[00:00:00] Dick Halloran: You know, Doc, when something happens, it can leave a trace of itself behind. Say like, if someone burns toast. Well, maybe things that happen leave other kind of traces behind. Not things that anyone can notice, but things that people who shine can see

[00:00:48] Matthew: Hello, and welcome again to the IMMP podcast from the Inter Millennium Media Project. My name is Matthew Porter. 

[00:00:56] Ian: And I'm Ian Porter. 

[00:00:57] Matthew: I'm his dad, he's my son, and we are continuing our Halloween theme of Stephen King adaptations here in October 2026.

[00:01:08] Ian: Oh, goodness. Stephen King All writers and no explanation makes Steven a scary author All writers and no explanation makes Steven a scary writer. I've summarized a lot of his main characters in that sentence. 

[00:01:24] Matthew: Yes. Yes, indeed. When in doubt, he makes the main character a writer. 

[00:01:30] Ian: Oof. 

[00:01:32] Matthew: And this is an interesting bookend 'cause last time, our first October episode this year, we started our Stephen King theme with something that was brand new to you.

[00:01:43] Ian: Oh, yeah. 

[00:01:43] Matthew: And that you went in cold on it. I- Salem's Lot. 

[00:01:47] Ian: Uh, sa- extremely cold, and yet extremely connected apparently. 

[00:01:52] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:01:53] Ian: Meanwhile, yeah, uh, honestly that was an interesting one because it was an example of Stephen King taking something so well known and running with it, and there's, uh, some parallels in here.

But I feel like instead of it being a lens to look at other writing, this one is an example of a writing that a lot of other things lens at. 

[00:02:17] Matthew: And this is a movie that rather than you going in cold for the podcast, this is one of those movies I showed you long before we started doing this podcast.

[00:02:27] Ian: It's... Uh, absolutely. You'd shown me this early on, especially because for the audience who doesn't already know that, we record this from the state where the inspiration's from. 

[00:02:40] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:02:41] Ian: I have been to the Stanley Hotel, which means The Shining was kind of a needed watch- ... for multiple reasons. 

[00:02:50] Matthew: That was part of it.

I figured, you were, a Coloradan raised, and, , you had to know your state's heritage. Oh. So something this important that was inspired by a structure that's, a couple of hours drive away. 

[00:03:04] Ian: Exactly. I mean, if you did the same thing and you lived in Maine- ... oh, goodness, you've got a lot of places to visit.

Yes, 

[00:03:12] Matthew: indeed. But still. 

[00:03:12] Ian: Uh, but yeah. And that's the weird thing about The Shining. It is simultaneously, I feel like we could talk for an extra-long episode right now, ' cause there's so much to cover, and there's so much discussion of The Shining already. 

[00:03:31] Matthew: And at a certain level- And I'll, I'll get into more detail about this as we go along.

At a certain level, there's not all that much to talk about when it comes to The Shining. 

[00:03:41] Ian: Yeah. The, uh, The Shining holds an interesting place in pop culture, though. 

[00:03:47] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:03:48] Ian: Because it's such a key piece. Um, 

[00:03:51] Matthew: uh- When, when we went to see, um, Ready Player One- ... I thought, "Are you glad I showed you The Shining before you saw this?"

[00:04:00] Ian: Yeah. the number of places and ways and references, it's so weird. But it's there. 

[00:04:07] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:04:07] Ian: And, , sometimes we link to other pieces of media. I'm, I wanna pull early on in this one that,

Dominic Noble, , and his show, Lost in Adaptation, in his own review of this film described it as, "You could probably rebuild The Shining scene for scene, shot accurate, purely out of parodies of The Shining." 

[00:04:32] Matthew: That would be a fascinating project. 

[00:04:35] Ian: It would be- ... and yet I completely believe it. I do. Every moment of this has been either lovingly referenced or joked about-

I mean, there's an entire episode of The Simpsons that's a parody of this. Yeah. There is so much. The Shining is a linchpin in terms of a certain era of popular culture that I feel like if you removed it, the rest would start to crumble. 

[00:05:01] Matthew: And that is partly because it is assembled from iconic moments.

Yes. The entire movie is built of iconic moments, many of them purely visual, but

Some of them having to do with the acting, uh, uh, and the dialogue, but mostly the visuals, sometimes , the action 

[00:05:22] Jack Torrance: Mm-hmm 

[00:05:22] Matthew: But they're all the building blocks it's made of, and yet re-watching it for the podcast, it occurred to me there really isn't a lot of story, is there? 

[00:05:35] Ian: Well, yeah, but that's... I don't know how to feel about that because that's part of what we've gotta acknowledge here, because from every interview, every reference I've seen, every discussion of it, Stephen King does not like the 1980 film The Shining. 

[00:05:51] Matthew: Yes, he's been very clear about that. 

[00:05:54] Ian: Because Stephen King's story, The Shining, is a cousin, a sibling to the Stanley Kubrick story-

The Shining, which is what wound up on screen. 

[00:06:11] Matthew: Well, yeah. And, you know- Stanley Kubrick, he never sets out to make an adaptation of somebody else's work, as much as he uses someone's work as a building block to make a Stanley Kubrick work. 

[00:06:22] Ian: Yes. I mean, sometimes unfortunately Stanley Kubrick would in fact, uh, mess with the ideas from the author Stanley Kubrick, and make something that doesn't line up with either.

[00:06:35] Matthew: Th- this is why I give no credence to the idea that Stanley Kubrick shot the footage that was used to fake the moon landings. Stanley Kubrick would never have done anything like that anonymously. Absolutely no way. 

[00:06:51] Ian: How do you ex- you expect to tell me that Stanley Kubrick, honest to goodness, did not zoom the camera or dolly anything-

if he filmed that? This ... Stanley Kubrick actually is really great for ADHD because the man can't sit still. It's, it's, it's there. 

[00:07:13] Matthew: And we did not get one example of the Kubrick stare from , Neil Armstrong. 

[00:07:18] Ian: Oh, good- 

[00:07:19] Matthew: W- maybe we did, we couldn't see it through the helmet, but still. 

[00:07:22] Ian: Oh, goodness. Yeah, that's a good point.

But yeah, no, The Shining from the '80s, the one that we watched, is different, but in some weird way, Stephen King writes interesting stories because he's doing an adaptation or a take on tropes of fiction. 

even some of his weirder creatures, things like It, they're not truly...

They, they are adaptations or variations upon a theme that is already in mythology in some ways. 

[00:07:55] Matthew: Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:56] Ian: Most things are. I feel like The Shining is Kubrick reading Stephen King's book, then backtracking one level and advancing forward at an angle. It's like The Shining is a story about psychics and ghosts.

[00:08:18] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:08:19] Ian: But if we redo that as a film, we can go back and re- reinterpret the concept of psychics and ghosts to make the film version, and you will wind up in a similar but not the same place at the end 

[00:08:37] Matthew: Yeah, he kind of uses the characters and the structure of The Shining the novel to tell this mythic story, the way he does with most of his, his movies.

Like you were saying, his 2001 is not just a movie about a space mission. It turns into- Mm-hmm ... something mythic. Even Spartacus, it becomes something more than this particular story, and he's doing that with The Shining. You're right, yeah. He's, he's using this to make the Stanley Kubrick movie about, as you were saying, ghosts and psychics 

[00:09:05] Ian: So, I'm going to

I, I think that for this we watched the movie, so we're gonna wind up focusing more on the version that is the movie. 

[00:09:13] Matthew: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:09:13] Ian: But there's a lot in there about the fact that the way the movie does it is not the book. 

[00:09:18] Matthew: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:18] Ian: And so talking about Stephen King's meaning- ... and talking about Kubrick's meaning get really blended in here.

[00:09:26] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:09:26] Ian: And at some point you just gotta take this as a piece of narrative that pop culture loves. 

[00:09:31] Matthew: Absolutely. we're discussing the 1980 Kubrick movie, and- Right ... to the extent that we mentioned anything about the Stephen King novel, it's tangential to that. And I, and I'm not one who thinks that a movie is better the more faithful it is as an adaptation of the book.

The book is still there. 

[00:09:50] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:09:51] Matthew: Being faithful to the book does not always make a good movie. Whether, in this instance, being less faithful to the book made a good movie, that's a different question. 

[00:10:00] Ian: That is. 

[00:10:01] Matthew: I was talking about the story on this. This is a story that absolutely fails the Parker and Stone test that we've talked about sometimes, where the creators and writers of- Oh, yeah

South Park talking about how you ... A story should never be "and then." Scenes should never be joined "and then." It should always be joined by- Until or e- but or therefore, even better 

[00:10:28] Ian: Mm-hmm ... 

[00:10:28] Matthew: the story, every scene should build inevitably or at least logically to the next scene. And this, this movie just seems like a stack of events that are inevitable from the beginning, and that is maybe part of the point of the movie, and yet there's no sense that this scene happens because of the scene that happened before, or what happened in the scene that, that came before was going to continue on in this direction until something interrupted it.

[00:11:04] Ian: I love that description because you've got a very good point there, and you called it a stack of events. Because it, that's the same way I think about this as well. This is gonna sound like a weird metaphor, so everybody hold on with me. The Shining is a shuffled deck of playing cards. 

[00:11:22] Jack Torrance: Hmm. 

[00:11:23] Ian: Individual distinct items, and I look at them and say they are clearly broken down into a red and a black suit.

[00:11:33] Matthew: Oh. 

[00:11:33] Ian: Because- 

[00:11:33] Matthew: Oh ... 

[00:11:34] Ian: we have two threads going on. One of them is the story of Jack Torrance, already messed up guy trying to get his life back on track, but not completely invested in it. 

[00:11:48] Matthew: Mm-hmm. 

[00:11:49] Ian: Who winds up in a ghost story where the ghosts eventually convince him to give in to his worst impulses and to become the violent villain in a karmic sense of a, a, a half-assed attempt at self-redemption just leads to worse outcomes.

[00:12:12] Matthew: Oh, how do you mean about the redemption? 

[00:12:15] Ian: Well, he try... The id- he keeps talking about this, about trying to be better, and never puts in the effort to. Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:21] Matthew: Yeah. 

[00:12:22] Ian: And that he kind of gets a karmic re- retribution for the lies of false advancement, I guess. It's, it's an odd one, but it's a ghost story about a man possessed.

[00:12:34] Matthew: Right. Yes. It's a... This is a place, and this is... You know, we opened with that quote from Scatman Crothers' character about places can have t- traces of things that happened before, and this seemed to have one that is very deep and very old, and it's almost as if the place requires a reenactment of this violence in which the man who is the caretaker murders his family.

And so here's a- And we learn about that old story at the very beginning of the movie. 

[00:13:05] Ian: So here's a man, Jack, who talks about, "I'm going to quit drinking. I'm going to do better. I'm going to put effort into my work. I'm going to be a writer and do something with myself." And in- instead of doing those things and breaking the negative cycles he's in, he instead reenacts a negative cycle of the building.

And that's where I say there's that karmic element of, you know, all of the good intentions fail because the good actions never came. 

[00:13:42] Matthew: Yes. And I get the sense that the m- the malevolent force that is or, or, or that inhabits this hotel, it recognizes in him a weakness that they can exploit. Which maybe they haven't seen in any of the caretakers in recent years.

That he is someone who we, we know that he injured his child in a, a moment of drunken violence. And as you say, at the time he said, "I'm never gonna drink again," and apparently he's d- he's lived up to that for months. But there's still that weakness. Mm-hmm. And whether it's weakness or whether there's a little bit of shame about that that's still there, it's enough leverage that he is a good mark for the spirits that want this violence to recur.

Because it is, it's violence of a, a man against his family. 

[00:14:36] Ian: It is. And so that's one of our two suits. 

[00:14:39] Matthew: Okay. 

[00:14:41] Ian: And the other suit is the story of Danny , a young psychic boy who lives in a very difficult household, who is dragged out to a place, and his psychic ability means that he, after getting some advice from a fellow psychic, spends his time peeling the layers back of the awful things that are happening here, and trying to piece together what has happened and maybe, maybe just survive, but maybe help somebody.

And in his story very much so is his very beleaguered mother who doesn't get assistance in terms of helping and raise, Danny, and is trying to help her psychic son through these supernatural events. 

[00:15:32] Matthew: And- Those are two very different movies. 

They, they are. You're right. They're, each of those is a strong concept i, uh- Mm-hmm

in and of itself. And in some ways, Danny's is more of a story. There are more events that- Yeah ... lead to other events and things, as opposed to Jack just being taken, uh, b- over by the house, by the hotel. And yet- Danny's is more interesting not just because of that story structure, but also because it's less predictable because of it.

And we know more than the other characters know. His mom knows- Yeah ... there's something troubled and troubling about Danny. and yet he doesn't tell her really what's going on. The, the psychic impressions and visions t- uh, and, and information comes to him through a little imaginary friend. Uh- 

[00:16:27] Ian: Yeah ... 

[00:16:27] Matthew: Tony, the little boy who lives in his mouth.

And, and Tony has- Tony, so this is 

[00:16:33] Ian: This, Tony is the strangest adaptation- ... strangest version of Navi from Legend of Zelda ever. "

Danny, hey, listen." 

It's like But he is kind of this quest-giving, little, tiny sprite kind of a character- 

[00:16:51] Matthew: Yes ... 

[00:16:51] Ian: tone-wise. 

[00:16:53] Matthew: And has told- Sorry ... and has told Danny, "Don't tell your mom.

Don't tell anybody else." 

[00:16:57] Ian: Mm-hmm

And but yeah, in terms of the structure of the film, these two different stories are told shuffled together, and you will get scene, scene from movie A, and then a scene from movie B almost. They're all filmed in the same Kubrick style, but until the last third, they feel disconnected various times. 

[00:17:23] Matthew: They do.

They're disconnected enough that it leaves me open to speculate about what the connections are. Is the fact that Danny is here and he has the psychic powers and he's able to see visions of this past violence and see the, uh, the, the images of, you know, dead people and the two little girls who want him to come and play with them forever?

Mm-hmm. Is that drawing the house out such that it is more ready and more powerful and more, uh, to, more able to focus on Jack? Or is Danny able to have enough warning and give his mother enough warning and somehow help the situation? It's really not clear. 

[00:18:09] Ian: Actually, there's a, there is an interesting point early on in Danny's things when they are getting used to the house.

He meets, uh, a Dick Hallorann, the, the chief chef, who also is a telepathic with the shining, as he calls it. And he talks about the fact that, he and his grandmother would have conversations back and forth. 

[00:18:32] Matthew: Yeah. 

[00:18:32] Ian: In that one little line he implies that the shining, the psychic powers might be hereditary.

[00:18:40] Matthew: Ah. 

[00:18:40] Ian: Why is Jack such an easy mark? Because Jack's mildly psychic in his own right. He's an antenna. 

[00:18:49] Matthew: Oh, interesting. He is someone who n- has this but never... or has it latently, and, uh, or has- Mm-hmm ... suppressed it with things like drinking. That's an interesting- Yeah ... idea. You're, you're right, that does suggest that some, uh, inheritability here, and there's no indication that Danny's mom, played by Shelley Duvall, is anything but, uh, a, a beleaguered mom and, uh, and housewife- Mm

trying to raise her son more in spite of her husband than in partnership with her husband. 

[00:19:21] Ian: Yeah. Because, uh, one notable thing is that the start of the film is the drive up to the Overlook Hotel and Jack getting the job, and they describe the things he'll have to do. We never see Jack do any of those.

[00:19:37] Matthew: No. No, 

[00:19:38] Ian: we don't. We do see his wife do them. We see his wife check the boilers. Jack never does his job. 

[00:19:46] Matthew: Yes. She is doing all of the work involved because he was thinking of this as, "Oh, it's, it's gonna be an easy job. Yeah, we're gonna be totally isolated for five months, but there's a couple of hours of work to do every day maybe, and the rest of the time I can be writing so I don't have to be a schoolteacher anymore."

Uh, which is, by the way, what Stephen King did before he, uh, was able to make a living as a writer. Yeah. 

[00:20:07] Ian: Hey. 

[00:20:08] Matthew: And, and you're right, he does nothing but sit and, and type, and doesn't actually write anything. 

[00:20:17] Ian: Yeah, exactly. He gets mad and, uh, abuses a typewriter and that's about it. 

[00:20:22] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:20:24] Ian: What model typewriter is that, by the way?

[00:20:26] Matthew: Oh, I should know that, but I, I am not sure. 

[00:20:30] Ian: Okay. Because that, that, that scene of the finally seeing his manuscript- ... is one of those most referenced moments. I'm like, "Oh, boy."

But there's so many fun little moments and bits here. But yeah, we've gone through most of the, the setup. I'd say we've gone through the core of both stories there. the difference is the fact that, at the end they do collide. At the end we get the story of Jack finally succumbing, and becoming kind of an agent of the, the Overlook.

And then we get Danny, who has dropped into some kind of coma and is being now puppeted by the imaginary friend, acting as a, a premonition and a warning system to help, Danny and his mom get away from the now fully villainized Jack

[00:21:24] Matthew: I'm sorry, I was distracted slightly by the question of what kind of typewriter is that? 

[00:21:28] Ian: Oh, sorry. Did I activate one of your... I activated one of your interests. 

[00:21:34] Matthew: Yes, you did. Yes, you 

[00:21:35] Ian: did. Yay. Okay.

[00:21:37] Matthew: It was

I gotta pull myself away from this 

[00:21:44] Ian: Oh, no. I, I've, I've sent you down quite the rabbit hole, I think.

[00:21:49] Matthew: Yeah, 'cause Kubrick was, was a, a, a typewriter nerd as well. Uh, so I'm sure he selected whatever typewriter it was Very carefully 

[00:21:58] Ian: looks like it's an Adler 

[00:22:00] Matthew: down on the- Yes, it is an Adler typewriter. 

[00:22:03] Ian: Yeah 

[00:22:03] Matthew: And it kind of changes color 

[00:22:06] Ian: Which does really fit the design of, The Shining movie, the rooms shift and morph. The idea that the typewriter might not stay consistent is completely reasonable. 

[00:22:18] Matthew: Yes.

So it's a, a German typewriter. It's a German Adler typewriter that changes color over the course of the film the typing when he winds up having typed reams and reams of all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 

[00:22:34] Ian: Yeah? 

[00:22:34] Matthew: They typed that out in multiple languages. So for the international releases, they had pages they could show- ... with the appropriate language of that message. 

[00:22:44] Ian: Oh, that's pretty good.

[00:22:47] Matthew: And they didn't necessarily use the same idiom- 

[00:22:51] Ian: Oh ... 

[00:22:52] Matthew: in each language. In German, for example, it was the German tr- uh, saying, "Never put off till tomorrow what may be done today." So it was always some very common platitudinous, turn of phrase or saying in whatever language it was. 

[00:23:09] Ian: But just over and over 

[00:23:10] Matthew: and over.

All you've been doing- Oh, boy ... is typing this one boring phrase. 

[00:23:15] Ian: I mean- Uh, I, I do, I will say, uh, the all over the page typing he did made me remember things like, uh, the weird formatting in books like The House of Leaves. 

[00:23:27] Matthew: Yes. Having read House of Leaves since the last time I had- Oh, yeah ... seen The Shining, watching it this time made me think, "Oh, whoa, where are the footnotes?"

[00:23:35] Ian: Where are the footnotes? Give me those. Yeah.

But yeah. I, I mean, that's the thing. Like, Jack's, Jack is not doing anything here. Meanwhile, Danny is driving around his, driving around impossible hallways on his Big Wheel. 

[00:23:57] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:23:59] Ian: I love that. That, that scene is so classic. It... We'll say Kubrick doesn't like staying still, but Kubrick is fine with staying silent.

[00:24:07] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:24:08] Ian: He loves, uh, those scenes where there's no talking, there's no nothing. It's just atmosphere. Oh, my goodness, the atmosphere in The Shining is so thick you can cut it with a knife. Even after the film ends, I realized that I had... I was still in that same, like, tense atmosphere for almost twice the runtime of the film after watching the film this most recent time.

It sticks to you. 

[00:24:39] Matthew: And that's what makes it a watchable movie and what makes it a powerful movie. You're right. Mm-hmm. Is that, that atmosphere, that tone. Because of the things I've said about the story, or lack thereof, and the fact that it's just a seemingly inevitable set of events that starts out bad and becomes worse to worst, uh, Most movies that presented me with that I would conclude, you know, "This is not a good movie.

This is a... I would not recommend this to anybody." And yet there are other things you can do with movies than tell a story. Mm-hmm. And the way he establishes that tone. Mm-hmm. The way he starts that dread, the way he makes you feel things about the fact that this next inevitable scene is happening. And it seems inevitable even if you've never seen the movie before.

[00:25:26] Ian: I mention that kind of, Jack saying stuff and then not following through element because I feel like watching Jack, especially this most recent time, I kept wanting to empathize and hope good for him. I kept saying, "Come on, Jack. You can get past your inner demons." And that meant that every time he failed to, it hurt.

[00:25:52] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:25:53] Ian: And that's the weird thing of, like, Jack is an unlikable guy. That's why Stephen King, one of the reasons he says he doesn't like the film, because Jack starts out as an awful guy, and he ends an even worse man. And yet in a, in a media landscape where I'm so used to at least seeing someone rise a little before falling, to watch someone whose entire arc is just a tangent down- 

[00:26:22] Matthew: Yes

[00:26:22] Ian: it's just, it's just Y equals negative X. Boom. 

[00:26:27] Matthew: And in that sense- Ah ... uh, Jack Torrance is not the protagonist of this movie in any sense. No. Because there's no struggle happening with him. He is- Uh, he is identified by the house as somebody they can bend to their will, and we never really see him do anything to question what's happening to him.

[00:26:49] Ian: Yeah. He's 

[00:26:49] Matthew: not- He seems to regret it a little bit in one or two scenes, but never puts any effort into resisting it. Seems to be confused by it occasionally, but is constantly giving in. He just very early on becomes a part of the... And I've said house, part of the hotel and what it's doing. If there's a protagonist in this, to some extent it's Danny.

[00:27:16] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:27:17] Matthew: But Danny doesn't really have enough agency necessarily to be a full protagonist, being a child and not knowing what's going on entirely. I would say that, uh, that Wendy is more the protagonist than anyone else because she's the one who begins to see what's happening. She is put in a place where she can be a victim.

She begins to make decisions to try to change that. Things get in the way. Obstacles arise to keep her from doing what she wants to- Mm-hmm ... carrying out the solution she sees. 

[00:27:52] Ian: I would say that, yeah, she is the protagonist. Danny winds up being a chosen one without being a protagonist. 

Dick Hallorann is simultaneously a, a mentor and a, a knightly savior figure.

A tragic one, but still. 

[00:28:11] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:28:12] Ian: Jack, Jack is more like the story of, like, the weapon of a villain in a story. 

[00:28:21] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:28:22] Ian: This is not the story of the, the evil dark lord. This is the story of his sword, of it being forged, picked up, and used. That is Jack. He is a weapon. He is a tool of this malevolent force.

He's not even the antagonist. He is the antagonist's blade. 

And that is such an odd thing, but it's true. He has more in common with the ax he's depicted wielding than a character at times. 

[00:28:53] Matthew: That's a great description because we never get a sense that he has any agenda. Even from the beginning of the movie, he has this vision of what it's going to be like here at the Overlook Hotel snowed in for, for five months in solitude.

"I'm gonna get to disconnect. I'm gonna get to spend, uh, all my time writing." And yet he never t- really takes any steps towards doing any of that. He never really has, seems to have a lot of drive or a goal that he's trying to accomplish. Like, "I wanna have a novel drafted by the end of these five months."

He starts out figuring, "I don't know what I w- I, I should write something. What should I write?" So he can't be a villain or an antagonist- Mm-hmm ... if he doesn't have an agenda, if he doesn't have something- Exactly ... he's trying to achieve, or a hero who he's trying to thwart. And he- He's just- As you say, he's just a weapon.

He's just a thing that's picked up by the, the Overlook and used. 

[00:29:50] Ian: And that is sad. That is tragic. Because if you have empathy for the characters and, and don't let it die on you, it hurts to see that. 

[00:30:01] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:30:01] Ian: And yet you will root for everyone else to survive him. 

There's a tragic loss of the fact that he does not actually live up to becoming something different.

[00:30:10] Matthew: for Wendy and for Danny, it is more a humans versus the environment kind of story than anything else. Mm-hmm. He is just part of this landscape that they are stuck in and need to survive, uh, Jack is. 

[00:30:24] Ian: Yeah. there's so many disconnected bits. The whole c- I'm just trying to think of some of them in my head.

There's the classic elevator full of blood. 

[00:30:34] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:30:35] Ian: Which is repeated scene, but I take it that is a metaphor for there's been a lot of killing here. 

[00:30:42] Matthew: Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:43] Ian: There's the whole crazy ghost lady in one of the room's side stories. 

[00:30:50] Matthew: Right, and I gather that's the, uh, supposed to be the wife of the caretaker who, a decade or so earlier, killed his family.

[00:31:00] Ian: I'm not sure. I thought it might have been a different one. 

[00:31:03] Matthew: Could be. 

[00:31:03] Ian: A different killing. There's the whole, Jack feeding into this, prohibition era party. 

[00:31:13] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:31:13] Ian: dealing with the ghosts that haunted the place, which is kind of like a... Which is kind of like, what if the, what if Disney's Haunted Mansion was a nightclub?

At times, in the weirdest way, it's like, huh. 

[00:31:28] Matthew: And it's, there, and it is interesting. As, as, as much as we miss the, the story progression and the events leading to other events and things, there is, there is something interesting to see the progression that we do get because there are definitely stages in what happens to Jack in that he's kind of out of sorts, and then he is aggressive and hostile.

[00:31:55] Jack Torrance: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:56] Matthew: And eventually, partly in reaction to that, the things that he's becoming aggressive and hostile about, he sort of gives in. And- 

[00:32:06] Jack Torrance: Yeah ... 

[00:32:07] Matthew: that's the point at which the ho- hotel starts talking to him, where suddenly there's a ghost bartender who helps him fall off the wagon. And later on there's this whole party, like you're saying, that he's, he's part of.

He's more and more part of what has always been going on at this hotel. Uh, and that's, there, there are those definite stages we see him go through. And that final stage is, okay, now that you're part of this hotel, he meets the ghost of the previous caretaker and recognizes the name, and that's the point- Yeah

at which, well, now that you're part of this hotel, you know what this hotel is about and you know what this hotel needs, and therefore you know what you need to do. 

[00:32:53] Ian: Exactly. Oh. He kind of get, he, he kind of gets told, like, "You're gonna be recreating this, aren't you? Come on." 

[00:32:59] Matthew: And yet it's all couched- No judgment

in the, you know, man to man, "Here's my suggestion about how you handle these difficulties with your family. Maybe they need severe correction." 

[00:33:09] Ian: Mm-hmm. I would, I'd be very fascinated to see, how well, each of Jack's steps downward- 

[00:33:17] Jack Torrance: Hmm ... 

[00:33:17] Ian: mirror like an evil inversion of Alcoholics Anonymous or something like that.

I get the feeling that, like you're describing there's these individual steps. I'm like, I don't know it, I don't know- ... if it matches one to one, but there's something very, like falling into it frame by frame. I could see that being a parallel in an odd way. 

[00:33:41] Matthew: I could. I don't know that we get it 12 clear steps out of this.

Yeah. But- But ... it is the same kind of step-by-step progression or regression- 

[00:33:50] Ian: Mm-hmm ... 

[00:33:51] Matthew: that you see- Yeah ... in everything from Alcoholics Anonymous to Dante. 

[00:33:55] Ian: Honestly, you know, Dante's Inferno and The Shining has got some, some interesting parallels right down to the it ends in ice.

[00:34:02] Matthew: Yes. Yes. 

[00:34:05] Ian: Yeah, because, uh, there's so much ... I do appreciate the idea of... A- a- and the impossible, weird, uh, landscapes of the, the filming of The Overlook, spaces that cannot physically exist if you think about the turns that shouldn't be made. Having a hedge maze is so perfect, and it makes for such an excellent final scene.

[00:34:30] Matthew: It is

We talked about the, uh, the Stanley Hotel- 

[00:34:36] Ian: Yes ... 

[00:34:36] Matthew: which was, an inspiration for The Shining even though none of it was filmed there. Much of the exterior was at the Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood in Oregon. Mm-hmm. and I'd had a chance to go there, and that was a kind of cool experience because on the one hand it's, "Oh yeah, this is the Overlook Hotel."

This is pretty, for a movie fan to get to, to see this. But on the other hand it's looking around this place and saying, "Yeah, to some of the exterior, but this is not the Overlook Hotel." Yeah. The Overlook Hotel is mainly all the stuff they built in sound stages in England. Oh, yeah. And this big hedge maze that they built that was, wasn't in the book, and it's certainly not at the, the Timberline Lodge in, uh, in Oregon.

[00:35:21] Ian: Mm-hmm. 

[00:35:22] Matthew: But it's such- Yeah ... a, an important factor in the, the movie. 

[00:35:26] Ian: There's so much Elstree just that built that, because they did things that we're still seeing shows love doing nowadays. There's plenty of the show Severance that loves to play with impossibly turning hallways, and the shots are very much a newer, better camera version of some of the follow, Danny on his little bike going over carpet and s- and, uh, wood floors with the rumble.

Or running around through the hedge maze stuff. Yes. It's like that same kind of shot still hits when you do it with office walls on a show just a few years ago. 

[00:36:05] Matthew: Did I ever show you or did you ever see the documentary Room 237? 

[00:36:11] Ian: You showed me a good portion of that, but not, I didn't get to see all of it 'cause timing-wise 

[00:36:16] Matthew: That is a whole documentary about the geography and the geometry and other aspects of The Shining, and how we see impossible rooms in the Overlook.

Mm-hmm. Like, we see this office, and based on what we've seen about the hallways that lead to this office and elsewhere, this office could not have an exterior window, and yet when we're in the office, it has an exterior window. And things like you have a shot of this famously patterned carpet, and you cut away and you cut back to it, and the pattern is facing a different direction.

[00:36:51] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:36:52] Matthew: It's these weird unsettling things from the very beginning before any supernatural things begin to happen. Because I think people who, who made that documentary and other commentators, I, I agree with them that none of this can be an accident given how meticulous a filmmaker Kubrick is. 

[00:37:08] Ian: Oh, goodness.

Yeah, no, Kubrick... All the stories say that Kubrick is so meticulous, he's difficult to work with. 

[00:37:15] Matthew: Yes.

[00:37:16] Ian: Shot after shot after shot just not landing and being redone. Oof. 

[00:37:24] Matthew: And that's one of the reasons why the story aspects surprise me, because so many of his other movies are very well-structured in terms of story. Mm-hmm. And yet again, maybe he saw this material and said, "I wanna make a movie that isn't about the story structure.

It's about the environment. It's about," as you were saying earlier, "the tone and the, the dread that we can, can build." 

[00:37:47] Ian: The Shining is... The Shining is a version of the sword of Damocles. Jack is a weapon dangling over the head of Danny and his mom. So it's, it's all right there. But-- And so it's all about that tension and that fear.

So yeah, I could definitely see Kubrick leaning in on making a tone piece this time instead of a narrative one. But you can't, you can't take anything for granted in this. 

[00:38:18] Matthew: No. 

[00:38:19] Ian: I, I kind of hate that in some ways, because there's an element of like, "Oh, it's so fake." And yet that's what makes it work, and I kind of feel bad that it probably wasn't fun-

to make in times- 

[00:38:35] Matthew: Yes ... 

[00:38:35] Ian: because of, of the Kubrick precision. But it's working to get something right here.

[00:38:42] Matthew: Well, we've talked for a while, and unlike our approach to a lot of movies, we haven't really traced the movie beginning to end. 'Cause as we said, there's not the s- the kind of story progression that we would typically use as a hook to talk about the movie. Yeah. But we had a lot to say about the movie.

[00:38:58] Ian: There's a lot to say about the movie. I, uh, I'm gonna say another weird thing. It sound, it feels sometimes like trying to summarize a video game, where how long it takes you for to get from point A to point B is completely up in the air. Yes. There's, there is sections you have to reach, but the space in between is not always the same.

[00:39:19] Matthew: Yeah, I guess that's another way to look at the, the separate building blocks or the cards, like you were describing them. 

[00:39:25] Ian: Mm-hmm. 

[00:39:26] Matthew: That they're, they're levels or they're rooms in a video game. 

[00:39:31] Ian: Oh, goodness. Is there a Shining video game? What, what consoles were out at that time? Is it like... Oh. 

[00:39:38] Matthew: Well, it would've been a 2600 in 1980, wouldn't it?

Or a 5200 

[00:39:43] Ian: Oh, no, no. Uh, it would've been a little late, but you could have had an NES game So it's like I could... Like, I wanna see Shining for the NES. Shining as a side-scrolling platformer. Wow, no.

Okay, th- that just feels like I'm just describing a haunted console that needs you to recreate E.T. for the- ... for the Atari 2600. Oh, no. Please, no. Oh, okay. I'm, I'm getting off track here. 

[00:40:17] Matthew: Well, Danny talks to- Yeah, well- ... Elliot, the little boy who lives in his mouth. 

[00:40:21] Ian: Oh, God. Oh. You can't phone home.

Someone's pulled all the, all the, all the components out of the radio. Oh, no. Yeah, like, I'm, like, I'm, I'm, I am trying to think of, like, how would you even piece this together? I mean, how do you connect the Red Rum scene to anything else? It's a cool scene I think everyone by the time it happened knew murders had happened in the building.

They told us that in the beginning. Yeah. It's really cool, but what is it revealing? 

[00:40:56] Matthew: Yeah, they even short-circuited a usual central through line of a horror movie in that most horror movies are in some way a mystery where the protagonist- Yeah ... is trying to figure out what is... Not just what is the horror that's threatening us, but why is the horror that's threatening us?

What gave rise to it? What might that tell us about how to survive it or dispel it? And here they, the b- uh, beginning of the movie in that scene where before the winter, Jack is in, uh, in the office at the hotel talking to the manager, and he's being told the story of the horrific murders that happened at the hands of a previous caretaker.

It's like, okay, I guess that's not gonna be a mystery. 

[00:41:44] Ian: Yeah. I mean, f- thinking about that though, yeah, it's not a narrative s- it's not a highly narrative story. It's a tone piece that brings a specific kind of tension to the audience. I'm sorry, Stephen, you might, you might not like this film saying Kubrick didn't recreate your story, but interviews with Stephen King, he has said he is not a horror writer.

He is a suspense writer, and Kubrick made an absolutely good suspense film. 

[00:42:13] Matthew: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

[00:42:16] Ian: He fit the genre of Stephen King better in that sense. He fit the arc of what Stephen King calls his own novels-

[00:42:26] Matthew: better. So he, he, he preserved that aspect of The Shining.

Yeah. Even as he changed other parts, he still kept it as a suspense story more than as a horror story, which as I say, usually implies mystery of some kind. 

[00:42:39] Ian: Exactly. 

[00:42:40] Matthew: It's like, you know, there's no mystery about what's going on here. We're just spectators- ... as the inevitable happens. 

[00:42:47] Ian: There's a little bit of the, "I don't know how it's happening."

"But it is." Right. Yeah. It's like we don't get explanations as to how the building is evil. But building's evil. Go. 

[00:43:01] Matthew: And even that, Mr. Hallorann g- does his level best to give us that explanation. That it's the traces of things that have happened here before. 

[00:43:12] Ian: Yeah. At the same time, though, his description of like, "It's like burning toast," I'm like, "Did the Overlook Hotel have a stroke?"

Is the Overlook Hotel drooping on one side? Colorado does have large clay deposits in some areas- ... that need supporting foundations. 

[00:43:29] Matthew: What's going on? Like, how do you do a smile test on a building? Exactly. We need a doctor who's also an architect, stat.

Well, with that, I think we might be heading towards our final questions about this movie. 

[00:43:42] Ian: I think we are. 

[00:43:43] Matthew: So stay tuned, listeners, for our final thoughts about this movie and our recommendations around it and what might come after. 

[00:43:51] Ian: Yes. 

[00:43:52] Matthew: But in the meantime, if you are enjoying the Intermillennium Media Project podcast, first of all, thank you very much for listening.

You're the reason we do this. And if you want more of the IMMP, please go to immproject.com. That's where you will find all of our back episodes, more than 200 of them now, along with some bonus episodes, and, uh, all of that available free of charge. But if you wanna support the podcast, there are a number of ways to do that as well.

You can, join us on our Patreon, and starting at $3 a month, you can get additional bonus audio content there. You can also go to our shop, which is linked from immproject.com, where you can buy T-shirts and coffee mugs and notebooks and all kinds of fun things, not just about the podcast, but also about some of the movies and TV shows that we've talked about.

[00:44:40] Ian: Oh, yeah. Uh 

[00:44:42] Matthew: And of course, we would love to hear from you. And at immproject.com, you will find our contact page, and you can reach us on Blue Sky or Mastodon. you can reach us, by email and, you can reach us on our Discord. We'd love to hear from you there, and you can reach us by honest-to-goodness US mail.

[00:45:00] Frodo: It's the mail. 

Yeah. I'll get used to it. 

[00:45:03] Ian: We'd love to hear what your thoughts are. Is there Stephen King projects that you love or do you think that The Shining film or The Shining book is better? We... This is the sort of discussions we love to have with you, so come on in. 

[00:45:14] Matthew: Absolutely. Yeah. And Ian, where can people find you?

[00:45:18] Ian: Ah, I can be found most places as ItemCrafting, be that ItemCrafting.com or ItemCraftingLive on Twitch. Come join the CraftCats and, uh, join me as we play games and build props, paint minis and have a good time. 

[00:45:35] Matthew: That's been a fun stream. 

[00:45:37] Ian: Oh, thank you. I 

[00:45:37] Matthew: like the variety. 

[00:45:38] Ian: Yay. And Dad, where can they find you?

[00:45:41] Matthew: Well, the best thing to do is to go to bymatthewporter.com, and that's where you'll find links to anything I'm doing online, which includes this and includes my YouTube channel, where I review movies and movie theater experiences. And also on bymatthewporter.com you will find information about my book, Questions for the Dead.

If you like stories about psychics, stories about psychics that also involve private detectives and mysteries, you might enjoy Questions for the Dead. And you can buy that in a number of different ways. You can ask for it at your local brick-and-mortar bookstore. You can buy an e-book or a paperback at your favorite online bookstore.

Or you can buy it directly from the publisher, Ephemeral Industries. you can find links there from, bymatthewporter.com or go directly to ephemeralindustries.com. And if you buy a paperback directly from Ephemeral Industries before November 30th, you can get a signed copy. 

[00:46:40] Ian: Uh, I mean, The Shining takes place in Colorado with psychics, and you have a book all about psychics in Colorado.

It's awesome. 

[00:46:48] Matthew: I didn't even- This is, this is- ... make, make that connection till we were rewatching the movie. 

[00:46:51] Ian: This is a, it's a great, it's a great overlap here. But honestly, I... You, you have such a fun way with playing with the idea of psychic powers and what that would entail for the people that have them and the people around them.

That's a... It's a good story. 

[00:47:08] Matthew: Thank you. 

[00:47:09] Ian: Yay. 

[00:47:11] Matthew: So final questions. Hm. 

[00:47:14] Ian: Final questions. 

[00:47:16] Matthew: It is a movie, so the, the 1980 Stanley Kubrick version of The Shining, screen or no screen?

[00:47:27] Ian: Ooh, this is so hard because a piece of me says screen. Honestly, it's just a good one to watch, and yet I completely understand if you don't want to because it is a spooky story with that tone that sits with you. If you do not want to sit in a creepy tone the same way one might sit in a hot tub-

The Shining is not the thing in the moment. And The Shining is simultaneously a film where sitting down and watching it, giving it your attention can be rewarded with the fact that it's an engrossing film cinematography-wise and tone-wise. It's also so disconnected you can toss The Shining on in the background of a Halloween party and people will still enjoy seeing moments without context.

That's part of why it's so pop culturally popular. The Shining doesn't crumble when chopped into segments. 

[00:48:31] Matthew: Yes. If you're going to comment on it in any way, you can pull those cards at random and comment on any one of them, not necessarily having to have that as in, in context of the full story because again, there's not that much story there.

And I agree, I can't bring myself to say no screen for The Shining. So unless you don't like horror movies or horrific suspense movies, uh, I would say watch it. But I would say have appropriate expectations. Mm-hmm. Don't expect great things from the story.

Do expect the kind of things you would get from, from Kubrick when it comes to the way shots are structured, the way the environment is used, the way the tone is established and maintained. So with the right expectations, assuming you like this kind of movie, absolutely screen it. 

And that brings us to our other question, which again, for popular things, this can be a complicated question because our other question is always revive, reboot, or rest in peace.

And in our terminology, revive means make something else in the same continuity. It could be a prequel, it could be a, a sequel, you know, an, an Overlook Hotel: The Next Generation. I don't know. But it's in the same continuity. The original is still canon. And reboot is start fresh, start from scratch, uh, a new version, a new adaptation of the source material, or just a total reboot of, of the original idea.

And then of course, rest in peace is we don't have to do anything. Just let it be what it is. That doesn't mean it's bad. It might mean it's a classic, you should go back to it, but there's no reason to do more And here we have The Shining. 

[00:50:20] Ian: The Shining, who has actually done both of our- ... both of our main things.

because King was so unhappy with the movie, he funded making the 1997 miniseries, which is a painfully accurate to the book adaptation of the story And gets really interesting reviews for its quality and concept Uh, I'm gonna leave it at that on there Yeah Because then- 

[00:50:54] Matthew: I'll just harken back to my earlier comments that a more faithful movie adaptation or television adaptation does not necessarily mean a better movie or better television.

[00:51:05] Ian: Yeah. And then this is Stephen King. Stephen King's books are all in the Stephen King-iverse. And that means they can show up whenever. So the Overlook Hotel, not most of the characters, the Overlook Hotel keeps getting name-dropped in his other stories. It keeps on showing up like a cameo actor, like someone who gets a single episode of The Love Boat, but what if The Love Boat was creepy supernatural horror?

And this, and the Overlook's career had stopped a long while ago, but it still gets the occasional guest role. The Overlook will show up in Stephen King novels. And then in 2013, Stephen King wrote Doctor Sleep, which is a sequel to The Shining. And because The Shining film was so popular, Doctor Sleep got a movie in 2019, six years later, which is also really notable because the movie is kind of a sequel to the movie, and the book is a sequel to the book, but it's kind of re-merging the timelines and then re-branching them.

It does a weird thing of trying to keep everything in canon so it loses nothing. 

[00:52:31] Matthew: And that can be a problem, and yet it can also be fun when you've got as much material to work with as Stephen King across- Mm-hmm ... his career. And I have to say, I have neither read nor seen Doctor Sleep, and I realized that watching The Shining again for this, that I've gotta, gotta read that and gotta watch that.

[00:52:48] Ian: I'm sorry, though. Also, The Shining sounds like a creepy movie. I'm sorry, Mr. King. Doctor Sleep sounds like a house DJ.

[00:53:00] Matthew: Time for some- I- ... lo-fi selections from Doctor Sleep 

[00:53:03] Ian: From Doctor Sleep. Exactly. If you tell me that his story is not about, uh, dealing with further psychic shenanigans in the ruins of the Overlook, which I take it is part of what Doctor Sleep the book is about. But if you told me it's just about Danny leaving everything behind as an older man and getting into a music career, I would say, like, the name fits. 

[00:53:29] Matthew: And I keep being thrown by the fact that there is also a, a comic book series by Warren Ellis called Doctor Sleepless. So are these arch nemesis to, uh, to one another? 

[00:53:44] Ian: If you try to watch the movie while reading one of the comics-

do they immediately both just convert into pure energy like matter and anti-matter? Foom. There's a wave-like cancellation. What is going on here? But I take it Doctor Sleep didn't do great as a movie. I don't know how it did well as a book because Stephen King's books all seem to do pretty well. 

[00:54:13] Matthew: Yeah, that's hard to gauge.

I mean, he, his... A poorly performing Stephen King novel is still an amazing success by any other novelist's standards. 

[00:54:22] Ian: Exactly. So it's a little odd to figure it out, but- I'm fascinated with the fact that he's still going back to this. He hasn't let The Shining go because it has interesting concepts that he goes back to.

But I don't know how well you can continue a story off of something that's, whose story is so amorphous 

[00:54:50] Matthew: if you are going to have a sequel to The Shining, the, the only compelling way to do it is what King chose to do, which is wh- what is, how, what happens to Danny? Yeah. What is Danny like when he has grown up having lived through this?

The only other thing that occurs to me then is some kind of a prequel about the Overlook Hotel. We got information about what happened with the prior caretaker, you know, again, it was like a decade or two earlier, who murdered his family. Maybe we could tell that story and tell that story in a way that gives us a more satisfying mystery as to what's going on. I- is that caretaker just another in a long line of people who were taken over by the hotel and used as weapons, as you described it? Or is there something specific going on?

Is there a mystery to be found there? Is there something- Mm. Did that person take any steps to resist what was happening in a way that Jack Torrance did not? 

[00:55:57] Ian: Yeah. Honestly, I'd be very fascinated to see Stephen King do, uh, uh, as, in terms of his writing, to do an, a prequel because in his other stories, like Salem's Lot, he plays with the idea of a house that is inherently evil.

Yeah The same way the hotel is inherently evil. 

[00:56:17] Matthew: Mm-hmm. 

[00:56:18] Ian: And I'm fascinated to hear how King could maybe tie these concepts together. So a prequel would be really cool. 

[00:56:25] Matthew: It would. It would. 

[00:56:27] Ian: There's one more adaptation I wanna note, because it's a medium we usually don't get to mention ever. 

[00:56:35] Matthew: What is it, a rock opera?

What is it? 

[00:56:38] Ian: Drop one of those words. 

[00:56:40] Matthew: Oh. 

[00:56:40] Ian: In 2016, The Shining debuted as an opera at the Minnesota Opera. 

[00:56:47] Matthew: Oh, wow. 

[00:56:47] Ian: A two-act and epilogue adaptation of the full story built around, the novel more than the movie. But still, it's a form of adaptation- 

[00:56:57] Matthew: My-

[00:56:58] Ian: turning it into a modern opera. 

[00:56:59] Matthew: My word, I bet that works. 

[00:57:02] Ian: Same. 

[00:57:03] Matthew: I- I bet that works really well because y- you don't go to opera for the story structure. You don't go to opera for the Parker and Stone scene by scene development. You go to opera for characters and tone. Mm-hmm. And, and seeing these set pieces sn- uh, fit together.

I bet this, this novel works really well as an opera. 

[00:57:30] Ian: Yeah. It's like Jack Torrance as this, as a, a threatening baritone and Wendy as a soprano going back and forth musically sounds great. I'm, I was so impressed, and I'm like, "I need... I can't find copies of..." Like, there's a page for it. I wanna know more about this.

[00:57:49] Matthew: Yes. And so much of The Shining is just about shifts in emotion and that expression of those emotions. Yeah, that sounds like opera. 

[00:57:58] Ian: Yeah. So I'm like, "That's not a medium we get to talk about much." But it's really cool that this is happening. 

[00:58:04] Matthew: Um- Oh. Well, uh, listeners, I will tell you, if we ever find a way to experience that opera, we will do so and, uh- Mm-hmm

be reporting, uh, about it to you. 

[00:58:15] Ian: Yeah. There's a, there, there's a listing for a, a, an original 2016 cast, but there's a cast as recent as 2023. So- 

[00:58:23] Matthew: Oh, cool ... 

[00:58:23] Ian: it's getting, it's getting performances out there. 

[00:58:26] Matthew: That's great. 

[00:58:27] Ian: Yeah. so yeah. I think in terms of what I wanna say, I kind of feel like that I want continuation.

revive is where I land, but that's just because it's so general. There's always more to do. 

[00:58:46] Matthew: I agree with you. I'm gonna say I would, would be looking for reboot. I don't necessarily want something that feels beholden to maintain the continuity of the, the Kubrick movie. I want s- Mm-hmm ... I'm, uh, but I'm totally open to other things.

I wanna see that opera. If somebody does wanna make a video game out of this, yeah, that could be fascinating. I, 

[00:59:07] Ian: I, I mean, there's actually a whole lot of Kubrickian The Shining in Remedy's, Control. 

[00:59:16] Matthew: Oh, that's true. 

[00:59:17] Ian: It's like, what, what, what if you watched The Shining in between binge-watching episodes of X-Files?

You would fall asleep and dream Control. 

[00:59:27] Matthew: That's true. You look at things like Control and Alan Wake, even parts of Persona 5. 

[00:59:33] Ian: Oh, 

[00:59:33] Matthew: yeah. There are... You can see the influence, and again, that's the influence that this movie has had on culture. But also- Mm-hmm ... it, it leads, leads me to think, yeah, these could be explored in that format as a direct adaptation as well.

[00:59:48] Ian: Yeah. A direct adaptation could very much work. Honestly, doing right now, like do it on modern hardware, but do, uh, something that hearkens back to the, the PlayStation 2 polygonal era of games. Give us some of that a little bit crunchier, uh, little bit rougher design style. 

[01:00:11] Matthew: Oh, interesting. I was thinking- I 

[01:00:12] Ian: think could be cool with The Shining.

[01:00:14] Matthew: I think something that also has aspects of a, a Myst-type quick time game. 

[01:00:20] Ian: Oh, yeah. 

[01:00:20] Matthew: Because it, it reinforces the sort of limitations and isolation and inevitability if part of your world is made of these static environments and you have limited control, but the control you have, you really need to find- Mm

and use or else. 

[01:00:35] Ian: I, I, I kept thinking about the fact that being able to make the supernatural high-res- 

[01:00:41] Matthew: Oh, yes. I like that ... 

[01:00:42] Ian: in a world that is low-res, where it's like, you know, PlayStation 2- late PlayStation 2 graphics, and then suddenly it's HD when the ghost- Oh ... is there for a moment 'cause they feel like they're not the same.

[01:00:54] Matthew: Oh. 

[01:00:54] Ian: You could have fun, but I also like your like limit the player kind of element. 

[01:00:58] Matthew: I like that idea, making Danny's visions seem more real than real in that way. 

[01:01:03] Ian: Mm-hmm. Could have some fun with it, so. 

[01:01:06] Matthew: So a lot of possibilities for this. It shows you- Yeah ... what rich material this is and how it's interesting to see what choices Kubrick made as to what and how to adapt it.

[01:01:16] Ian: Oh, yeah. 

[01:01:20] Matthew: So this has been a fun theme for our Halloween episodes 

[01:01:24] Ian: Yeah! We;'ve done a spooky Stephen King October!

[01:01:29] Matthew: Yes, and this month has been our first foray into Steven King but as mentioned there is a whole lot of Stephen King stuff out there, so I am sure this is not the last of it. There are many of my summers as a kid that were sort of defined by which Stephen King novel I happen to find on a spinner rack in a drugstore that year.

[01:01:4o] Ian: Oh goodness! Ah, fair. That sounds pretty fun.

[01:01:55] Matthew: But next episode is a new month, and, we'll have a new theme, and we'll, we will be talking to you about more tales of media from the 20th century. 

[01:02:08] Ian: And in the meantime, go find something new to watch