What makes it different from others?

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

This was very entertaining and easy to binge watch.

This over long TV mini series from Stephen King is a complicated multi character story of the effects of a contained virus being loosed upon the unsuspecting American public and its after effects.It is broken down into four distinctive chapters. The first, "The Plague" is the best of the lot. It deals of the lethal virus spreading across the country killing most of the population. There are those who are immune to the virus, notably Stu Redman (Gary Sinese) whose story is the focus of this part.Part 2, "The Dream" is where things get really weird. Many of the survivors begin to experience dreams in which they emerge from a corn field to be confronted by Mother Abigail Freemantle (Ruby Dee) who is a self proclaimed messenger of God. She counsels them and invites them to come to her. This is the "good" side. On the "evil" side is one Randall Flagg (Jamie Sheridan) an agent of the devil who can change shapesat will and has a closet full of scary faces.Part 3. "The Betrayal" deals with jilted suitor Harold Lauder (Corin Nemac) who has been seduced by the evil Nadine Cross (Laura San Giacomo) into betraying his love Frannie Goldsmith (Molly Ringwald) who has become involved ...and pregnant with Redman as well as betraying the rest of the group led by Redman which includes the deaf/dumb Nick Andros (Rob Lowe), his slightly retarded Tom Cullen (Bill Fagerbakle), Glen Bateman (Ray Walston) and Larry Underwood (Adam Storke) among others. Harold builds an explosive device and........................................Part 4. "The Stand" is the final showdown between good and evil. Mother Abigail has sent four men on a pilgrimage to confront the evil Flagg. In the meantime his assistant Lloyd Henreid (Miguel Ferrer) is preparing for the confrontation. A weird ally, The Trashcan man arrives on the scene with a big surprise for all.The first part of the story concerning the spread of the lethal virus, had the most potential. When it degenerates into the supernatural, it for me, gets a little ridiculous. The climax in Part 4 is rather unlikely given the situation. And Jamie Sheridan in a Kris Kristoffersom fright wig is more than a little over the top. The rest of the large cast does what it can in an impossible situation.Watch for Ed Harris as a General and Kathy Bates as a radio announcer in the first part. The producers would have done well to have cast these two performers to bigger parts. And yes, Stephen King has a part as one of the good people.

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.

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.