Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Books Today in Unnecessary Sequels
Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:40 AM
Jack Torrance's little boy Danny was last seen recuperating in Maine after escaping the insane evil of the Overlook Hotel, but Stephen King is now plotting a sequel to The Shining which would age the clairvoyant boy to 40 and transport him to a New York hospice.Speaking to an audience of fans in Toronto about his new novel Under the Dome, King divulged that he'd begun working on a tentative idea for a follow-up to The Shining — first published in 1977 — last summer.
I bet because King hated Kubrick's film adaptation so much, he'll toss a few kicks in to the movie version. Twenty bucks says that Danny's life story gets all screwed up by an auteur director and he complains about it a couple times in the new book. King can't resist shit like that.
1
Kubrick's movie was in some ways a masterpiece. King's book was unreadable horseshit. There's a problem there.
4
I love King's outrage over Kubrick's improvements on his work. King's a great pulp writer who thinks he's Shakespeare. He reacts to the adaptation of his novel by one of the all-time great directors the way a kid reacts to being taken to a good restaurant -- he refuses to eat the filet mignon and demands a hamburger instead.
5
An author slaves over a book, inventing characters and setting scenes carefully, being sure to set the mood just so. And then some asshat with a canvas chair comes along and changes shit with no regard to the author's intent or vision. Movies shouldn't be allowed to deffer from the books they're based on. Or at least if they do, they should come with a disclaimer "Loosely inspired by The Shining", not "screen adaptation of The Shining".
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@5 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, good one! I bet you hollow out penis sized holes in your favorite books and fuck them don't you? admit it.....
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I always enjoyed Anthony Burgess' takedowns of Kubrick throughout his ENDERBY series. Great stuff.
8
"The Shining" is one of the absolute creepiest movies ever. King is too close to appreciate it. And maybe I missed it, but I also don't remember him having good things to say about "Stand By Me", the best adaptation of any of his stories.
10
1)The book is actually very good...it was written/published early enough in his career that it's not a bloated mess like every he's written AFTER he got powerful enough to tell any and all editors to piss off.
2)Kubrick's movie was a million times better than the King produced miniseries in the '90s with one of the Wings guys, Rebecca DeMornay and the worst child actor with the worst bowl cut in the history of Hollywood...also, the living topiaries: not so scary. Evil, creepy Kubrickian maze: scary as fuck.
2)Kubrick's movie was a million times better than the King produced miniseries in the '90s with one of the Wings guys, Rebecca DeMornay and the worst child actor with the worst bowl cut in the history of Hollywood...also, the living topiaries: not so scary. Evil, creepy Kubrickian maze: scary as fuck.
11
also, I don't know how much truth I place in this story...King also said once he was working on a Salem's Lot sequel that never came to fruition and later he said he hadn't any intention of ever writing such a thing.
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@5 "Movies shouldn't be allowed to deffer from the books they're based on."
If that was the case, we'd *still* be watching Lord of the Rings. Taking creative liberties is part of the process of translating one medium to another. Some manage to improve upon the source material, while others do it a disservice. I'd even go so far as to say those who follow their source material too closely bring up the question "why bother?" Why adapt a story if you're not going to bother bringing anything new to it? That's what Masterpiece Theater is for.
It's all subjective. Some people will prefer films that differ from their source material while others will merely focus on how much better the book was. But to say what filmmakers should/shouldn't be allowed to do is just fucking dumb.
If that was the case, we'd *still* be watching Lord of the Rings. Taking creative liberties is part of the process of translating one medium to another. Some manage to improve upon the source material, while others do it a disservice. I'd even go so far as to say those who follow their source material too closely bring up the question "why bother?" Why adapt a story if you're not going to bother bringing anything new to it? That's what Masterpiece Theater is for.
It's all subjective. Some people will prefer films that differ from their source material while others will merely focus on how much better the book was. But to say what filmmakers should/shouldn't be allowed to do is just fucking dumb.
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@10/11: michael: I'm right now holding my paperback copy of "The Shining". It's about 440 pages. If King keeps the sequel to within 200 pages of that, it'll be a miracle, LOL. Also, I understood that the "'Salem's Lot" project was to involve rewriting whole sections of the ORIGINAL, and including some stuff that the editors wouldn't let him put in. I read a couple years ago that he'd decided not to do it. "It's time has passed," he said, or words to that effect.
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@ 12: T: LOL--there were great chunks of LOTR that I wanted to see in the movies that just weren't there!
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It never ceases to amaze me that the movie “purists” won’t do their research before denouncing the novelist for what he has often expressed about adaptations of his fiction. King has frequently remarked that there are admirable qualities about the movie adaptation of “The Shining”, but that Kubrick sadly missed the main focus and intent of the novel. It is about the slow disintegration of the family unit under the pressure of an evil entity. You take one look at Nicholson and the man is crazy from the moment you lay eyes on him. And don’t get me started about the complete miscasting of Shelley Duvall who barely shows a maternal instinct in any of her scenes. For a more scholarly dissection of the movie (and also the remade TV miniseries) read Tony Magistrale’s “Hollywood’s Stephen King”.
16
Fnarf and some others have it wrong regarding King's book; it's a horror masterpiece, something that belongs next to the works of Matheson and Bloch if not Lovecraft and Poe. But Kubrick's movie is also a masterpiece. The only question is whether it would have been as good if it had been faithful to the source material.
The King-penned miniseries could have been better if the director and actors were suitable, but they weren't. Still, it was better than that godawful adaptation of The Stand.
The King-penned miniseries could have been better if the director and actors were suitable, but they weren't. Still, it was better than that godawful adaptation of The Stand.
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King was an alcoholic and based some of The Shining on personal experience... that of a good person turned maniacal by alcohol. Kubrick didn't really follow that path and I think King felt personally hurt by that.
I can't stand any of King's novels, but I love almost all of his short stories. King's excessive wordiness is his worst enemy.
I can't stand any of King's novels, but I love almost all of his short stories. King's excessive wordiness is his worst enemy.
18
I tried to watch the mini-series version. (I'm a fan of both the book and Kubrick's movie version.) But I found all I could focus on was the child actor's gigantic buck teeth. Jesus, where did they get that kid?
I too, stopped reading King when he became his own editor. I tried to read "It," and I stopped when he spent 4 pages inventorying a character's medicine cabinet. With an editor, he could have painted the guy as a hypochondriac in less than one.
I too, stopped reading King when he became his own editor. I tried to read "It," and I stopped when he spent 4 pages inventorying a character's medicine cabinet. With an editor, he could have painted the guy as a hypochondriac in less than one.
19
Everyone knows that Kubrick's adaptation was merely a cry for help about his faking the moon landing.
I'm sure this sequel is a confession of King's, maybe about how he wrote the plot for the supposed events of 9/11?
I'm sure this sequel is a confession of King's, maybe about how he wrote the plot for the supposed events of 9/11?
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