Screenplay doesn’t do classic King novel justice

If you were to compare Stanley Kubrick’s version of “The Shining” to the original story told by Stephen King, you would be sorely disappointed. Several of the most lovable parts of the book are lost in Kubrick’s interpretation.
Jack Torrance is a family man. He loves his son, Danny, and his wife, Wendy. Everything he does at the beginning of the book – searching for a job, moving them to the Overlook – it’s all for his family.
Kubrick takes away all these characteristics. Jack Nicholson’s interpretation never gives any indication that he cares for his family, let alone loves them. He acts like a serial killer from the start of the movie.
Jack wasn’t the only character whose casting was all wrong in comparison to the original story. Shelley Duvall was cast to play Wendy Torrance. King described Wendy as blonde, independent, smart and beautiful. No offense to Duvall, but the way she plays Wendy in the movie doesn’t fit any of those descriptions.
Wendy loved Jack, despite him trying to kill her towards the end of the story. She didn’t want to fight her husband. But she was going to protect Danny at all costs. She was more worried about Danny throughout the entire book than she was anything else. Duvall only seems to care about herself and her own life.
Duvall screaming in the corner of the bathroom with a kitchen knife only adds to my disgust of the film.
Yes, in the book Wendy did get trapped in the bathroom. Yes, Jack was trying to break down the door. But Wendy wasn’t screaming. She had a razor, not a knife. And Jack had a mallet, not an ax.
And then there is Danny. Danny was a 5-year-old boy in the book. The person cast to play him, Danny Lloyd, looked and acted significantly older.
The manifestation of Danny’s gift was all wrong. I don’t understand what Kubrick thought he was doing with the “finger Tony” that was going on in the film, but whatever it was, it failed. That action and the change in Danny made it seem like Danny had multiple personalities and that Tony was his alter ego. King wrote Danny’s interactions with Tony as though they were actual visions. Tony was a physical manifestation of Danny’s gift to read minds and see into the future.
Tony’s part in the book was to warn about the Overlook. Of course, as a 5-year-old boy, what could Danny do?
Obviously when converting a book into a screenplay, there are going to be some differences. Rewriting a book as a screenplay requires the screenplay author to consider what the most important parts of the book are – what needs to be present, what can be left out. There are always little things that don’t change the story or impact the time of the movie.
Like the croquet mallet that was described in the book. In the movie, this mallet was replaced with an ax. Why?
And then there’s that timeless phrase: “Heeeere’s Johnny!”
I hate to break it to you guys, but this phrase never appears in the book. Nothing even close. And ever since I saw the movie, I have wondered why this phrase was added. It doesn’t contribute anything.
King wrote, in the forward of one of the later copies of “The Shining,” that Kubrick played more on the ghosts of the past that were referred to in “The Shining.” This would have made a lot more sense if Kubrick would have at least shown what those ghosts were. Jack was a victim of abuse, physical as well as emotional, when he was younger. But none of that is displayed, or even talked about, in the movie. Jack just looks crazy.
Kubrick took an amazing story about a family and a man who struggled with his own personal demons but fought to take care of his family, despite those demons, and destroyed it.
“The Shining” may have been a good thriller in the 1980s, but while it followed the dialogue and the storyline of King’s book almost to a “T,” it also completely changed the story of one man who was trying to finally do right by his family. In doing so, everything may have ended in ruin for Jack Torrance, but nowhere near as much ruin as what “The Shining” underwent after Kubrick decided to make it into a movie.