The Stand/Stephen King

[kattatude]

Bill, who is Owen Meany and what makes him your favorite? I haven't read anything of his. Although, I am reading The Lovely Bones now, maybe you could recommend something of his for the future.

Newbie here! eldee, I'm not Bill, but Owen Meany isn't an author. He is the character in a book by John Irving "A Prayer For Owen Meany". Very good book, I might add. I recommend reading it.

Did you enjoy The Lovely Bones? I read that a couple months ago...read it in one day, couldn't put it down.

[bookaddict]

I disliked the movie too. The casting was all wrong. Molly Ringwald was so not Frannie.It was like a Disney version of the happy hooker or something.
There is just too much that goes inside the characters heads to do the book justice.

I thought I was the only one who thought She was wrong for the role... Couldn't stand watching it for that reason. Apparently King had a big part in the casting and the actors fit his vision of the characters. I think we should speak to him about that.

I have never enjoyed any of the movies done from his book there is just no was to capture the whole book in 2 hours.

If you like The Stand you may want to try Swan Song by Rober McCammon (sp). It's along the same line.

[eldee]

Hi Book addict. I read that book years ago and it was such an excellent book. A+, a must read.

[bookaddict]

Hi Eldee, I've read his (Robert McCammon) other books as well. They're not bad. They're hard to find though.

[Miss Filangi]

M-O-O-N spells Tom Cullen.

I love this book, but it's so unlike his other books, it was a bit of an adjustment from what I expected.

The movie, OTOH, sucked. It's not the right kind of book to adapt to the screen. So much of it relies on your imagination.

[eldee]

I thought that it would be good for film but those producers did not do a good job. King needs to find out who Koontz go to and hire them.

[MHayes62]

I’ve had a theory on Kings movies for quite some time now about why is it that most of his books don’t translate to movies very well. His books rely on very slow character development. If you look at the first hundred pages of almost all of his books, nothing (or at least very little) weird happens. Once he has developed these very rich three dimensional characters, he can slowly start having the creepy stuff happen. By the time the full throttle scary stuff emerges, you have a fairly significant amount of time and energy vested in these people. If I were to pick up a book and on page 1 zombies attack, I’d think, ok so what, but if the zombies were attacking someone that felt I knew, and cared about, then it is a lot more interesting. So the problem with almost all the movies is there is no time for character development. It can be done in a movie, but it is much more difficult and requires great skill. The few books of King that have translated well all allowed time for the proper character development (Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, The Green Mile, Carrie) I think more of his books could be done well if the people making them would quit jumping to the first monster, skipping the first 200 pages.

[eldee]

MHayes62
That is very interesting. Although I am a SK fan, what you posted does make sense.

[MHayes62]

Don't get me wrong, I am a Huge SK fan, I've read all his books (most multiple times). I just don't think his inherent writing style translates to the standard horror movie format.

[eldee]

I started to thing about it some more and remember that in The Shining, the father had a good amount of character development that is not shown in the first movie and maybe a touch more in the second.