Better or Worse than...

Rating: Null/10 (27 August 2002)

I've never seen The Shining before (until last week), nor did I ever read Stephen King's book. I liked the movie. It definitely WAS creepy. Not super, but good. I thought Nicholson was hair-raising good. Didn't like Shelly Duvall alot, a bit silly she was. But hey! tastes differ. Everyone has his own opinion, and that's just fine...
This is mine: Why do people always have to compare movies with the books they're based upon. Or even the inverse. Movies and books are very different media! Think about the 'consumption time'. A book can take two week to finish (or two months in my case). Movies are fast-food. With books, what you see is your imagination. With films it's the director's point of view. You just cannot make comparisons!!!! It will never be 100% okidoki! Ardent readers will always critic the movie on being not faithfull to the book. Who says it has to ???? It's like a cover song. It's the other artist's own interpretation of the song. Some covers may even be much better than the original... or they may be total and utter crap.
I experimented: Lord of The Rings (Fellowship of the Ring). Never read the book, saw the film, liked the film alot. Afterwards I borrowed the book from a friend and read it, just for science's sake!. It's okay if you like the genre. I'm not a fan, but I liked it. I've found it rather boring though, to much facts and details which don't really give the story extra value. Opposite to that, Peter Jackson didn't made such a wise decision by cutting out some characters and scenes which could have given the movie some extra 'swung' and more background information. Two weeks later I started to read the second episode (The Two Towers), just to make sure that I finish it before the release of the movie. Now I'm waiting on the movie! Will it be worser than the book, just because I've read the book first ??? Actually if it will, I won't care. The book is Tolkiens vision, the movie is Jackson's...
My opinion is mine, yours is yours. Just try to see the movie as a vision of..., and not as a copy of the book.