I remember seeing Independence Day and thinking, "Oh, thank God, they didn't kill the dog, and let's gloss over the fact that there are probably 50 million people dead as long as Muttley pulls through." (Oddly enough, the virus-upload bit worked for me, if only because I'd read about one of the plot points cut from the final print.) 2012 doesn't have me particularly breathless in anticipation, if only because I don't want to watch an hour of whoever's going to be this movie's Emmy Rossum fretting over Disposable Cast A, Disposable Cast B and being teased for doom but inevitably saved at the last minute -- they have shown no capacity for making me care about the human element, and I'd be shocked if it finally kicked in in this film.

Loved The Stand, less as it wore on, but that's just me -- King excels at those scenes, I think, and his doomsday scenario was previously unexplored and flexible enough to give him plenty of leeway, and he can fill those empty spaces nicely....

Obviously I get to look at a lot of footage of newsies trying to hold it together under unfathomable circumstances, some succeeding, some not, and some succeeding in their failure (Cronkite being the gold standard of that -- to us it seems like such a small moment, but in the context of the time, even in the context of the legacy he leaves, it's just...resonant.)

I'm going to have to download and watch Special Bulletin and Looking Glass again -- I keep getting them confused, because their style is so similar, with the endings and the scopes being the significant disparity.