Hi Everybody -
Did you watch part two of Stephen King’s mini-series, “The Stand” today? We were trying to watch from my taped VHS copy from way back when, but the video quality was so terrible that we had to go out and buy a digital copy (Netflix in Canada doesn’t have it, and we don’t have Netflix anyway). So, the weirdness begins.
“Don’t Dream, It’s Over” - another excellent song choice.
My wife and I watched it.
Like I said last week, it is OK but nothing amazing. I’m remembering the miniseries being better than this, but it seems so slow and meandering.
Seems like it’d be better suited to book form. 
I like to think that my dreams would be of Mother Abigail. But would they? That creeps me out.
I thought it was both for everybody, although with different intensity (e.g. Trashcan Man got a lot less of the old lady and was repelled by her). Then they could choose one or the other.
I just started the second one (I forgot, my bad!). What a pity they didn’t do Nadine correctly. She’s already a harpy, nasty unattractive person in the first five minutes. I always imagined her as a Natalie Merchant type for some reason. And why not at least do her hair right?
Watching this makes me want to read the book again. I recall reading it when it first came out. It scared me so I could not read it at night or alone.
I re-read the uncut edition before watching the mini-series - it’s interesting to contrast how things played out in the book versus how they were done on tv. There are certainly some shortcuts being taken, but I can’t say that they detract from the story.
I always thought that the TV Stand had Nadine written OK- the main problem there is she should have been Leo’s guardian first. That was a big part in showing her potential for goodness. The show mainly messed up on Harold- not somuch showing him as a fat geek turned competent young man but it showing his decline into evil. Nadine & Harold both had great capacities for virtue & the powers to resist Flagg & thus their falls were much more tragic in the book.
But then again, the movie nails Stu Redman, Mother Abigail, Randall Flagg & especially Tom Cullen. M-O-O-N spells a good adaptation. Maybe in a few years, someone will take another crack at it.
That’s a good point, FriarTed. Both Nadine and Harold were perched on the razor’s edge of going either way, and it would have taken just such a little nudge to have them turned to the good side instead of the evil side.
Ok, sorry didn’t have a chance to watch it yesterday! Just finished.
Thoughts:
Gratuitous shirtless Rob Lowe (I was just hammering this sign in, Mother Abigail, and my shirt plumb flew off!) Nomnom.
Randall Flagg - still hate the long hair, but he was more like I pictured him in this episode.
I wasn’t so sure about Larry, but he won me over in this episode.
I noticed that Stu’s shirt was missing at points, too - not bad, not bad at all.
And we meet Glen Bateman! Another inspired bit of casting - Roy Walston was note perfect.
Oh! The little girl had a cast on her arm – I didn’t notice it until Boulder – one of the other men must have been the vet that patched her up. That was a nod to the readers.
I can see that Harold is going to be a big miss. There’s a ton of complexity to his character (isn’t it reading Franny’s diary that pushes him over, after he becomes respected in Boulder?) that just isn’t made-for-tv, I’m afraid.
At least Harold comes across as his basic, insecure-but-not-evil self at first. He doesn’t really become truly evil until the jealousy arises when he realizes the threat of Stu and then the nail is hammered in when Nadine enters his life – I mean his pants.
But Nadine in the series, who is a composite of Rita and Nadine, does not have even the basic normal good-girl sense that I got from the book Nadine. She felt this giant pull to Flagg from before the plague even began (I wonder who did promise her, or why her?) but otherwise, she cared for Joe in the book and was a teacher, not a drugged out neurotic. Even Laura Giacomo could have played that part, if they had left out the drugs and softened her up for the first half of the series. Would have played better to let her come apart slowly, in my opinion.
My dreams would most certainly be of The Walking Dude - I can’t think of anything I’d find less agreeable than the leadership (even nominal) of an aged religious fanatic. Give me a technocrat, even a tyrannical one, any day instead - at least he’ll have rational goals.
Besides, I’ve always wanted to see Vegas.
Also, I agree that Harold’s character in the book was very well-done. It really did seem a reasonable portrayal of how an insecure, flawed young man could be persuaded to commit horrors. In another place and time, I could see Harold in SA brown.
I started watching this episode, and gave up. I thought I’d enjoy this after reading the book again, but basically it’s just feeling kind of flat to me. I can’t enjoy it because it’s not as good as the book.
I think I’d dream about the old woman, but I don’t think I’d go to Boulder because that would just be stupid - you’d want to go someplace warm after the apocalypse, wouldn’t you? Boulder is far too high up in the mountains to be a good place to start over.
I think mostly you want to go somewhere without a lot of rotting corpses. The book mentioned that due to a rumor that something in Boulder had been the source of the flu, it was pretty well depopulated during the panic.
Yeah, there certainly is that.