Review

 

Totally Biased Fan Review:

All the horrible King adaptations over the years (The Running Man, IT and all those Children of the Corn sequels) had me ready to be disappointed by The Stand.

A story of this epic length isn't easy to bring to the screen. There's no way to condense it into a feature film so you're left with a miniseries as the only feasible medium. Then you've got to make the R rated moments into PG moments without the story losing all its juice. Unlike the above projects, King was directly involved with The Stand as an executive producer, screenwriter, and actor. This collaboration helped make The Stand as faithful an adaptation as network censors would allow and the best television adaptation of a King novel that's ever been done.

A mishap at a biological weapons lab unleashes a deadly virus nicknamed "Captain Trips." As it spreads, the United States becomes a graveyard inhabited by a few isolated survivors immune to the disease. They gravitate towards either the side of good or evil, driven by vivid dreams of two rival leaders in the aftermath of the plague. Gradually, they mobillize into two opposing camps; the good folks rally around Mother Abigail in Boulder, Colorado, while the bad apples flock to demonic despot Randall Flagg in Las Vegas. Soon, the stage is set for a battle of epic proportions.

When they cast this miniseries they didn't go for "the names" as much as "the talent." King's vivid characters were well served by an amazing cast which included a virtually unknown Gary Sinise. Sometimes when you bring great actors together a synergy develops which spurs the performances to greater heights. There was definitely some of that mojo in The Stand.

The Good:

• Despite Corin being way too good looking to play the Harold Lauder we know from the book, he nailed the insecurity and pompousness that was the essence of Harold's personality.
• Gary Sinise - always awesome (let's forget Reindeer Games happened).
• Jamey Sheridan as Randall Flagg.
• Kick ass supporting cast - Ray Walston, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Miguel Ferrer, Bill Fagerbakke, Shawnee Smith, Matt Frewer.
• Great cameos - Kathy Bates, Ed Harris and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
• Suberb production design - sets, makeup and special effects are very good for the time period this was produced.
• Cool soundtrack - "Don't Fear The Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult in the opening sequence and "Boogie Fever" by The Sylvers in Harold's "Don't mess with my disco, Nadine!" scene were especially apropos.
• Rob Lowe's bare-chested wood cutting scene - thank you to whoever threw that in there.

The Bad:

• Corin's fake looking zits, I guess they were trying to be faithful to the book and make Harold look ugly - didn't work.
• Messing with the Larry Underwood backstory. Larry became shallow and insignificant in this adaptation and Joe/Leo storyline was noticebly absent.
• Not Molly Ringwald's best work, her performance was noticably flat.
• Where the hell was "The Kid?" He was standout character in the book and shouldn't have been cut from the movie.

The Ugly:

• The only ugliness has been the fact that until recently this movie was hard to come by on DVD. The original DVD release sold out quickly and was going for over $50 on the secondhand market. The new collector's set is still about $30 (but worth it).

Recommendation:

Whether you're a Stephen King fan, a Corin Nemec fan or you just appreciate a great film, this is a must buy. The collector's set currently available contains The Stand, The Langoliers (also pretty good) and The Golden Years (ho, hum).

Trivia

Corin had the flu when he auditioned for the role of Harold Lauder in The Stand. Besides the fact that he was sweating from a fever, he had little hope of landing the role since he didn't fit the physical description of the character. After conducting auditions in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, LA, San Francisco and Toronto the filmmakers could not find the right actor and Mick Garris persuaded Stephen King to take another look at Corin for the part.

In the first scene of the second episode, director Mick Garris had Harold Lauder (Corin Nemec) driving a Cadillac to show that Harold wasn't above using the deaths to his own advantage.

This was the third time Corin worked with Ray Walston, who many will recognize from his memorable role as Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Previously, Mr. Walston appeared with Corin on the Season One finale of Parker Lewis Can't Lose as Augie the janitor. Walston also played Steven Stayner's grandfather in I Know My First Name is Steven.

While already an respected theatre actor who had earned acclaim for his peformance and direction in Of Mice and Men (1992), it was Gary Sinise's starring role in The Stand that brought him to the public's notice.

Gary Sinise and Ray Walston previously appeared together in Of Mice and Men (1992), and their characters in each share some parallels. Stu Redman (Sinise) travels back home with the mentally retarded Tom Cullen. George Milton (Sinise again) also travels with the mentally retarded Lenny. Crooks (Walston) has a sentimental attachment to his dog, just as Glen has an attachment to the dog Kojak.

Actors initially considered for the part of Randall Flagg: Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum and James Woods.

Miguel Ferrer originally wanted to play the role of Randall Flagg, but Stephen King wanted someone that the audience wasn't overly familiar with. After Ferrer heard that his friend Jamey Sheridan had been offered the part, but wasn't sure it was something he wanted to do, Ferrer convinced him to take it.

Rae Flowers, played by the uncredited Kathy Bates, was originally a man in the novel. Bates had previously won an Oscar for her role as Annie Wilkes in Stephen King's Misery (1990).

The role of Judge Richard Farris was originally to have been played by Moses Gunn who was forced to back out due to health reasons, and Ossie Davis was brought in instead.

The network honchos at ABC originally wanted Rob Lowe to play Larry Underwood.

Mike Lookinland, the man who sentries along with Stephen King near the end, is addressed by Stu as Bobby. Mike played Bobby Brady on the The Brady Bunch.

Much of the movie was filmed on the old Osmond sound stages in Orem, Utah.

Originally, parts of the miniseries were to be filmed on location in Boulder, Colorado. After the passage of Colorado Amendment 2, which nullified local gay rights laws, the production was moved to Utah in protest

The art directors needed to figure out how a Magic 8-Ball worked for a certain scene. They called the toy company who makes them, but the company refused to disclose the secret.

Randall Flagg says, "Pleased to meet you, Lloyd. Hope you guess my name," to which a confused and starving Lloyd responds, "Huh?" Randall Flagg responds with, "Just a little classical reference." This refers to the song "Sympathy for the Devil" by The Rolling Stones, and maybe the novel "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail A. Bulgakov.

The scene in the Plaza lobby where Trashcan stumbles in was actually filmed at the Stardust Resort & Casino.

For years it was planned to make this story into a theatrical film, directed by George A. Romero. Stephen King did many drafts to make it of a suitable length for a feature film, and when he couldn't get it short enough they considered breaking it into two separate films before finally letting Rospo Pallenberg write a draft. But before they could make it, King was offered the chance to make this mini-series for television.

The Texas State Patrolman named Joe Bob is played by John Bloom, who originated the character of Joe Bob Briggs on television.

The poem referenced by General Stuckey that includes the lines "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" are from the poem "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats.

The Las Vegas casino/hotel where Randall Flagg and his minions stay is a redress of "Biff's" casino/hotel in the alternate 1985 time line from Back to the Future Part II (1989).

After Stu breaks his leg, the cane he is using is the same cane used by the antagonist in Stephen King's "Storm of the Century".

The radio station in Arnette mentions a song by Kathi Kamen Goldmark. The real Kathi is a literary escort and founder of the all-author rock band ‘The Rock Bottom Remainders', which Stephen King is a member of. Goldmark is also the founder of ‘Don't Quit Your Day Job' Records.

Flagg mentions putting "Russ Dorr" in charge of a scouting mission. This is the name of a friend of Stephen King's in Maine; King thanks him in the beginning of his novel Pet Sematary.

Stephen King's favorite character in both the book and the mini-series is Lloyd Henreid (Miguel Ferrer).

The shot where the car nearly runs over Nick Andros' (Rob Lowe) head was shot in reverse.

The shot with Randall Flagg's hand bending backwards was done by using makeup on the palm of Jamey Sheridan's left hand to make it look like the back of his right hand.

Cameo: Tom Holland plays Carl Hough (the guy working with Trashcan Man)

Cameo: John Landis plays Russ Dorr (the guy with the beard out in the desert)

Cameo: Sam Raimi plays Bobby Terry (the guy who kills Judge Farris)

The scene with Glen Bateman (Ray Walston) speaking to the cockroach is exclusive to the mini-series, and was based on a similar scene in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957)

Randall Flagg first appeared in the novel The Stand, and went on to appear in several other Stephen King books, most notably The Eyes of the Dragon and The Dark Tower. He goes by several aliases, often identified by the initials R.F.

The book features many references to, and similarities with, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. One less obvious reference may be the name Nick Andros. Middle-Earth features an island called Cair Andros.

Articles

The Stand: A top-notch Stephen King adaptation - Laramie Movie Scope One of my favorite Stephen King adaptations is "The Stand," a huge book adapted to a six-hour TV miniseries in 1994. I watched the whole thing last night and this ...	The Stand Review - Film Written Prior to the release of It, The Stand was my favourite King novel, a gargantuan effort which weaves a huge cast of disparate characters into an epic tale of the ...	King of the Road - Entertainment Weekly Stephen King creates ''The Stand'' miniseries -- Sixteen years after it's publication, the renown author finally brings his end-of-the-world story to TV In a control room at the Utah Power ...
The Stand Review - Entertainment Weekly One of the most enjoyable things about Stephen King's The Stand is its sheer messy sprawl. Spread out over four nights for a total of eight hours, this adaptation of ...	TV Weekend; A Plague and Its Effects - The New York Times Stephen King, master of supernatural shtick and Armageddon horrors, is recklessly flirting with terminal bloat. After an extraordinary string of best sellers and assorted movies based on his stories, the ...	The Stand Review - Variety Filmed in Utah, Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania by Laurel Entertainment in association with Greengrass Prods. Executive producers, Richard P. Rubinstein, Stephen King; supervising producer, Peter McIntosh; producer, Mitchell Galin; ...
The Stand: A top-notch Stephen King adaptation - Laramie Movie Scope The Stand Review - Film Written King of the Road - Entertainment Weekly The Stand Review - Entertainment Weekly TV Weekend; A Plague and Its Effects - The New York Times The Stand Review - Variety