Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Sam Panico The unabridged version of the stand is 1,152 pages. How do you film that? How do you capture everything? This 1994 miniseries - originally airing from May 8 - 12 of that year - made a valiant effort.It's nearly impossible to get in every character from the book, but that doesn't mean that these guys didn't try. With a screenplay by King, Mick Garris stepped into the director's chair, armed with a huge cast that does a great job of capturing their roles.The hard part of The Stand is that there's more than one hero and multiple casts to follow. I guess Stu Redman (Gary Sinise) would be the main hero, but you could also argue that the deaf and mute Nick Andros (Rob Lowe, who is deaf in his right ear) is the hero. Or maybe singer Larry Underwood is. When you're reading the book, you can determine who the protagonist you like best is, you can also see them as you want in your mind. With a film, it's not so simple.As Captain Trips, a weaponized flu virus, sweeps across America, the end of the world takes shape and Mother Abagail Freemantle (Ruby Dee) gathers the forces of good against Randall Flagg and his followers. Flagg, otherwise known as the Walkin' Dude, the Dark Man, the Ageless Stranger, the Man in Black and the Hardcase (as well as Walter Padick, Nyarlathotep, Rudin Filaro and a ton of other names), is the villain of more than one King story. He shows up in The Dark Tower, Hearts in Atlantis and The Eyes of the Dragon. His character goes all the way back to a poem that King wrote in 1969.Amongst his forces are the bonkers crazy Nadine Cross (Laura San Giacomo), criminal rat eater Lloyd Henreid (Miguel Ferrer), the explosive loving Trashcan Man (Max Headroom himself, Matt Frewer, who has appeared in more King adaptions than anyone else), the Rat Man and so many more. But the good guys also have Judge Ferris (Ossie Davis), the worst dressed heroine ever in Frannie (Molly Ringwald), her wannabe boyfriend and potential traitor Harold (Parker Lewis Can't Lose star Corin Nemec), simple-minded Tom Cullen (Bill Fagerbakke, Dauber from TV's Coach), wise Glen Bateman (TV legend Ray Walston, who was also Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and many, many more.This is a film packed with stars, even in small roles, like Ed Harris as General Starkey, Kathy Bates as Rae Flowers, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a man proclaiming the end of the world and King, Sam Raimi, Tom Holland and John Landis show up in cameos. Even Joe Bob Briggs is in this!The four parts, The Plague, The Dreams, The Betrayal and The Stand, tell as much of the story as possible. I was kind of let down by the casting of Flagg, but it's hard to find anyone to live up to the ultimate evil that he's presented as in the book.The fact that the film was finished is a testament to the production team. With 460 script pages that were shot across 100 days in 6 states, that meant that the final project is nearly 8 hours long. They had to figure out how to dress 95 shooting locations on their budget, including a cornfield and a decimated Las Vegas.I hope however they remake this, they make sure to get better outfits for Frannie. I realize that this mini-series is 24 years old, but her fashion taste has not aged like a fine wine. Every single time she appears, her sartorial splendor - or lack thereof - takes me out of the movie!

hellraiser7 "The Stand" is my favorite book from the author and favorite books in general. I remember when I heard about a mini series for The Stand was coming out, you can imagine my excitement. Seeing it then didn't disappoint me, and I still think it hold pretty well today; granted it's not perfect but I feel for what they were able to do, it does well.The story just like in the book is great, what I really liked about it is that in a strange way it's kinda a modern day fantasy epic, which I thought was cool since that's territory the fantasy genre doesn't tackle much for some reason. But most importantly that this is a Christian story, but in a good way where it's not preachy or heavy handed buy rather suttle.I really like some of the business with the virus in the first and second part of the series. The way it plays out is terrifying and plausible if an outbreak ever occurred making everything go straight to hell; it's sort of reminiscent of the book/TV miniseries "Day of the Triffids" as well as the film "28 Days Latter".However to me what was more interesting were the supernatural and Christian elements. I even like how in some places there are some parallels to the biblical stories. Most of the business with the virus and the survivors is pretty much part of Revelations. Las Vegas is pretty much Sodom and Gomorah and Bolder, Colorado is Bethlaham. You name it's there.The themes are also there without slapping you over the head like love, faith, redemption, transcendence, standing up against evil and sacrifice.The characters are great and I really like the cast which consists of experienced actors that work. And part of what made the story stand out is in the amount of depth and story arc around them which made me actually care even sad when one or few of them die.Gary Sinise is solid as Stu Redmen, I sort of imagined this actor in that role. I like that he's a blue collar man of the country whom is smart and has quiet charisma. Even like that he doesn't like being pushed around or takes crap from anyone it shows he is more than capable of standing up for himself. Molly Ringwold (one of my favorite actresses) was solid as Frannie Goldsmith, I'll admit it was real surreal but at the same time great seeing her in something like this; it's a shame she didn't have a bit more afterward. Her character is sweet, has a certain vibrancy to her, but there is also a sense of maturity. The chemistry between both Stu and her I think is solid and you know are right for one another.Larry Underwood (Adam Stoke) is great, he's my favorite protagonist in the book. What I love about his character arc is that it's a story about redemption. His character at first seems like the least likely person to survive the apopocalise because of the amount of trouble he's gotten himself into like doing drugs, fame and money getting to his head, but what I like is deep down he's really unhappy and want's another chance. You can say in one hell of a way he got it and you see him slow go thought a transcendence as that person he was from the past slowly fade and we see he becomes a better person, from being more responsible for himself and everyone else, a family man. I always like stories like that which to me are the most fascinating, where the characters are broken in some way and they gain the most enlightenment and faith than ones that already believe and act like they have all the answers. All the other characters also go though their own transcendence as well which are also fascinating in their own way.Randall Flagg he's one of my favorite fictional villains. Yeah, I'll admit this version in the mini series is slightly different but I feel some of the persona and menace that is Randall is still intact. And for the record Randall is a recurring character in most of King's stories "Eyes of the Dragon" and the "Gunslinger" series, both which still need a visual medium adaptation.He's not the devil more like an emissary to him, but from his persona he comes pretty close. I really like how charismatic he is which makes sense since most cult leaders usually do, so it's easy to see how the disciples of evil would fall under his spell. He makes a lot of references which is part of his trademark showing how knowledgeable and smart he truly is.However what makes Randall really scary and menacing is that he is never what he presents himself. Despite that smile he puts on, you know there is something wrong with it because it's not a happy smile but looks more like a sinister sneer. And he can really turn a 180 once he drops the nice guy act, which to me is disarming and can make a villain all the more scary. Overall, I think this is a very good adaptation and one of the only mini series of Steven King I like, if you a fan or non fan I think it's worth checking out. I would love to see a revival of this, may'be as a TV series but for premium channels like "Showtime", with the great amount of depth the book has let alone the fact that two other Steven King stories have TV shows of their own "The Dead Zone" and "Under the Dome" I see no reason why not."The Stand" will keep you on your feet.Rating: 4 stars

agentbinky-74-891144 I watched this because I recently read the book and wanted to see what the differences were. Forgive me, but you must expect a lot of comparisons and contrasts between the book and miniseries in this review. Another reason I watched it is because it is a perpetual favorite of Weaponode, one of my closest friends. Any time Weaponode gets drunk, there's a good chance that he'll fire up "The Stand" on Netflix and watch some of his favorite scenes. So, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.The book is more subtle than the miniseries, for one thing. There are no "transformations into Satan" on the part of Flagg, no voice of Mother Abigail at the very end, proclaiming that "the promise has been fulfilled." As a matter of fact, when I read the book, I assumed that Flagg himself had set off the bomb inadvertently by summoning his ball of flame. That took a lot of the wind out of the sails of the so-called "Stand" on the part of the main characters. After all, what was the point of them traveling all that way, with no food or water, only to be wiped out in an instant via a cataclysmic accident?! The film adds the voice of Mother Abigail and references to the giant hand as "The Hand of God," so that's definitely an improvement over the ambiguous ending of the book.There are other things in the miniseries that were a lot clearer than the book version, as well. For example, the instructions given to Tom Cullen while he was under hypnosis were a lot more clear and direct. However, some things were left more in the dark. Howard's turn to evil, so aptly described by his decision to begin keeping a bitter, acerbic journal, is completely left out of the miniseries version. Nadine's turn is a lot less detailed as well, she's sort of Flagg's by default in the miniseries, whereas she struggled with it a lot more in the book. It's a shame, because I thought the turning of these two characters were some of the most compelling parts of the book.To be honest, I think the miniseries as a whole is better than the book. The main reason being that the miniseries is only six hours long, whereas the book is over 1,200 pages in its "uncut" edition. The miniseries cuts out a lot of useless filler, like the establishment of the Boulder Free Zone and the endless bureaucratic meetings involved. I said in my book review of "The Stand" that King could have cut out most of the middle third without significantly hurting his narrative, and I stand by that assessment. The miniseries does a good job of this. There's only one Boulder Free Zone meeting featured, enough to establish that the mechanisms of democracy are functioning again, and it is relatively brief. Thank goodness.Even so, I think watching it was mostly a waste of time. The acting was passable, only Molly Ringwald came off a little stale, and the actor who played Flagg was way campy and over-the-top, as seems to be the case for a lot of these Stephen King miniseries. Overall I'd say I have to give it just barely a "thumbs down," with a rating of three stars out of five.

dgoggans I read the rave reviews before I sat down to spend six hours watching "The Stand". By the beginning of part 2, I had to stop and check IMDb to see if there was another version, and maybe I was watching the cheap one.The raves for the acting and casting baffle me most. Molly Ringwald is possibly the worst imaginable choice for such a pivotal role, and her acting throughout is embarrassingly awful. No one shines, but she stands out for all the wrong reasons.My initial impression seemed so out of sync with the majority here that I forced myself to watch it all and keep an open mind, but the outcome didn't change.It's tripe, people, acted and staged badly, and a total waste of six hours of your life. Read the book. It takes longer, but you'll get to do your own casting and staging, and you won't have to watch Ms. Ringwald.