When they're coming back into LA, Laurel tells Bryan that the city is dead, that there's nothing out there.

Yeah, nothing out there except the cars on the 101 and the 110 freeways. You can see them moving, even as she says that.

I wonder if the book makes it clearer how the writer of SF novels deduces all of his exposition in the airport. They observe that sounds aren't as loud as they should be, that beer doesn't fizz and so on. From that, he jumps to the conclusion that somehow, the plane flew through a time rift and ended up in alternate time line??? Whaa---?

And how does an alternate timeline explain why matches don't burn? Is this some kind of alternate reality, with different physics?

Considering that the blind girl tells them to hurry, the rest of the passengers takes it quite easy ... no hurry at all, why hurry when you land at an abandoned airport... We can sit around, watch beer, eat sandwiches instead of getting away before some danger comes.

So, if the langoliers are real, this means that it's o.k. to be an abusive parent, teaching your child twisted ethics and no self-esteem, so he will prepared if he ends up in an alternate timestream?

Um they where'nt exactly in a parallel dimension they where out of the normal timestream to where time was "stale" and worn out and the langs where comming to eat it up. And since time was stale things didnt work quite the wat they where suppossed to.

Im not sure about the last statement though.

I meant your last statement not mine.

Well, to think that "time" is stale because the beer doesn'T fizz is quite a leap of logic to me. (Probably because I think that's impossible under the laws of phsysics.)

As for my last comment: what I meant was that in the flashback of the nervous guy, we see his father verbally abusing him because the kid didn't get an A ("only" a B), and that the kid wastes his time (he looks about 10 or 12 - he's not allowed to be a kid at that age???), and is threatened with the langoliers who will eat lazy kids. Since the langoliers do exist, apparently King/ the moviemakers think that being abusive and overdemanding is the best way of parenting.

Oh ok. I havent seen the movie and only read the book. So I wasnt sure what you where talking about. Yeah many of King's parental figures are shall we say less than ideal. Though there are a few freaks who somehow slip through that are kind and loving and caring.

As for the time being stale there is more to it in the book that helps him figure it out. Still quite a leap of physics but then King isnt exactly trying to stay within the bounds of the possible either.

Oh ok. I havent seen the movie and only read the book. ...

I saw part of the movie when it was shown as 2-parter on TV (most of the comments on IMDB criticze that at 3 hrs. it's way too long and feels padded, with long boring stretches, and should've been cut, and the parts that I saw where boring.)

So do you recommend the book? Is it well-written and interesting?

The book is pretty good. I wouldnt call it high literature but it is pretty consistent within the kingverse and his usual abilities.

The way time seems to work here is like a moving train, with the first car being brand new time, the second car being normal time and the last car being stale with the Langoliers close behind. Nosmaly, people are in the second car being carried along by the "train". When you end up out of the normal time stream, the train is still moving forward even though you are not. The end result is that the train passes you by, even though you are still inside it, and eventualy, you wind up in the Langoliers mouth.

also, if you wind up in the first car, the train is still passing you, but when the second car reaches you, you get "captured" by it, and one again you start moving along with the train. here is one question though: If you happen to be standing in the same spot where a person in normal time happens to be when you appear back in normal time, what happens? Do you end up materialising in that person's body?

Actually, The Langoliers is what happens when John A. Lang sees Marina Sirtis.

(Lang - o - leers) Get it?

They filmed this in Bangor, Maine. My hometown!

Too bad the movie flopped!

I've seen this one.

Not a bad adaptation. It sticks pretty close to the original story.