KMC Forums - Jack Torrance

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Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance

I really don't see why Stephen King didn't like Kubrick's version of 'The Shining.'

This is basically Nicholson at his most evil. Just look at that picture I posted. The movie also offers a most valuable lesson - never accept a job watching over a hotel built on an Indian burial ground. It's really a bad idea.

John Daniel "Jack" Torrance is a fictional character, the antagonist in the 1977 novel The Shining by Stephen King. He was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1980 movie adaptation of the novel. The American Film Institute rated the character (as played by Nicholson) the 25th greatest film villain of all time.

Jack Torrance is portrayed more grimly in the 1980 film. In the novel Jack is a tragic hero whose shortcomings lead to his defeat, while the film implies that he is insane from the start. It also omits his traumatic childhood.

The film's first major deviation from the source material occurs when Jack attacks Halloran. Instead of merely injuring him with the mallet (as in the novel), Jack brutally kills Hallorann with an axe wound to the heart.

In the film, Jack hears Danny scream, and chases his son to a hedge maze outside the hotel (in the novel topiary animals come to life and threaten Danny). Danny erases his footprints, so his father won't be able to follow him. While Wendy and Danny escape the hotel in Halloran's Snowcat, Jack gets lost in the maze, rests from chasing Danny, and freezes to death.

While Jack redeems himself in the book, in the 1980 film, he succumbs to his demons and is ultimately damned. The film ends featuring an old photograph of a dance at the hotel from the 1920's that shows Jack in the event

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Chuck Norris learned his trademark move, along with his sense of duty and justice, from Jesus after watching Him roundhouse kick a money changer out of the temple.