Horrifying Cereal?

Question

I took a "friend's" advice and wasted three hours of my life last night, watching "The Langoliers".

Kind of a cool concept at the beginning and I'm sure King's story had to be better than the mini-series.

But...

In one part the blind girl says she can hear a strange sound, like "Rice Crispies when you pour milk on them". Fine, we've got a mystery.

Then...

Not three minutes later she says something like "The awful, horrible sound is getting closer, we have to leave".

My wife looks at me and asks "Rice Crispies?"

I can only shrug my shoulders and say "Maybe breakfast cereal terrifies her".

-- Paulo Joe Jingy Coming soon: "Revenge of the Grape-Nuts"

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]I took a "friend's" advice and wasted three hours of my life last night, watching "The Langoliers". Kind of a ... shrug my shoulders and say "Maybe breakfast cereal terrifies her". -- Paulo Joe Jingy Coming soon: "Revenge of the Grape-Nuts"[/nq]
Wilford Brimley Dan Aykroyd Katharine Hepburn Martin Scorsese

Rice Krispies

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]My wife looks at me and asks "Rice Crispies?" I can only shrug my shoulders and say "Maybe breakfast cereal terrifies her".[/nq]
You've never heard of cereal killers?

--

"Scriptwriting is the toughest part of the whole racket, the least understood and the least noticed." --Frank Capra

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I took a "friend's" advice and wasted three hours of my life last night, watching "The Langoliers".[/nq]
I've neither seen the mini-series nor read the prose version of "The Langoliers", but I do recall a genuinely creepy story by George R.R. Martin ("The Pear-shaped Man") that effectively used Cheese Doodles as a symbol of horror.

Cheese Doodles. I *** you not.

Cheers,

B

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I took a "friend's" advice and wasted three hours of my life lastnight, watching "The Langoliers". Kind of a cool ... only shrug my shoulders and say "Maybe breakfast cerealterrifies her". -- Paulo Joe Jingy Coming soon: "Revenge of the Grape-Nuts"[/nq]
Ahh, "The Langoliers" -- "The Langoliers" -- now there's a blast from my past. I remember working on this turkey when I was at Laurel. We'd finished "The Stand" -- which had done quite well -- and the network wanted to do another King-based mini-series.

Now, why, of all the possible projects Richard Rubinstein might have latched onto to present to them for development into a possible mini-series, he fixed on "The Langoliers" -- a novella -- is difficult to understand.

Even as a novella, it's pretty thin. I mean, it's really sort of an extended Twilight Zone episode. The premise -- the notion that "yesterday" somehow continues to exist as a sort of emptied out set into which a contemporary person might somehow stumble has been done before -- at least there have been stories about it before.

I guess the idea of the past sort of first being emptied out and then being eaten up by "the langoliers" is kind of interesting -- but of course, in the story the description of the langoliers is such that you cannot help but think of the world being devoured by little munching pac-men.

As for the adaptation -- the script was what it was -- it was very faithful to the story, and the story was what it was. Blind girl and British Assassin and what-have-you on the plane -- yeah, whatever. Meanwhile, this guy is supposed to know what he's doing when somebody gets injured -- apparently he doesn't know better than to yank a knife out of a life-threatening wound when they're, at the very least, hours away from a hospital. Only a good idea if you want the person in question to bleed out and die.

But you know, when it's in the story, and the story is by Stephen King, and you want to maintain good relations with Stephen King -- you don't write notes like that.

I guess that's why the exec who wanted to raise that whole question about what happens when it rains to M. Night Shyamalan was likewise advised to keep her mouth shut.

So the script was what it was -- it was long and it was slow -- because it really should never been a mini-series, but what are you going to do? And it was written by Tom Holland -- who also directed it -- so you figure, at the very least, what's on the page is pretty much what you're going to get.

And then they cast the damned thing -- and the villain of the piece -- a late-middle-aged neurotic businessman who ultimately goes completely insane -- is suddenly being played by Bronson Pinchot -- a guy in his late twenties who has, up until then, only played light comedic roles.

I mean, the rest of the cast is nothing special -- just your basic generic TV cast. Nothing great, nothing terrible. But Pinchot is just like this unbelievable lump of **** in the middle of this movie. Watching this guy's performance is like watching a train wreck.

Then there's the staging of the finale -- and maybe this means nothing to anybody else -- but it drove me *** crazy. Because it's set up and laid out in a perfectly logical way in the story -- and it's set up and laid out in exactly the same way in the script. These langolier critters are drawn like piranha to living things. Now everybody is on board the plane, trying to take off -- and here come the langoliers, heading straight for them. And Pinchot's character is having some sort of hallucination on the runway -- and then he comes out of it -- realizes where he is -- and runs off -- away from the plane -- and the langoliers follow him. And while the langoliers are chasing him away from the other living people, who are presumably, just as desirable and edible, they are able to get away.

But for him being there, and leading them away from the plane, they would have attacked them, in the plane, and killed them.

It made perfect sense -- in the book -- and in the script.

But not in the frigging movie -- because in the movie, instead of running away from the plane, Pinchot runs directly past the plane. He leads the langoliers *to* the plane -- but instead of promptly munching up the plane and then continuing on to finish of Pinchot, they ignore the plane, rush on by (presumably devouring the runway under the plane) and kill him -- essentially accomplishing nothing -- only somehow everybody pretends that it's accomplished something, and they fly away.

.

As for the langoliers themselves -- well, I remember when they asked me to come into Richard's office to show me a test of one of the langoliers and I watched it and after it was done I said, quietly, "Well, is it finished? I mean, is that what it's going to look like?" And there was some phumphing around between Richard and Mitchell, who was the VP. And I said, "Well, it doesn't really look photographically realistic. It's like a graphic. It's like Scrubbing Bubbles." They thanked me for my opinion.

And you know what? That's still what the damned things look like. Scrubbing Bubbles.

As I recall, when we showed the final cut to the office staff, somebody said afterward that they should skip the network screening and send it straight to Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

NMS

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]My wife looks at me and asks "Rice Crispies?" I can only shrug my shoulders and say "Maybe breakfast cereal terrifies her".[/nq]
[nq:1]You've never heard of cereal killers? The tree outside my window, during the summer, is home to some colorful green ... them and tie threads to their feet and take them for walks (airborne) like kites. They pee the stinkiest ***.[/nq]
I believe the clicking sounds I hear at night coming from the tree must be their mating call. They sound like Rice Crispies. And who decided to make a cerial that talks back, anyway. I`m from the old school and things like that are best done quietly. You probably would`ve gotten a kick out of me, for the first time, pour milk on my cereal and sport a quizzical expression on my face searching for the strange out of place noise. I remember as though it were yesterday. Darn elves. Just like a clown.

--

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Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I took a "friend's" advice and wasted three hours of my life last night, watching "The Langoliers".[/nq]
I've neither seen the mini-series nor read the prose version of "The Langoliers", but I do recall a genuinely creepy story by George R.R. Martin ("The Pear-shaped Man") that effectively used Cheese Doodles as a symbol of horror.

Cheese Doodles. I *** you not.

Cheers,

B

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I took a "friend's" advice and wasted three hours of my life last[/nq]
[nq:1]night,[/nq]
[nq:2]watching "The Langoliers". Kind of a cool concept at the beginning and I'm sure King's story had[/nq]
[nq:1]to[/nq]
[nq:2]be better than the mini-series. But... In one part the blind girl says she can hear a strange sound, like[/nq]
[nq:1]"Rice[/nq]
[nq:2]Crispies when you pour milk on them". Fine, we've got ... can only shrug my shoulders and say "Maybe breakfast cereal[/nq]
[nq:1]terrifies[/nq]
[nq:2]her". -- Paulo Joe Jingy Coming soon: "Revenge of the Grape-Nuts"[/nq]
[nq:1]Ahh, "The Langoliers" -- "The Langoliers" -- now there's a blast from my past. I remember working on this turkey when I was at Laurel. We'd finished "The Stand" --[/nq]
Could you please get in touch with the person who cast Jamey Sheridan as The Walking Dude and give him a noogie or a purple nurple for me? A shame that the Romero version of that (which I believe was going to be a feature at one time and a mini-series at another) never took shape.
[nq:1]And you know what? That's still what the damned things look like. Scrubbing Bubbles.[/nq]
Let me guess: early, really bad, animated .GIF-style CGI? Ouch. Kind of like the high-tech equivalent of the guy in the gorilla/spaceman suit from "Robot Monster".

Ah well, at least "The Night Flier" turned out pretty swell!

Cheers,

B

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Ahh, "The Langoliers" -- "The Langoliers" -- now there's a blast from my past. I remember working on this turkey ... a contemporary person might somehow stumble has been done before -- at least there have been stories about it before.[/nq]
Very cool to hear about the background on this. King's novella is not one of his better works (IMHO), and the Twilight Zone incarnation from the 1980's had done a similar story about people getting trapped between moments (with construction workers instead of giant scrubbing bubbles dismantling the just past moment). I don't know which came first, though - King's novella or the TZ episode.

I remember watching the mini-series and passing the time by coming up with as many plays on the word "Langoliers" as I could.

"Uh, oh, the Langostinos are going to get them.", etc.

-ksharp

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Ahh, "The Langoliers" -- "The Langoliers" -- now there's a blast from my past. I remember working on this turkey when I was at Laurel. We'd finished "The Stand" -- which had done quite well -- and the network wanted to do another King-based mini-series.[/nq]
And I only had to spend three hours with it.

Thanks for the background. With all the stuff that King writes long, it does seem like they could have found one of those.

-- Paulo Joe Jingy

Horrifying Cereal?

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