Is "The Stand" a satire?

[Plot Device]

I never read the Stephen King book, but I've seen the mini-series. And I can't help but think the mini-series was executed as one great big joke not at all meant to be taken seriously. The whole thing is just so overly infused with triteness, cliches, and sentimentalism.

Thoughts?

[III]

That would certainly make me feel better. I loved the novel and tried three times to sit through the mini-series, but never made it longer than an hour. It seemed to have been adapted by a team of over-acheiving six year olds.

[Maryn]

Whoever wrote the screenplay for the miniseries seemed to have excerpted the basic plot's most trite aspects. The book was huge, rich in character development and background, probably too big for even a miniseries, which is why it sucked.

That and Rob Lowe.

Maryn, who liked the book at one time and recently watched the miniseries for the hell of it

[Perks]

Oh dear. I liked the mini-series. The Stand is one of my favorite books, and while I can't say it isn't rife with sentimentalism (I don't know about triteness and cliches) it sort of seemed it was very deliberate. Common sentimentalities saving the world.

I thought the film did a decent job of representing the characters as written. I had a good time with it.

[clockwork]

I liked it too. I think as "The Stand-lite" it works well. If you want a richer experience, the book is the way to go.

[Plot Device]

I don't know how many here have seen The Astronaut Farmer, but THAT movie was a satire on the whole mom-God-and-apple-pie schpiel (which is why two superstars like Billy Bob Thorton and Bruce Willis were willing to do it). That movie was in no way a TRIBUTE to the tired Hollywood themes of "reaching for your dreams" and "one man can make a difference," it was a smirking parody of them. And it's only been my reflections on the way they executed TAF that have led me to suspect that the TV rendering of The Stand might also have been a satire cut from the same cloth.

[clockwork]

I don't think it was meant as anything except a sincere adaptation of one of the most popular books of all time. Read; they thought it would make money. I don't know how successful it was but it has a pretty decent fan following. I preferred the first two parts to the last two.

[III]

Now if only they had billed it as Breakfast Club (Molly Ringwald) meets Wayne's World (Rob Lowe) I really could have enjoyed it. M-O-O-N spells marketing. Laws yes. Everybody knows that. Of course I thought they should have marketed Spongebob Squarepants as The Stand (Bill Fagerbakke) meets Shawshank Redemption (Clancy Brown).

[Perks]

I don't think it was meant as anything except a sincere adaptation of one of the most popular books of all time. Read; they thought it would make money. I don't know how successful it was but it has a pretty decent fan following. I preferred the first two parts to the last two.You know my least favorite thing about it was Randall Flagg. I wasn't crazy about the guy they chose for that - not appealing enough.

Other than that, yeah, 'The Stand-lite' - very apt.

[preyer]

it a bizarre coincidence, i'd finished the unabridged version a day before the original airing. jeez, was i disappointed. what i remember as being so awful (not that i thought the book was terribly great or anything) in the mini-series was how the old woman's face came up in ghostly form at the very end, i think as someone had just had a baby.

gag.

then again, i think any movie where that happens is just dumb. for example, at the end of 'van velsing' they show the girl in the clouds. i think she's entering heaven or some such thing.

blech.

a satire? no, i don't think so. i just don't think it's very good from what i remember. not a fan of 'the hand of god' stuff, either. then again, i thought the mini-series of 'the shining' couldn't have been more boring if they tried.

i'm a bit prejudiced, though. i've always said king writes great 450 page short stories and that the reason so many of his movies sucked was because they were great novels to begin with. it seemed for awhile that for every good movie based on one of his stories you had three that were just awful.

[Perks]

what i remember as being so awful (not that i thought the book was terribly great or anything) in the mini-series was how the old woman's face came up in ghostly form at the very end, i think as someone had just had a baby.

Oh, that is bad. I'd forgotten about that. Lol!

[nmstevens]

I never read the Stephen King book, but I've seen the mini-series. And I can't help but think the mini-series was executed as one great big joke not at all meant to be taken seriously. The whole thing is just so overly infused with triteness, cliches, and sentimentalism.

Thoughts?


Well, I was at Laurel Entertainment when they produced it and I can tell you a few things.

One -- Stephen King wrote the screenplay and had creative control over it and it was most definitely not intended, in any way, as a joke.

Two -- if you want to go back and check you will find that there is pretty much not a single thing -- not a scene or a line of dialogue in the mini-series that wasn't in the book -- "triteness, cliches, and sentimentalism" et al. Most of the changes, with very few exceptions, were editorial -- cutting the book down to fit the time available (and addressing certain standards and practices issues).

Three -- I think that there were definitely some less than stellar casting choices -- but also some very good choices. Molly Ringwald - bad. Jamie Sheridan - bad. Laura San Giacomo - bad. On the other hand - Gary Sinise -- good. Miguel Ferrer -- good.

It's one of those problems. It's a TV mini-series with a finite budget and a very large cast and you're going to end up, inevitably, filling that cast with a lot of TV names.

Four -- and I say this with all love and respect to Stephen King. There are writers whose work can be taken right up off the page and put on the screen and it works fine. Raymond Chandler. Dashiell Hammett. Then there are others whose work is fine on the page -- but simply cannot be taken directly off the page and put on the screen. It doesn't work fine.

And Stephen King, I'm afraid, is one of those writers. His dialogue may work fine on the page, but try to have actors act it, and it performs like lead. It's one thing to have, when you're writing a novel, this idea that one should never take two lines to say something when you can take twenty or fifty or a hundred lines to say the same thing.

That doesn't work in the movies.

I invite, for those who doubt this, to compare Kubrick's "The Shining" -- a great movie, hated by Stephen King because it is terribly unfaithful to his book, as distinct from the TV mini-series for "The Shining" which Stephen King loves -- because it is extremely faithful to his book (and why shouldn't it be -- he wrote the teleplay) -- and is, as far as I'm concerned, completely unwatchable. I've never been able to sit through it.

And I think that King's book is great.

But you can't simply transcribe the book's scenes into screenplay format and think that you've written a screenplay.

And King just has this kind of almost wince-inducing "folksiness" about his dialogue that you just sort of pass over when you read it -- but it is like fingernails on a blackboard when you hear it performed.

NMS

[johnnysannie]

The book is one of my favorites; the mini-series, just so-so. I think Molly Ringwald was the absolute worst choice anyone could have made for Fran but Gary Sinise was very, very good.

Thanks to nmstevens for that added insight - I appreciate it!

And to Plot Device, I have seen "The Astronaut Farmer" and agree 100% about it being satire.

[Plot Device]

Wow, NMS, good to know.

[Plot Device]

And to Plot Device, I have seen "The Astronaut Farmer" and agree 100% about it being satire.

Yes. In a surreal way too.

[wee]

I invite, for those who doubt this, to compare Kubrick's "The Shining" -- a great movie, hated by Stephen King because it is terribly unfaithful to his book, as distinct from the TV mini-series for "The Shining" which Stephen King loves -- because it is extremely faithful to his book (and why shouldn't it be -- he wrote the teleplay) -- and is, as far as I'm concerned, completely unwatchable. I've never been able to sit through it.

And I think that King's book is great.


The earliest I remember having a realization about movies vs. books was when I read Jurassic Park in junior high, then saw the movie. I loved that book. Then I saw the movie. Even as someone who hates horror movies, I loved that movie! The movie is basically a distant cousin to the book, hardly even related. But both are excellent stand-alones, good for different reasons.

You just can't expect to get the same effect from movies & books. It's a rare thing when it happens. And I completely agree: putting Stephen King's stories on screen does something terrible to them. It was one of my all-time favorite books. The movie (mini series? It's been too long) is easily one of the worst things I've ever seen.

All the time people complain about a screenplay not being as good as the book. This is the thing - you have to take them as separate beings. Watchng a movie isn't the same as reading - Usually when someone tells me that a movie is very faithful to the book, I think, "Oh, this could be a snooze fest." Some of the best adaptations I've seen, Jurassic Park being the best example I can think of now, were not terribly faithful to the book but the screenwriter took the heart of the book and turned it into a great movie, which is a different beast than a book.

And thankfully so, else what would be the point of all of us here? Why spend days or weeks reading a book if it is the SAME as spending two hours in a movie? That's not a smart use of your time! I spend all that extra time on a book because the book takes me further than a movie and is a different experience.


wee

[KTC]

I don't think I'll ever watch it. I enjoyed the book.