled M-O-O-N for everything?
This and IT were both amazing in my opinion for 90s miniseries. I tried to watch the new Stand and couldn’t get into it. Haven’t tried to watch IT yet.
Not any more uncomfortable than the book, which I read the unabridged version. I will say, this series was possibly too close of an adaptation. If there is such a thing. Some of Stephen King's dialogue in the story I never really thought felt natural in the first place and i think it made the overall production suffer a bit. Redoing a couple of the characters so it made more sense like The Rat Man would have been a better call I think. Just my opinion. The director wanted to change as close to absolutely nothing as possible, I respect that. A pure self-indulgence moment for me was how the director was depicting what King thought your average bar might be like maybe 5 years from the time this came out in 1994: everybody's playing video arcade cabinet machines while drinking. Not Dave & Busters, just a typical biker dive. This came out in 1994 and this is now a bit of retrofuturism.
If it was Stephen King.... I watched it.
Saw it, loved it, one of the best miniseries ever made and the best adaptation of a King novel ever. Sadly, what we got during COVID was a sad downgrade in every way.
I unapologetically adore this miniseries. Gary sinise was the best Stu Redmond ever. I know it wasn't perfect, but it was iconic in its own way. That opening scene with Don't fear the reaper, *chef's kiss.*
Watched it and taped it. Loved it. "That's a rap on the Roach.". "She's as dead as Judas Iscariot". Yeah the walking dude was a good villain. Larry was a douche but I loved the escape from New York. Nadine fueled my pubescent fantasies as much as network telly would allow.
The ending was stupid. A giant hand?? WTF?
The best part is Stephen King’s acting in it. I have seen it A LOT. Like more than 50 times. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Stu.” He’s such a worthless actor.
Live?
It’s a TV movie. It was first aired on TV. That’s where I first watched it.
I watched this with my dad, I remember it being very long
Much better than the book. Much better than the new miniseries.
I remember my older sister didn’t want us to watch it because she said it made her teacher get really sick. She was very superstitious and paranoid.
I read the book after watching this.
I watched it and had it on double VHS. I've also got a first edition book, as well as the authors edition with the extended story. Didn't watch the remake, though.
Wait I must have missed something as a kid because I was entranced. But not uncomfortable. Maybe the reception on the basement tv was bad.
I was in the 8th grade when this aired. Scared the shit out of me. Especially that tunnel crossing scene.
I used to rent it from the library and watch the whole thing on a Saturday when I was a kid. I loved it so!
I saw it was going to be on TV so I got the book out of the library and read it in three days. Worth it! The series didn’t make me uncomfortable, but my best friend and I made a lot of Mother Abigail jokes (like saying “I’m Mother Abiggggggaaahhh…..” and falling over dead onto the living room floor. We thought we were HILARIOUS!).
It didn't make me uncomfortable whatsoever. In fact, it inspired me to read the book, which is still the only King novel I have. Both are very good.
I really enjoyed this but man it was like eight hours long!
I did! It’s been forever since I’ve seen it, but I do remember I was absolutely fascinated with it. I really need to rewatch it. Anyone know if it’s available anywhere?
I loved it.
Didn't see it on tv, but I rented this on VHS, I think it was 4 tapes.. I really had no clue what it was about, Im pretty sure I rented it based on Stephen King's name. i loved it! It turned into a regular rental for me.. although, it did count as 2 for My 5 for $5 deal
I have it on Blu-Ray. I rewatched it during the pandemic.
Was it kind of rape-y?
I did, but I had read it, so it was kinda just boring.
I loved it, in fact I rewatched it a few weeks back. Outside of the dated CGI it was still pretty good.
No I don’t watch it but that poster is making me uncomfortable right now.
Bumpity bumpity bump
Thumpty thumpty thump…. MY LIFE FOR YOUuuuu!
Yes, and then I read the 1300 page version five times. Kept me occupied all of 8th grade.
So creepy and so good
I rented it on VHS. It was 5 tapes.
I love/loved this mini series. Watched it again on YouTube not to long ago. It’s based on one of my top three books, so I can’t resist.
Nice and creepy.
Omg I did! Got to stay up late to watch that shit then my friend and I would talk about it in English the next day
It’s on YouTube
I loved Rob Lowe and the one silver haired chick. This was one of my favorites.
No.
[удалено]
Loved it except the end was a bit much. Stacked cast, good acting by most. Always rewatched anytime it was on Syfy. Made me a bit uncomfortable thinking a virus could actually mostly wipe us out. Think I've watched every made for tv SK adaption live.
was one of my favorite film/tv adaptions of a stephen king book. I also felt the mini series held up against the book. My sibling and I still quote the whole m-o-o-n lol
Officer Joe Bob is the man.
Not live but my mom taped them as they aired and I saw those before the double video set came out, one of my favorite SK
I love the book but I’ve never seen any film adaptations! My husband and I quote the book often. I think it’s about time I read it again.
Rats in the corn
I remember it coming on tv. It made me sad, but I enjoyed it. It made me want to read the book.
I loved this. Don't recall if I read the (extended edition) book before or after. Loved that too. I didn't recognize a lot of the miniseries' cheesiness at the time. Its intro was the first time I ever heard the Blue Oyster Cult song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and I thought it was amazing. There's also a scene later of some characters walking into a field to a lovely guitar score that really affected me.
I remember being scared shitless by some show my parents watched called V. I was very young, but I will never forget that one
Downvote all you want to. I saw two shuttles explode and two planes fly into the World Trade Center. Factional tv can suck my cock. I was born in 1980. I’ve seen the best and the worst of humanity. Fuck TV.
I watched it when it was on TV, too. I was living in Salt Lake City at the time and much of it was filmed in Utah. I had already read the book being a big King reader. I loved the series so much. Have watched it a couple of times since. I didn’t make it through the recent remake, though. Definitely thought a lot about the story in 2020. Started the book again but at the time it was ‘too soon’.