I was very excited to watch this miniseries. It should've been a slam dunk. All they had to do was cast the movie, properly, upgrade it with up to date special effects and you'd have a triumph deluxe. The story portion was already done for them.
But NO, they had to rewrite the story, miscast many roles and totally cheese out on the special effects. Almost all the story changes seem to be for the sake of change. None of the changes are improvements over the novel or '94 version. I doubt whoever wrote this ever read the book. What I think they did is watch the '94 version and read the novel's wiki page. The novel has one of the strongest story lines ever created. That's why it was a breeze to read at its formidable 823 pages. Why screw with that?
I was also excited about Greg Kinnear being cast as Glen Bateman but where Ray Walston came across at world weary but wise, Kinnear is just a cliche' 'whiny liberal'. James Marsden is only adequate as Stu. Amber Heard is atrocious as Nadine Cross. Alexander Skarsgård was a total dud as Randall Flagg. He isn't even the least bit frightening. What they did with Trashcan Man was just grotesque and a total waste of Ezra Miller's talents. Every performance in the '94 version is superior. Bottom line is none of these characters seem like real people. They all seem like badly fleshed out cliche' characters going the through the motions.
There was a real sense of unity in Mother Abigail's group in the '94 version. Here, they just seem like people stuck together by circumstance. In the original Frannie and Harold seemed to have affection for each other even though she had no romantic interest in him. Here Frannie is just plain mean toward Harold. Molly Ringwald was a much more human Frannie Goldsmith.
Finally, the one area where they could've made real improvement, special effects, seems to have been totally overlooked. They have Flagg hanging around on wire. His demon design is boredom incarnate. They also totally missed the point of the climactic 'finger of God' scene.
This was a totally wasted opportunity but the good news is the definitive modern version of 'The Stand' still hasn't been done, yet, so there's hope a better production will be made in the future.
But NO, they had to rewrite the story, miscast many roles and totally cheese out on the special effects. Almost all the story changes seem to be for the sake of change. None of the changes are improvements over the novel or '94 version. I doubt whoever wrote this ever read the book. What I think they did is watch the '94 version and read the novel's wiki page. The novel has one of the strongest story lines ever created. That's why it was a breeze to read at its formidable 823 pages. Why screw with that?
I was also excited about Greg Kinnear being cast as Glen Bateman but where Ray Walston came across at world weary but wise, Kinnear is just a cliche' 'whiny liberal'. James Marsden is only adequate as Stu. Amber Heard is atrocious as Nadine Cross. Alexander Skarsgård was a total dud as Randall Flagg. He isn't even the least bit frightening. What they did with Trashcan Man was just grotesque and a total waste of Ezra Miller's talents. Every performance in the '94 version is superior. Bottom line is none of these characters seem like real people. They all seem like badly fleshed out cliche' characters going the through the motions.
There was a real sense of unity in Mother Abigail's group in the '94 version. Here, they just seem like people stuck together by circumstance. In the original Frannie and Harold seemed to have affection for each other even though she had no romantic interest in him. Here Frannie is just plain mean toward Harold. Molly Ringwald was a much more human Frannie Goldsmith.
Finally, the one area where they could've made real improvement, special effects, seems to have been totally overlooked. They have Flagg hanging around on wire. His demon design is boredom incarnate. They also totally missed the point of the climactic 'finger of God' scene.
This was a totally wasted opportunity but the good news is the definitive modern version of 'The Stand' still hasn't been done, yet, so there's hope a better production will be made in the future.