The Stand
This article contains spoilers for both the book and the recent tv show.
On a recent vacation, I read the entirety of the unabridged version of The Stand by Stephen King, a reread of one of my favourite books. After returning home, I wanted to contrast with the new miniseries, The Stand, which I thought was good but not great.
The book is one of my favourite books, and perhaps my favourite thing Stephen King has written. It is quintessential King - brutal, evocative, dark, compelling, pants-wettingly scary, and deeply human. The male characters all jump out of the pages at you and are brought to life very well. The women characters are less stunningly real; one of King's failings is that his female voice tends to lean a lot on tropes and sexism, though not as much as some other writers of his particular vintage. One of the ways in which the show succeeds is that the women have a better, clearer voice; they are just a bit more believable as women, instead of being a man's representation of a woman. For example, in the book we experience Frannie Goldsmith mostly as an object of desire - she was desired by Jesse, then by Harold, then Stu. She has some interior monologues and scenes, but they are mostly about her boy troubles or her pregnancy. In the show, she is more well-rounded, though this may be more a function of constraint rather than expansion. There is just less in the show than the book. These numbers are ones I have just made up for the purpose of illustration: it is as if in the book Frannie has ninety instances of thinking about stereotypically female things and ten instances of talking about things that make her more well-rounded, but in the show has six instances of being stereotypical and four instances of being well-rounded. There's a lot less of her in the show, but they get the proportions better. The character of Ray Brentner was changed from a capable male yokel to a capable female who existed pretty much entirely to be badass, and the Judge was given a similar treatment, and both of those were good choices. The show did a better job, overall, with its portrayal of women than the book. There is a notable exception: Nadine Cross.
Book Nadine has maintained, at a surface level, her "purity". She is a "virgin", though this is open to debate; she has never had sex that could result in pregnancy, at least. She has not killed anyone, though again this is open to debate; she did not actually kill anyone with her own hands, but certainly contributed to deaths. She is potentially an ally to Boulder, though once again it is not clear if she ever could have allowed herself to truly be good. She pleads with Flagg to let Howard have an easy death on the road. The key thing, though, is that in all of these, she had a choice open to her, and she was not overtly evil, nor dedicated to Flagg; she felt his inexorable pull, but she was her actions were not only at his urging. In the show, Nadine is wholly a creature devoted to Flagg. She is a member of a cult from the beginning, and there is not a moment where that is in question. She shoots and kills Teddy Weizak; she plants the bomb in Mother Abagail's house; she comes up with and enacts a plan to kill Howard. At no point is Nadine Cross even conflicted about her actions; she is a spy from the outset. The writers of the show did elect, somewhat perversely,to keep one detail, which was her virginity. It is a nonsensical choice since the entire rest of the purity angle was dropped. Instead of a woman on the knife-edge of choice between good and evil, they elected to have a character that was entirely under the sway of a charismatic cult leader. I understand why they made this choice - that was an important theme in the book for other characters that experience less screen time in the show - but it meant that most of the book's story with Nadine was corrupted or negated by this choice, and Nadine's story in the book was an important one. Amber Heard, controversial though she is, was well cast as Nadine, and did a good job with the story she was given, it just wasn't as good as Nadine Cross' story in the book.
That is a recurring theme.
Ezra Miller, controversial though he is, was well cast as The Trashcan Man, but so much of Trash's story was removed that it didn't make sense. In the book, Trash is a dousing rod for weapons, but he is also a loose cannon; he finally fits in in Las Vegas, and it feels like home for him in a way that nowhere else ever has, so when he says "My life for you", it has meaning. In the show, he just shows up loving Flagg, who immediately sends him to find a nuke. His story is cut very short, and it was an important part of the story, because he is a key figure in the downfall of Las Vegas and the inevitable victory of Good over Evil, and why Evil loses. Flagg has a blind spot with Trash; he can feel that he is useful, but he can't see how, and he lacks the ability to foresee what is going to happen. Acting on instinct instead of with forethought, is one of the key differences between Boulder and Las Vegas. This is lost in the tv show.
Flagg himself is also a bit of a mixed bag. Alexander Skarsgård is perfectly cast and nails the role, but the problem is with the story he is given. The show makes Flagg responsible for the superflu, by allowing Campion to escape, which is another fundamental change to a character. Flagg is an opportunist and a scavenger, not a planner or an evil mastermind. A bottom feeder does not set the apocalypse in motion, but when the apocalypse happens, uses his instincts to take advantage. In the show, Flagg is enough of a mastermind to release the superflu, destroy the human race, but fails to think through the ramifications of sending Trash out specifically to find a nuke; he is not an internally consistent character.
Most of the characters are in the same boat - James Marsden as Stu, Greg Kinnear as Glen Batemen, Jovan Adepo as Larry Underwood - I could name most of the rest of the cast - all did god jobs with the character and script they were given, but their story just fell a bit short. The one exception would be Owen Teague playing Harold Lauder. Teague was, like Skarsgård, the perfect choice for Harold Lauder, and in this case Harold story was changed a bit for the better. Book Harold lacked pathos, but the show seems to be as much about the downfall of Harold Lauder as anything else. The first episode establishes him being bullied, and when everyone dies, it's a respite from bullying. Then the run-in with Garvey where Howard is beaten shows that even in the apocalypse the bullying won't end. It is one of the things that sends him off the deep end. Owen Teague and the writers both nailed it with Harold in the show.
The most problematic change in the show is the walk that the four characters take to Las Vegas to confront Flagg. In the book, Mother Abagail gives them a Mission From God, and every part of her Mission has a reason; every part of the Mission is important, and is an example of Providence. In the book, Stu falls to preserve Kojak because otherwise he would go with Glen, to the end. Glen dies to sow doubt in Lloyd and Flagg's other followers and to give strength to Larry and Ray, Larry and Ray are to undergo public execution which brings the border guards awy from their posts; they are required to watch the execution because Flagg's hold on them is slipping. Glen, Larry and Ray are the ones who make The Stand - they stand in front of Flagg and show they are not afraid. Making their Stand is sufficient to bring about the end, because the guards being away from the posts allows The Trashcan Man to bring the nuke into the middle of Las Vegas, despite the guards having a kill-on-site order for Trashy. There is a kill order on Trashy because he is an unkown that Flagg cannot control, and because he killed all the pilots that Flagg was having trained. Tom rescues Stu, Nick rescues them both - despite being quite dead - and there is a happy-ish sort of ending.
The show misses this. Stu falls which stops Kojak from continuing on the mission, Glen dies to sow doubt / give strength. There is no real need for a public execution or trial other than cruelty. The guards probably should have stopped Trash from bringing the nuke downtown. There is magical lightning, and that's what defeats Flagg. Does the show even have a Stand? Who stands? Glen Bateman potentially, but he just sows fear to Larry and Ray. Ray and Larry could be said to Stand against Flagg at the end - they do repeat "I shall fear no evil" which potentially summons the lightning? The ball of lightning is the biggest deviation and is a bad change. The Stand is when good people stand up in the face of evil, causing evil to destroy itself, because evil is unsustainable. Flagg cannot control the pieces that he set in motion, and The Stand that the Boulder people take is sufficient to unravel him. There is no need for a magical ball of lightning to come down and defeat Flagg, because Flagg is, as Glen Bateman said, nothing.
In the book, Flagg's downfall is inevitable; in the show it is deus ex machina.
Other than this - other than the fact that everything is different and the writers completely missed the point - the show got a lot of things right. The cast is superfluously good, the settings and effects are great, the feel of dread, the changes to storytelling by starting in the middle, the exceptionally well done epilogue... they are all good. It is just a shame that they missed the point.