# Steven King's The Stand.....Spoilers! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 27, 2006, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785 "2006-01-27T00:01:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/21 "2006-03-01T04:44:40Z")
Oh, and any Doper who’s just read _The Stand_ really ought to check out **ivylass** ’s [Superflu on the SDMB](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244421&page=1&pp=50) thread from a couple of years ago. Fun. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/22 "2006-03-01T05:44:13Z")
It makes soooooo much more sense now… ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/23 "2006-03-01T05:52:41Z")
The Stand is my favourite King book. I sure as heck didn’t mind the longer version–the more, the better, I thought. I did not watch the miniseries they made of it. Just let me ‘see’ the book in my mind, thankyouverymuch. First time I went to Las Vegas, I thought of it as it was in the book. When King (is? or was?) good, he was very, very good. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/24 "2006-03-01T06:04:00Z")
The miniseries was a cheap and lifeless product. Truly. just a two-dimensional **product** ion. Maybe someday, someone will do King’s masterpiece justice. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/25 "2006-03-01T06:15:56Z")
**devilsknew** , I’d love to see it done with the big budget treatment, but it seems like a pretty tough one to pull off. King’s adaptations have never drawn huge audiences, nothing compared to Clancy and Grisham, and this story would take a GIANT budget to do convincingly. Getting a reasonably faithful TV-miniseries is probably the best outcome we can reasonably hope for. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/26 "2006-03-01T06:28:19Z")
Yes, but I believe with the correct vision, and the leadership that entails from a great director, with only a slightly larger budget with great attention to ennui, the overall feeling, natural settings, and correct editing a masterpiece lies in wait. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/27 "2006-03-01T06:30:33Z")
It’d only be about 9 hours long…the book is longer than LOTR. A single 3-hour epic would simply have to chop so much that’d it’s ruin the details that make it great. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/28 "2006-03-01T06:54:55Z")
I think the uncut version was better. I really like King when he gets into the little details about characters. He can be very good at digging into a characters past to explain the characters motivation. For example the Trashcan Man becomes a much more complex character when you get his background (Hey Trashy, What’d ole lady Semple say when you lit up her pension check?). IMO, King has always been great with characters while his plots can get somewhat sloppy. As far as Kings movies are concerned, The Stand was ok, not great. The problem with King and movies is that his some of his best books are usually so long that to make a movie you have to cut out a lot of stuff. I’d love to see ‘The Talisman’ made into a full movie (not made for t.v.) but I fear that they would have to cut out so much it wouldn’t work well. Slee ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/29 "2006-03-01T06:56:49Z")
I only ever read the original. (Multiple times.) Did the extended version start with all hell breaking loose on page one? That was one of my very favorite aspects of The Stand, which is definitely my favorite King book. The original (paperback) was around 700 pages, btw. While it was my favorite, I’ve read maybe 30 of his books, short story compilations, and four-novella collections. Right behind The Stand is the short stories, (Night Shift and Skeleton Crew) and novellas. (Different Seasons, Four Past Midnight [?], and…uh…there’s one more, IIRC.) Favorite _story_ is probably Survivor Type from Skeleton Crew. > [@Omniscient](#): > > King’s adaptations have never drawn huge audiences… Some have done pretty well. I though Carrie found a largish size audience. The Body (Stand By Me) and Shawshank Redemption – both from the same four novella collection – were fairly well received. I was under the impression they both did big numbers at the box office. And don’t forget The Running Man; surely Ahnold put the asses in the seats. (Also a novella, possibly from the same collection as The Body and Shawshank.) ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/30 "2006-03-01T07:01:55Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > It’d only be about 9 hours long…the book is longer than LOTR. A single 3-hour epic would simply have to chop so much that’d it’s ruin the details that make it great. The key is distillation with artistic integrity. King has always been marketed as a product and his art has suffered for that. Primal King has never been done. Nobody has focused with the integrity and deep psychology that is needed. Eventually they’ll wise up and put a team of Psychological consultants in the credits. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/31 "2006-03-01T07:45:23Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > The miniseries was a cheap and lifeless product. Truly. just a two-dimensional **product** ion. Maybe someday, someone will do King’s masterpiece justice. The miniseries was _great_ – for a television mini. When it worked, it really worked. Of course, it had serious flaws. That pretty-boy-playing-at-ugly was certainly _not_ Harold Lauder. T’weren’t Tom Cullen, either. M-O-O-N, that spells “miscast.” And Flagg definitely ought not to look so fresh and plump. He’s the Walkin’ Dude. The Dark Man. The Man with No Face. He does not wear denim that’s stressed at the boutique and he sure as _shit_ doesn’t walk out of the Mojave desert looking like he just stepped out of a freaking day-spa. Apart from the casting, though, the main problem was just that it was made for television, which is kind of silly for an adaption of a book like _The Stand_. I want to be _physically terrified_ during the Lincoln Tunnel scene. I want to see Larry Underwood’s hard-on wither when he finishes singing the American National Anthem to greet the dawn and ducks back into the tent to find his companion OD’d. (And I don’t mind saying so.) I want to see Nick Andros’ brains on the walls. I want real epic horror, with all the poignant and mundane touches that made the book so awesome. With the length, it might work as a trilogy, divided into roughly the same sections as the novel. (Probably been too long since I read it to really know how plausible this is, though.) > [@Ellis Dee](#): > > And don’t forget The Running Man; surely Ahnold put the asses in the seats. (Also a novella, possibly from the same collection as The Body and Shawshank.) Nah, that was one of the books that he published as Richard Bachman. Did anyone who actually read it bother to go see the movie? I mean, it doesn’t appear that it bears much resemblance to the book at all. _Ahnold?_ WTF? He could just as credibly have been cast as _Carrie_. _The Shawshank Redemption_ was almost flawless, though. I like Morgan Freeman and can find no fault with his performance, which was excellent, but… um… _Red?_ That’s trivial, though. I more disturbed by the abridgement of the title and the replacement of the Rita Hayworth poster. That stuff’s _important!_When your protagonist squeezes himself, naked, through a tight canal, to emerge, dripping, into a new life – you want the passage to be marked with someone like Rita Hayworth. Bo Derek does not have the hips, breasts, or waist for it; she is not the correct archetype.But noooooooo… we’ve got to take something that’s absolutely central and discard it to indicate that time has passed. Find another way! Argh! And speaking of _Different Seasons_, _Apt Pupil_ was adapted for film, too, with Ian Mckellan as the poor put-upon Nazi. Not too bad. The only novella from _Different Seasons_ that hasn’t been adapted for the screen is _The Breathing Method_ – which is probably just as well, since it is too short to be a feature and probably too gruesome (and, let’s face it, ridiculous) to bother trying. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/32 "2006-03-01T13:13:32Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > Oh, and any Doper who’s just read _The Stand_ really ought to check out **ivylass** ’s [Superflu on the SDMB](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244421&page=1&pp=50) thread from a couple of years ago. Fun. Thanks! That was a lot of fun. I think the uncut version of The Stand is meatier, with more depth. I especially liked the vignettes, what Bateman called “the second wave of deaths” due to the loss of technology. Very short snippets…one kid falls down an abandoned well, one guy overdoses on pure heroin, one woman gets locked in an abandoned cold storage locker (that one gave me the willies, I tell you) etc. If I may, regarding _Shawshank_It was Raquel Welch on the wall, not Bo Derek, which is faithful to the book. It’s my understanding there was a scene filmed where one of the guards did squeeze through the hole to see where it went, but it was cut for time. ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/33 "2006-03-01T13:29:17Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > _The Shawshank Redemption_ was almost flawless, though. I like Morgan Freeman and can find no fault with his performance, which was excellent, but… um… _Red?_ That’s trivial, though. I more disturbed by the abridgement of the title and the replacement of the Rita Hayworth poster. That stuff’s _important!_When your protagonist squeezes himself, naked, through a tight canal, to emerge, dripping, into a new life – you want the passage to be marked with someone like Rita Hayworth. Bo Derek does not have the hips, breasts, or waist for it; she is not the correct archetype.But noooooooo… we’ve got to take something that’s absolutely central and discard it to indicate that time has passed. Find another way! Argh! Well… IIRC in the book the poster changed too, also to indicate time had passed. I don’t have it in front of me but I do remember some passage about how the poster changed but was always in the same place or something like that. Also, I liked how they turned Red from a literal to an ironic nickname. I guess it was partially in the delivery, but it just worked for me. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/34 "2006-03-01T13:39:07Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > Yes it did say that, but if that’s true 400 pages seems like _a lot_ of filler. I didn’t feel like upon reading it that 400 pages could have been cut without damaging it. Anyone know how long the original paperback was? I think he meant 400 manuscript pages, not 400 printed pages. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/35 "2006-03-01T13:44:48Z")
I agree that the miniseries was good by the standards of tv. A lot of it was nothing special, but it did have several redeeming moments. Kareem was quite entertaining as the Monster Shouter (though perhaps not entirely true to the book). The production design set the right moods in the right places. And the use of music in a few key spots was excellent – particularly Larry’s impromptu _Eve of Destruction_ and the aforementioned _Don’t Fear the Reaper_. I’ve only read the uncut version, but I would be interested to see the original release. I really don’t think I’ve benefitted from knowing about The Kid and exactly what he did to Trash. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/36 "2006-03-01T13:55:44Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > T’weren’t Tom Cullen, either. M-O-O-N, that spells “miscast.” Aw, I gotta disagree there, I thought Bill Fagerbakke as Tom was excellent, and fit my mental image of Tom very nicely. I agree about Harold though - that was some horrible casting, there. Of course, it’s my opinion that there will never again be a casting decision so perfect as that of Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey in the Green Mile. When I first saw it, it was almost eerie - it was as if someone had reached into my brain and showed me my mental image. ---
**Author:** ![KSO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@KSO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KSO)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/37 "2006-03-01T15:47:54Z")
I no longer own the original version, but didn’t they cut the original ending; i.e., where Randy wakes up on a beach or whatever? ---
**Author:** ![Draelin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@Draelin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Draelin)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/38 "2006-03-01T15:53:34Z")
> [@KSO](#): > > I no longer own the original version, but didn’t they cut the original ending; i.e., where Randy wakes up on a beach or whatever? IIRC, the uncut version ends with an epilogue of Flagg and a bunch of primitive native-type people. I know that it wasn’t in the original version, but I can’t remember how the original ended anymore. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/39 "2006-03-01T15:55:15Z")
What, nothing but love for Rob Lowe as Nick Andros? I don’t know who I saw as Nick, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Rob Lowe. The original ending was somewhat vague, as Frannie and Stu were on their way back to Maine in an RV. They stopped off at Mother Abagail’s old house, and Fran asks something like “Will people learn? Will they know now?” and Stu answers “I don’t know.” The End. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785/40 "2006-03-01T15:58:52Z")
I liked the original Stand. It was nice and tight. But I liked the new one too. Sometimes I get the urge to re-read, and it’s always clear to me whether I want to read the original or the expanded. My favorite expanded part was the second wave of deaths, definitely; my least favorite part was about Fran and her mother. I preferred the vagueness of not knowing just how it went when she told her parents; I also just don’t like Fran. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steven-kings-the-stand-spoilers/341785.md?page=3)