nightlydvdreviewMovie Review – The Stand
June 5th 2008 06:21
After reading the 1168 page epic (unedited version) by Stephen King I was very excited about seeing the TV miniseries.
The Stand is a post- apocalyptic Horror/Science Fiction novel revolving around the escape and spreading of a government made biological weapon, a super flu known as ‘Captain Trips’. The Epidemic leads to the death of most of the human population in North America (and other countries) with over 99.4% of the population susceptible to the disease. Ultimately of the survivals there are two camps the good with Mother Abigail in the East (Boulder, Colorado) and the evil with Randall Flagg/ The Walkin Dude/ the Dark Man in the west (Las Vegas).
So naturally after finding out there was a mini series of the book, I was quite interested to see it, I was however, quite disappointed.
The 1994 TV mini-series starred Gary Sinise (Stuart Redman), Molly Ringwald (Fran Goldsmith), Corin Nemic (Harold Lauder), Ray Walston (Glen Bateman), Adam Storke (Larry Underwood), Laura San Giacomo (Nadine Cross), Rob Lowe (Nick Andros), Ruby Dee (Abigail Freemantle), Bill Fagerbakke (Tom Cullen), Jamey Sheridan (Randall Flagg), Miguel Ferrer (Lloyd Henreid), Ed Harris (General Starkey) and many more. And runs for 366 minutes.
Watching the film/ miniseries wasn’t a particularly enjoyable experience, it just didn’t hold my attention or grab me in anyways, and I often found myself pausing the DVD to do other stuff.
It was everything I imagined it to be in my head, the scenes for the most part where true to the book, minus a few discrepancies, the sets were exactly like I pictured them in my head, they were amazing actually for the budget and scale of the production I just found everything about it campy and mundane. But my biggest problem with the miniseries was the actors and actresses chosen. Honestly the only character that I felt was cast accurately was Kojak (the dog).
Obviously the characters are the focal point in the novel, and to me not one character in the series adaptation was likeable. I didn’t really care what happened to any of them, well except the Kojak. And im going to get personal now, there were so many characters miscast I can’t get into them all, but I will name a few shockingly terrible ones.
Molly Ringwald was atrocious, I felt watching her, that she was constantly looking off to the sides to have her lines fed to her, to be told what to do, how to do it, and she definitely did not embody the Fran I pictured in the novel. Harold Lauder in the novel was to be an insecure, fat, pimply 16 year old, not a handsome, 30 year old trying to pass for a 20 year old.
Then we have Ruby Dee, I don’t know what the heck happened here, for quite a distinguished actress who won an Academy Award earlier this year, she was horrifying.
But in the worst casting decision ever, they made Jamey Sheridan, Randall Flagg. The embodiment of all evil had a bloody mullet, now that’s scary. He did not pull this character off at all.
I could go on and on about mostly every character in the miniseries but I will stop here.
For what special effects there were, they were pretty crappy. There was in one scene meant to be a shot showing the view from a Las Vegas penthouse, where for some unknown reason they showed a cartoon view, a CARTOON view!! Why could they not shoot a view out a window in Las Vegas. Then there was Randall Flagg’s demonic transformation which was indeed quite laughable. Minus the whole window view thing I can accept the fact that it was 1993, so the best computer technology had not been developed.
All in all, quite a disappointing adaptation of a great book.
2/5
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Comment by Louie
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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Movie Train
wow how time flies!
i loved The Stand when it came out, i thought Flagg was the most intimidating character i had ever seen . . . im glad they made it a mini-series because to tell the story it really needed to be longer than a standard feature to fit all the characters in
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
I've never seen this, and don't intend to.
George Romero and Stephen King tried to bring it to the screen many years ago, but King couldn't get the huge manuscript down to a workable (read: commercially viable) length. In the end Romero let it go. Shame, cos Romero could've done something rather special with it. He should think about doing it again ...
I agree about the cast for the mini-series ... ill-conceived indeed!
Comment by Anonymous
But the miniseries did not do the book justice.