Stephen King's The Stand

Rating:
Summary: from interesting to boring...what happened???
Review: I just finished watching The Stand, all 6 hours of it, in two nights, (two disk set) and came away feeling disappointed. It was like two movies spliced together.
The begining of the movie was strong, with a story line not too unbelievable. With a man-made super virus or bacteria gone wrong and horribly slipping into the general public and erraticating 99% of the population. From there it is all down hill.
The movie then goes into a good vs. evil mode, with the survivors of this horrible plague having some sort of mass hypnotic dream about an elderly woman in Nebraska, telling them to come to her, and an evil being hanging around the fringes of the dreams and in these survivors lifes.
The story line then becomes uninteresting with the "characters" and I mean unbelievable characters, traveling to Nebraska and then onto Colorado.

From the deaf mute meeting the mentally handicapped man, and teaming up, to the schitsophrenic woman leaving New York with her fellow male traveling companion, then abandoning him, because she has a dream about this fringe devil-man telling her to come to him. She is all into being evil and doing harm to everyone, but when she finally meets this demon that she has been in the service of, and in some sort of love with, she is put off by him and kills herself. Stink, stink stink.

The whole good versus evil and religous undertone of the second half of the movie is bad. The worst scene of all was the end with God's hand appearing in downtown Vegas, and igniting a nuclear warhead that has been brought into town by an evil pyro-lunatic. Thus erraticating all the evil people that the plague didn't get, and oh, yeah, the evil demon too.

One question for Mr. King. How does a nuclear bomb destroy an evil, underworld, supernatural, being who is not mortal???
Like I said, stink, stink, stink.

King should have stayed with the plague plot line, and expanded it to include what would have really happened in this kind of event. Like fresh food or hording of supplies and the struggles with the horrid realities of dealing with the thousands/millions of dead bodies in any city. The lice, flys, rats and unclean living conditions that would have brought on a real plague, and panic. Not just throwing the dead bodies out of a house you now claim as your own, or moving them to the side of the road. This movie also never touches what happened to the rest of the world.

This is a six hour movie, and there are plenty of plots and sub-plots. I gave this a two star rating only because of the interesting beginning and the fine actors in this mini-series.
Reccomend one time rental for the Stephen King fan, but this fan will not own a copy.

Rating:
Summary: EPIC HORROR
Review: STEPHEN KING'S THE STAND IS A WONDERFUL EPIC HORROR TALE ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD. THE CHARACTERS ARE WELL-DEVELOPED, THE VILLAIN IS TRULY, SUBTLY SCARY AND LIKE LAS VEGAS.

WHILE THE END IS A BIT DISAPPOINTING, THE OTHER 5 HOURS OR SO ARE GREAT!

Rating:
Summary: Greatness Has a Name
Review: First off, I'd like to say I have never read the book. But I will soon. Even though, I absolutely LOVED this movie. The acting was amazing, especially the performances by Gary Sinise (can that guy play a bad role? Knock on wood) and Rob Lowe, supposedly in a comeback role. It was probably very hard for poor Rob to play a deaf mute! Anyway, the story goes that a virus created by the Army gets loose at it's base and spreads through the United States. Only a few people survive, and the ones that do are separated into two groups. One group is called in dreams by Mother Abigail (played by Ruby Dee) and the other is called by Randall Flagg, the devil (played by Jamey Sheridan, who did an awesome job). Mother Abigail's group is led by Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Adam Storke, and Rob Lowe (although he didn't lead the group, he played an incredibly important part as a retarded man named Tom Cullen. I'm talking about Bill Fagerbakke). The bad guys, led by Flagg, flock to Las Vegas (yes, Sin City itself) and the good guys go to Boulder, Colorado. I won't give away the ending, but it is truly a wonderful movie with many twists and surprises. It made me jump, scream, say aww, and at times cry ew! It is incredible!

Rating:
Summary: Never read the Book.
Review: I know that if I had read the book this movie would have been better to me. I have always been a big fan of Stepehen Kings movies but I thought the acting and characters were awefull in this film. From what Ive heard when talking to people that have read the book they say that the onscreen performances in this movie are nearly perfect. So while I didnt like the devil character he may very well have been doing a superb job. So if you read the book you should definately purchase this DVD becuase you will most likely love the adaptation. If you havent read the book this movie may come off very cheesy.

Rating:
Summary: Good Movie----One of King's best film adaptations
Review: I'll be honest. I rented this movie expecting it to be terrible. I thought that mediocre would be a miracle in regards to this story. I didn't think it could be done in a miniseries format, or even a movie format due to the length of the tale.
I was dead wrong, and was pleasantly surprised. They were able to keep all the important scenes (and plenty of unimportant yet character building scenes) from the book while still keeping it fairly short (in comparison to the book). Still probably a 2 session movie, but considering the length of the book its pretty amazing they were able to keep it as short as it was and tell the story so well.

The acting in this miniseries is very good, especially from Sinise, Sheridan, and Faggerbakke. Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Corin Nemec and Laura san Giacomo also are great in the movie. Its practically a who's who of late 80's up and comers.

The casting is great, most of the characters look close to how I pictured them when I read the book, and in a few instances, I think the actor was almost born for his part. Specifically Matt Frewer as the Trash Can Man and Miguel Ferrer as Lloyd. Both gave excellent performances that instead of changing how I thought of their characters only added to what I already had pictured in my mind.

But aside from surprisingly good acting and miracle casting, this movie did a great job adapting a very long and difficult novel. The Stand is NOT a horror story but rather a contemporary one with some elements of science fiction. The story centers on the survivors of a plague which kills 99% of the USA population. Most of them begin having pseudo-psychic dreams of either a motherly woman in Nebraska or a Mysterious male figure in the deserts of Nevada. Eventually the survivors come together as two communities lead by these semi-religious figures and the story goes from there. As you could imagine, traveling across the country when 99% of the population is gone could make for a movie in and of itself, but The Stand also covers how the characters set up a new society and what they eventually decide to do about the rival community ran by the bad man from their dreams. I won't ramble on since a lot of the reviews mention the story, plus you could look up the book for more info, the movie follows it pretty closely.

Its a story of good and evil set in a future we can all imagine but hope never happens. Many have called it King's greatest work, and I think it is certainly in the top 5. However, a title that it does deserve is best screen adaptation (probably a tie with Kubrick's adaptation of "the shining") because this DVD is fantastic and won't dissapoint.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: The world ends not with a bang, but with a sniffle.....
Review: Okay, I'll admit it: I'm not much of a Stephen King fan. Horror has never been one of my favorite genres; you might say I even go out of my way to avoid it. Nevertheless, I've not only just started reading King's "The Eyes of the Dragon," but I also recently watched Artisan Home Entertainment's 2-DVD set of "Stephen King's The Stand."

I haven't read either edition of the novel (yes, there are two versions: a slightly truncated 1978 edition and a 1990 "Uncut and Unabridged" re-release), nor had I seen the ABC miniseries when it aired 10 years ago, so I had no idea what to expect. But when my boyfriend purchased this after we watched "The Return of the King" at the movies, I knew I had two choices. Either I could sit in front of my computer playing "Star Wars Monopoly" or sit next to him and watch the first two parts of the four-part miniseries. Even though the idea of sitting in front of my PC and buying Star Wars real estate seemed mighty appealing, I opted to watch at least part of "The Stand".

To my surprise, I found myself enjoying the first episode, "The Plague," during which a genetically engineered strain of influenza escapes from an Army lab and first kills most of the technicians, lab workers, and soldiers inside the Project Blue facility, then is unleashed upon an unsuspecting nation when a guard panics and spreads the virus when he attempts to flee with his wife and daughter. Within weeks, 99 percent of the world population is dead from the disease nicknamed "Captain Trips."

Now, in most stories this would be pretty much it; I mean, where can you go when you have killed off most of humanity? King's answer is that the end of the world is only the start of the story. Most of the novel, if I interpret the miniseries correctly, deals with the remaining one percent that is somehow left untouched by "Captain Trips." What is left of humanity divides itself into two opposing camps.

On one side, there are those who follow the Light side as personified by 106-year-old Mother Abigail (Ruby Dee) who lives on a small Nebraska farm. Through dreams, she gathers to her side Stu Redman (Gary Sinise), Larry Underwood (Adam Storke), Fran Goldsmith (Molly Ringwald), Glen Bateman (Ray Walston), Judge Farris (Ossie Davis), Tom Cullen (Bill Fagerbakke), and the deaf-mute Nick Andros (Rob Lowe). Guided, Mother Abigail says, by God, she leads this brave band to Boulder, Colorado, where they start trying to rebuild American society from scratch.

But where there is Light, there is Darkness. In this case, its human-like face is that of the demonic Randall Flagg ( Jamey Sheridan of Law & Order: Criminal Intent) who can change his form at will and yet exudes a certain charisma that attracts many followers, including Lloyd Henreid (Miguel Ferrer), the insane firebug Trashcan Man (Matt Frewer), the nasty and mean Julie Lawry (Shawnee Smith), a character I found totally repulsive (she tries to seduce Nick in a small town in Oklahoma, then she torments the mildly retarded Tom when Nick rejects her advances). This rotten bunch sets up shop in "Sin City" itself, Las Vegas, and under Flagg's leadership, promptly begins planning the demise of the Boulder Free Zone. This, of course, means that conflict is inevitable, and this time it is for keeps.
Even though King had to compress some of his huge novel to fit ABC's alloted time slot, and some characters are composites, The Stand is a well-written adaptation of a HUGE novel. Director Mick Garris keeps the story moving at a steady and nail biting pace. Even though there are a few spots where I wanted to go "Ewwwwwww!" the fact that the miniseries was made for broadcast television keeps the "Yuck!" factor to a minimum without lessening the power of the original horror classic's storyline.
As I said earlier, I am not as fond of King or his style of stories as my boyfriend is, yet not only did I watch the first episode, but I also sat through the entire 366 minute running time over two nights. I found it was enteraining, scary at times, and even thought-provoking. At least as far as the genetically engineered flu virus, it might leave you wondering "Could THIS really happen?"

Rating:
Summary: King's "The Stand" sets up final conflict between good, evil
Review: Hailed as one of the best fantasy/horror novels ever written, Stephen King's The Stand has been published in two different versions -- a slimmed down original edition in 1978 and a slightly updated and unabridged version in 1991. And although both stick to the same story -- a U.S. government-created strain of the flu wipes out 99% of humanity and the survivors join two opposing camps in the ultimate face-off between good and evil -- they differ somewhat, particularly at the very end.

Of all of King's novels, The Stand is the one most of his readers ask about or comment on, and until 1994, when ABC commissioned a miniseries based on this sprawling opus, one question always was "Will there be a movie based on this one?" (King replied in the foreword to the "uncut and unabridged" edition that he thought there might be...)

Unlike most of King's novels, the sheer scope of the novel guaranteed that The Stand would have to be a miniseries made for TV. To have compressed the 1,000-plus pages into a three-hour movie would have been impossible without deleting many characters and situations, a very risky proposition since The Stand is to King's legions of fans what The Lord of the Rings is to Tolkien's readers. And to have hired someone else to adapt it from book to teleplay would have been a risky proposition, so ABC asked King to take the writing reins.

Happily, the 1994 "Stephen King's The Stand" turned out to be a marvelous miniseries, and while it did not break any Nielsen ratings as "Alex Haley's Roots" did in 1977, it did fairly well and earned many good reviews.

The Artisan Home Entertainment Special Edition DVD of "Stephen King's The Stand" presents the complete miniseries on two DVDs, with The Plague and The Dreams on Disc One and The Betrayal and The Stand on Disc Two. Stripped of commercials and station identification/local news promos, the eight-hour running time is pared down to 366 minutes.

Parts One and Two (The Plague, The Dreams) deal with the accidental release of a super-deadly strain of the flu from a secret military laboratory known as Project Blue. Although the base's security attempts to lock down the facility before the virus escapes, one guard and panics attempts to flee, unwittingly infecting his wife and daughter and beginning a chain reaction that will lead to the deaths of millions. Even so, a handful of people survive, and as they try to cope with the disaster and move on, they are guided by their dreams to join either the evil Randall Flagg or the good 106-year-old Mother Abigail. While Flagg sets up his police-state in Sin City itself, Las Vegas, the good guys (and gals) set up the Boulder Free Zone in Colorado...but this is only the setup for the darker conflict to come.

Parts Three and Four (The Betrayal, The Stand) describe the apocalyptic conflict between good and evil as Flagg's people race to acquire weapons of mass destruction to assure their demonic master's victory over the power of the Light side represented by the Boulder Free Zone. Flagg, who was seen only in a few brief scenes in the first half, gets more airtime as the story finally focuses on the final conflict. It's an old storytelling technique but it works well here, and Jamey Sheridan (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) plays the evil demon with a mixture of charm and menace.

Despite the leeway allowed by the miniseries format and unusually open-mindedness from ABC's Standards and Practices division, the teleplay more closely follows the 1978 version rather the 1991 edition, particularly in the ending. King has to compress some parts here, combine some characters there to make the miniseries flow seamlessly and not go over budget (If ABC had commissioned a 12-hour teleplay, maybe the condensing would not have been necessary, but that's Monday-morning quarterbacking 10 years after the show aired). Even so, The Stand captures the spirit of the novel brilliantly.

Credit is also due to director Mick Garris, who not only got great performances from such actors as Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Jamey Sheridan, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Ray Walston and Rob Lowe, but also kept the huge storyline from dragging or getting too heavy-handed on the gross-out scale.

Even though Artisan did give The Stand the Special Edition treatment by adding such features as 2.0 Dolby Surround sound, a "Making of" featurette and commentary by King, Garris, some of the major cast and Editor Pat McMahon (just to name a few of the extras), it doesn't have easily accessed subtitles. It does have closed captions, but for people with older models of TVs and non-standard players such as Xbox or Playstation 2 game systems that can also play DVDs this is not a very helpful option.

Rating:
Summary: A great adaption incredible in the mind and on the screen
Review: Now i LOVE the stand ( the novel) and after several dissapointing movie remakes of Incredible novels i was more then a little hessatint to buying this but i was wrong if you have read "the stand" and loved it i'm pretty sure you will love this movie the acting superb this book is sad,humerous(at times) and horror all mixed together and they were able to keep all of those things that made the book great and put it on the big screen. All the key moments that made this an amazing piece of literature is on the screen also. I feel the actors who played there characters felt them and could relate to them. i can't say enough good things about this if you are reading this thining over the pros anf cons of buying this amazing title think no longer and buy this. Now lets not get carried away this is only an opinion but i think this is one of the few S.K. movie adaptions to be proud of.

Rating:
Summary: Great adaptation
Review: THE STAND is still my favorite King book. It seems that the movies in which King collaborated turned out the worst. I was very fearful when I heard that he was involved in this one but the result was a blockbuster. The actors and actresses were just perfect for the part, in particular Gary Sinise (Stu), Bill Fagerbakke (Tom), Adam Storke (Larry), Molly Ringwald (Fran) and Jamey Sheridan (Flagg).

I guess you have preconceptions as to what people are like after reading a book and in this case it was Nadine, Harold and Nick that did not match my own. But the story and its presentation is brilliant - a long horror flick with just the right amount of edginess. I only wished it had been eight hours and included a lot more of the desert crossing with Tom and Stu or the pre- Boulder days.

This is a real treasure, one that will stand up to the tests of time.

Rating:
Summary: An Epic
Review: The Stand is packed with some pretty good stars and I think that this movie did so well because of the the actors. This movie begins with the beginning of the end of the world and the coming of the "bad man" or the anti-christ. A engineered virus is released and spread across the country, attempts to contain it had failed. Faced with the reality of the end of the world the movie focuses on a select few people who are somehow immune. The first part of the movie introduces us to the hardships that these people endure and the friendships they develop, the second part focuses on betrayl and death, and the third part focuses on war. All in all a good movie. The movie does last approx. 6 hours, but it starts up pretty quick and can usually hold your interest for that long.