Monterey Jack wrote: ↑Wed Oct 02, 2019 2:00 pm

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Wed Oct 02, 2019 1:10 pm Peripherally related -- the 4K of THE SHINING looks AMAZING. As in jaw droppingly, "look at this" demo material, especially for an "old movie" on UHD.

What about the included Blu...a new transfer, or the same-old disc?

It's a new disc based off this new transfer. Will have to do a comparison between this and the older BD.

The new BD is based off this 4K UHD -- I took a look at that and the decade-old Blu-Ray, and it's a nice upgrade. You get the color reproduction and added detail on the Blu-Ray -- not as amazing as the UHD, but it's a definite, and obvious, improvement from the first Blu-Ray.

I am watching the directors extended cut and I could not watch the sequence where the "baseball boy" is murdered. I'm sorry, I don't care how much it's needed for story purposes but showing an on screen kidnapping and slaying of a child serves no purpose for me. King seems to get off on that and it's frankly bizarre, especially as a parent.

I've seen a lot of disturbing crap but this is one of the most unwatchable sequences I've had to sit through. No wonder why this film tanked.

And for all the people who think Flanagan is some kind of restrained genius, he could've shot that sequence differently, gotten the point across but not wallowed in it the way he does.

Gross.

It's a tough scene to watch, but the actual on-screen violence is pretty restrained (much like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre doesn't show nearly as much blood and gore as people expect going in). It's a lot more explicit in King's novel.

Eh, it's the "it's a kid/dog!" exception, where people can watch any number of adult actors getting gruesomely killed in horror movies and not bat an eye, but show a child or dog getting killed, and suddenly it's going Too Far! It's the sole reason Frank Darabont's excellent adaptation of King's The Mist so often appears on lists of the "worst movie endings ever". Granted, I am not a parent, so this doesn't faze me as much, but, at least in this case, it's a scene that important to up the stakes of the True Knot's presence in the story, and it's an upsetting, powerfully-staged moment that hovers over the rest of a narrative like a ticking time bomb. I understand that's not everyone's cup of tea, but it does what so few scenes in modern horror can...truly unnerves the viewer.

I'm looking forward to seeing the director's cut, as I thought this was one of last year's stronger movies already, and am interested to see how the additional half-hour fleshes out the narrative of one of King's better novels of the last ten years.

I did not find it at all restrained. Like I said, it's not only what happens, it's HOW it's directed. Somehow I was able to gather what happened to the kid at the beginning without watching them string her up and scream helplessly while they ate her.

The entire concept of this story is pretty tasteless as it is -- sure -- but the visceral, literal nature of the later sequence? Yeah, it absolutely DID cross a line with me. (Yes, I do "cross the line" at child torture -- I must be a puritan! lol)

I guess the scene was extended in this version also, so it may be even worse than it was in the theatrical edit. Either way, it could have been staged in a way that would've been chilling and disturbing -- and still gotten the point across in so far as its importance to the story, which is obvious anyway as a story point -- without being as sadistic. Unless you are an idiot you can fill in the blanks -- but that's what the better filmmakers in movie history used to be able to do. Let the audience figure it out on their own. Yet Flanagan clearly isn't one of those (and I had other problems with this film before and especially after it).

There's no equivalence in any film I've ever seen before to this scene. People hated (deservedly) the end of THE MIST because it was going for shock value, for the sake of just being "down" (King's own story didn't even end that way!). At least Darabont had the good sense to not actually show an execution of a child on-screen -- unlike here -- though nobody could identify with the character's actions, which were the main problem there. It sank the movie for many viewers and still comes off as one of the most inexplicable endings of any movie I've watched.

And sure there are kid deaths done for shock value in any number of other horror movies and stories -- yes going all the way back to Grimms fairy tales -- but none of them are as LITERAL as this one. None, not any, that I've ever watched are as graphic and prolonged as that one in a movie of this kind.

Kids get tortured, beaten up, murdered, abused every day for real -- watching that on-screen in this kind of film? A REAL-TIME DEATH OF A CHILD BEING TORTURED?

This isn't a true crime drama, it's a fantasy land piece of dumb pulp horror. Stupid, crass, tasteless, this sequence checks all of those boxes. A new low.

I cannot comment on the film as I did not see it...but based on what I am reading from you guys, it is not something I would want to watch.

From what I remember in the book, it was pretty shocking and repulsive...that was part of the reason why I didn't like the book (aside from the stupidity of using shining-sucking vampires as an enemy...so ludicrous IMO).

It's funny -- that scene aside -- I read about the deviations from the book and they all seem ill-advised. The heavy SHINING-reprisal climax may have been studio mandated but either way, I frankly felt the whole trip "back to the Overlook" damaged the movie. They set up this story on its own, only to backtrack back to Kubrick territory, and I felt it weakened the whole thing.

Then there's the hopefulness of the book's ending -- which is also discarded by Flanagan, who seemed more intent on reprising his HILL HOUSE finale. Isn't the point of Dan's journey to have some redemption? Instead he ends up being consumed by the Overlook (in a basic reprise of THE SHINING novel's original end) just like his father. Even if it's supposed to be a heroic act, it's still a downer.

I didn't read the book but a friend of mine HATED the changes from the book so much he called me up when it was over -- he was angered by them, and I can understand why.

Wow...that is definitely different from the book's ending...while there is a final showdown at the Overlook, the book's ending is TONS better than the film's ending from what you're saying...plus at least for me the book's ending has the one moment in the book as a while that I thought was legitimately moving and a great touch by King. I will applaud that one bit from the book. No way am I watching DOCTOR SLEEP now...lol!!

Yeah, could have gone with the more upbeat conclusion of the novel, as it was so against the grain of the typical, mournful close a lot of King's books tend to have.