How Will The Movie Version Of THE STAND End?
This article spoils a potential ending of The Stand movie.
There are a lot of obstacles to adapting Stephen King's The Stand, one of which is the ending. I quite like the ending of the book, but it's fairly anti-climactic onscreen, with a small group of our heroes infiltrating the enemy city of Las Vegas and being captured. As they wait to be executed by baddie Randall Flagg the mad pyromaniac Trashcan Man shows up with a pilfered nuke and the Hand of God comes out of the sky and sets it off, killing everybody. Including the good guys. It seems like this would have happened even if our heroes hadn't been there.
How will the movie end? I don't know! Josh Boone, who directed The Fault in Our Stars, is reworking the script right now. But I do know how the draft before Boone ended, one written by David Kajganich. It's not great.
In this version, from last year, the good guy survivors from Boulder get together in an army and march on Las Vegas to kill Randall Flagg. Flagg's headquarters is, of course, the Luxor Pyramid. The Boulderites invade the city while, off to the east, a squad fights at the Boulder Dam - which Trashcan Man explodes, killing Larry Underwood and sending a deadly flood to Vegas. In the city Flagg squares off against hero Stu Redman... who now has the power of God, and they have an Akira-like battle on the Las Vegas Strip, with Flagg trying to take Stu's magic. Cars are thrown, Excalbur's turrets are tossed, the people of Vegas are used by Flagg as disposable cannon-fodder. Meanwhile Nick Andros sacrifices his life taking out a howitzer. The Boulder forces, while armed, try to only take prisoners and rescue people from being under Flagg's evil spell. It all comes down to Flagg and Stu, and whether or not Stu will absorb Flagg's evil magic.
And there's a mid-credits tag that sets up a sequel. Yes, a The Stand 2.
What do you think? Should Boone keep this big, action-packed ending? Should there be the Battle of Las Vegas in his version of The Stand? Or should he try to find an ending closer in tone to the book?
