It never fails to amuse me that the Devil in this movie is literally just a guy in a mullet wearing denim. But to the actors credit, he put out one hell of a performance. Every vicious grin, every snarky line of dialogue, he nails with perfection.
Perfect evil does not smirk or take pleasure in things. It may use that to spread, but the goal is complete destruction of all things and an overwhelming hatred for everything, including itself. Pop evil is a pretentious imagining of evil, usually just showing humans with low empathy and high levels of cruelty. That's not true evil, its just a human pretending to be cool.
I honestly loved the movie but the book just evoked so much more of an emotional response in my opinion. You couldn't feel anything but a kind of blissful sadness when in the novel Larry is cut off in mid sentence saying "I will fear no evil, I will f"... White light consumed all those righteous and not righteous
Actually, I think they managed to capture the heart of it, in the book I didn't like Frannie very much. But in the series she was great. And having her give birth to a girl was almost like mother Abagail had been reborn.
Amen showed salvation to the righteous who are saved, and destruction of the unrighteous. JESUS CHRIST IS LORD the only way to GOD! The Sovreign Loving LORD GOD KING JESUS CHRIST loves you so much that He died for your sins on a Cross and rose again, that's how much He loves you, yes, YOU reading this! He was flogged, His beard was plucked out, He was mocked, spit on, beaten, tortured, heartbroken beyond human comprehension, and eventually He gave up His own life on that Cross at Calvary and rose again 3 days later.. Just so you and I and whosoever believeth in Him shall be save so we can be with Him forever in His Kingdom! O how there isn't a greater form of love than this! ✝️💖🥹 Dear *HEAVENLY FATHER GOD* in *JESUS* MIGHTY NAME I pray that You bless and save whoever reads and believes Your Gospel through Your Son and our LORD The RISEN LORD GOD KING JESUS CHRIST!! *KING JESUS CHRIST* IS *LORD GOD* THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE AND *HE* IS RISEN *HE* LOVES YOU SO MUCH THAT *HE* DIED FOR YOUR SINS AND ROSE AGAIN!!! Sudden destruction has fallen upon Israel just as prophesied in the Book Of Isaiah before the Rapture, JESUS CHRIST is coming to Rapture us whom belong to Him, whosoever accepts Him as personal genuine LORD and SAVIOUR shall be saved and Raptured. JESUS loves you and I love you
This version was 1,000 times better than the 2020 version. I never would have believed a network could ruin "The Stand" but CBS succeeded beyond anyone's wildest nightmares.
The Following is the words from the book that go with this scene it is sheer poetry : He was behind the wheel of a long, dirty electric cart. The cart's heavy-duty bank of batteries was nearly drained dry. The cart was humming and buzzing and lurching. Trashcan Man bobbed back and forth on the open seat like a mad marionette. He was in the last stages of radiation sickness. His hair was gone. His arms, poking out of the tatters of his shirt, were covered with open running sores. His face was a cratered red soup from which one desert-faded blue eye peered with a terrible, pitiful intelligence. His teeth were gone. His nails were gone. His eyelids were frayed flaps. He looked like a man who had diven his electric cart out of the dark and burning subterranean mouth of hell itself. Flagg watched him come, frozen. His smile was gone. His high, rich color was gone. His face was suddenly a window made of pale clear glass. Trashcan Man's voice bubbled ecstatically up from his thin chest: "I brought it . . . I brought you the fire . . . please. . . I'm sorry . . ." It was Lloyd who moved. He took one step forward, then another. "Trashy . . . Trash, baby . . ." His voice was a croak. That single eye moved, painfully seeking Lloyd out. "Lloyd? That you?" "It's me, Trash." Lloyd was shaking violently all over, the way Whitney had been shaking. "Hey, what you got there? Is it--" "It's the Big One," Trash said happily. "It's the A-bomb." He began to rock back and forth on the seat of the electric cart like a convert at a revival meeting. "The A-bomb, the Big One, the big fire, my life for you!" . "Take it away, Trash," Lloyd whispered. "It's dangerous. It's . . . it's hot. Take it away . . ." "Make him get rid of it, Lloyd," the dark man who was now the pale man whined. "Make him take it back where he got it. Make him--" Trashcan's one operative eye grew puzzled. "Where is he?" he asked, and then his voice rose to an agonized howl. "Where is he? He's gone! Where is he? What did you do to him? Lloyd made one last supreme effort. "Trash, you've got to get rid of that thing. You--" And suddenly Ralph shrieked: "Larry! Larry! The Hand of God!" Ralph's face was transported in a terrible joy. His eyes shone. He was pointing into the sky. Larry looked up. He saw the ball of electricity Flagg had flicked from the end of his finger. It had grown to a tremendous size. It hung in the sky, jittering toward Trashcan Man, giving off sparks like hair. Larry realized dimly that the air was now so full of electricity that every hair on his own body was standing on end. And the thing in the sky did look like a hand. "Noooo!" the dark man wailed. Larry looked at him . . . but Flagg was no longer there. He had a bare impression of something monstrous standing in front of where Flagg had been. Something slumped and hunched and almost without shape-something with enormous yellow eyes slit by dark cat's pupils. Then it was gone. Larry saw Flagg's clothes--the jacket, the jeans, the bootsstanding upright with nothing in them. For a split second they held the shape of the body that had been inside them. And then they collapsed. The crackling blue fire in the air rushed at the yellow electric cart that Trashcan Man had somehow driven back from the Nellis Range. He had lost hair and thrown up blood and finally vomited out his own teeth as the radiation sickness sank deeper and deeper into him, yet he had never faltered in his resolve to bring it back to the dark man . . . you could say that he had never flagged in his determination. The blue ball of fire flung itself into the back of the cart, seeking what was there, drawn to it. "Oh shit we're all fucked!" Lloyd Henreid cried. He put his hands over his head and fell to his knees. Oh God, thank God, Larry thought. I will fear no evil, I will f Silent white light filled the world. And the righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire.
That line where Larry says: "Take us home" has always resonated with me because it's not in the book and if you read the book and Larry Underwood's backstory, you would understand why. The Larry Underwood depicted in the series was an even more likeable guy than the one in the book. His character evolves drastically and ends up sacrificing himself for what he believed would be an absolution for mankind and for himself. I love The Stand so much, both the movie and book. It will always haunt me with its message and delivery.
Honestly, Larry Underwood is my favorite Stephen King character (and that's saying something, because King has some great characters). Underwood is also probably the one I relate to the most and I love his evolution from completely unlikeable douchebag (King spends like, 100 pages establishing how much of a douche he is) to genuinely likable hero
pat waddington Think they all did here, but Whitney was the only one to stand -Stand?-up against him, and look what happened to him! Earlier on, Whitney had told Lloyd he could feel it going bad, and was sorry he'd ever joined up with 'his infernal majesty.'
you are right, and I agree with you, it was more shocking that although the people were standing by to watch crucifixions and knowing that Randall Flagg was evil, these people still chose to stay. It had more power that way that just showing them as an angry mob.
Me too they were just in fear of Flagg. Hopefully the new show follows the book more closely that way. And Flagg teleports from his clothes, not sure why in this version he just turns into a crow lol
I actually cried when watching the scene where Larry and Ralph were saying the Lord's Prayer when Glen died. This adaptation has captured the heart of the book, even though it cuts large sections out.
actually one could extrapolate from the text of the book that randall knew his spell could interact that way with the bomb. which is why he freaked out, as knowledgeable as he clearly was. those sorts of ordinances require specific arming stages to occur that happen in flight or during the drop. in theory it could be detonated by someone tinkering with it long enough, but that would take time and be easy to stop. unless, say, a spell was drawn to the atomic energy and made it go off via magic.
Flagg calls Whitney a jellyfish...but actually, he had more guts than many of the leaders who knew deep down Flagg was no good but had no courage to go against him...Like the Head cop. Spineless. Whitney stood up to flagg probably knowing he would die because of it.
I re-read The Stand for the first time in decades about 6 months before Covid hit. The actual first half of the book is an absolute master class in how to write about an apocalypse. It’s still my favourite Stephen King novel although during Covid I didn’t get any dreams from Mother Abigail. Maybe next time lol…
Let’s all hope not. I want to think we got a brief glimpse into what could happen. But I’ve got that feeling in the back of my mind that says “ it’s not over yet”
Barry Dorgan is played by real-life Chicago PD detective Chuck Adamson. By this time, he had been retired for a number of years and worked in the film industry as a technical adviser and occasional actor. He was close friends with Michael Mann and was actually the inspiration behind Al Pacino's character in "Heat." You can see him again in Beverly Hills Cop as one of the freight smugglers who packs the crates Eddie Murphy investigates.
@@twofiveb Farina and Adamson did indeed know each other - they were both technical advisors for Mann on the movie "Thief" and both had small roles in the film, too.
@@starky4079 Babes, I had literally JUST finished reading the novel when I replied to this comment. Like, same day. Abby Freemantle was, for all intents and purposes, the "hand of God" when she was alive. It follows then that she is the hand that detonated the nuke.
The fact that Flagg put his trust in so many mentally unstable and plain old stupid people showed just how incompetent he was. Trashcan man was literally an arson loving schizophrenic. Nadine (according to the movie version) was a pill popping, nervous wreck. The two men who were ordered to stop the Judge were trigger happy and ended up messing up the plan by shooting the judge in the face. Most people in Flagg's camp were ansty and emotionally damaged, and Flagg cooked his own goose. I see him as the extra, extra, extra evil version of Loki, he causes chaos, throws hissy fits and has a need to be seen. He literally let a man with a lust for blowing things up work around nuclear bombs...and lo and behold, not only did Trash, off impulse due to his schizophrenia, blow up the planes Flagg was using to nuke the Free Zone, but he also bought the most dangerous nuke to the middle of Las Vegas in attempt to win Flagg over from his mistake...which God used to destroy the city. Just goes to show that evil aides to its own destruction. He literally was outdone by God, who had used some of the most seemingly regular people: a drifting deaf-mute, a farmer, a singer, a widower, a mentally challenged man with the mind and pure heart of a three year old, a retired Judge, a retired professor, a dog, and most of all, a tiny little old lady, who at a 106 was still making her own bread.
It's not only that he put his trust in these idiots, but he didn't even accept the responsibility of actually fitting them into his grand scheme. He left that to Lloyd--by far his most competent minion. With Trashy, all Flagg did was spam his dreams with visions of burning everything, then left Lloyd with the thankless task of integrating him into Vegas. Indeed, I would say the only reason Vegas worked as well as it did was due to Lloyd...and he started out as a two-bit hood with no impulse control.
@@ryanjackson3428 yup. And near the end, you could tell Lloyd began to regret working for Flagg, but remained loyal because Flagg didn't let him starve to death in prison.
@@PepperJade93 That FOX Show "The Following" had the same message. A serial killer creates a Cult full of other killers or unstable people he was able to pull together with his charm and charisma...and then they're unable to follow his plans right because of their instability and poor impulse control. The whole thing collapses because they're too crazy to stay together.
If you go with the interpretation of Randall as Nyarlathotep, then losing is inconsequential. The goal is creating chaos and toying with people via that chaos.
It's funny that despite how powerful Flagg is, he is limited. He gets embarrassed and insulted when the old dude laughs at him in the Jail Cell, and makes Lloyd shoot him. I think that Flagg actually could not kill the three himself. I think that the symbolic thing here is that they were protected by God and Flagg really could not touch them himself. That's why he had to have others do it for him. Throughout this movie, no matter how powerful he seems to be, he is basically powerless against the Boulder Colorado people.
@@danielmcgillis270 I believe you are correct. One of the 3 spies did die but she killed herself in front of Flagg so as not to tell him anything. Not sure if he would have been able to do anything to her. But he may have had others do it. I think you are correct.
Seems like Flagg is not in fact the Devil, but just a minion or spawn of him. He's described in the early parts of the novel as just a faceless "man" who can suddenly do magic and all that, and might have been around for various evil events in the past. Who was he before that? Why was he chosen? One wonders. But he's not all-powerful, of course. The question of why he cannot even foresee Trashcan Man going out to get the biggest fire of all, is never answered. Flagg would know the weapons are out there. Flagg has massive blind spots. Why? I know he shows up as other antagonists in various other King works including The Gunslinger books, but I don't think he's really The Devil per se in any. That would be too pat, too easy.
if God is looking out for Larry and the others, why does he let them die in Vegas? Of course he spares Tom and Stuart. King's ending is muddled to say the least, although of course it's totally apocalyptic and that's what the novel is, ultimately, both post and pre-. Bateman laughs at Flagg like he's some impotent joker. If Flagg's "daddy" is so great, why has he made him so weak with so many chinks in his armour? He fails in his evil mission. It doesn't make any sense but it makes for a good book and movie. Or maybe the point is that those with faith need to sacrifice themselves to accomplish Flagg's destruction (but that depends on Trashy's return to Vegas with the bomb). So, the novel's suggesting it's everyone's fate, and you cannot escape it. That's my take on it. I first read this novel in 1978 grabbing the Signet paperback of it, and it scared the fucking shit out of me. And I am not religious in any way. The problem watching this or reading it now in 2023 is, I don't believe in religion still, even more so than years ago, and the Hand of God thing is just pretentious codswallop as far as I'm concerned, hokum. Give me a break. God could have smote Vegas and Flagg at any time ahead of that moment. If HE'S so powerful!! What a load of shit! But yeah, it otherwise makes for a gripping novel and film. I wouldn't analyze it too much, though. It doesn't hold up unless you're a total religious fanatic.
I love it when Hollywood racks a shotgun for effect. "What; you were guarding me with an unloaded weapon? Or.. "did you just drop a perfectly good round somewhere on the floor?
Caesar 98 in the end,the true hero was the one we never suspected.The loyalist servant of the dark ended up serving the light in the greatest way.It’s beautiful in its irony.
It was a while before I realised that Glen, Larry and Ralph actually carried the spirit of God into Las Vegas to destroy Flagg. That was revealed when Glen said that they ate no food but were 'filled with something else'.
I’ve seen this ending brought up when people say King can’t write endings, but I actually like this one. It fits with the imagery and themes presented in the book, but I was more surprised that it was foreshadowed early on. When Stu meets Glen and Kojak, Glen gives a scenario of two cities, one diplomatic, one a dictatorship, and he says that if one city has technical know-how and the other doesn’t, then they’ll war with each other, maybe nukes would be involved. It’s a lot better in the book than I’m doing justice, but this ending was set up and is a pretty good payoff.
I thought it was dumb when I read it in middle school. But when I reread it during Covid as an adult, I loved it. Now that I'm old enough to have actually had my faith challenged and understand the more mature themes of the novel, this is one of my absolute favorite Stephen King books and I think it's one of the best books of the 20th Century. I think The Stand will be remembered long after Faulkner and Hemingway have been forgotten
Spectator one. "Hey, Joe, ya' think we made a mistake coming to Vegas in the first place? Think we should've gone to Boulder?" Spectator two "Y'know, I'm startin' to think that too, Jim."
it is crazy how many movies and books '' randall flag '' is actually in, as he has many names and keeps returning in the stephen king universe. I loved this version so much, and i will never understand how the new one could have been so botched lol.
@@ShadowSonic2 Fair enough, but goddamn, you've brought the whole society of mankind to a single significant event, and then you throw your hands up and go "hell, IDK LOL Let's blow 'em all to hell!" Maybe he should've devoted some more thought to the apex of this novel before going on. At least this miniseries tried to do the best it could with the material.
@@shauntbarry And doesn't waste the audience's time. If you're setting the bomb off anyway why waste time zapping fools with lightning? I think children had a hand in writing the remake.
I have to agree. When I was reading the book, I was expecting some epic battle of good and evil to happen... Something along the lines of ''God descends, kills Flagg and then raises the good to Heaven and the bad to Hell.'' But then again, I guess that would make other plot elements pointless, like Fran's baby or the Free Zone meetings. But while I was disappointed by the climax, I still feel this book was an amazing journey and is worthy of the praise it's given.
I have to confess, I woiuld differ. Despite 'The Stand' being one of King's great landmark novels, it didn't do much for me. Apocalypse, yeah, that's scary and tough...but Flagg's stupidity ruined it for me.
The best part after that bitch Juiie in 1:59 spits on Larry - she has it coming tripping over poor Whitney's electrifie corpse & getting electrocute herself.
Was in Vegas 82-94. Read the newspaper of taping of The Stand at downtown. Closed off section in front of Plaza. Funny that people there wearing clothes during January warm days of 65 degree while northeast was freezing.
@JohnACorp782 You might as well embrace that word along with the rest of the millennial hip jive-talk, daddy-o. It's in common parlance at this point. The GOOD news is that you don't have to "Yeet" your dignity OR dictionary out the window to update your vocab. Trust me. I'm A Gen Xer (old AF) and it's important to be able to speak the little bastards' version of English XD. M-O-O-N. That spells Cringe.
MrDeliri]aframe: Some of the most disgustingly obvious and shameless promotion of the lies, myths,and idiocy of religion that I've ever seen; all those who saw this series should keep in mind that all of the interactions/conflicts between 'good' (Christianity) and evil (the devil: a mythical being) depicted in it were nothing more than special effects.
This version of The Stand left a lot to be desired, but it has grown on me over the years. So many great actors, some now gone. So I like to check it out now and then. But it may be time for the novel to get a reread.
There was alot of the scenes in the book that were cut to make the movie, I hated that about this movie, I had just finished the book 3 days prior to the movie.....
OMG - Out of all the crazy ass brilliance that Stephen King has written this story in my opinion stands well beyond all the rest. This final scene of The Stand is something that you shouldn't stop thinking about any time soon.
@@AspieMediaBobby His Superman and Batman were a Mash-up of Golden Age, New Earth and DC Animated Universe. If that's not accurate I don't know what is. While I love the Reeve Films, it was Golden Age era mixed with Silver age Powers and Attitude. It just doesn't work in the long run.
I like the guy at the end who stands up to flag and says no this isn't How We Do It in America this isn't us I'm sure God saved him to because he repented at the last moment. This is why we need from people right now
My opinion as well. I'm not all that impressed with the God of the Bible, but-- if there is a divine entity, some actual representative of Good, Whitney at the very last chance anybody there had, placed himself with that.
I loved this version so much I bought the DVD and the Stephen King book. It was amazing how star studded this version was. I can even forgive the dodgy special effects at the end. Gary Sinise will always be Stu before he was Captain Dan for me.
I didn’t like this version when it came out, but I was too close to reading the book and hated that so much had been cut out. In hindsight, it is masterpiece compared to the hot mess of the 2020 version. Though I did prefer Alexander Skarsgard to Jamie Sheridan as Flagg. When I read the book, I pictured a young Harry Dean Stanton as Flagg.
if King and George Romero had actually produced their version as a theatrical film, which I would've greatly preferred, it would have had to be a three-film trilogy I think, or two, like the Lord of the Rings films. There would have been no other way to do the novel justice.
@@himbuxterrafux9525 I personally think King should have left well enough alone. By having God, literally reach down, and detonate a nuke is a pretty fantastic biblical ending to Flagg. King often compares The Stand to Lord of the Rings, well if Lord of the Rings had a second ending where Sauron survived after the Ring was destroyed, I feel like it would kind of gut the rest of the story.
Adino1 I think both he and Mother Abigail had been around in many timelines, and therefore both survived. He was the embodiment of evil, she was the embodiment of good. Both of them 'should' have died, but, as Glen said, 'I don't think they were done yet.'
I like how people forget that The Stand is a prequel to The Dark Tower and nobody understands the 'ending' because it's not an 'ending'. It's a segue. To The Dark Tower.
It would have been cool if it was, but unfortunately it is not a prequel. Though a super-flu ridden Nebraska is mentioned in The Dark Tower series in one of the alternative Earths.
Flagg is the Man In Black from Dark Tower. In Roland's world, the World Moved On, there are "thinnies" to alternate versions of our world, or what version of it Mr King is working in at that time. The Stand was a very early book, as was The Gunslinger, and Eyes Of The Dragon, the other book in which Flagg appears. If you look at his other early works, Carrie, Salem's Lot, Shining, Dead Zone, the four stories in Different Seasons which include Shawshank and The Body (Stand By Me), he hadn't really started making a lot of those connections that you see in his later works. Roland's world really was a different story set in a different world at that time. The only connections at that time were that a lot of stories were set in Maine, and more of them were being set in, or connected to, Castle Rock. The Stand was the first early book where the character leave the East Coast and march west, and it is a post apocalyptic brave new world. The next tie he tried this post apocalypse approach was in Cell, the first post-Roland book, written after completing the last DT.
If you look at his next several books, Christine and Firestarter which are standalone. Cujo, in which its speculated that the killer dog is the killer deputy from Dead Zone. The stories in Nightfall, which include the ones that appear in Cats Eye, Children Of The Corn, and a short story set at the start of the flu outbreak from Stand. IT, his next magnum length book, set it Derry, another Maine town, nothing to do with Roland's world. Yet at the same time the DT series are being released, Drawing Of The Three, Waste Lands. Back in this world, we start to see The Shop appearing and being referenced more in the books.
I see a few people did not like the ending or the The Actor Playing RF This is the defacto ending not the ending 200 plus pages later. I was left wanting the first time I seen the TV mini series. Then after about the 3rd viewing (of about 10) I really came to love it and accept the actors as the people in the book. I even met a guy in real life named " Tom Cullen" MOON and that spells Tom Cullen This is not my favorite movie of all time but it is my favorite story of all time. SK peaked as a writer with this. A dark chest of wonders indeed. BTW for the first time ever God actually gets off his ass and does something.
That was probably the biggest problem with The Dark Tower movie. They made the villain in that one clearly the Randall Flagg version of his psyche. And this story kinda just felt like a diet dark tower. Almost the same story in a way. Which May be the whole point of the tower but I don't think I've done enough cocaine to understand it.
Walter Padick was a boy who got raped, when he became Randall Flagg out of his hatred of mankind and deal with The Crimson King as a result the Lovecraftian demon Nyarlathotep took over!
My issues with this scene are, #1. Do you think they used enough dryer vent on the "nuclear" bomb exhaust? #2. The girl screaming "He's got a bomb!" Should get at least one award for overacting. #3. In the book, the little ball of energy that Flagg shoots from his finger was more terrifying. #4. Again in the book they were going to have cars pulling them apart. I guess 2 Harbor Freight boat winches, (not that I have anything against them, I have one on my old trailer, cost $12.99 ) and a black hooded guy turning the little ratchets is cheaper. Just MHO. I didn't like what they cut and had to adept for the movie. There were several mistakes in the book, but shooting the movie in Salt Lake City, when it was supposed to be Boulder CO. really ticked off the people in Mr. Stephen King old stomping grounds.
Plus I thought it was stupid that literally everyone was armed and were all going crazy. The point of this scene in the book was to show how everyone living under Flagg was utterly terrified of him, and so they were very quiet and meek. And I doubt everyone would get a gun in Flaggs totalitarian society.
Yep, there should've been no cheers but a weary acknowledgement. The power of RF was the fact that he could just walk up to you without you knowing where he came from.
kutzbill: Dead wrong. See folks? This is what happens when you get your news from fake outlets like Fox. ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4029&context=flr www.salon.com/2013/01/11/stop_talking_about_hitler/
The book is leaps and bounds better i mean not even close. The book felt real, panicy it captured the realism in the appocalyptic terror. Please remake the film in 2017
One of my all time favorite movies. The acting was superb. Got the point across without being preachy. Plus it had the power to keep all my nephews and nieces undivided attention. And that is saying a lot back then. I recently came across it on DVD. Time to pass it on to their childeren
Great book, OK movie. Came out when everything King wrote was up to being made into a movie. Tonight, on the ABC movie of the week, Steven Kings "The Groceries List" . The horrors of shopping in small town Maine. Starring Andy Griffith, Shelley Winters, Scott Bao, and Valerie Bettinelli.
That was a bit goofy. I prefer the book where the last time she's mentioned she's standing at the front of the crowd looking sick from shock right before the warhead goes off.
This version is better than the 2020 reboot version. I watched one episode of the reboot and didn’t care for it. I was in my 20’s when the original movies came out (‘94 ish). I’ve seen several movies based off of Mr. King’s books.
What makes no sense, and I thought this since I first read the abridged book in 1980, is why did Glen, Larry and Ralph have to die? They are "sent West", Stu gets a pass by breaking his leg so Tom can find him and escort him safely back to Fran, the other 3 end up in Vegas. It was never clear what they are expected to do, so you are waiting for some divine deus ex purpose and something they actually DO that resolves things a purpose. But no, they get captured and banged up. Glen gets shot in his cell. Larry and Ralph get taken out for execution. Then Trash turns up with the missile and blows the town up killing Flagg and all the "evil" people. Which would have happened anyway. So why did they have to go West just to die in the bomb blast with the baddies? Them being there did nothing to make Trash turn up with the bomb. They died for nothing. Same with the 3 "scouts"- the judge and her who just went there and got killed, they didn't learn anything or bring anything back. Tom got out alive, finds Stu, then the bomb goes off. The whole point of the exercise was what? Five got sent there to die for nothing. All they had to do was to stay in the Frees one, and Trash turns up with he bomb and blows up Vegas. Problem takes care of itself. This is the one thing that always bugged me about this great book and it's film.
I had the same feeling after finishing the book this week, although mine was the unabridged version so I don't know what was cut from yours. I'd say they needed someone to be executed there, which was the straw that broke the camel's back for Whitney and why he found the courage to speak against Flagg. Flagg killed him with his blue fireball for that, which would then later ignite the bomb, that the Trashcan man brought into town. It's a chain of events that was only possible due to the planned execution, because otherwise, they would've just killed Trashcan man when he showed up, and gotten rid of the bomb without detonating it. But that still doesn't explain why it had to be all three of them: Glenn, Larry and Ralph. Larry would've been enough as he was the main guy to talk to the crowd (even though I wanted him to die the least as he was my favourite character). Ralph did absolutely nothing and all Glenn did was increase Flagg's mental instability, which I THOUGHT would lead to something, but it actually didn't. Maybe he just went with them so Kojak had a reason to join them on their journey, so that he later could stay with Stu and save his life. But yeah, Ralph being there was absolutely pointless. The three scouts, provided they were even part of the "divine plane" so to speak, were effective by making Flagg become unstable and therefore resulted in his followers, most of all Whitney, having second thoughts about him: the botched assassination on the Judge, Dana's unexpected suicide before she could tell him about Tom, and his complete inability to "see" Tom. All of these were failures that called his power into question and made him vulnerable. Sidenote: Am I the only one who thought that Fran was a really annoying character at times?
A novel from the "cocaine is a helluva drug" stage of of Stephen King's writing career, compressed and stripped of what little subtlety the book had and squatted out into a made for TV cowpat with all the nuance of a Sunday School cartoon.
+Dark-Architect Better go post on this clip of an American-made film based on an American's novel set in the United States; I'm truly enlightened by my own intelligence.
Dark-Architect It's not how the American justice system acts.When someone is sentenced to die it takes decades of appeals before they are finally executed.And the method of execution mostly is lethal injection so the poor bastards don't suffer.I wonder if these guys got a last meal because you would if you were about to be executed in America.Plus we don't have public executions anymore.
Love Rick Aviles. Always played a first rate villain. Died way too young. He was a stand up comedian who got famous in roles like this. But really, he was a funny guy who made people laugh.
I don't think they could do a movie much better. Aside from the made for television corniness, I always thought the miniseries was damn close to the book. I have no problem with the acting in IT, but it just did not translate well to film at all
Thats not how I imagined Randall Flagg at all when I read The Stand. He looks so silly, like a Bon Jovi reject. I imagined him looking suave and sinister, (sort of like the guy in that TV show Lucifer) of course this is just my opinion.
For better or for worse, i can't imagine Randall Flagg (in The Stand, wink wink TDT fans) looking any other way than this. When reading the book, I'm able to distinguish any actual character differences but this is the prevailing image of RF for me. Thank you ABC I guess.
Actually this is more or less exactly how Flagg is described and how a lot of people imagine him - of course this is an interpretation by one actor but it's a good one.
You make a good point, but, at the time this was made, the "Bon Jovi reject" look was considered very cool and attractive, so, while it seems cheesy now, the idea was for Flagg to seem cool and enticing, despite his evil interior. It just hasn't aged well.
I have to grant the worlds largest ball to the guy that said we are Americans and we can allow this! The way I see it to some degree he were deemed him self a bit he certainly didn’t go along with the E in moral killing of those people.
God showed everyone that ALL power, glory, and majesty will always be within his own power. Life is his to give or take.. not Satan's, or in this case Randall Flagg's. Flagg was very angry, but he knew who it was in front of him, and that he was no match.
