The Stephen King Thread

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Just ordered this from Music Magpie as part of their 2 for £5 offer.

I don't own any of them but have seen 1408 and Pet Sematary before.



Seemed like a good deal.

I’ve got the same set. I’ve not used any of the discs yet and I’ve had it for ages!! I’ve been meaning to get to re-watching The Stand for a while.

[MrBarlow]

Is The Golden Years any good? The Stand was a great TV series.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Justin101

I’ve got the same set. I’ve not used any of the discs yet and I’ve had it for ages!! I’ve been meaning to get to re-watching The Stand for a while.

An episode of those mini series following the final match every night during the World Cup sounds good to me.

Stephen King and Edgar Wallace = sorted!

[Justin101]

Incidentally, at the time I bought that DVD set it was cheaper to buy it than to buy The Stand on it's own which is why I picked it up. Anyone considering it should be aware that while The Langoliers and The Stand are the full length versions, Golden Years is the 'mini series' edited down version rather than the complete TV series version. I've never seen either so it wasn't a deal breaker.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Justin101

Incidentally, at the time I bought that DVD set it was cheaper to buy it than to buy The Stand on it's own which is why I picked it up. Anyone considering it should be aware that while The Langoliers and The Stand are the full length versions, Golden Years is the 'mini series' edited down version rather than the complete TV series version. I've never seen either so it wasn't a deal breaker.

I managed to pick up the Dutch dvd of Golden Years, which is the full length version, but cuts out the credits in all but the first & last episodes if I recall (been a while so I may be wrong on that one).

The only downside is that the full version ends on a cliffhanger that they intended to carry on into a full series.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Having just read The Shining for the first time i thought i'd give the film a re-watch.

I wasn't too keen on the Kubrick movie on other occasions so it was to prove an interesting experience.

I found the book to be excellent. The opening sixty pages which i felt dragged in the book following Jack's initial job interview were actually very necessary to the plot and how events unfolded further down the line. However all this exposition was missing from the film as were one or two major points regarding the Overlook Hotel itself. Firstly the reason for the supernatural events were changed from years of mob ownership and multiple murders to a former caretaker who killed his wife and two daughters due to alleged cabin fever, secondly the outside of the hotel has a maze in the film which wasn't in the book and we also didn't see a crazy but brilliant supernatural attack on a character by 'hedge monsters'.

Shelley Duvall as Wendy was one of the main reasons i took a dislike to the film in the first place, i just don't like her at all, but after concluding the book i didn't recognise her Wendy as the same person i'd just read about, the same can be said of Jack Nicholson's Jack Torrance, mainly because Nicholson was just doing his own 'crazy Jack' routine rather than playing a fully rounded character which the Kubrick film never allowed us to see.

The way the film played with the novels last hundred pages was extremely disappointing. Simply killing off secondary character Halloran with an axe was a lazy piece of film making and spoilt what was a lovely poignant final few pages in the book's resolution. The final showdown between Jack and Wendy under King's pen was a thrilling visceral assault on the reader as Jack sustained a prolonged attack on Wendy with a Croquet mallet, breaking her ribs and smashing her knees, whereas the film just gave us more Nicholson with his 'Here's Johnny' routine which incidentally never featured in the book.

Overall the Stanley Kubrick version of The Shining isn't a patch on the source novel. It lacks characterisation and most of all motivation, skirting around or not including much of which made the book so good.

[Justin101]

Great review! Have you seen the TV mini series yet? While it still leaves out a few plot points from the book it’s much more faithful with 4 and a half hours to play with. I like it a lot. I’m glad you enjoyed the book though.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Justin101

Great review! Have you seen the TV mini series yet? While it still leaves out a few plot points from the book it’s much more faithful with 4 and a half hours to play with. I like it a lot. I’m glad you enjoyed the book though.

I haven't seen the tv series. I think i'd like to check it out.

All the film really did was give me an impression of the Overlook in my head, the rest of the film seemed like a bunch of deleted scenes thrown together.

[Rik]

It’s common knowledge on here what I feel about the Shining (film), while I love it as a horror film, until Cell came out I considered it the worst SK adaptation. Dem’s review perfectly hits the nail on the head (with a croquet mallet ) with everything that is wrong with it from an adaptation POV.
Also, like Justin says, the TV series is more faithful to the source material, even if it too has its flaws, but it’s definitely worth a watch, I rewatched it a couple of months ago after watching the US cut of Kubricks film a few days earlier.

[The Reaper Man@Cult Labs]

Yeah read the book many years ago.
The two shouldn't really be compared.

However,Kubrick's film is,and always will be a classic!