It's been many years since I read The Stand but much of the story remained in my head, mostly because King focused on the characters (as he always does) so intently. As a result, their stories, and character growth were pivotal to the plot development and their actions were the result of that growth.
There's little of that here and this incarnation of The Stand ends up, like nearly all of King's adaptations, to be shallow and a pale shadow of the original.
That said, it is relatively harmless and forgetable and nowhere near the disaster that, say, The Dark Tower was.
But that is also its problem. It is too forgettable and light. There's none of the depth of the novel and the characters are treated poorly, given flashback scenes to inform the viewer of their beginnings, rather than a simple linear time frame as written in the book. As a result, their motivations aren't always clear in the beginning and they all end up as generic "good" or "bad" guys fairly early on. There's little nuance to any of them and some of them simply become annoying as a result of the simplicity.
But as I said, its not the worst King adaptation by far. I'll have to rewatch the other version at some time to see how they dealt with things, but I don't recall it being so... bland.
Then there is the serialisation itself. There are nine episodes. There should only be eight. The story is done by the end of the eighth episode. But here we have a pointless extra episode that is so meaningless it boggles belief that they actually thought it was a good idea.
Stu and Franny go on a road trip. No, really! All to show that Flagg isn't dead and give them that ludicrous last scene involving indigenous Amazonians, or somesuch.
When I reached episode eight and the story was done, I remember thinking "That ending was a little blunt, but oh well!" only to discover there was another episode to come. I imagined it would focus on Stu and Tom surviving the winter in the mountains and end with a happy reunion in Boulder. But no... good vs evil road trip with a hint of ET saying "Be Good!" running through it. What rubbish!
Overall, the show is passable, but if you do decide to give it a whirl, skip the last episode. It's utter contrived nonsense.
SUMMARY: Weak adaptation of the book. Poor character development. Mostly harmless. Pointless last episode is pointless. Just read the book instead.
There's little of that here and this incarnation of The Stand ends up, like nearly all of King's adaptations, to be shallow and a pale shadow of the original.
That said, it is relatively harmless and forgetable and nowhere near the disaster that, say, The Dark Tower was.
But that is also its problem. It is too forgettable and light. There's none of the depth of the novel and the characters are treated poorly, given flashback scenes to inform the viewer of their beginnings, rather than a simple linear time frame as written in the book. As a result, their motivations aren't always clear in the beginning and they all end up as generic "good" or "bad" guys fairly early on. There's little nuance to any of them and some of them simply become annoying as a result of the simplicity.
But as I said, its not the worst King adaptation by far. I'll have to rewatch the other version at some time to see how they dealt with things, but I don't recall it being so... bland.
Then there is the serialisation itself. There are nine episodes. There should only be eight. The story is done by the end of the eighth episode. But here we have a pointless extra episode that is so meaningless it boggles belief that they actually thought it was a good idea.
Stu and Franny go on a road trip. No, really! All to show that Flagg isn't dead and give them that ludicrous last scene involving indigenous Amazonians, or somesuch.
When I reached episode eight and the story was done, I remember thinking "That ending was a little blunt, but oh well!" only to discover there was another episode to come. I imagined it would focus on Stu and Tom surviving the winter in the mountains and end with a happy reunion in Boulder. But no... good vs evil road trip with a hint of ET saying "Be Good!" running through it. What rubbish!
Overall, the show is passable, but if you do decide to give it a whirl, skip the last episode. It's utter contrived nonsense.
SUMMARY: Weak adaptation of the book. Poor character development. Mostly harmless. Pointless last episode is pointless. Just read the book instead.