I disagree with that pretty strongly, as your imagined version would destroy the entire theme of the film by making one of the two antagonists transparently hateful. Killing an innocent animal just to get back at her husband? Almost anything Douglas’s character did after that short of homicide would be forgiveable. He would clearly be the good guy, and Turner the bad guy, and the entire point of the movie is that there’s no clear way to favor one of these characters over the other.
In Spanglish (spoiler), the mother takes the girl out of the private school. And at the end, the daughter in voice over says in a letter to Stanford, “It would be great if you accepted me. And I thank you for all the scholarships” and such.
That’s one way of looking at it, though I respectfully disagree. It’s been a while since I’ve read the book or seen the movie so I’m not currently up 100% on the details, but it always seemed to me that there was no reason for there to be an act of divine intervention (especially considering the lack of any tangible interference during the whole disease thing) other than it was the only way to “get rid” of Flagg.
Waning power implies that he was a threat to the being that destroyed him, or otherwise kept that being at bay, and that wasn’t the case.
I always felt like King would have kept writing and writing that book and forced himself to end it.
smiling bandit—By Babylon 5 standards, I think that just qualifies as evolution in action. (Like the Markhabs.)
I just pointed out he lost control of the fireball and it could have very well tumbled into the warhead on it’s own. That’s a way to finish it with no divine intervention. Plus there was plenty of intervention throughout the book. The dreams the prophecies and all of Flagg’s demonic powers.
What? He was losing control of his followers. He was unable to see them escape he wasn’t able to convince a single one of the ‘good’ guys to come over to his cause. It’s very likely that whoever his backer was with withdrawing powers from him because he was losing control of the situation and not doing a good job. During the whole book Flagg starts out in control of the situation and pulling all the strings while the good guys are the disorganized atheists/agnostics type who later get stronger and find their faith throughout the book while Flagg’s followers lose their faith. In the end Flagg’s strongest supporter turns his back on him where the good guys are willingly going to the slaughter for their faith. That I feel was the point of the book not the exact details of how the Denver army outfights the Las Vegas army. (damn that would have added another 1000 pages to that book)
Honestly, I don’t remember a fireball or his losing control of it. I’ve been looking for a new book since finishing my last, maybe this is just the excuse I need to read this one again.
I’ll concede the point, though I will maintain that it was a hamhanded way of going about things, not plotwise perhaps, but writer-wise. As you say:
These were all far more subtle things meant to guide the players, and then to end it the way it did. It just seemed out of place. It also seems to go against the character of a passive god who’s predetermined everyone’s destiny and up until that point maintained a pretty uninvolved, neutral stance.
I wouldn’t even call the dreams or Flagg’s powers intervention per se.
It’s been postulated that Flagg himself is the devil, though I think we agree that he was more likely an agent (of the devil, or perhaps some other, unnamed entity of evil and corruption). In either case, none of those forces could go against god’s will, so it’s not to say that just because Flagg seemed to be in control he was actually thwarting anything or posing a threat. All I was saying is that he was never a threat, he was just another player with an over-developed sense of worth and his waning power wasn’t what prompted his destruction as though he were somehow protected by it.
He uses a fireball to destroy his former right hand man (whose name I can’t remember right now) anyway if I remember correctly it zips around a bit clearly out of control goes to the nuke and only then does it turn into a burning hand while the sacrifices say stuff like “Look do you see it?” confirming to them that what they did was the thing that saved everyone and was the right choice.
I think we can agree about the ham-handed…ness…of the scene. I just don’t feel it’s a cop-out.
Seems a little contradictory to say god predetermined everyone’s fate but remained neutral and passive? If he was choosing everyone’s fate and making people make pilgrimages and punishing his followers (Mother Abigail’s losing her powers and forcing her into the woods for penance) That’d be like saying I was playing the Sims made every choice for them set them on fire if they didn’t follow my commands but remained passive toward them.
Well his magic came from somewhere and since in that story it seemed like powers flowed from one of two sources (not just a natural power anyone could use) something is intervening and giving them a boost.
Why do we know they can’t go against god’s will? But going with that premise god was allowing men to choose between good and evil. In the end all the key players were either on God’s side or turning their backs on Flagg so he’d served his purpose time to clean house accept the sacrifices of your followers and destroy Sodom all over again. The god in The Stand is a very old testament god. Wrathful intolerant and takes people to task.
Fair enough. I felt it was. I’ll reread it and see what I think this time around. It may have something to do with feeling King copped out in a similar fashion in The Tommyknockers.
Regardless, whether or not my example was a good one of deus ex machina, I maintain that that technique is a cop-out.
I agree, sort of. That is heading not only into a complete derailment of the thread by turning it into a pick-apart-The-Stand thread, but it would also be delving into a theological discussion I’d much rather avoid.
Yes, but those were more like minor miracles than active intervention. Surely it wasn’t as blatant or obvious as a physical hand coming from the sky to smite the bad guys.
That would contradict the concept of a supreme god’s omnipotence.
No argument here.
If we’re going to mention Stephen King in the cop-out vein, I really thought the ending to IT was a horrendous cop-out. But it seems to me this is a King thing - I would be totally captivated by one of his books until the resolution came and think to myself… Wha? Did he get bored and say, Oh screw it,
Let’s just have IT be a big spider and be done with it.
?
I started thinking I should just read King books up to the last few chapters, and then come up with my own ending.
It seems a logical bit of lunacy extension from the idiots like JW’s who refuse transfusions on religious grounds.
Extremities starring Farrah Fawcett as a woman who repels an attempted rape in her own home. In the process she manages to “capture” the rapist. She is going to call the police but he points out that due to the circumstances he will get off. So now she thinks about killing him and burying his body in the back yard. Her housemates come home and the moral dilemma continues until:
He is revealed as a SERIAL rapist and therefore can be convicted for other rapes so now she can call the cops
I agree 100%. That cop-out ruined the book for me totally.
You’re correct that “These Three” made the “dirty little secret” one of heterosexual lust but the remake under the correct title (made in 1961, not 1951) restored the original plot.
There is a film called Lucky Lady starring Burt Reynolds, Liza Manelli and Gene Hackman (in my opinion their peaks) that had wonderful potential. It was a wonderful movie for about 3/4 of the film. It deals with a group of losers smuggling booze from Mexico during the '20s.
It has a wonderful “down” ending in which the loveable losers are defeated by the bad guys and… but I won’t go any further. Anyway, apparently the studio didn’t like this, because after the down ending everybody gets better and pulls together and defeats the bad guys and lives happily ever after.
If you ever see the film watch what it could have been instead of what it became.
To the mods: Yes, I know I didn’t use a spoiler box, but I sort of see talking about the end of this film is a public service not a spoiler.
TV
should read “(…at their peaks)”
The Bad Seed
Where Rhoda is struck by lightning at the end instead of surviving and having her mother die. Not to mention the corny ending where the cast bow like at the end of a play and it shows the mother spanking Rhoda.
I watched this whole stupid movie waiting for some F-14/ Japanese Zero combat and ass-whupping. The ending was a real “WTF?!” moment for me!
No, I’m afraid this goes a wee bit further. Most people don’t need transfusion - certainly not for ordinary life. But everyone gets cut, some people quite badly, simply from the hazards of living. Did these aliens never have any wars? Did all their soldiers kill themselves after receiving any kind of wound? They never go into these questions, and leave us hanging a bit.
Don’t get me wrong; it was a good episode and a neat idea. I just wish they’d gone a lot more in-depth on it. It winds up seeming like a very suicidal religion.
How about The Scout ? Throughout the movie we see foreshadowing of something going on. The Steve Nebraska character is obviously troubled. We see him give some very strange answers on a test that looked similiar to the Thematic Apperception Test. There’s a scene in the movie when Nebraska is watching King Kong on television, and there are parallels between Nebraska and Kong too close to ignore.
Then at the end of the movie Nebraska freaks and climbs up onto the roof at Yankee Stadium, followed by the scout who recruited him.
Then, when I’m thinking here it comes, Fraser and Brooks are coming off the roof onto home plate Like Kong came off the Empire State Building, Nebraska decides he will pitch after all, a helicopter comes and lowers him to the field like a mechanical deus ex machina, and he pitches to victory. All the clues pointed the other way.
I thought that they oppossed deep cuts. As in, if the entire skin is broken through, then the soul will flee. A small cut isn’t bad, because most of the skin is still intact. And yes, I imagine that, if they had a war, and soldiers had deep wounds, they would not be healed, and some might kill themselves.