Forgotten 30 Year-Old Stephen King Miniseries Beats Kubrick’s Shining on Every Front

Stephen King was a young literary celebrity in the late 1970s. His two previous novels had already been adapted for the screen by Brian De Palma and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's creator Tobe Hooper.

While Stanley Kubrick's attention to The Shining must have flattered the author, King's popularity would also help the director: Kubrick's previous film, the expensive costume drama Barry Lyndon, was received by viewers much worse than Kubrick had expected.

Kubrick Cut Out The Ideas That Were Important to King

But King would soon regret his agreement to work with the director. The writer resisted with all his might the approval of Jack Nicholson for the leading role. Jack from the book is a good man, an unrecognized writer who, due to a weakness of his will, turns out to be possessed by an evil force. Jack in many ways was the author's alter ego. The vicious Nicholson, with his manic smile, had no such tragic side.

King also did not like the main character’s wife, Wendy, who wasn’t a strong woman. She was a nervous, whining housewife afraid of her husband, whereas in the novel neither supernatural evil forces nor her husband's madness could shake her own sanity.

King's vision of a good guy who has bad things happen to him had no place in the Kubrick’s Overlook Hotel. The director mercilessly cut out all the “psychology” from the script, including flashbacks (which tell about Jack’s relationship with his own alcoholic father), conversations between the main character and his wife and son, and, of course, the ending.

King has Jack Torrance's redemptive sacrifice at the end – the destruction of the Overlook Hotel. The film, on the contrary, leaves the formidable hotel in place, waiting for new victims, and Jack ends his journey as a frozen corpse in the labyrinth.

King Made His Own Version of The Shining

However, what did not work in the undoubtedly cult movie adaptation (which, given all the changes, should be considered an independent work), did work in the already forgotten 1997 miniseries.

After being rather offended by Kubrick (according to the official version – "disappointed"), King set out to save the novel, wrote the script and invited his long-time colleague Mick Garris to direct the canonical The Shining. The miniseries had terrible luck with the media: few people even know the series exists.

1997’s The Shining Is a Heartbreaking And Profound Horror Drama

Meanwhile, The Shining became a dramatic story of addiction on its second try, just as the author intended. King wrote the novel while battling with alcoholism, knowing firsthand what AA meetings were like.

The King-Garris duo hunted down the demons living within – sometimes good people (Jack Torrance, according to the original idea, is a wonderful father and husband at heart) fall down in an unequal battle with evil forces.

And beyond comparisons to Kubrick's film, King’s The Shining is not only a heartbreaking drama about the breakdown of a family, but also a decent horror project.

According to King, Jack is not a villain, but a victim, which he demonstrates in the miniseries. If Kubrick suggests that Jack belonged to the other world from the beginning (the viewer sees Jack in a photograph of a hotel 60 years ago), King shows that his dark personality is shaped by society. Jack is a victim of his own parents' abuse and alcoholism.

Jack Is Much More Ambiguous Character in The Miniseries

In the series, King plays with the contrast between the main character’s two personalities: in the first half of the series, we see a loving father with no hint of a future monster. In Kubrick's film Jack is completely dominated by the ghosts of the hotel, in the series he manages to take control of the darkness within.

The father blows up the hotel along with himself to save his own family. King clearly shows that Jack is a positive character who fights his inner darkness to the end and does not give up halfway, like Kubrick's one.

The main conflict between Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick’s versions is that they create two works that are very different in meaning. The world of King's novels and series is a place where everyday problems intersect with the mystical and otherworldly.

Alcohol poses no less (and perhaps more, since it is the main reason for Jack's downfall) of a danger to the characters than ghosts, and Jack's anger and rage are a consequence of his childhood trauma.

Kubrick rejects any hint of psychologism in Jack's development and focuses his attention on the nature of evil as it affects human beings.

The Shining Miniseries Is a Must-See for Every Original Novel Fan

So if you've only seen Kubrick's iconic The Shining, but you're also a fan of King's novels, then 1997's The Shining is a must-see, and a series that deserves to be noticed as it delivers all the main ideas and messages of the original novel.

Unfortunately, the miniseries is currently not available for streaming, but a true King fan can buy the Triple Terror Collection DVD – aside from The Shining series, it also has It and Salem’s Lot.