The Stand miniseries [spoilers]

[marydell]

I caught the last hour of The Stand on tv tonight. I love this miniseries despite its assorted problems, and have seen it a lot. I read the book once, too, back in the 80s before it got its director's cut, and liked it a lot but not enough to reread either the old or new version. So perhaps he book addresses the things that bug me in the miniseries, but maybe not.

Anyway, stuff that bugged me this time around:

Flagg and co decide to set up in Las Vegas, a place with no natural resources. Where are they getting their food and water? imported from Boulder, perhaps? Note: movie Mordor has this same problem.

The dude who isn't Larry and isn't the old fella tells the Vegas-ites that Flagg is an "apostate of Hell." wouldn't that make Flagg...an angel? Or at least not as bad as a Hell-loyalist.

Molly Ringwald's baby has the flu and is expected to die, so she and Stu sit in the waiting room making plans for her NEXT baby. CREEPY. When the baby pulls through, everyone is happy and they show it by standing outside the nursery and looking through the glass at the baby. At no point do we see anyone hold the baby, and in fact the only person who even talks to the baby is a ghost.

If you make your stand so people can witness you making a stand, and all the witnesses die, did you really Stand?

Comments

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I just re-read the book, after having dragged it out to show chapter 38 (the ole emergency room blues, secondary attrition) to my housemate who's playing an EMT in in a zombie-apocalypse RPG, and the same sort of things were bothering me. HELLO BROKEN DISTRIBUTION CHAINS. Plenty of oil for everyone? YEAH IF SOMEONE'S WORKING ON THE RIGS AND THE PIPELINE. Otherwise you've just got whatever's in a station's tanks, and no refills coming. Get the power back on? Sure, if you've got wind or hydro. Coal-fired generating plants? Where's the coal? That banana with a blue Chiquita sticker that Flagg's subbed into Dayna Jurgens' switchblade holster? WHO THE HELL IS PICKING CHIQUITA BANANAS AND SHIPPING THEM TO VEGAS?

It strikes me now as a candy-ass, Disneyfied apocalypse. My own imagination can give me lots worse now.

I'm sure he meant to say apostle, not apostate.

Not holding the baby=problem, but not as glaring in the book.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

The chiquita banana! I had forgotten that one. Lol! And oil production does seem to involve some expertise....

I left a word out of my complaint about the handling of the sick baby--"next." When they are waiting for the baby's expected demise, they are vaguely planning the next baby. Instead of, like, comforting the current baby. Creeps!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Very creepy!

I guess in Boulder the power's not such a big problem because, well, BOULDER DAM. But I live in New England and I know that what's not Quebec Hydro is all coal plants, except for a few bitty wind farms here and there. So. Electricity back on? Not so much from the existing grid!

And I have paid far too much attention to just how fast NYC starves if the distribution chains go down. Even if you also subtract most of the population, the lack of fresh foods and the failure to replenish the canned is going to show up FAST.

What gets me is that I was EIGHT when I saw the distribution chains break down in New England in the blizzard of '78. Stephen King was an adult living in Maine. How did he not factor that in when writing?