Stephen King purportedly hated Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining, which is of note because he is usually pretty apathetic toward other movie adaptations, acknowledging that they are "apples and oranges." But something about The Shining rubbed him the wrong way, and I think I can see why, for all the reasons I stated before, I don't think it was a good remake either. Likewise, King confessed that The Shining was somewhat based off his own struggles with
alcohol, so I can see why he'd be a little more protective of this particular story than any of his others.
So, what does he do about it? Well, he waits about twenty years and makes his own adaptation, this one a three episode mini series. I watched this series with great interest because much of it seemed to be filmed in a direct response to Kubrick's version. But sadly, I don't think it's superior to Kubrick's movie, and worst of all, that great of an adaptation to boot.
When talking about movies with friends, I've always held
steadfast to the opinion that the writer is more
important than anyone else involved in the project, including the director. Of course, I've always maintained that the best directors are also writers, and a good writer can't
singlehandedly make up for poor directing and acting, but without a solid writer to craft a good story, we get Michael Bay movies. Since watching Stephen King's The Shining, I've softened on that position a little bit. To do this series, King employed his longtime collaborator, Mick
Garris. Now,
Garris does a perfectly presentable job with this series, but I wouldn't say it's anything inspired. It's very "made for television" directing. It doesn't even approach what Kubrick was doing in his movie. And filming for television is no excuse, one only has to look at any random episode of
Spaced, to see how cinematic a television show can be(it's no wonder Edgar Wright would go on to direct
Shaun of the Dead and
Hot Fuzz with his writing partner and star actor Simon
Pegg). But as I understand it,
Garris was under close supervision by King, who I imagine was pretty specific with what he wanted, considering he was so
disappointed by Kubrick's film. But King is not a director, he's a writer. What's more, he's a prose writer, not a script writer.
This is best
exemplified by Danny Torrance's
psychic powers. In the book, when receiving visions of the future, Danny goes into a trance and he is "shown" the visions by his imaginary friend, Tony, who is described as looking like some kind of combination of his mother and father. At the end of the book, it is revealed that Danny's middle name is Anthony. So yeah, Tony is really just Danny's
subconscious. In the movie, as I already stated, they ignored this, instead
choosing to make Danny look
possessed, by rolling his eyes back and having him speak in a creepy voice, rather than bothering with the visual of his
subconscious. In the King's series, they go for a straight adaptation of the book. Meaning that Danny's invisible friend Tony shows up to warn him about the future. Now, in order to make him look like Danny's psychic
subconscious rather than just a guy, they present him as floating in the air with an aura of light surrounding him. Again I say, this looks silly. It could just be that it's done on a TV budget, but it's silly looking, and either doesn't seem to take the visual concerns of such a spectacle into consideration, or (more likely) genuinely thinks it looks good. Which if that's the case, all I can say is this is why I don't watch lots of horror movies.
But the visual of Tony Torrance is small potatoes compared to the actual vision Danny is shown. In the book, it was actually one of my favorite scenes. King describes a vision of Danny frantically running down a foreign hallway, while a hulking, ambiguous monster chases him, yelling at him in a
ghastly voice. All the while a
continuously deafening thud is heard as the monster approaches Danny. Danny finds himself trapped in a dead end and
sees the ambiguous, unrecognizable monster turn the corner, trapping him in certain doom.
This presents an interesting
dilemma on how to present the scene for a visual medium. The monster, of course, is his father, Jack. Except that Jack is
possessed by the Hotel, which is why Danny doesn't see his father chasing him, but rather a monster. In a book, it's quite easy to describe something as Danny's six year old self
sees it, and it's up to the reader to determine what it could be. But in a movie, even if you present the scene that Danny
sees, you are no longer seeing the scene through Danny's eyes, and we as adult viewers can easily see what the monster is. Without some very clever filming or special effects, all you have is Jack Torrance
steeping around that corner. This removes all ambiguity of the scene, which isn't entirely bad. The scene works by just having Danny see his father turn the corner, ready to murder him, that certainly is frightening, but it changes the scene, and that's important to the narration. Danny(as well as the viewer) now knows for certain that Jack is going to try to kill him. Again I say, this can work as a type of foreshadowing, but it cancels out much of the tension that builds up to the climactic scene, where Danny is finally living out the vision, but instead of the monster stepping around the corner, it's his father.
Kubrick decides to avoid the whole thing by not bother with the visions, and instead focuses on Danny's
repetition of "
Redrum." But in King's version, he does his best with the foreshadowing, and what we get is exactly what I described, Jack Torrance stepping around the corner,
albeit with some make up on to give him a grayer complexion and no pupils in his eyes. Now, as I said, this isn't expressly bad, if you want to go with the changed scene, especially since, because of Kubrick's movie, the story is already famous for Jack going crazy and trying to kill his son. But as I said before, I think it kills some of the tension, which
gets a lot of focus in the series, and makes it seem to drag on
unendingly, since we already know the outcome.
For the most part, the rest of the series follows suit and tries to retell the entire book, leaving out only a few of the more superfluous scenes, which is all well and good, until we get to the ending.
Now, I already complained about Kubrick's ending to the movie, which was nothing but a hackneyed attempt to add another level of supernatural suspense to an already sufficiently
suspenseful concept. One of the big differences between the movie and the book is Jack's redemption. In the book, just before Jack is about to kill Danny, he regains his composure long enough to apologize and let Danny escape. He beats himself mercilessly in an effort to fight off the
possession, but eventually the Hotel takes back control and hurries down the basement in order to prevent the boiler from exploding(which it does, just as he finishes turning down the pressure, proclaiming, "I win! I win!").
In the movie, there is no exploding boiler subplot, Jack never redeems himself, and he dies a murdering psychopath, freezing to death having gotten lost in the hedge maze.
I guess King was
disappointed that Jack never got his redemption in the movie because man, does he ever hammer down the point in the mini series. Firstly, what hurts about the ending to the mini series is how all the momentum seems to stop. The one thing that Kubrick did in the movie was, once Jack went crazy, the movie sped along, building momentum and Jack chased his family around. But the series, like the book, meanders about as Jack goes back and forth between beating his wife and chasing his son. This is another thing that works fine in the book, but in a movie, where it's all meant to be watched in one sitting, it's kind of a chore to sit through. But we eventually get to Jack's redemption, which is nicely done,
albeit without the self beating(television movie and all), but King isn't satisfied with just letting Jack redeem himself by not killing his son, he tries to make him the actual hero. Danny meets up with his mother and
Halloran and informs them that the hotel is going to blow, so instead of getting out of the hotel as
quickly as possible, they run up to their rooms to pack...as
quickly as possible(another momentum killer). Jack runs down to the boiler and, encouraged by the ghosts,
successfully turns down the pressure, preventing it from blowing up. Then, just as the Danny, his mother, and
Halloran are leaving, he has a psychic conversation with his father saying that only he can stop the hotel. Jack then turns the pressure back up, much to the dismay of the hotel ghosts, preparing to kill himself in the eventual explosion. Then, for some reason, the ghosts become solid enough to do it themselves, and Jack has an actual physical struggle with one of the ghosts as they fight over the pressure
gauge. Danny is able to...take away some of the ghosts power and Jack turns it back up. They have a really corny "I love you" scene and Danny
et all escape just as the Hotel explodes. Then we skip forward to Danny's graduation where we see that Tony was really his adult
subconscious because adolescent Danny is played by the same actor as Tony. After he receives his diploma, he
sees the ghost of his dad and they have another "I love you, I'm proud of you" scene and everyone cries because it's so touching. Overkill. This has nothing to do with being a poor adaptation, it's just bad, and I get the impression that King was so over the top with Jack's redemption specifically because it wasn't in Kubrick's movie.
Ultimately, I disliked the series because it felt like I was watching the book, which just doesn't work. A book is designed to be picked up and put down, but a movie, even one that is split into three episodes, controls exactly how much you experience in the given amount of time(unless you're one of those people who walk out of movies or changes the channel...) As with most things, I think it's all a balancing act, which is a
separate skill in and of itself.
