The Stand (1994)

The TV mini series of the Stephen King epic novel exploring a world that has had 99% of the population wiped out and this is the story of the survivors as they try to find their way in a world they no longer recognise. This is usually shown in 4 parts and is still very short compared to the scope, scale and detail of the book. I have read the book 3 or 4 times and it is my favourite Stephen King book and is actually one of my favourite books of all time.

This visual representation is actually a very good compared to the book and grabs the major points, I have to say as in all of these cases the book is far and away more involving and I would recommend that everybody reads the book. You follow several characters through a plague that starts like the flu and has a 100% mortality rate however there are a small amount of people who are immune to the virus. You have Stuart Redman played by Gary Sinise, Fran Goldsmith played by Molly Ringwald, Ralph Brenter played by Peter Van Norden, Nick Andros played by Rob Lowe and Larry played by Adam Storke.

There is a large supporting cast that capture the characters as written by Stephen King and as he has a small part in the film I presume he approved of all of the changes and helped to sculpt it for the TV from his original book. As a TV serial of a book I really enjoyed it, I think though that my love of it comes from my love of the book and the fact that it is quite true to the book. I give it 3 stars, I would love to see a 12 part serialisation of this perhaps going in a bit more depth and darkness. If you have read the book worth seeing and if into good old  fashioned post apocalyptic stories.

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)

Film of 2012 - #2
No Spoilers

Originally shown in 3D I watched this film on the TV so did not need the red and blue glasses that the 80's 3D technology required. I have to say that for a film that to me appeared to have it's tongue in it's cheek as it romped from set-piece to set-piece with Wolff and Nikki getting in and out of trouble with varying degrees of danger, to a conclusion that you can see coming a mile off it was a lot of fun.

The dodgy effects at the beginning make so much sense when you know the 3D origins but there were not as many obvious cliche 3D moments in the rest of the film but it would have been quite fun to have seen this in the theatre in it's time, I think that in today's effect and CGI driven movie industry it does not hold up but overall it is really worth a watch if you enjoy the 80's Sci-Fi classics.

If you enjoy the 80's fayre of dodgy acting, dodgy stories and dodgy effects then this film will work for you, if you do not go for cheesy story lines then you will probably not like it. A small note if you are a fan of Red Dwarf, there is an episode from an early season of this that I think rips this basic story off, it is episode "Kryton".