Most post-apocalyptic shows either walk audiences through a terrifying world-ending event in their opening moments or feature the grim aftermath of a destructive apocalypse. Both approaches work incredibly well and effectively engage viewers from the beginning itself. The 1994 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand does not shy away from taking the conventional route.
Like most shows and movies of the post-apocalyptic genre, it also shows what has become of the world after a deadly pandemic wipes out most humans. However, what sets it apart is how it executes this with the perfect background to fully immerse viewers in its drama.
The Stand’s 1994 Adaptation Still Has One Of The Best Post-Apocalyptic Openings
Instead of featuring high-octane chaos and showing all the chaos a world-ending event has left behind, The Stand begins opens with a haunting epigraph from T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men:
“This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
With what follows, Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” gradually swells up in the background as the show walks through the bleak visuals of a lab filled with corpses. While the Blue Öyster Cult song perfectly complements the scene and gives it a sense of haunting familiarity, it becomes hard not to notice how the people in the lab did not even get the time to panic.
All of them seem to have died while they were in the middle of whatever they were doing. As the opening T.S. Elliot quote highlights, their deaths were not marked by a massive world-ending “bang.” Instead, their lights went out in a “whimper.”
The opening scene perfectly establishes that humanity’s end on the planet was not set up by years of war or conflict. Instead, it was merely a mistake that ultimately proved how effective “Project Blue” was. One still even reveals a slow-motion shot of the security gate closing just a second too late as Charles Campion speeds away. This becomes the ultimate “butterfly effect” moment.
Although The Stand adopts many supernatural elements as its story continues, its opening scene perfectly captures how some of the most memorable moments from post-apocalyptic shows do not have to be driven by CGI-heavy visuals of the world’s collapse. Just simple visuals from a lab, with a hauntingly nostalgic song playing in the background, can effectively convince viewers to stick around for more.
1994’s The Stand Is One Of The Best Stephen King Adaptations Of All Time
When 1994’s The Stand first premiered over 30 years ago, it was met with a lukewarm response from critics. The show still has an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 67%. However, over the years, The Stand has gained more appreciation from Stephen King’s fans and garnered more of a cult following.
Especially after the 2020 show’s failed adaptation of the same Stephen King book, the 1994 series gained a new wave of appreciation.
Small-screen adaptations of Stephen King’s works have always struggled to leave their mark. Barring a few, like The Outsider, It: Welcome to Derry, and Mr. Mercedes, most Stephen King TV shows have struggled to impress viewers and critics.
However, 1994’s The Stand is among the rare TV adaptations of Stephen King’s books that stand the test of time despite its dated visuals. Its network TV production has seemingly held it back from aging gracefully on a technical level. Fortunately, though, its writing and cast performances still hold incredibly well.
Not to mention, even the opening scene of the Stephen King adaptation now feels even more haunting than ever because the world has gotten a glimpse of a destructive pandemic.