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Stephen King's interpretation of "The Shining"

Rio FantasticRio Fantastic Posts: 820
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in Books #1
So I've just finished reading The Shining. Whilst I wouldn't go so far as to call Stephen King a silly goose, he definitely ****ed up Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece in my opinion. It's always hard taking a film and translating it into a book without being overshadowed by the film, especailly when it's done years after the film was released, and props to Stephen King for the effort, but in my opinion he totally messed up Kubrick's story. He didn't grasp the freaky almost psychedelic edge to Kubrick's film and made it into more of a traditional ghost story which I think really ruined the whole feel of the film that Kubrick crafted. I mean if you're going to adapt someone's film, you could at least try to translate the main "feel" of the film, if you know what I mean. He also totally excluded the most iconic line of the film - "Johnny's Here!!". He just completely missed it out, which I think was pretty arrogant since it was like the defining moment of the film. Whilst it wasn't a terrible effort, I think King's arrogance is was let him down, since he's known as the greatest writer of all time he thought he could take Kubrick's masterpiece and turn it into an even better book, but by not staying close enough to the source material a lot of the feel of the film was lost.

Wondering what anyone else's opinions was on the book vs the original??

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    swansea steveswansea steve Posts: 1,404
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    #2
    hilarious thread lol.
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    [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 113
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    #3
    Haha I hope this was meant to be a joke as the book definitely came first!
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    HogzillaHogzilla Posts: 24,116
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    #4
    Ha. I'm with you OP. I hate what Emily Bronte did when she novelised "Wuthering Heights" - the Laurence Olivier film was way better.

    (If you really want to watch Stephen King mucking up an adaptation, though, check u=out 'Under The Dome'. I'd defy anyone to know it had any relationship whatsoever with the TV 'The Dome' if his name wasn't on both...
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    SXTonySXTony Posts: 2,935
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    #5
    That Stephen King has no idea what he is doing. He clearly didn't even glance at Lawnmower Man when he wrote the adaptation. He just looked at the title and wrote some story about grass cutting. He clearly missed the point.

    I've no idea how he keeps getting work.
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    JackKlugmanJackKlugman Posts: 5,362
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    #6
    SXTony wrote: »
    That Stephen King has no idea what he is doing. He clearly didn't even glance at Lawnmower Man when he wrote the adaptation. He just looked at the title and wrote some story about grass cutting. He clearly missed the point.

    I've no idea how he keeps getting work.

    To be fair to him, when he made the novel of The Stand from that 1990's made for tv movie he did a much better job. ;-)
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    CLL DodgeCLL Dodge Posts: 116,039
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    #7
    Somebody watched Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ' and made a whole religion out of it. Even the Jedi Knights can't match that.
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    moonlilymoonlily Posts: 7,907
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    #8
    JackKlugman wrote: »
    To be fair to him, when he made the novel of The Stand from that 1990's made for tv movie he did a much better job. ;-)

    The characters were very similar to the series too.:p
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