| In the Book |
In the Movie |
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Events take place in 1990. |
It is 2020. |
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Larry is white. |
He is black.
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Racial slurs are used. |
They are not. |
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Frannie tells her dad she is pregnant before anyone gets sick. |
Frannie is about to tell her dad but he and everyone is already sick, so she doesn't.
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Jess, the father of Frannie's baby is white. |
He is black, and only seen in an old polaroid. |
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Charles Campion crashed into Hap's gas pumps and destroyed three of them. |
He sideswipes the pumps, but none are damaged. He crashes into a pole.
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Stu is taken with everyone else from Arnette to the CDC in Atlanta right away. |
Stu is first taken to a base in Kileen, TX before eventually making his way to Vermont to a CDC facility. |
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Campion escapes the facility because the lockdown mechanism failed. |
Randall Flagg held the door open with his foot for Campion to escape.
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Campion wakes his wife and they spend several minutes packing before they leave. |
Campion wakes his wife and grabs a single back before they get into his car. They are gone in under a minute. |
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Nick Andros wakes up in a jail cell after he is beaten up. The sheriff doesn't mention anyone being dead. |
He's in a hospital and almost everyone is dead.
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Larry goes on a week long bender after his record deal and ends up owing a lot of money to a dealer. He leaves town and heads to New York to see his mother. |
Larry is in New York for a show. His Mom shows up to watch. He doesn't owe anyone money that we see. |
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Nick is beaten up on the side of the road by some guys who'd seen him in a bar earlier. |
He is beaten up in the bar moments after entering.
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Stu first meets with a Doctor who is wearing a full hazmat suit. He threatens them that he won't cooperate unless someone tells him what is going on. They send in Col Deets who is wearing gloves and a nose tube to protect him. He tells Stu some truth. |
We only see Stu after he has refused to help. They send in Dr. Ellis. He isn't wearing any protective gear at all. |
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There is a single Guinea pig named Geraldo who is sharing Stu's air that leads them to believe he isn't contagious. |
There are several unnamed Guinea pigs in a case next to Stu's room.
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Lloyd and Poke start their crime spree by robbing another criminal named "Gorgeous" George. |
This is never mentioned, but Lloyd's cellmate is named George, and he tells Lloyd to call him Gorgeous. |
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Lloyd and Poke killed several people before Poke was killed in the gas station. |
Lloyd seemed like he hadn't killed anyone before and didn't want to when Poke told him he had.
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Poke shot a woman as soon as he entered the gas station. She was standing in the aisle. |
Poke grabbed a woman and had a gun to the back of her head. He sneezed and the gun went off and killed her. |
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A man with a gun in the station shot Poke in the face. |
A police officer, who was hiding in the back of the store shot Poke.
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Lloyd shot the man who had shot Poke. |
Poke shot the cop who shot him before he fell down and died. |
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Lloyd is famous when taken to jail because of the size of the crime spree. |
The other inmates like him because a cop was killed in the shootout, even though Lloyd didn't pull the trigger.
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Larry's mother dies in the hospital. |
Larry takes her home from the hospital so she can die there. |
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Elder comes to shoot Stu in Vermont. He is able to distract him and beats him to death with a broken chair. He then escapes. |
Dr. Ellis comes to help him escape, and Cobb shows up and shoots Ellis. Stu slices a hole in Cobb's neck and then escapes.
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Stu escapes right after he kills Elder. |
Stu is directed to get into an elevator. He meets Starkey, who tells him about Yeats. Starkey then shoots himself, and Stu takes the gun and escapes. |
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Harold Lauder is 240 pounds and has bad acne. |
He is thin and has clear skin.
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Wayne Stuckey is Larry's manager. He tells him to leave LA when he runs up a large tab with a local drug dealer. |
Wayne is Larry's old roommate who is a drug dealer. |
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Nick is attacked by Ray Booth a second time. After nearly everyone is dead, Ray goes to the Sherrif's office and attacks Nick. He gouges out his right eye before Nick shoots him dead. |
Nick's eye is damaged in the first fight in the bar. After he is beaten he wakes up in the hospital and finds his attacker in another bed. He doesn't kill him, but leaves him to die from Captain Tripps.
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Larry sees Rita the first time and thinks she looks like 50, but later says she's more likely in her 60s. |
Heather Graham was 51 when she portrayed Rita and wasn't aged. |
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Rita is very needy and scared of doing something Larry won't like, so she doesn't tell him her shoes are cutting into her feet until he notices them bleeding. They fight over this and separate. |
There is no issue with her shoes. They escape into the sewer and Rita is afraid of rats and they separate over that.
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A man offers Larry a million dollars for Rita. Larry points his rifle at the guy and he leaves and they don't see him again. |
After the guy offers the money to Larry, he only has a handgun, and two other guys show up with guns and chase them. This forces them into the sewer. |
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Larry goes through the pitch black Lincoln tunnel without Rita. She is quietly following him. They both lose it a bit, but eventually meet up and make it out of the other side of the tunnel. |
They don't go to the tunnel. They separate and Larry stays down in the sewer until he thinks he sees his dead mother. Then he goes back up to the street and Rita is there, and they join up again.
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Larry finds Rita dead in the tent one morning with a pill bottle in hand. He's not sure if she did it on purpose or not. |
We see Rita down the whole bottle and wash it down with liquor. She is obviously killing herself. |
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Nick finds Tom Cullen in a small town in Oklahoma. He crashes his bike when a drunk Tom sits up in the street. |
Nick meets Tom at the hospital. Tom is working as a volunteer.
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Tom doesn't say the same thing over and over. |
Tom always says "Hi my name is Tom Cullen. I'm 42 years old. I'm handy capable." |
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Tom is referred to as mentally retarded. |
He calls himself handy capable.
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Kojak the dog is an Irish setter. |
He is a Golden Retriever. |
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When Stu first meets Glen, they eat and drink out in the field where they met. |
They go back to Glen's place.
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Stu leaves Glen behind. Glen says he'll probably join him if he comes back his way. |
Glen and Stu leave together after their first meeting. |
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Stu encounters Frannie and Harold as they are driving along on their way to Vermont on their scooters. |
Stu follows Harold's signs and then wants to join them. But Harold tells him to go away. Later, Stu and Glen encounter Frannie and Harold as they are being held hostage by a pervert who has two women locked in the back of a truck.
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This doesn't happen. |
Frannie attempts suicide by overdosing on pills in the bathtub in her home in Maine. |
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Stu's wife died of cancer. |
She was killed in a car accident.
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Nick meets Julie alone in a drugstore. They have sex and then she sees that Tom is mental disabled and they part ways. |
Tom is with Nick in a Costco when Julie shows up. She tries to have sex with Nick but he refuses. |
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Joe starts talking to Larry before they arrive in Boulder. |
He doesn't talk until it is all over.
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Nadine plays the game in college when she is contacted by Randal Flagg. |
She is in a youth home. |
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Kojak was left behind by Glen because they went west on a motorcycle. |
Kojak came with them and they drove in a car.
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The Trashcan man has a long and detailed story. |
He doesn't. |