god damn it why does no one in hollywood ever research my state

[amredthelector]

Watching The Shining for the first time, and I have one big question about it...

The setting is supposed to be Colorado, yes? High enough into the mountains that the air is thin, and the skiing is great but the hotel still doesn't stay open in the winter. And also... built on an "Indian Burial Ground," and the builders of the hotel even had to "fight off Indians" during construction in the early 1900s.

So my question is - what fucking Native group lived THAT high up in the Rockies, or at least close enough to use the area as a burial ground? And continued living there into the early 1900s... y'know, long after Indian Removal?

Sorry, Steven King/Stanley Kubrick, your lack of research is showing.

Comments

[funkicarus.livejournal.com]

kubrick just went from king. he's more about mood than historical accuracy.
king researches jack shit, and is a terrible author.

the stanley hotel is haunted, though. that's what inspired king to write the shining, and is also where the movie is filmed. there's also a true story about settlers eating eachother after they became trapped nearby, and a lot of other creepy history. but yeah. king didn't bother to research very far.

[amredthelector.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get that it's not supposed to be accurate at all. But as a Coloradan, it bugs the crap out of me, heh.

Seeing as he at least got the settlers-who-ate-each-other-nearby kind of right (though it was Alferd Packer, the famous "Colorado Cannibal", not the Donner Party) I just wish that King had actually paid attention to Colorado history. Then again, I've noticed that Hollywood seems to think Colorado is one of two things - a giant ski resort, or a giant cattle ranch - and it bugs me sooooo much to see it always done so wrong. (Other details bug me, too, like the weather reporter expressing surprise that a "storm could hit that soon" in Denver, when uh... our state motto is practically "if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it'll change".)

Bah, it's just not a good idea to watch a movie set in a place you're from when the writer clearly wasn't.