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The Langoliers (1995)
6.6
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Stephen King's tale of 10 plane passengers who awake to find that everyone else on their...
Pete Thompson (4339 KP) created a video about The Langoliers (1995) in Movies
Nov 22, 2019
Langelier Saturation Index, LSI Job Logbook
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The Langelier Saturation Index computes the Langelier Saturation Index, a calculated number, to...
Four Past Midnight
7.6
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You are strapped in an airline seat on a flight beyond hell. You are forced into a hunt for the most...
The Langoliers Secret Window Secret Garden The Library Policeman The Sun Dog
Hazel (2934 KP) rated Hell Train (The Cursed Manuscripts) in Books
May 15, 2022
I think I can safely say that I am a fan of Mr Wright's work; rarely have I been disappointed with anything he has written and Hell Train is no exception.
At the beginning of the book, Mr Wright tells us that his inspiration is Stephen King's The Langoliers and whilst I can definitely see this (and understand because I love The Langoliers), Hell Train is very much an original story.
Mr Wright has a great knack of making the normal develop into something that is totally abnormal and here he does it again. A simple train journey in the middle of the day becomes something entirely different when the train enters a tunnel.
With characters that you love and some you love to hate, a plot that is intriguing and different, a pace that is relentless with no words wasted, with twists that will shock and scenes that might leave you feeling a tad queasy, Hell Train is a quick and enjoyable read and one that I would recommend to lovers of horror.
My thanks must go to Iain for accepting me into his "street team" and for allowing me to read Hell Train and to share my thoughts.
At the beginning of the book, Mr Wright tells us that his inspiration is Stephen King's The Langoliers and whilst I can definitely see this (and understand because I love The Langoliers), Hell Train is very much an original story.
Mr Wright has a great knack of making the normal develop into something that is totally abnormal and here he does it again. A simple train journey in the middle of the day becomes something entirely different when the train enters a tunnel.
With characters that you love and some you love to hate, a plot that is intriguing and different, a pace that is relentless with no words wasted, with twists that will shock and scenes that might leave you feeling a tad queasy, Hell Train is a quick and enjoyable read and one that I would recommend to lovers of horror.
My thanks must go to Iain for accepting me into his "street team" and for allowing me to read Hell Train and to share my thoughts.
Night Reader Reviews (683 KP) rated One Past Midnight: The Langoliers in Books
Mar 28, 2020
Just Because
Stephen King does it once again with this book. The first short story in Four Past Midnight will keep readers up well past midnight trying to finish it in one sitting.
When a plane flies through a natural phenomenon mistaken for the Aurora Boralice something very strange happens. All of the passengers (including the piolet) who were awake disappear and only those who were asleep find themselves still on the plane. This mismatched group must figure out how to land the plane safely and decide what just happened. They manage to land in a strange area that resembles an airport like what they are used to but there are no people, sounds carry weird, and the food is tasteless, plus there is a chewing noise getting closer and closer to them.
When a plane flies through a natural phenomenon mistaken for the Aurora Boralice something very strange happens. All of the passengers (including the piolet) who were awake disappear and only those who were asleep find themselves still on the plane. This mismatched group must figure out how to land the plane safely and decide what just happened. They manage to land in a strange area that resembles an airport like what they are used to but there are no people, sounds carry weird, and the food is tasteless, plus there is a chewing noise getting closer and closer to them.
Gareth von Kallenbach (965 KP) rated The Dark Tower (2017) in Movies
Jun 19, 2019
Adapting Stephen King stories for the screen has long been a difficult problem for Hollywood. For every “Misery” and “The Shawshank Redemption”, there are many others such as “The Mangler”, “Cell”, “and Graveyard Shift” and many more where things did not go as planned.
The big issue is that King often creates detailed characters with complex backstories and puts then in fully developed worlds that despite their supernatural nature, often are easy for readers to relate to.
Also as any reader of his books knows, King is not one to spare the paper and his books can be very lengthy offerings. This is an issue for Hollywood as they are forced to condense a 400-800 page plus story in many cases to fewer than two hours of screen time. The solution has been to try television movies such as “The Langoliers”, “The Tommyknockers”, “The Stand”, and “It”. The problem with this format is that while spreading the story over multiple nights allows more time for the story, they gore and adult content which is often the core of the story has to be greatly watered down.
Which brings us to “The Dark Tower”, an adaptation of King’s largest offering as the series covers seven books and a novella, not to mention a Prequel comic and more. The series rolled out from 1982-2004 with King often saying that he might never finish the series. Fortunately for fans he released three books from 2003-2004 and was able to declare the story told.
The story tells of a world like ours, but different that has “moved on”. It is a dying world where Roland (Idris Elba), is pursuing a wizard named Walter (Matthew McConaughey), who is responsible for laying waste the world and killing all that come into Roland’s life. The books follow his unrelenting chase of The Man in Black over countless years and how he has become a cold and driven individual who thinks nothing of using people to get his revenge.
Roland is the last of the “Gunslingers”, a Knight like group who protected the world and who used guns that were rare in their world to keep the peace. Roland is highly skilled and unlike his now dead companions, is impervious to the magic of Walter which has allowed him to remain alive and continue his quest.
The Man in Black is fixated on destroying the Dark Tower, which protects the many worlds in the universe from the outside evils that look to destroy it. Along with a young boy from Earth named Jake (Tom Taylor), Roland must find a way to save the universe and exact his revenge.
The film keeps the conflict between Roland and The Man in Black but greatly condenses the story as it includes references to things in the first two books but omits much of the backstory and plot of the novels to tell what I would call a story that was inspired by, but not based on the books.
This is at the core the biggest issue with the film. I have read the books and while I wanted an adaptation that was closer to them, I did find myself enjoying the film more than I expected to. The leads were very good and even though they had a very watered down script to work with, they did a good job and the finale does have some nice visuals and action to it.
People I know who have read the books have naturally been very disappointed with the film but those who have not read the books have mentioned that they enjoyed the film and accepted it as a fun bit of escapist adventure.
There has been talk of a television series that would focus more on the third book onward which hopefully would include how Roland gained new followers from our world who were trained to be future Gunslingers. That remains to be seen as the success of the film will likely hold the key. I hope we do get to see it as there are countless stories and characters yet to tell in this universe and I think fans deserve to see them as King wrote them.
http://sknr.net/2017/08/03/the-dark-tower/
The big issue is that King often creates detailed characters with complex backstories and puts then in fully developed worlds that despite their supernatural nature, often are easy for readers to relate to.
Also as any reader of his books knows, King is not one to spare the paper and his books can be very lengthy offerings. This is an issue for Hollywood as they are forced to condense a 400-800 page plus story in many cases to fewer than two hours of screen time. The solution has been to try television movies such as “The Langoliers”, “The Tommyknockers”, “The Stand”, and “It”. The problem with this format is that while spreading the story over multiple nights allows more time for the story, they gore and adult content which is often the core of the story has to be greatly watered down.
Which brings us to “The Dark Tower”, an adaptation of King’s largest offering as the series covers seven books and a novella, not to mention a Prequel comic and more. The series rolled out from 1982-2004 with King often saying that he might never finish the series. Fortunately for fans he released three books from 2003-2004 and was able to declare the story told.
The story tells of a world like ours, but different that has “moved on”. It is a dying world where Roland (Idris Elba), is pursuing a wizard named Walter (Matthew McConaughey), who is responsible for laying waste the world and killing all that come into Roland’s life. The books follow his unrelenting chase of The Man in Black over countless years and how he has become a cold and driven individual who thinks nothing of using people to get his revenge.
Roland is the last of the “Gunslingers”, a Knight like group who protected the world and who used guns that were rare in their world to keep the peace. Roland is highly skilled and unlike his now dead companions, is impervious to the magic of Walter which has allowed him to remain alive and continue his quest.
The Man in Black is fixated on destroying the Dark Tower, which protects the many worlds in the universe from the outside evils that look to destroy it. Along with a young boy from Earth named Jake (Tom Taylor), Roland must find a way to save the universe and exact his revenge.
The film keeps the conflict between Roland and The Man in Black but greatly condenses the story as it includes references to things in the first two books but omits much of the backstory and plot of the novels to tell what I would call a story that was inspired by, but not based on the books.
This is at the core the biggest issue with the film. I have read the books and while I wanted an adaptation that was closer to them, I did find myself enjoying the film more than I expected to. The leads were very good and even though they had a very watered down script to work with, they did a good job and the finale does have some nice visuals and action to it.
People I know who have read the books have naturally been very disappointed with the film but those who have not read the books have mentioned that they enjoyed the film and accepted it as a fun bit of escapist adventure.
There has been talk of a television series that would focus more on the third book onward which hopefully would include how Roland gained new followers from our world who were trained to be future Gunslingers. That remains to be seen as the success of the film will likely hold the key. I hope we do get to see it as there are countless stories and characters yet to tell in this universe and I think fans deserve to see them as King wrote them.
http://sknr.net/2017/08/03/the-dark-tower/