The Stand - 2020 miniseries (possible spoilers)

Skarsgard is 6’4", so I think he has the height handled. As for his face, IIRC the book took care never to actually describe his features, except to say that he was terrifying - although that was more a matter of “aura” than anything else.

IIRC Nadine sees Flagg’s true form while he’s raping her, and it’s very, very wrong.

Here is a link to ep1. Its disappointing imo. They have changed the personalities of the main characters and they are telling the story in inexplicable flashbacks. Yet another disappointing King work ruined by filmmakers who think that they are better storytellers than the man himself.

The second episode was not as successful for me as the first one. I have to wonder how someone who wasn’t familiar with the novel could have followed what was happening at all which I didn’t feel with the first episode.

Also, replacing going through the Lincoln (Holland? I forget) Tunnel with going through a sewer was kind of lame.

Random Aside: I grew up in the Northeast but went to school in the Midwest. One of the friends I made was also a Stephen King fan who had never left his home state and until I told him otherwise, he had assumed King made up the idea of a tunnel connecting New York City and New Jersey.

I’m going to stick with it, but so far it just seems like an excuse to yell, “Fuck!,” every 45 seconds.

I, too found Episode 1 on You Tube last night. I did like the updated references to the Internet and other things appropriate to the late '10s, but I would have liked to have seen more about the dissolution of society as we knew it. Maybe that will happen later.

I hope it doesn’t. The story of the Stand is about what happens after the world collapses. All that stuff about the dissolution of society is just King being self-indulgent; any writer capable of self-editing would have left it out of the book. “Ooh, the military is going to go crazy and start killing everybody!” We get it - you’re a boomer.

So what’s up with the swelled throats that make Captain Trips’s victims look like bullfrogs?

That’s from the book. Some in the book called it “tube neck.”

I was disappointed by the first episode. It largely focused on Harold Lauder and, in my opinion, they completely ruined his character arc. In the book he starts off as a misanthropic loser, but then he undergoes a kind of redemption as he finds a place in the survivor’s community, only to throw it all away when tempted by Randall Flagg. As a reader, you start off feeling sorry for Harold and it’s gratifying to see him mature into an upstanding member of the survivor’s community. You keep hoping he’ll leave his past self behind, and his ultimate descent into violence and betrayal is tragic.

It’s a complex, affecting arc and King handles it with real skill. But the show not only makes Harold a repulsive incel psychopath from the very beginning, but at the end of the episode they double down and essentially just straight up tell us that he’s going to become a murderer. What’s the point? They’ve turned one of the book’s best realized characters into a paper thin villain. I’ve no reason to believe they won’t do the same with the others, so I’m probably not going to watch any more episodes.

I wouldn’t give it a 0, but it’s totally disjointed mess. It’s very poor storytelling to lean on the audience being familiar with the source material in order to have any idea what the hell is going on. People who have neither read the book nor watched the previous mini-series must be completely lost because basically they just strung together a few random scenes from the book in no particular order.

Watching ep4. Frannie just mispronounced Orono. That crap drives me nuts.

I was working at a theatre as scenic, sitting in on a rehearsal, and someone screwed up Bangor. I mentioned it and was told that nobody would notice. Granted, this was San Diego, but still, c’mon.

Threadjack: In the movie about the Tuskegee Airmen, Laurence Fishburne played a physician from Ottumwa, Iowa. As a lifelong Midwesterner, it was really obvious to me that nobody bothered calling the Ottumwa Chamber of Commerce to find out how the town’s name is pronounced. IDR exactly how he said it, but he butchered it.

(It’s pronounced ah-tum-wuh.)

This is a wreck. I’m familiar with the source material and have a hard time following this. Also that was certainly the most depressing nursing home ever.

Can I assume that the body removal team went there?

So far, the highlight has been Stephen King’s picture in the bus-station poster of the nursing home.

“This is a wreck,” is extremely accurate, alphaboi.

I. Just. Might. Bail! :astonished:

This week’s was the most straightforward episode pot wise. Not sure what to make of their take on Vegas. In the book it was more like an authoritarian country vs the hedonistic Shangri-la we got here. Also we finally got Don’t Fear The Reaper on the soundtrack.

I have no idea why I’m watching this show. It’s not terrible, but it’s not very good, either. This version of Randall Flagg is about as menacing as a Mormon missionary. Harold Lauder is appropriately creepy, but I wonder if that actor could play a non-creeper role. Has TrashCan Man even been shown yet?

This version is making me appreciate Molly Ringwald? Say it isn’t so!

Imo they distorted Harolds character. In the book he was a high school senior. He was obese and had acne. He was an intellectual in a small town. Of course he was going to be full of rage and insecurity. What he wasnt was a creeper. While repugnant, his jealousy towards Stu was at least understandable. Yes he did evil when he planted the bomb. But he did have some redemption as he lay dying on the highway.

Now Hollywood isnt going to allow an obese character in this series when they can cast a handsome young actor. They could have even put him in a fat suit and makeup to simulate acne. But nooooo.

One day someone will make a true to the source material quality adaption of one of KIngs long masterworks. The Stand and It werent one of those.