Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan, November 8, 2019) • Page 2

Wow, that is crazy. Also, reading that has made me a lot more excited to see this movie.

 

I mean, I enjoy it, even if it is bad and Travolta is ridiculous in it haha

 

So as someone that hasn’t read The Shining...what’s so different about the movie and why does King hate the changes so much?

 

The movie is awesome by the way.

 

I'm no expert - I have only read The Shining once, and it was a long time ago - but I have always heard that one of King's major complaints against the film was that he felt in the movie Jack Torrance seemed pretty crazy right from the beginning, whereas he felt the character he had written was slowly driven mad by forces beyond his control. I also remember there being hedges in the book trimmed into animal shapes instead of a big hedge maze, and they 'come alive' and move around on their own.

My personal feeling has always been that King did not like someone adapting his story with such a strong vision of their own because it kind of took his story away from him. He has reportedly liked some questionable adaptions of his own stories though, and was even an EP of the made-for-TV version of The Shining that came out much later.

It has always struck me as kind of silly that he doesn't recognize it as an excellent horror film even if he feels that a straight(er) adaption of his story would have been even better. Something the TV version sort of disproves. But like I said, it has been decades since I read the book.

 

A huge part of it was definitely the fact that Nicholson was cast, since by that point everyone knew to expect crazy from him. Even if he hadn’t actually portrayed the character as unhinged or creepy from the start it still would have sent off red flags for the audience, and King was really unhappy about that.

 

The book (which is superb) is a very personal one for King that clearly relates to his alcoholism at the time, and his fears about him losing his family if he didn't get his life together and stop drinking. In a very King way he just dives as deep as he can into this paranoia of his and comes out with a tragic character named Jack, who is arguably fundamentally good and is broken bit by bit by the very real ghosts in the hotel. Also, this being 70s King he dives deep into every single character, so Danny and (especially) Wendy are also complex, fascinating characters driven by fears and needs and etc.

So the movie, which itself is a classic and one of my favourites of all time, is... as an adaptation largely a total failure. Every bit of nuance of Jack, Wendy and Dan is lost; the emotional heft of the book which comes from Jack trying and failing to fight the hotel for his family is totally gone, where as someone already said Nicholson basically plays him as crazy from the start. Kubrick was clearly more interested in playing the ambiguity of if the ghosts were real or just Jack's justification for his madness for most of the movie, which is great, but it's also not hard to see how this very personal, intimate story for King being totally lost left a pretty sour taste in his mouth.

/breath sorry for the rant

 

I understand. My point is more that the reliance on that imagery is a little worrisome and that the only thing that stood out to me visually were the callbacks to The Shining. It’s not like I want this to be bad. The Shining is in my top 3 films of all time, I want this to be amazing. I just don’t think it looks very good

 

This looks so good.

 

Hmm I’m curious

 

I'm not feeling this at all based on the trailers.

 

Didn't know who Scott Derrickson is, so I looked him up, and I'm shocked that the guy behind Exorcism of Emily Rose did Dr. Strange. That's wild.

 

first reactions are pretty solid

 

That’s surprising, I think it looks terrible

 

I just finished the book the other day. I'm so ready for this.

 

given the other films he's made and how they've been reviewed, I woulda been surprised to see this be anything less than decent

 

Sure, but I’m just going off the trailers and other advertising

 

‘Doctor Sleep’ First Reactions Say the ‘Shining’ Sequel Is the Best Stephen King Film Since ‘Shawshank’

 

one of those said that its a good year for King adaptations like Pet Sematary and IT2 weren't 2 of the worst movies of the year lol

 

Very happy to see this getting a lot of early praise. Can't wait to see it.

 

Being a huge fan of Flanagan (except for Before I Wake) and seeing the positive early reactions makes me more optimistic about this. The trailers just haven't done much for me.

 

oh wow. wasn’t expecting this level of praise