02-14-2021, 05:07 AM
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.