Why Stephen King Prefers The 90s Shining Miniseries To Kubrick’s Movie

Stephen King revealed that he prefers the 90s Shining miniseries to Kubrick’s acclaimed adaptation primarily because of the treatment of the main character, Jack Torrance. King’s novel, released in 1977, follows the tale of a struggling playwright who moves his family to The Overlook Hotel to break his creative block. He is driven into madness connected with the hotel’s horrific history, and violent chaos ensues at the remote mountain lodge during their stay.

The Shining became one of King’s most popular stories due in part to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation, which was critically acclaimed and wildly successful. Almost 20 years after Kubrick’s film, a 3 episode made-for-TV miniseries of The Shining debuted in 1997 on ABC. These two depictions of the story are radically different, and the miniseries was credited for being more in-line with King’s original story. Although some of the story’s changes are due to the time’s technical limitations, King has not been shy about his negative feelings towards Kubrick’s film adaptation.

For the NYT, Stephen King did a hybrid interview-retrospective covering his stories as cinematic adaptations. King explains that his disdain for the 1980 adaptation of The Shining lies in Jack Nicholson’s arc as Jack Torrance. In the novel, Jack Torrance is slowly descending into madness. However, from King’s perspective, in the Kubrick version Nicholson is acting “crazy from the jump.” King admires Kubrick as a director, but he believes Kubrick was not the right person for The Shining. Instead, King favors the 1997 miniseries because he considers the star, Steven Weber, to grasp the character better. King elaborates by saying: “He knew what he was supposed to be doing: He was supposed to express love for his family, and that the hotel just gradually overwhelms his moral sense and his love for his family.”

For die-hard Kubrick fans, King’s overwhelmingly negative sentiment towards the beloved big-screen adaptation of The Shining may be hard to hear, since Kubrick made a career of impressively adapting novels for the silver screen. However, King’s thoughts on the film are not surprising. Many of his stories have been adapted for the screen, and although many of them have been popular, his novels have been overwhelmingly botched by their adaptations.

King’s preference for the miniseries over Kubrick’s adaptation could also be due to the miniseries having more time to explore the characters’ complexities in The Shining. Even though the miniseries adaptation still had some time limitations, as a medium, television provides more time for a story to unfold. Additionally, other factors contributed to the miniseries being a more accurate reflection of King’s original story. Other authors could learn from King’s reaction towards The Shining’s adaptations and begin to consider miniseries as more appropriate forms for adapting their stories for the screen.

Source: NYT

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