The conventional wisdom has been that the book is always better than the movie. This makes sense, as Stephen King had 450 pages (or 659 if you read my copy) to tell his story, and Stanley Kubrick had a little over two hours to tell his. However, alongside Gone With the Wind, The Shining in its 1980 adaptation may enjoy the rare honor of standing above the book it was based upon. It is a well-known fact that King despised this film. His criticisms are not entirely without merit, and if your number-one criterion in rating an adaptation is faithfulness to the source material, you will probably agree with them. I'm not sure how much of the "blame" lies with the screenwriters and how much falls on Kubrick himself, but for simplicity, I will frame it as a King vs. Kubrick issue when making comparisons.
Obviously, given the constraints inherent in a feature film, plot elements were going to have to change or be thrown out altogether. Probably the most shocking plot change came at the expense of Dick Halloran. Scatman Crothers nailed the portrayal, but when he took an ax to the gut it was a truly jarring moment. Halloran wasn't supposed to die! This was just one of a number of needed plot changes to make the movie fit within the allotted time and make sense. For example, it isn't much of an ordeal for Halloran to get to the Overlook. Also, from the time the last of the summer staff leaves the hotel, it is pretty much full-on-trapped-in-the-snow wintertime for the Torrance family. And let us not forget the hedge animals are gone. Even if the lack of CGI as of 1980 wasn't a stumbling block, these critters just don't translate well to the screen, so enter the famous hedge maze, used to great effect by Kubrick. In fact, the movie adds a few iconic elements missing from the book, such as "all work and no play", "Here's Johnny!", and those creepy twin girls. And even the ending, in which Jack is physically absorbed into the Overlook's history, is completely different from the book, where the hotel explodes in a massive boiler blow-up (making it the third consecutive fire/explosion ending for King).
Characterizations also suffered in King's eyes. Jack a la Jack Nicholson is pretty much crazy from the get-go and is tepid toward Danny at best. He is not the doting father, or a regular guy who slips into insanity. This necessarily makes Jack, rather than Danny, the central character. Wendy meanwhile, not King's strongest female character to begin with, is even further reduced in this movie to a largely helpless role. Danny, however, is an interesting case. Danny Lloyd, the actor, was seven years old when this was released, which means allowing time for post-production and so forth, he was pretty darn close in age to the book Danny, who is five. As seen especially in the 'Salem's Lot adaptations, King is guilty of making child characters behave as little adults (usually under the pretense of being exceptionally bright), particularly those playing a central role to the plot. While it is probably doable to have an older actor play a younger character, it's not nearly as easy to get a younger actor to play either at their age or older, especially if the age in question is five. So it's quite the directorial feat for Kubrick to get an almost-five-year-old to play at that level and not come off completely fake or marginalized, and even more impressive that this was Lloyd's feature film debut.
Probably the most direct aspect of conflict King would have with Kubrick was over setting. Although the book never admits it, it's a well-known fact that the Overlook is based on the Stanley Hotel, located on the edge of Estes Park. Kubrick effectively nixed the Stanley from the moment he laid eyes on it. What few outside shots there are come from a hotel in Oregon and all the interiors are soundstages, albeit masterfully designed ones. Having been to the Stanley, I can sympathize with why Kubrick would jettison it from consideration. First off, Estes Park is really close by. It doesn't radiate the kind of remoteness the Overlook demanded, especially in a visual depiction. Second, the Stanley is kind of small. I think the giant ballroom in the movie equals around half the size of the entire actual Stanley building, and the kitchen would consume all of the rest. Finally (and most devastating), it was clear that Kubrick wanted to do things to the property that would have violated the Stanley's historical landmark status. In our visit to the Stanley, we learned Kubrick considered it as a location for less than five minutes.
The 1980 feature film adaptation of The Shining is probably the greatest piece of film based on a Stephen King novel. The other "great" adaptations benefit from coming from more concise source material (Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption). It also meant open season on moving much of King's writings to the big screen, so much so that every single novel under his own name alone until 1987's Eyes of the Dragon would get some kind of movie treatment, and that doesn't even take into account the Bachman books or short stories.
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