Possible prequel to "The Shining"

[TerryE]

Yeah, King can bitch about The Shining all he wants to. You don't sell the movie rights of your book to a director like Kubrick whose inclinations and beliefs are so different than your own, and well-known, if want to keep the story and feel intact. If it wasn't his decision, too bad. It can even be argued that Kubrick's film is not an adaptaion of the novel, but his own take on the story.

That's a great way to put it Squire. Kubrick's movie is not a true "adaptation" of the book. It hit a lot of the plot points, but definitely not all of them. To use an architectural metaphor. He took the framework, but completely reworked the interiors. I didn't like a lot of the changes (Wendy lost all of her charm, Jack seemed to start out crazy and then get worse, ignoring the boiler, which was the main reason for them to be there, etc.) But it is a brilliant movie. Remember, after King became so huge, they attached his name to any project based on his work. ["Stephen King's Lawnmower Man" - and that movie had nothing to do with King's story] This was "Stanley Kubrick's The Shining".

[coderedx]

That's a great way to put it Squire. Kubrick's movie is not a true "adaptation" of the book. It hit a lot of the plot points, but definitely not all of them. To use an architectural metaphor. He took the framework, but completely reworked the interiors. I didn't like a lot of the changes (Wendy lost all of her charm, Jack seemed to start out crazy and then get worse, ignoring the boiler, which was the main reason for them to be there, etc.) But it is a brilliant movie. Remember, after King became so huge, they attached his name to any project based on his work. ["Stephen King's Lawnmower Man" - and that movie had nothing to do with King's story] This was "Stanley Kubrick's The Shining".

I like the Kubrick version now, but the first time I saw it, I was merely warm to it. I felt like it was never going to end... everything moved so slowly... and I didn't find it that scary... and Wendy's character annoyed the crap out of me.

But I've grown to love it. I still like the TV version better. (That said, the first time I watched the TV version, I didn't catch that you had to flip one of the DVDs for part two, so I ended up just watching Part I and Part III and wondering where the hell the middle of the story went. Not kidding... I felt like an idiot.)

I like the idea of a prequel based on the Overlook, but I don't know about one focusing on Jack. What would we see? An alcoholic teacher for two hours?