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I finally got around to finish watching it ... without any spoilers, I can say that it ended much, much better than it began. The last episode was written by King himself, and it shows. (For those who haven't seen it, the last episode is essentially a new ending to the story, though it shares elements from the book.)
The series as a whole definitely had serious problems (especially the writing, editing, and direction), but there were some decent performances despite some pretty lousy casting choices. (I didn't care for the actors they got for Fran Goldsmith, Nick Andros, or Lloyd Henreid... on the other hand, the ones they got for Julie Lawry, Larry Underwood, and Flagg were excellent, and Greg Kinnear was surprisingly good as Glen Bateman.)
Mainly, I took issue with the writing leaving out whole portions of the story that were critical to character development and/or the story making sense, and also the choice to change certain story elements -- not always for the better. Also, there were times when I thought that it would make no sense to someone who either hadn't read the book or watched the 90's version of the miniseries -- which I still think is superior, but this version just came up a bit in my opinion, mostly on the basis of the last episode.
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21st Century mishmash of celebrities vying for screen time. This version was sadly not worth the time spent watching it. The previous screen version was far better, and there's no comparison to the book. The twist at the end didn't save it but made it possible for a future resurrection… in case anyone cares.
The Stand is one of King's best stories. Trying to bring the depth and breadth of his work to a small screen rarely seems to work out well.
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bfd wrote:
21st Century mishmash of celebrities vying for screen time. This version was sadly not worth the time spent watching it. The previous screen version was far better, and there's no comparison to the book. The twist at the end didn't save it but made it possible for a future resurrection… in case anyone cares.
The Stand is one of King's best stories. Trying to bring the depth and breadth of his work to a small screen rarely seems to work out well.
I think the big problem with this latest miniseries was, ironically, trying to fit it into the 9 one-hour episodes format. They left out quite a lot of stuff, yet curiously spent way too much time on other stuff. That's as compared to the 90's miniseries, which while slow in sections, never cheated us out of important scenes or information; and both the characters and their motivations were fairly fully realized. Though it had its faults, I still consider the 90's version very, very good.
As for the "celebrities", I'm not sure to whom you're referring. None of the actors were really A-list, so far as I know, with the possible exception of Amber Heard ... who, while very attractive, isn't that great an actress. (By way of comparison, in a couple of the earlier episodes, there's also Heather Graham -- who is not only very attractive, but actually quite a good actress too.) There was Whoopi, but I don't think her part was particularly large in this, and the others aren't exactly widely known, at least I hadn't heard of a number of them.
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I was very disappointed. But then I usually am with any of King's works on screen.
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PeterB wrote:
I finally got around to finish watching it ... without any spoilers, I can say that it ended much, much better than it began. The last episode was written by King himself, and it shows. (For those who haven't seen it, the last episode is essentially a new ending to the story, though it shares elements from the book.)
The series as a whole definitely had serious problems (especially the writing, editing, and direction), but there were some decent performances despite some pretty lousy casting choices. (I didn't care for the actors they got for Fran Goldsmith, Nick Andros, or Lloyd Henreid... on the other hand, the ones they got for Julie Lawry, Larry Underwood, and Flagg were excellent, and Greg Kinnear was surprisingly good as Glen Bateman.)
Mainly, I took issue with the writing leaving out whole portions of the story that were critical to character development and/or the story making sense, and also the choice to change certain story elements -- not always for the better. Also, there were times when I thought that it would make no sense to someone who either hadn't read the book or watched the 90's version of the miniseries -- which I still think is superior, but this version just came up a bit in my opinion, mostly on the basis of the last episode.
Ars Technica's reviewer takes essentially a completely opposite view of it than you do: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/02/r...e-landing/
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N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=PeterB]
I finally got around to finish watching it ... without any spoilers, I can say that it ended much, much better than it began. The last episode was written by King himself, and it shows. (For those who haven't seen it, the last episode is essentially a new ending to the story, though it shares elements from the book.)
The series as a whole definitely had serious problems (especially the writing, editing, and direction), but there were some decent performances despite some pretty lousy casting choices. (I didn't care for the actors they got for Fran Goldsmith, Nick Andros, or Lloyd Henreid... on the other hand, the ones they got for Julie Lawry, Larry Underwood, and Flagg were excellent, and Greg Kinnear was surprisingly good as Glen Bateman.)
Mainly, I took issue with the writing leaving out whole portions of the story that were critical to character development and/or the story making sense, and also the choice to change certain story elements -- not always for the better. Also, there were times when I thought that it would make no sense to someone who either hadn't read the book or watched the 90's version of the miniseries -- which I still think is superior, but this version just came up a bit in my opinion, mostly on the basis of the last episode.
Ars Technica's reviewer takes essentially a completely opposite view of it than you do: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/02/r...e-landing/
Wow, I think she's completely missing the point. Most of the reviewers on iMDB echo exactly what I've said, that using a flashback approach in the earlier episodes was a huge mistake, that while some of the casting choices were good, a number were miscast, and that the writing is such that you don't really care that much about what happens to the characters.
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