Doomsday Approaching As one of my favorite Stephen King works, I am really looking forward to being able to book it again.
The reason why I used it again is because when I bought the book a few years ago, the cover of the book said that Hollywood was going to shoot a movie of the same name, directed by Ben Affleck, and set Matthew McConaughey to play Randall, the man in black. Flagg. I was looking forward to it at that time, but after that, there was no news at all.
In fact, this work has been adapted many times abroad. As early as 1994, Doomsday Approached was adapted into a TV series. Produced and written by Lao Jin himself. In 2008, Marvel turned Doomsday into a comic, with a total of 31 episodes released, which ended on January 11, 2012.
There are five comics in total, all of which are titled The stand: captain trips.
The aforementioned film adaptation was a plan announced by Warner Bros. in 2011. But then with Ben Affleck playing Batman in Superman's sequel, Man of Steel, plans for the adaptation were shelved. Nearly twists and turns, and finally set to be directed by Josh Boone.
Therefore, this adaptation in 2020 was officially decided and filmed after several twists and turns.
It can be seen that the doomsday is approaching can be said to have a certain reputation abroad. It has undergone various forms of adaptation, whether it is a comic or a TV series, and has also been nominated for some awards. But the domestic audience is still small.
Let's talk about the important villain Randall Flagg first. The first cover of the comic was a portrait of Randall Flagg.
He appeared in Lao Jin's works more than once. He possesses several supernatural powers, psychic, foreknowledge and hypnotism, allowing wild animals to obey him, wolves as his servants, and crows as his eyeliner. "Flager is committed to destroying civilization through destruction and conflict."
In "The Dark Tower" released in 2017, there is "Men in Black" played by Matthew McConaughey. The man in black here should be Randall Flagg, but the name is different. The ability to create fire with a wave of your hand is the ability of the man in black in the original book. But this movie is indescribable, and if you really want to say it, it is pulpy. I don't know what I'm talking about in the whole article, I'm very confused after reading it, and the world view is not structured at all.
It was mentioned in Doomsday that he has many names, most of which can be abbreviated as RF. The original description of Flagg's appearance is fairly detailed. He wore mostly American-style clothes, blue jeans and a denim jacket, cowboy boots with badly frayed heels, various badges pinned to the jacket, and a sinister smile on his face.
So what does Randall Flag have to do with the Captain's Journey? The article does not directly state that the Captain's Tour was created and walked by Flagg, but it is not easy to say. He's more of a disruptor in a post-flu world, disturbing people's hearts.
The scene at the beginning of the story is that Sally is woken up by her husband, Charlie, who is a soldier on guard. He is about to run away with his wife and children, saying that the light turns red, and he runs away and almost gets cut off by a valve and so on. The explanation here should be a warning that the Captain's Tour has been leaked. Charlie Campton's family flees in a car, and the first chapter ends with a stuttering cough that suggests Charlie has the flu.
This Charlie Campton can be said to be the key character of the story. Because of his own selfishness, he ran away with his wife and children, but he did not know that he was the first infected person on the captain's journey. He escaped alone, causing uncontrollable The widespread influenza spread and the destruction of human civilization.
In other words, if he didn't escape, there might be no so-called doomsday approaching.
This is the beginning of the story.
The Camptons then arrive at a gas station in Texas, where our protagonist Stuy Redman and his friends drink and brag. By the time the Camptons arrived, his wife and children had already died from the disease, their goiter was swollen and black, and their nose and mouth were covered in mucus. He was also dying. This is the symptom of the captain's journey. This is also the first wave of influenza infection. Everyone at the gas station and the medical staff in the ambulance all carried the source of infection to various places.
At this time, the first main line has to be expanded, that is, the main line of Stu.
I have compiled a total of five main lines.
The setting of influenza is that it will take 99% of the lives of people, because every time a person is infected, the body's immune system will produce antibodies, which not only cannot suppress the flu, but will change the pathogen to a certain extent. In other words, everyone gets the flu differently. So there is no way to make a vaccine for this kind of flu.
But there will always be people who are born immune to the flu. These survivors are not politicians or scientists or other important characters. Most of them are small people, that is, ordinary people. This is also the method Lao Jin likes to use. Tell the story from the point of view of ordinary people.
These five main lines are developed from five "little people" and survivors who are immune to influenza:
1. Stu is an old boy in a small town. When he was a child, his family conditions were difficult. He started working outside when he was a teenager. It was a difficult life experience.
Stu encounters the Camptons at a gas station, then his partners all die of the flu, and he himself is held in isolation at a research base by a government agency. After being detained for a long time, he did not have any symptoms. All the staff in the research base died of influenza, and Stu escaped.
2. Larry was a white jazz singer who took drugs and alcohol to indulge himself after he became famous. Later, he was woken up by his best friend, and he broke up with friends and friends, and went home to live with his mother. Most of the mother and nearby citizens died of the flu. After developing a difficult relationship with a middle-aged woman Rita in a post-flu-ravaged world, they set out to find other survivors.
3. Franny is a pregnant young girl, her boyfriend has no interest in taking responsibility, and the two broke up after a quarrel. The flu took her parents away, and she ended up teaming up with her classmate's brother, Harold, a fat sleazy man, to find other survivors.
4. Nick is a deaf-mute who can read lips. At the beginning of the story, he was beaten by gangsters. The town sheriff John helped him get justice and arrested the gangsters. Mrs. John and the punks died of the flu. Nick encounters Tom, a big man with a slightly deficient IQ, and they team up to find survivors.
5. Lloyd and a buddy robbed and murdered in a post-flu world, once in a store robbery, and a buddy was killed in a shootout. He was arrested and put in jail. Prison stewards and fellow inmates died of flu, no keys to open doors, no food. He lived by eating mice and cockroaches, and even licked the calf of his dead inmate next door. After being rescued by Randall Flagg, he followed the man in black with all his heart.
This line is also the only storyline directly related to the Men in Black. The author also uses Lloyd's line to indirectly tell the story about the man in black.
Friends who read this forward-looking film review will have a hard time getting a feel for their character traits in my generalized account of what happened to the five main characters.
Before the outbreak of the flu, Lao Jin spent a long time talking about the lives of the protagonists before the outbreak of the flu, their troubles, their shortcomings and advantages, or their childishness and maturity.
It is these bland and seemingly inconspicuous things that make everyone's image and character characteristics in the middle and latter stages so kind, plump and real. This is what Lao Jin is good at.
In addition to these five main lines, in the middle of the story, the author also opened a number of other story lines, whether it is a key role or a secondary role that plays a certain role in the plot. These lines will come later.
After talking about the five main lines, let's talk about the two camps in the approaching doomsday. One side is the evil side of the West, led by the men in black. The other side is the justice camp headed by Abagail's mother.
Abagel's mother is a 108-year-old black grandmother with supernatural abilities of prophecy and dreaming. People on the right side of things like Stu, Larry, and Franny will all dream of her and meet under her guidance. But they also have nightmares, that is, people in black. This is also the ability of the man in black to dream.
I have watched the whole work three or four times, and I have a deep impression on the characters' characters. I want to talk briefly about Cass.
I was looking forward to the cast, and it was a bit of a surprise to see James Marsden as Stu. Personally, I learned from the original work that Stu's family was poor, and his younger brother and mother died of illness one after another. I went to school and worked part-time, and finally continued to live in a small town. Stu is an ordinary person who has experienced world events, is calm and taciturn, and has an unassuming appearance. Cyclops is still too handsome, it can be said that he does not have the temperament of an ordinary person.
Larry Underwood's casting is really unsatisfactory. In a short review, a friend has said that Larry is a white man who sings black jazz.
There is also a very important character, Harold Lauder, played by Owen Teague. In the original book, Harold looks like a wretched, greasy fat man, with a friendly and helpful image, but in fact, he is dark and evil inside. This dude obviously doesn't fit the image of Harold, although Harold has lost a lot of weight after the Captain's Journey (the deadly flu outbreak in the original book).
This old man does have a temperament that fits a double-faced person. Looking forward to his performance.
And Amber Heard, who plays Nadine Cross. Nadine is an iceberg beauty with white hair mixed in. With a difficult and grumpy kid, Joe. Refuses Larry's courtship many times, just to leave his virginity to Randall Flagg.
I think Nadine's temperament should belong to Gal Gadot's, which can show cold and inaccessible beauty. Rather than the flamboyant flamboyance like Amber.
In fact, when I was reading the book, I already imagined in my mind that if it was made into a movie or TV series, the ideal casting. I have given several leading roles to several foreign actors that I know well. Maybe some friends also have such a habit when reading books, so that they will have a more sense of picture and substitution when reading.
Some friends may think that it is not rational to talk about whether it is suitable for this role just by looking at the appearance of the actor. After all, whether the final performance is good or not depends on the actor's personal performance ability and understanding of the role.
But when casting a role, it is really important that the actor's appearance and temperament match the temperament of the original character.
In many Hollywood blockbusters, excellent casting directors will find the most suitable actor for the role among hundreds of audition actors, so that the audience will feel that an actor is born for a certain role.
Marion Doherty is a very famous casting director in Hollywood. A very classic example is the two generations of godfathers in "The Godfather". Robert De Niro's first godfather and Al Pacino's second godfather.
The first-generation godfather started from scratch and has a certain affinity. He was very friendly and polite when he was young. When it comes to revenge, it is also the first to approach, to kiss the hand of the enemy who killed his father, and finally to take his life. And Al Pacino's godfather, because of the different growing environment, received a college education and was unwilling to be involved in the family's gangster career. When his brother was killed and his father was shot, he realized that he had to take revenge and inherit the family business. This is how cool, calm and calm. A second-generation godfather with zero affinity. The whole Godfather 12 down, did not see Mike have a smile.
The difference in the growth environment and development history of the two generations of godfathers created the difference in the temperament of the two generations of godfathers, and the difference in the temperament of the two actors made Pacino destined to be the second generation, and De Niro was destined to be the first generation.
2020.1.2
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