I was initially going to post this on the movie boards, but I realized really quick that this was going to be an extremely passionate rant. Also, SPOILER ALERT!!! I'll try to avoid them as much as possible, but many of my reasons for this rant are directly tied to the plots of both the original novel and Stanley Kubrick's abysmal adaptation.
To get the explosion out of the way:
I HATE THE STANLEY KUBRICK MOVIE!!!!!!Words cannot express just how powerful that hatred is. But before I go any further, let me explain why I loathe that film as much as I do. My reasons are two fold. Firstly, it is single handedly
the worst book to film adaptation I have ever seen! The Eragon film was horrible, but at least it didn't alter the core story of the book. Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining did, however. In rather blatant fashion. Without getting into too much spoiler territory, Stan K's movie presents the story as Jack Nicholson's character basically suffering an extreme case of cabin fever. There's no obvious supernatural influence over him. In addition, or perhaps because of this, many of the emotional and human elements that are
central to Stephen King's original novel are either reduced, or left out entirely. Also, the role of Danny is drastically reduced in the film, while he's is arguably the main character of the book!
Which brings me to my second point. In the book, the Overlook hotel isn't just haunted,
it's the actual villain! The Hotel itself is an extremely powerful malevolent force that actively tries to kill or possess our main characters! In the movie, it's generally presented as simply haunted, which ultimately results in the climax of the film being wildly different, and inferior to, the one in the book.
Third point, and this is the one that really made my brain hurt. In spite of the dramatic changes made to the core story of The Shining, Stan K copied and pasted a stunning amount of material from the book directly into the movie! This was almost all dialog, and it was really shocking to have entire conversations transfered literally word for word into the movie! Why would you do that if you're going to change the core story!?
Fourth Point: Many of the most iconic scenes in the movie, the two girls in the hall, the blood flood out of the elevator,
aren't in the book at all!!! It's one thing when a director takes something out, or changes parts of an adaptation due to time of budget constraints, but when you take stuff out, and then
put your own stuff in, that's basically saying the source material wasn't good enough to start with!
Fifth point, and this is the one that turns my contempt for this film into
demonic, soul scorching, hatred! Stanley Kubrick's film is arguably
more famous than Stephen King's novel! As an author myself, I cannot think of any more personal an insult than having something that I put my heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into taken from me and mutilated with such careless abandon, and then having that abomination become just as popular than my baby!
So, those are the five major reasons why I utterly loathe Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining".
To anyone reading this, I implore you to go either read Stephen King's original novel, or check out the mini series that Stephen King himself wrote and produced, which can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Kings-Shining-Disc-Special/dp/B000077VRTAlso, am I totally out of line for feeling this way? Or do you think my extreme nerd rage is justified in light of the extreme liberties that were taken with the original novel?
Topic: The Shining: Love/Hate (Read 1010 times)