Problems With The Shining, As Demonstrated By Duke Nukem 3D
July 25, 2011 11:00 PM | Matthew Hawkins
The above, first spotted on Joystiq, is an 11-minute plus breakdown of all the spatial anomalies that can be found in Stanley Kubrick's horror masterpiece The Shining. Basically, recreating the Overlook Hotel in the real world would be impossibilie, due to nonsensical window placements, hallways that simply cannot connect, and stairwells that go every which way.
Which of course makes perfect sense, given much the environment alone adds to the sense of confusion that's pervasive throughout the movie. But how did Rob Ager, who knows quite a bit about both film analysis and psychology, discover the disparity in the first place? From a custom mod map in Duke Nukem 3D, in which the creator himself discovered when attempting to piece things together!
It actually reminds me of something similar, yet also completely different (as well as totally insane). The Labyrinth of the Psychonaunt excels in finding mystical and conspiratorial connections in popular media, and their breakdown of the Super Mario Bros movie, and how it connects with stuff like Wild Wild West, the Spawn movie, and Freemasons. Prepare to have your brain melted...
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3 Comments
I wonder if Kubrick did this deliberately, just to unnerve the audience on a subliminal level.
Something not mentioned in the video: Duke Nukem 3D is one of the few games I know of where you _can_ build maps with this kind of inconsistent architecture: a door in a thin wall leading to a large room, two rooms occupying the same space, etc.
jlf | July 26, 2011 2:46 AM
Lots of third-party Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity maps used to make use of this effect. We used to call it "5D"... ah memories.
misuba | July 26, 2011 10:35 AM
Surely nearly every film has inconsistancies, continuity fudging and impossible architecture? As for the Shining and Kubrick, it seems that much of this was deliberate, but that doesn't necessarily make it particularly significant. It's more a testament to what kind of worlds can be created on film versus in a game (in most cases), and what we will notice out right. Still, it's a pretty interesting (although slightly obsessive) deconstruction of what's become one of my favourite horror films ever.
Jon Jones | July 27, 2011 4:34 AM