https://mattkprovideo.com/2020/03/24/shining-thoughts/

Theres many conspiracy theories about the alleged hidden meanings in Kubricks film THE SHINING.

Most are nonsense but some….. might have some merit.

Danny wears an Apollo 11 sweater.  That and many other things alleged point to Kubrick hiding an admission that faked the real moon landings when he was making the film “2001”.

Baloney. Was Dannys sweater a reference to NASA and space travel? Of course it was. Kubrick spent many years researching and prepping “2001” so of course he was a NASA buff.  So it was a “2001” easter egg. Did it mean anything more than that? I really doubt it. The numerology supposedly hidden in the film is nonsense.

Its really about the Native American “Holocaust”?  Maybe, but even so thats more Stephen King than Kubrick. “This place was built over an ancient Indian burial ground”  has been used in many many other horror stories. From “The Amityville Horror” to even the original “Poltergeist” ( “Ya sunnovab—ch you only moved the headstones and left the bodies!”*)

 

The fact that the “Colorado Lounge” is decorated in a Native American motif? Well, its in Colorado so of course its decorated with western US artifacts. A reference to the Native American bodies lying underneath the hotel?  Maybe…. Probably.

When Wendy is talking to Dannys pediatrician, she is dressed in red and white, and off to the side is a Disney GOOFY doll dressed the same way was Wendy. Funny coincidence or is there other meaning?

I don’t think the fact that we don’t see the power cord of the TV playing “ Summer of 42” means anything other than the cord was in the back of the TV, unseen and plugged into the wall right behind it.

Up until Jack is released from the fridge locker… theres been nothing truly supernatural interacting with the natural wor’d. Most of the horror scenes could just be in Dannys imagination OR…… something Danny ( and or Jack) is “shining” / projecting out into the real word.

Do you think Jack had the Shining too?  Did Wendy? ( unlikely but… who knows?)

The sequel “Dr Sleep” says that some who have the Shining can “eat” the energy of other Shine-ers to live longer, almost like energy vampires (?)  Does the Overlook want to “eat” Jack and or Dannys energy? Does The Overlook want to drive Jack to kill Danny so they can eat his Shining energy?

 

Early in the film Jack says that Wendy is “ a horror film and ghost story addict” and at the end of the film Wendy sees imagery that seems straight out of a Hammer/Universal Horror movie and are very out of place with anything else going on in THIS movies universe. 

Of course, Im swiping THIS idea ( and several others)  from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4NTVKU6Prs

Young Danny “sees” the Grady Twins several time but he never heard Ullmans story about this, did he?  Maybe he found the historical scrapbook described in the novel and vaguely hinted at in the film?  Or maybe his Dad told him the story, like how his Dad told him the Innappropriate Donner party story?  Is the Shining a Donner Party analogy? The group is trapped by the snow and start to “eat” each other?

By the way, Ullman told Jack the Ullman daughters were about 3 years apart didn’t he? IS that just the way Danny sees them but not what they were? Twins are odder and creepier looking than 2 regular girls.. is it just that? Kubrick liked the image of two twins ( swiped from a famous Dianne Arbus photo right?) .

I have heard that deliberately changed the ending from the novels fire/explosion to an icy end was probably Kubricks swipe at King ( or not? any confirmation of this) I really think the novels “ticking time bomb” feeling that we the audience ( readers) know that Wendy hasn’t checked the dangerous boiler all through the final “act” of the novel would have been better than just seeing Jack frozen…

(* OK , Poltergeists cemetery wasn’t Native American but its a similar idea)