Printable View
I much prefer the book! The Shining was a brilliantly written masterpiece, and I feel the film didn't quite live up to that. I wasn't too fond of casting, either: given the choice, I'd employ Simon Baker as Jack and Naomi Watts as Wendy. What is your opinion?
In my opinion, King's books always smoke the movies. In a few rare instances, a film has come close to the intensity of the book, (The Green Mile, for example), and never has one of the films ever topped the book it was based on.
The Shining, the novel, was far more frightening than the film, (either film), could have ever hoped to be.
I am well overdue for a revisit to The Outlook...perhaps once I'm through riding around in Christine...
Are you talking about the 1980 Kubrick movie or the 1997 mini series later released as a movie?
Either way the book is better, but the mini series was much better than the Kubrick offering. The guy was a brilliant director, but I often felt that, if he was so insistent on rewriting so much of the books he turned into films, he should have just started writing his own original screenplays. Which, come to think of it, he essentially did with 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The novel is A LOT better. The re-make of the 1980 movie version is nearly spot-on like the book though. However, Jack Nicholson is definitely The Best Jack Torrence. The role was made for 'em. :grinning:
the novel is defintely the better one, though the film has its charms. Rarely does a film ever outshine (bad pun) the book
I prefer the book before the movie. I had watch shining few times before I read the book and though I'm not gonna like the book because I don't really like the movie either. But after I read Shining I completely change my mind. The book was awesome.
Alas, the big screen version sucketh most mightily. Kubrick's folly I call it. The TV flick is better, but the book still redrums em all...:biggrin2:
Book over movie with the exception of the original Shining, Green Mile, Cujo, Misery, and the Mist. In these cases, the movie was pretty good as a stand alone and did not compare it too much with the books.
I saw the film first about eight years ago, but had almost completely forgotten about it by the time I came to pick up the book. I completely fell in love with the novel, I'd never previously been unsettled by a book, yet this one managed it. When I finally bought the Kubrick version of the book, although I thought that was very good too, it almost annoyed me with the amount of detail either altered or missed out completely.
Simple things like Jack's use of a mallet instead of an axe just make the novel scarier, without even having to dig into the ins and outs of tension build up...an axe may only take one blow to pop you off, a mallet could time some time...
The book, definately. Being in Jack's mind and looking out was so much better than just seeing a movie. There is so much more going on than the movie can relay.