TNT's Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes...

[chefcraig]

On Wednesday, July 12th TNT will premier a new mini-series based on Stephen King's "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" compilation. I truly hope this doesn't follow the usual path of tv adaptations of King's work, meaning a suck-fest. here's the link:

www.tnt.tv/title/?oid=612966

We'll see. By the way, only four of the eight stories are actually from the book. Well that's a great start, don't you think?

[Van Squalen]

Me too. There are some great little novellas in that collection. TV adaptations of King's work sorely lack. Catch Desperation a few weeks back? Ughh. The Shining with Steve Weber? Blecch. The Stand was semi-ok, I guess, for TV, but probably mostly 'cause of Gary Senise.

It's always the big screen stuff that shines for King. Green Mile. Shawshank.

N&D, I keep wondering which stories they'll do. Surely not all. Dolan's Cadillac and Chattery Teeth almost a certainty. But hopefully they'll do You Know they Got a Hell of a Band. And Crouch End. Good stuff.

[chefcraig]

Me too. There are some great little novellas in that collection. TV adaptations of King's work sorely lack. Catch Desperation a few weeks back? Ughh. The Shining with Steve Weber? Blecch. The Stand was semi-ok, I guess, for TV, but probably mostly 'cause of Gary Senise.

It's always the big screen stuff that shines for King. Green Mile. Shawshank.

N&D, I keep wondering which stories they'll do. Surely not all. Dolan's Cadillac and Chattery Teeth almost a certainty. But hopefully they'll do You Know they Got a Hell of a Band. And Crouch End. Good stuff.

Check out the link...you'll be disappointed.

[Van Squalen]

It's not a great start. However, at least a few of the stories are in fact the more outstanding ones in the collection - (rock and roll heaven, crouch end, the end of the whole mess).

I forget which collection that 'painting' story is in, but I don't think it's in N&D. Plus Autopsy Room 4 is actually from his last collection of short ones, Everything's Eventual, which was quite good. King's short story collections are among his finest works, by far...hard to beat Skeleton Crew, though.

Either way, the fact that TNT and television screenplay wordsmithing will undoubtedly dumb down the original stories' impacts is always a bummer.

[Axxman300]

I'll wait until the show actually airs before I pass judgement.

It's nice to have something new to watch in the summer that isn't a reality or talent show and even if it does suck it can't match the level of suck that is "America's Got Talent".

Stephen King is just hard to do on screen because so much happens inside his charactor's heads.

Still, I think technology has gotten to the point that someone can now do a killer version of "The Mist".

[Van Squalen]

Still, I think technology has gotten to the point that someone can now do a killer version of "The Mist".

Agreed. What a great story.

King does 'End of the World' motif quite well. The Stand. The Mist. Dark Tower. The End of the Whole Mess.

[jimmy812]

Actually I'm just finishing up Nightmares and Dreamscapes right now in preparation for the upcoming series.
I just want to make a nit-picky correction: 5 of the stories are from N & D. "Autopsy Room Four" and "Road Virus" (the painting one) are from Everything's Eventual. And "Battleground" is from Night Shift. I did some research just to make sure that I had read them all.
I was surprised that I HAD N & D and never read it! I'm surprised they didn't do anything from Skeleton Crew.
"The Mist" would be a good full-length feature film (...well it would seem so).
Did anyone watch Desperation when it was on a couple of months ago?

[Axxman300]

Did anyone watch Desperation when it was on a couple of months ago?

It was okay, kind of flat.

I don't understand how T.V. can produce shows like the X-Files, where most episodes were better than stuff you got in the theater, and then they do a half-assed job on King's various works?

[csm5150]

I saw the first episode tonight (I didn't catch the name and I am not a big King fan, so I don't know where its from) and I thought it was pretty good. The ending of it was okay, but all in all it was a good story. I also liked there was no dialogue in the whole story.

[Van Squalen]

Actually, compared to other TV King adaptations, these first two episodes in the series were damned good, IMO. And pretty faithful to the original stories.

Battleground was great. Love the ending just like the story.

Crouch End was a little more adapted, and a bit cheesy on the effects, but creepy nonetheless. Always was one of the best shorties in N&D. The Goat with a Thousand Young. Yikes.

[jimmy812]

I like Battleground a lot. And you're right it was faithful. No commercials was an added bonus too.

Crouch End was so much better as a story (isn't that always the case?), but it did have some good special effects. I'm not big into 'other dimensions' kinds of stories so that's probably why I didn't care as much for it.
King's films never seem to get the budget they need, but apparently they spent some money on these.

I'm looking forward to Road Virus and Autopsy.
He has so many short stories they could do this every year for a while.

[DirtyWaterDoggie]

Not a bad first night, Crouch End was not bad, but Battleground was very cool.
The best thing about Battleground was No Dialogue! It really got across the feeling you get when reading King's stuff. It does look like they spent some cash on the special effects. I guess that is the difference between big time cable and vanilla Network TV.

[hain23x]

the William Hurt thing was cool


the second one sucked ass

[BradS]

They would do well to put up an outstanding creation of Dolan's Cadillac...that story is awesome...

Battelground was outstanding. They did a great job with it.

[jimmy812]

They would do well to put up an outstanding creation of Dolan's Cadillac...that story is awesome...

Actually I was surprised they didn't use that story for this series. I agree with you that it's a great story, and I think it would work well as a short film.