Over ten months and you don't dare respond to the LONG comment I left addressing the points you made criticizing this movie but you can respond to other users who posted in the time FOLLOWING what I wrote? What a pity. I suggest you get your head in gear and answer me RIGHT NOW.
The main problem with the miniseries is that King's book is full of goofy, childish and ridiculous passages. Yes, the hedge animals being the worst. And two additional things: the wasp nest episode is in the book. 🤷 Second, some scenes where removed from the film when Kubrick received some backlash after the US release. The edited film wss the one shown in Europe and other places abroad. One of the scenes being Danny's medical examination, demolishing the child molesting theory.
I love THE HERETIC. Yes, it's a hot mess, but a beautiful, bizarre and trippy one. I see it as a weird 1970s fantasy movie, NOT as a sequel to The Exorcist. The cinematography is quite gorgeous and unique in places, and so is the OST by Ennio Morricone.
Almost everything that you didnt like from the mini series were literally from the book... I loved the book, but i do admit the mini series ws a bit cheesy with the effects, however, it stayed pretty true to the book.
"Let's see how this scene is handled in the 80's film" Except you can't! There is virtually not a single scene that is the same between the novel and the movie. It's clear just from watching your essay that you have not read the novel!
My understanding of the situation is that King wrote a book that was fundamentally very silly, but worked as a book. Kubrick made a film that excised a lot of the silliness, because he recognised that what you can get away with in a book you can't always get away with when you have to translate it to visuals. And then King... proved his point for him by putting all the silliness back in and making one of the goofiest looking films of all time. The one area where I can understand King's point is Jack. King wanted Jack to be a loving father who was pushed to madness by the hotel, and Kubrick did kind-of piss all over that interpretation. Now don't misunderstand me, I do think Kubrick's version of Jack is fascinating and richly drawn in a way King's isn't, but I can understand from King's point of view the difficulty of handing over a character you've invested in and seeing them completely changed. Especially when they're largely autobiographical in nature. But King's version just feels like something made by a man drunk on power, who was able to basically call all the shots in a way he hadn't been able to in 1980. If he wasn't the screenwriter, producer and had his name in the title, I have to believe someone would have looked at the footage of 'Tony' floating around or the topiary animals and taken him aside and quietly told him this stuff didn't work, but clearly nobody felt able to do that. Then you have the fact that King's version was made on a movie-of-the-week budget, not the Hollywood budget of the earlier version, meaning it looks small and cheap compared to the grandeour of the Kubrick film with its equisitely composed shots and huge interiors. The TV version was made for one person, Stephen King, so he could have the completely accurate version of his story he'd always wanted. I can't honestly believe anyone else could possibly prefer it to the Kubrick film.
I really love your videos and I can't wait for part two. Even though I like your theories and subscribe to them, I think it's hard to deny that the narrative doesn't feature any paranormal forces. Especially with Wendy witnessing the ghosts in the end and the shining powers itself. Still, hope I will see part three soon :) Great work. You're a great talent.
This version is pretty good for background on a sleepy Sunday, but, “Kissin’, kissin’, that’s what I’ve been missin’,” is traumatizing. Also, whenever Jack says ‘pup’ I want to hurt myself.
When every fan in the cinema jumped startled in their seats at the first musical note in Star Wars The Force Awakens I was happy to never have been a fan:/
I disagree with the "Danny's Ordeal" theory. Danny's hand was in the same position the whole scene.Danny was in the room and Jack was asleep at his desk having the dream. Idk. Not enough evidence to me. I think Stephen Webber really tried. 😹😭
I personally love both the book and the movie but the miniseries proves that King is first and foremost an author, and he needs the internal dialogue of the characters. He is not a director. Kubrick is very good at getting across what he means without those internal thoughts, and he also knows how to set up a beautiful scene.
I think Mr. King missed the point behind Kubrick's intentions. Kubrick had no intention of adapting King's novel but rather to use it as a source material from which he drew inspiration to explore a different story. As for Kubrick's casting, he was right that the audience has to believe from the opening scene that Jack has that kind of violence lurking just below his surface demeanor. He wasn't crazy in the beginning, but he was certainly an angry with guy who had nothing but contempt for his wife and kid. The hotel sensed it and used it. Duvall's Wendy is actually perfectly realized but no one other than kind of character would put up with an abusive husband like Jack. A strong willed Wendy simply wouldn't be believable in Kubrick' s version.
The most infuriating, frustrating thing about The Heretic is that there is the really compelling core of a story there. The idea of revisiting Regan four years after her apparent deliverance from demonic possession as a way of exploring the ongoing struggle of good and evil within each of us is, using the concepts of progressive Catholic priest Teilhard de Chardin (whose views actually were considered heretical by the church) to act as a bridge from traditional religious thought to a more open and universal perspective on these themes, merging the scientific with the spiritual, could have made for a truly provocative and engaging story. This seemed to be the initial intent of film's creative team... but they just made it all so embarrassingly, inexplicably goofy. It's utterly mystifying to me that ANYONE actually believed the film as delivered had any merit whatsoever, with Warners not only funding and releasing it, but giving it such an optimistic theatrical push. The 47 years worth of absolutely brutal ridicule this film has received is deserved. Boorman claimed that the commercial failure and critical drubbing of his film was due to the fact that he did not deliver the shock-filled horror that the audience and the culture were expecting, when the reality is that the film is just plain bad - bad plotting, bad writing, bad performances, bad effects...bad, bad, bad. But... I have to confess that it's still a sort of a guilty pleasure for me. There's something weirdly endearing about it. I have a similar love-hate relationship with Blatty's Exorcist III (albeit for VERY different reasons, of course) but that's another subject, for another comment thread...
The shining is a very empathic film. I think it can be seen as the sensation of dealing with psychopathy. It's a narrow behavioral pattern with specific relational traits, effect on people, and a certain escalating evolution. It's a delusional state of mind. The interaction is surreal and a labyrinth. As a target one feels very isolated, stressed. I think Kubrick paints mostly this. King's version is a parade of poor choices and taste. Tell the f'ing kid to shut his mouth. Once one is blind for that eyesore, King's version is fascinating. This is what you came up with? This is a response to Kubrick. King likes crazy fantastic stories. Escapism. Kubrick does psycho analysis on the nose.
