8 hours........M O O N, that spells numbbuttitis!
Still one of my favorite adaptations.
I saw it before I read the book (seems I misunderstood what the book was about for a lot of years, so I didn't have any interest in reading it, but the previews for the miniseries piqued my interest).

And I can't complain about Hollywood "getting it wrong" because King wrote the teleplay!

I flipped past and watched a few minutes this weekend. I read the book before the miniseries came out, but I remember thinking it was pretty faithful when I watched the first run.

The hardest part was the ending, which I found to be anticlimactic in the book as well.

The cast suited me pretty well. Except I had read where King wrote the bad guy with William Devane in his head, and that made me picture him as Devane as well.

I always pictured Clint Eastwood as Flagg.

But I strongly suspect that it was not King's preference to change the ax to a crochet mallet but rather the wishes of network censors. I'm a little torn about this. On one hand, this mini-series is more faithful to the original novel than Kubrick's movie. Also, establishing the father as a sympathetic character BEFORE the family moves to the Overlook Hotel is crucial. You get the impression that Jack Nicholson is already mentally unstable and it doesn't take much to push him over the edge once he moves to Colorado.

However, as much as it digresses from King, I find Kubrick's film better and more frightening than the mini-series.

You mean a croquet mallet, right?

I think he also meant "The Shining", too?

James is correct about the spelling and David is correct in that I confused the Shining TV miniseries with The Stand, which is what this post was REALLY about. The Stand miniseries was good, but I find it interesting that they cast a handsome actor to play the role of an overweight loser...

Yeah....M-O-O-N spells WTF?

I loved the mini-series The Stand. I've still got the original broadcast on tape (and it's a damn worn out tape too). I read the book probably a week or two after watching the mini, and found them both (except for some awkward acting in a couple of scenes) great!

The choice to play Harold Lauder was pretty odd, I'll admit. It would have worked better had Parker Lewis* been wearing some sort of fat suit at the start, one that slowly thins out as he gets more exercise and becomes better looking (as I recall, under the fat and acne, 'Hawk' was supposed to be at least marginally handsome). At least they gave him some fake acne to start with.

This was where I first saw Gary Sinise, though, and I've been watching his career ever since. He has become one of my favourite actors!

I think this was also what 'redeemed' Rob Lowe in the eyes of many people, giving him his career back.

* Now there's an early nineties reference for ya! I was gonna say 'gumby', but I didn't know if anyone would get that reference-within-a-reference or not

Because of the mini,i read the book.I had to read 2 vesions of the book,cause the later one had more pages.
Loved the book and the mini. Whenever I see people with the flu in summertime,I think of this story.

There is no way Molly Ringwald is Fran.... everyone else was fine, and Rob Lowe as Nick and Gary Sinise as Stu Redman were perfect!

That's almost wistful sounding...

The opening scene as the camera floats through the halls of the lab, while "Don't Fear The Reaper" plays, is about the creepiest thing I've ever seen on-screen.

And watching Law & Order: CI is kinda funny, imagining the LT in a jean jacket with a gray-haired Laura San Giacomo by his side.

I loved The Stand when I first read it - I was fifteen I think and it turned me into a great fan of Stephen King's work. I haven't read the revised longer version - should I? It seems to me that an editor usually has reasons for excisions and I worry that a bloated version of the novel might change my mind about its quality.

I saw the mini series a long time ago and thought it suffered from what a lot of these things suffer - the translation into 'reality' underlines the absurdity of some things that his prose style enables you to ignore in the book.

Yes, Ian, read the extended version. I found it worth my while, any road.



Ed, go back and re-read The Shining. It was a croquet mallet in the book.

Whenever I read the book, for weeks afterward, just hearing someone sneeze makes me jittery.

Agree on all three comments there, and I'd add Ray Walston as Glen Bateman was not only perfect, but was who I had in my head when I was reading the book for the first time. Matt Frewer and Miguel Ferrer were also exceptionally well-cast.

I read the book for the first time as a high-school sophmore in 1989. I had a speeding ticket, and had to go to traffic court, where the long waits and delays were legendary. I brought the biggest book my brother owned because I knew I'd be finished with a smaller one before the day was over.

By the time my case was called, I had finished the entire first book, and was hooked. The next day, I started feeling sour, and a couple of days later was diagnosed with the flu.

Now, I know I spent the day in DMV court surrounded by any number of people infected with the flu, but there was this little nagging thought in the back of my mind, "The book is causing this! You must stop reading before IT KILLS YOU!!!"

The Stand (both versions) is my favorite Stephen King book and I think that the mini was a very good adaptation. All of the casting worked for me witht he exception of Molly Ringwald. I loved Gary Sinise (sp) and Matt Freur (sp) as the Trashcan Man. In the case of Flagg, I always pictured Sam Neill in the role I guess I had just seen Omen: Final Conflict when I read the original version of the Stand.