Kings stories typically create an extremely detailed and realistic world. But 90% of the terror is psychological. The stories are too long to fit into a 2-3 hour movie and with the budget and acting of a tv miniseries, you end up with kids fighting a giant spider, Alice Krige eaten by cats, Jimmy Smitts fighting rubber aliens, or Balki being eaten by bad CGI Pac-men.
I don’t recall that from the book, and really it doesn’t make sense. It’s a virus, not a poison, the concentration shouldn’t matter. I agree that it’s implausible that some/most people died basically in their tracks, but it’s a horror story, I’ll let it slide.
Overall, so far, it’s OK. I agree that Molly Ringwald is simply not Fran, which is a shame because she’s so much a central character in the book that she really should have been cast more carefully. It just isn’t as rich as the book, which is to be expected, but is still a bit disappointing. I’ll continue to watch, though,
There’s some part of the book where a doctor is talking about the flu, and he says something to the effect that it has clearly delineated stages, but some people zoom through all those stages like it was a rocket sled, some hit one stage, back-step to the previous stage, stabilize for a while, then get worse, etc.
It makes some sense that the military people, etc. would succumb quickly because they got ‘dosed’ with it first. Otherwise, yeah, you just have to make allowances for the idea that King took a lot of artistic license.
Stu Redman. I drooled over him in middle/high school.
Oh babay can you dig your maaaaaaaaaan.
Are you conflating two characters? It was Larry Underwood who sang “Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?”
Or maybe you just mean you were really digging on Stu! 
I’ll be settling in around 8:30 tonight to watch Part 2.
Any thoughts on the casting of the Larry Underwood character? Adam Storke. I had to look up the name on imdb, and found nothing of significance before or after The Stand. Yet Larry is one of the most complex characters in the book and transforms the most from beginning to end (other than Harold, maybe).
I really can’t quibble with the portrayal, but I guess I just wanted someone with more zing.
I just finished re-reading the uncut edition, and I thought it was just zooming. Everything’s relative, eh?
I really loved Adam Storke as Larry - I thought he really nailed Larry’s “more nice than not guy” who has something in him that’s “like biting on tinfoil,” complete with his transformation by the end to a hero. Maybe they expected him to be the next big thing and it just didn’t happen.
Well, they no doubt spent most of their casting budget on big names to draw people in, like Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Ruby Dee and Miguel Ferrer (oh, and Rob Lowe), so they had to fill in with unknowns like Adam Storke and Corin Nemec.
I liked his performance of Eve of Destruction.
I just realized recently that he played the Rich Boyfriend in Mystic Pizza. I had watched that again recently, and totally fell in love with him again, so I looked him up.
Much cuter as an East Coast Rich Boy than Larry Underwood, IMO
Bump-dee-bump! I know you are but what am I!! HEH HEH!!
You didn’t like Max Headroom (Matt Frewer) as Trashcan Man?
I actually really liked Frewer’s portrayal of Trash. In fact, one of the things I really liked about the novel was how sympathetic a character The Trashcan Man was. I mean, yeah, he was an arsonist, and all that bad shit, but you could still totally feel sorry for him.
He really was an interesting character - very much a wildcard.
Yes, he was completely used by Flagg. More so than anyone else in the book I would say.
He was used and abused by just about everyone he met. I’m having a tough time saying he was a good person, but I’m having a tough time saying he was a bad one, too. A crazy one, sure as hell, but who knows how crazy he would have been if he hadn’t lived the life he lived.
There’s a really interesting line about Flagg and Trashy in the book - about how Flagg knew that Trashcan Man was a tool that could turn on him, but he hoped he’d get more use out of him before that happened.
Lloyds character was pretty interesting as well. He started out as a gun-toting psycho petty criminal. But his working with Flagg seemed to give him a sort of (misguided) sense of purpose and loyalty.