What exactly was “Tony,” Danny’s friend? Was it an actual spirit helping him? Was it a personification of Danny’s supernatural powers, akin to a second personality? Maybe Danny really did just make up Tony as way to understand the things he saw.
I’ve never read the book, but rewatched the flick last night. It’s amazing just how much of that movie has no dialog. Long stretches of just music and sounds as the action unfolds.
I haven’t seen the movie in awhile, but I always thought Tony was Danny’s way of dealing with things Danny couldn’t/didn’t want to deal with. In most classic split-personality stories, the “other personalities” emerge as a way to keep the main personality safe, or shielded, from something they can’t handle.
Danny’s middle name was Anthony. I always took it that Tony was an older version of Danny using his psychic powers to warn himself in the past.
Just curious, why not put the whole question in the subject line? There’s plenty of room.
In the book, I believe this is explicitly stated to be what’s going on.
I liked Kubrick’s version better, where it appears to be more of a psychological defence the kid’s developed to process all the wierd shit going on in his life.
My old journalism teacher drilled it into me that you don’t put all the information into the title or else there won’t be any thing left for the story.
What did Stephen King think of the movie version?
He didn’t like it, IIRC. That’s why he remade it more faithful to the book in a TV movie.
This was my understanding too.
Hmmm… if that’s explicitly stated in the book (which, I’m embarrassed to admit, I’ve never read) I don’t like it at all. Kind of the whole “Terminator Paradox” thing. If Danny’s alive in the future to warn himself, he survives and his “help” is unneeded.
FWIW, I always took it to be a manifestation of his “shining” ability which works much better.
Another question, why didn’t Scatman forsee his own death if he returned?
If I recall correctly, the character in the book had a strong interrest in seeing Danny survive, and did, indeed, realize that returning would cause his own death, but went anyway for Danny’s sake.
Disclaimer: Haven’t read the book in over 15 years, so could be completely off.
As I recall that is a bit of an understatement. One of the conditions Kubrick attached to letting him have the rights back for the miniseries was that King wasn’t allowed to publicly whine about the movie any more.
In the film it could be psychological but it could also be supernatural. Since the movie flips out at the end and essentially goes “Yep! All of the horrible things happening are the results of pure evil infesting this place and not people going crazy in isolation!” I’m inclined to say it was how Danny was externalizing his own supernatural assistance.
The book walks a fantastically fine line. DO the topiary shrubs come to life? DID the woman in Room ??? ( damn, I can’t remember… 439? ) strangle Danny or was it stigmata induced by the psychic powers of The Hotel doing battle with Danny and The Shining?
Who can say?
Not King or Kubrick.
I don’t think it’s exactly like that. It’s not like older Danny is saying to himself, “Hmm, I’ve got to warn myself,” but rather, I think it’s a lot more ambiguous. Danny doesn’t really ever see Tony up close except for a few times when he does look a lot older, and the doctor points out to Jack and Wendy that the reason why the “imaginary” friend is called Tony is probably because of the middle name thing…but yeah, I don’t think it’s quite as cut and dry as it sounds.
Sorry, I’ve commented elsewhere that this is one of the reasons I will never forgive Kubrick for the movie - Scatman Crothers character does not die in the book - he saves Danny and his mother while the father is killed when the hotel is destroyed. Scatman’s death in the movie is one of the stupidest things ever inflicted on a story, in my opinion. The ending of the movie is completely unsatisfying to me, and I would have been furious if I had not read the book first.
I always interpreted it as a little bit of both…it wasn’t Danny’s actual older self communicating with him, it was young Danny accessing the older part of his brain, so to speak.
Let me see if I can restate that so it makes sense. Okay, Danny’s a really bright kid, right? And his Shining ability exposes him to all kinds of ideas and thoughts that he simply isn’t ready for emotionally. But there is some part of his (unusually bright) brain that is ready for it intellectually. That’s the “Tony” part of his brain, and Danny can access it sometimes when he really needs to.
Clear as mud? This is just my interpretation, of course.
Yeah! That’s what I was trying to say but not really getting across in my post. A lot of Stephen King stuff tends to be kind of murky and not so clear cut (I mean, you try stating that kiddie sex is the way to escape a gigantic spider-clown-creature and see how cut and dry your book comes out…)
Strangely, as Danny aged, his psychic powers caused his voice to mutate into a froglike croak, while his body grew to resemble a giant index finger.
Of course, if we want to go with this being all part of the Dark Tower ‘metaverse’, ‘Tony’ could easilly be a Breaker that’s just giving Danny a hand…