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Stephen King's The Stand Series Might Head To CBS All Access

Turd Ferguson said:
I always thought it was implied (at least in the miniseries, I can't remember the book, as I haven't read it since the mid 90s) that Flagg was behind Captain Tripps getting out of the base. There's the crow in the miniseries (which usually seemed to indicate Flagg was nearby) and the fact Campion mentioned the Walkin' Dude to Gary Sinise's Stu Redman when they crash into the gas pumps in Arnette. Although Flagg blocking the emergency door with his cowboy boot was a TAD more blatant :lol:
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Well maybe there was a reason that the door were a fraction slow to seal when Campion bugged out :)
(though iirc in the book it was put down to something to do with the electronics).
 
As was said in Futurama regarding being God - when you do things right, people won't be sure you did anything at all.

As such, with regard to Campion's escape, I like the room for interpretation of events. Did the post's security measures fail because humanity is fallible, or did they fail because Flagg interfered? Heck, maybe they failed because God interfered, and the plague really was Judgment.

The first miniseries never unambiguously addresses the question, while it seems the second has Flagg play a more inarguable role.
 
I haven't seen this version yet and don't really remember the old mini-series, but I thought the book was pretty clear that the whole thing, including Flagg and Captain Tripps, was straight up destined to happen. Whether Flagg directly caused the virus to to escape (which seemed likely, but I don't know that it was ever explicitly confirmed) or not, the entire thing was definitely supposed to be God's plan. That was kind of the whole point of Mother Abigail's whole character arc, as far as I could tell.
 
Yes, they could never pinpoint the cause of the Immune people's immunity. The implication being that there was some "divine" cause.

Kind of pissy of God to wipe out so many innocent people...but hey, King must have been in an Old Testament mood.
 
IIRC, at least in the uncut version of the book, Deitz has a narrative where he mentions that Stu does an above-average amount of dreaming; we can guess about what. It's not exactly a scientific explanation for his immunity obviously, but it did make me wonder academically whether, given more time, scientists may have figured out a way to analyze or replicate Stu's dream process. Assuming immunity was ultimately "divine" that probably wouldn't work anyway, but it did tickle my imagination a bit.

I don't recall the book saying the plague was "destined" to happen, only that humanity had brought it upon themselves with an implication that it may have been divine will as well. I think one interpretation is that God (or whatever) may have hoped humanity wouldn't go as far as they did down the road of creating ways to destroy themselves, but once they did, God (or whatever) was willing to make the best of the ensuing consequences.
 
I guess. I mean, the great Flood was God already wiping out Humanity before so I guess a Great Plague isn't out of the question.

Least this time he didn't kill off the animals except for a chosen bunch.
 
I mean, God was preparing Abigail for her role her entire life and she was over 100. Trashcan man and Nadine were also pretty heavily implied to be destined for their roles.
 
Grendelsbayne said:
I mean, God was preparing Abigail for her role her entire life and she was over 100. Trashcan man and Nadine were also pretty heavily implied to be destined for their roles.
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But the thing is, all the characters still had the free will to choose what to do despite their dreams didn't they?

This is like Carnivale, where even if you were chosen to be the Avatar of good or evil, it still came down to what you chose to do with yourself.
 
There of course is the question of whether they would have developed as they did if they hadn't been being nudged along.
 
Just saw the first episode and i honestly can't understand the bad reception and reviews it's been getting apparently.

One of the main criticisms is the jumping back and forth between timelines and it's not too bad, at least they mark it with a subtitle unlike The Witcher, which caused so much confusion for new viewers who were not familiar with the books or the games.

I have read the book as a teenager (some 30 years ago) and seen the 90s miniseries so my memory is very hazy and i only remember the broad storyline but so far i like it very much, especially the introduction of Randall Flagg at the end which was quite creepy, as it should be. Looking forward to the rest of it.
 
I watched episode 2, and I thought it was about the same as 1 quality wise. It was nice introduction to Larry, and I was pretty surprised he seemed to be seeing Flagg. The introduction of Lloyd was pretty good too.
 
JD said:
I watched episode 2, and I thought it was about the same as 1 quality wise. It was nice introduction to Larry, and I was pretty surprised he seemed to be seeing Flagg. The introduction of Lloyd was pretty good too.
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If I remember correctly, in the 90s mini-series Stu and Frannie also have dreams about Flagg.

I'd also forgotten about the Rita character who Larry fled New York with, as she wasn't in the miniseries.

There's definitely more nods to the book, such as the guy yelling for "MOTHER!" when Lloyd Henreid is wasting away in his cell.

I was also not opposed to the changes made to Larry's escape from New York being altered :)
 
Stu does; we don't see Frannie have a dream about Flagg though she may claim she's had one.

I'm curious about how they may have altered Larry's escape. On the one hand I don't think the original miniseries made it quite as impactful as it should be...on the other hand, the first couple of times I watched the miniseries and didn't know what was going to happen it was good enough for me. :)
 
DonIago said:
Stu does; we don't see Frannie have a dream about Flagg though she may claim she's had one.

I'm curious about how they may have altered Larry's escape. On the one hand I don't think the original miniseries made it quite as impactful as it should be...on the other hand, the first couple of times I watched the miniseries and didn't know what was going to happen it was good enough for me. :)
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I don't know if you've watched the second episode, but in the miniseries Larry escapes through the Lincoln Tunnel. In the new one, Larry
goes through the sewer
 
Really? That's kind of a disappointing change, then. I'm also not sure it makes any sort of geographic sense unless they've made larger changes.
 
https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-stand-the-circle-closes-preview-cbs-all-access/
In the preview shared by TV Insider, Frannie addresses her new baby in voice-over, talking about how life continues though she questions if anything ever really permanently changes.
"I wish I could tell you every story has a happy ending," she says. "Truth is, most stories don’t end at all, not really."

The episode is something that will close out The Stand's story in a way that differs from what fans of the book are familiar with. Executive producer Benjamin Cavell previously said that the episode will give Frannie her own "stand", something King wanted to do for 30 years.
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Final episode airs tonight. The new coda sounds like it will be an interesting addition from King.
 
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Oh, yeah. I forgot this was happening. I watched the first two episodes and then kind of lost track of it. I wasn't really grabbed by those two episodes (although I didn't even get as far as Whoopi's first appearance outside of a dream).
 
So I just finished the series. Overall I thought it was a pretty good update to the original 1994 version, even if it started getting a bit corny before the denouement in New Vegas. There were a few hiccups (why did the actresses who played Rita, Nadine, and Julie need to look so similar? Must have been blonde day at central casting...) and a few other things, but the only really glaring issue I had was that Trashcan Man had practically zero character development considering his importance to the story, very little context as to what he was doing and why (for people who didn't already know about the character from reading the book), and just came off like a blithering idiot. Matt Frewer's take was far superior. And as far as the final episode:

It was supposedly a 'new' ending, but half of it (Stu & Frannie deciding to leave Boulder for Maine because the Free Zone was getting too crowded; Flagg's reappearance to the primitive tribe) was already in the revised edition of the novel. However, those things literally take up only a few pages before the book ends. The rest of the episode with Frannie in the well, Stu's flat tire and Mother Abagail Jr. was contrived nonsense that didn't really seem to warrant an entire episode about it. I was expecting the 'new' ending to explore the future of humanity or at least the future of the residents of the Free Zone. Alas, I expected too much.
 
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