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First Pix From New Dune Miniseries
Killjoy_b writes, "Dune fans never had it so good. First Frank Herbert's son's new Dune: House Atreides book came out in February and now there is a new Dune miniseries in the making. You can check out the pics at this Science Fiction Film Site. The page itself is German. Enjoy.
" You know where the fish is.Tim sent this additional page of info. In English.
Those of you that have actually seen the original "Dune" movie can likely guess how the rest of that day went.
So I'm not going to do that again. Until I hear that this has won an emmy or something, I am not even going to think about watching.
The cake is a pie
As long it's closer in quality to Farscape than Welcome To Paradox, I'll be happy. Anything's better than Lynch's long, strange trip.
Keith Russell
OS != Religion
This sig intentionally left blank.
"On 22 November 1999 begin towards in Prague the turning work for a 6-stuendige TV filming of the novel " the desert planet " (" Dune ") of franc Herbert. The TV project budgetierte with 20 million US Dollar can offer thereby a hochkaraetigen occupation and crew.
Thus William Hurt (out " draws in space ", " Dark admits town center " among other things or also " to to the end of the world ") took over the role of the duke Leto Atreides, which will have to be seen Italian actors Giancarlo Giannini as Imperator Shaddam IV and to Ian McNeice as a bad baron Harkonnen.
Barbara Kodetova plays charismatischen Paul Atreides, the main figure of the film as Chani at the page of Alec Newman, that represents. With Uwe ox farmhand, who embodies the Fremenfuehrer very convincingly, is represented also a German actor in this internationally filled production.
The film script to " desert planet " wrote John Harrison, which leads also direction; executing producers are Richard P. Rubinstein and Mitchell Galin. The line of the camera work took over the three-way Oskar winner Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now). The marvelous kostuementwuerfe come from Theodor Pistek (won a Oskar for the costumes in Amadeus). Additionally the special effect conductor Ernest Farino and the production designer Miljen Kreka Kljakovic is involved in the project. The digital trick effects will come from three of studios, among them AREA 51 and nice one digital (Babylon 5).
" Dune " produced of new Amsterdam Entertainment Inc., the Scifi Channel and KirchMedia in co-operation with tandem Communications. The US Austrahlung is planned for the last quarter 2000, in Germany the television filming in the spring 2001 to see will be (thus only little later).
World-exclusively SF Film.de can show the first photos of the set and the turning work here now. Thank you for it at Torsten Dewi!
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
If you've read the book, you probably won't like the film. This is true for most book-based films, not just Dune.
I saw the film without having read the book, and I thought it was okay. A bit bizarre, but okay.
So maybe you're just expecting too much if you want the film to be faithful to, or as good as, the book it's based on.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Most people fail to realize, but Dune is very important in geek culture for the self-referential metaphors. All geeks realize the importance of self-reference. Take, for example, this post on Slashdot discussing metaphors in Dune. It CLEARLY references itself, and thus gives a good example of self-reference. It also uses the expression "self-reference" more times than any valid post should. But I digress.
I'm sure you understand the relationship to the freemen and free software. Though it's been quite a while since I've read the book, I seem to recall "freemen" being spelled with only two "e"s. I could be wrong though, so I choose to continue spelling it logically. If I'm going to look stupid, which I often do (I point your attention to my recent post on slashdot regarding Geek Metaphors in Dune), then at least I'm going to admit it, and look stupid in my own special way. But I digress.
The freemen live in caves in the desert in the Dune books. They are unwashed and seen as lunatics by the more civilized Houses. This is clearly a metaphor for free software programmers. The desert, however, is to be taken literally. Most free software programmers live in caves in the desert. I mean, it only stands to reason. Believe it or not, those caves are mighty chilly, and saves trouble of cooling the server rooms. Though nothing is quite like the pleasure of an ice cold server room. Set aside getting out of summer heat, it lets you wear your all too geeky Mr.Rodgers-esque sweater all year round. I don't know about you, but I certainly like sweaters. But I digress.
And then there are the sandworms. Giant beasts that burrows through the soil. If ever there has been an obvious metaphor for worm-type viruses, this is it. And worm viruses would not exist without people to program them. Sure, that sort of thing might be a good way to understand how protocols and programming works, but any good hacker grows out of that stuff after high school. Angst-fueled education seems to be very prevailent. But the important thing is to not regret it. Sure, I'm not PROUD of alot of the things I've done in the past, and I'd never do it again, but I DID do it. There's nothing that can be accomplished by feeling sorry about everything I've ever done. Take for example the time that I found the dying man behind the 7-11. Yeah, I could have, and likely should have called an ambulance. But I hadn't eaten in a few days, and truth be told I was dead broke. If I had spent more time programming useful software, instead of releasing everything "free", then maybe I could have bought a taco or two. But no one was around, and I made sure not to leave any fingerprints. And it gave me a chance to use that new meatloaf pan my mother bought me for my birthday. Oh, mother, what you don't know . . .
But I digress. Cheese is pretty.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
Through www.dictionary.com/translate (Babelfish was hosed)... tried to English-ify it as much as possible:
1. March 2000 - Author: Florian Breitsameter
DUNE Miniseries: The first pictures of the set!
On 22 November 1999 work in Prague began towards filming for a 6-hour TV filming of the novel " The Desert Planet " ("Dune"), by Frank Herbert. The TV project has a $20 million budget(US), which can offer thereby a hochkaraetigen occupation and crew.
William Hurt ("Lost In Space", "Dark City" and also "Until The End Of The World") plays the role of the Duke Leto Atreides, which will have to be seen. The film will also feature Italian actors Giancarlo Giannini as Imperator Shaddam IV and to Ian McNeice as a bad baron Harkonnen.
Alec Newman plays Paul Atreides, the main figure of the film. Barbara Kodetova plays Chani, at the page of Alec Newman. With Uwe Ochsenknecht, who embodies the Fremen Leader very convincingly, is represented also a German actor in this internationally filled production.
The film script to "desert planet" was written by John Harrison, who also directs; executive producers are Richard P. Rubinstein and Mitchell Galin. The camera work is done by the three-time Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now).
The marvelous costumes come from Theodor Pistek (obtained a Oscar for the costumes at Amadeus). Additionally the special effect conductor Ernest Farino and the production designer Miljen Kreka Kljakovic are involved in the project. The digital special effects will come from three of studios, among them AREA 51 and One Digital (Babylon 5).
" Dune " is produced by Amsterdam Entertainment Inc., the Scifi Channel and KirchMedia tandem Communications. The US airing is planned for the Fall 2000, in Germany the television airing will air in Spring 2001 (thus only little later).
World-exclusively SF Film.de can show the first photos of the set and the fiming work here now. Thank you for it at Torsten Dewi!
Captions
Reverend Mother Ramallo (?), (Uwe Ochsenknecht) and Jessica (Saskia Reeves)
Gurney Halleck (P.H. Moriaty), an assassin (?), Paul Atreides (Alec Newman) and (Uwe Ochsenknecht)
Chani (Barbara Kodetova) and Paul Atreides (Alec Newman)
(Uwe Ochsenknecht) with blue eyes!
Richard Rubinstein(producer) and John Harrison (director) in the set for the Siege
Vittorio Storaro (camera) and Uwe Ochsenknecht in the background
Source: SFW, audio 51, Torsten Dewi, Victor television Productions, Inc..
Why does everyone in those pictures look like a futuristic potato farmer? Its almost as if sometime in the 22nd century everyone decided that drab, brown and baggy was how the future was supposed to look. Hell, even the lady with the scepter looks like she just got finished digging up some roots.
Give these poor people some style! Where's the royalty? Where's the sleek, efficiency of a Fremen stillsuit? The ones in there look like leftovers from the local Salvation Army.
-MM
(Yes I work for NSI. No I don't pretend to speak for them since they don't pretend to speak for me.)
Yessiree, Bob! Sci Fi has been talking about this for a couple years, and they started promoting it during their "Sci2K" campaign this past December. So we can probably expect to see it premier during the fall sweeps.
One minor question for people. Assuming I didn't want to get all of cable but say only pay for one channel (bet you can't guess) could I do it? I currently don't have a cable installation yet but I think it might be worth it in the future.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
"These aren't the droids you're looking for".
The cake is a pie
The Dune movie failed purely on bad directing. I believe it was directed by the same guy who did "Twin Peaks" and "Lost Highway", although his name escapes me. While those two are cult classics, they're _not_ intended for mainsteam consumption, not even mainstream Sci-Fi lovers.
Consider the dubious solution to the perspective in the book. If you remember, Dune had many sections where you'd read the character's thoughts, and this helped understand the character's movitations. But this doesn't work in a movie setting, so the director did the thoughts as "voice overs". It ended up as a bad directing choice.
So hopefully the producers will learn from their mistakes.
-Ted
Well, you can rely on cheesy special effects, or you can rely on acting, context and the viewer's intelligence.
Well from what I know about film (ok I am not an actor but I know a few things) you simply would employ the same type of technique that is used for the internal thoughts of characters where you have a voice being spoken and the rest of the speech being either muted or muffled to allow for the omniscience factor.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Frank Herbert was involved in the production of the movie, and approved of it. He told a different story in a different media. The two stories shared major characters and thematic elements. You are absolutely correct when you say that the book should have taken six hours as a movie, but the ecomonic realities don't permit this. Quite frankly, I think the first book is almost meaningless without the context of its two sequels. That's 18 hours of movie for you; almost a prime-time dramatic series.
Personally, I'm a pretty big Dune fan but this just looks messed up.
The spice is supposed to give the Fremen "blue within blue" eyes...perhaps it just a budget thing but it just looked like they just hired the "Aryan Nation Acting Troupe".
The attire: This is a planet where the Terran Sahara desert would be considered a water-rich oasis. The images portray people running around in Xena-esque garb, which is wrong. Could someone point out one of the images where someone is wearing a stilsuit? To make it worse, one of the images has Paul bare-chested! Talk about that sacrilege of water wasting! (Ok, they could be inside one of the water-tight fremen shelters but still! The suit is an important symbol in the Fremen culture.) No stilsuits and some of them are wearing heavy, cumbersome clothing.
Blades: Traditional Fremen daggers are made from the teeth of sandworms, if I remember correctly. So perhaps Gurney was wielding an off-world weapon?
Fremen: I know looks can be deceiving but these people need to look somewhat like desert hardened survivalists. Supposedly they can take out the Padishah Emperor's Sardukar terror troops. I don't see that here.
All I see is series that may do a few cross-overs with the Hercules-Xena series and all the good guys do flips and acrobatics to take out the bad guys in a non-lethal (and comedic) manner. The fremen are killers, pure and simple. Nothing too personal, its just a basic fact of survival. Even children are taught how to kill at an early age. The survivor of a dagger duel dessicates the loser and keeps the water. The survivor also gains all possessions and marital ties of the loser. I wonder if that will come into play in this series as well?
I hate to be pessimistic but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and try to watch it if it shows in my area. If they butcher either genre (movie or book) I'll be one who won't watch it again.
-Vel
Anyway, what they are squabbling over is an addictive drug that can provide the prescience needed to navigate hyperspace or somesuch. A little more interesting than just "spaceship fuel".
There have been some good adaptions of books. The most famous in SF is probably Bladerunner, though it wasn't particularly faithful to the book. But on the whole, they tend to be bad because the directors are rarely people who actually like the book in the first place. (Probably the root problem in the original "Dune".)
The real interesting adaption to wait for is Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. I've heard very positive things about that.
The cake is a pie
The cake is a pie
Dino De Laurentiis.
Think about it. DDL brought us such wonderful movies as Barbarella, King Kong, King Kong Lives (where they give King Kong an artificial heart!), and last, but not least, Danger: Diabolik, which was the last episode of MST3K.
DDL must be stopped! One can not trust a man who lets a line like "Is that stud coming?" get into a film!
The only person who could possibly be worse is Irwin Allen.
I watched the movie before reading the book and was completely confused. But from what I now gather the film was badly cut. The new release which I think Sci-fi shows is the 'directors cut' and apparently makes for a better moive.
If you haven't tried reading Dune, or tried and failed several years ago, definitely try again. Sure, it's not an easy read, but the impressions that Frank has written into it are deep.
Stating that, avoid any of the other Dune books. Like most sci-fi novels, one book is planned, but the author is pressured to write more, and this definitely shows in the latter books. The style is less harse, and is actually an easier read-- which IMO is a failing (compare Neuromancer to Mona Lisa Overdrive, as another example).
And, as everyone else here as put, the Movie sucked, at least the 2 hrs that were put to the theater. Even the directors cut is lakcing something that the book itself had.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
When you say the movie was 'horrific' do you mean that it was a bad movie, or just that it mutilated the book?
BTW the game Dune II is (I think) even less faithful to the book, but it's a damn good game.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Read the foreward that Herbert wrote for one of the later volumes. He talked about how he planned out many of the novels before sitting down to write the first one, and how certain scenes had to be shifted between the books.
Doesn't sound to me like he was pressured into more...
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Uwe Ochsenknecht - you may also have seen him in "The Greatest Submarine Movie Ever" 'Das Boot' - another production which should feature in geek movie collections.
Nobody asked for it, but I'll write another mini-review of _Dune: House Atreides_ here simply because I feel that those who read it without reading the other books (Especially the final two, which many people seem to not have ever read - Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse: Dune) may come away wondering why the series is among, if not in fact, the best that science fiction has to offer.
The new book, supposed prequel to _Dune_, by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (of Star Wars book fame) isn't exactly a great work of literature. However, if you're just looking for more "real Dune stuff" (KJA actually referred to the book as such), you may as well give it a read.
The novel itself, though, is rife with contraditions of the later books, extremely poorly developed characters, excessive verbiage, a simple plot which derives a major gimmick from a Star Trek movie, and a tendacy to leave no action unexplained. What is wrong with the latter, you may ask. The simple fact is that the books by Frank Herbert required you to think. The prequel does not. This is akin to why _The Great Gatsby_ is considered such a great work. Many characters are portrayed vastly different from what the earlier books demand. Fenring, as a blood-thirsty murderer, rather than a cultured assassin. Paul's grandfather as a doting old man, rather than the steel-hard leader who is implied. Nevermind the Ixians who did not necessarily exist at this time, the Tleilaxu whose faith seems common knowledge, the Harkonnen as evil. The last is simply wrong. The Harkonnen were ruthless, but not evil. Frank Herbert liked shades of grey, no matter what the surface appearence. Why else did he spend the second book tearing Paul down from the pedestal. My whole point is that _Dune: House Atreides_ detracts from the series by Frank Herbert, and its only genuine redeeming point is that it will cause some number of those who read it to pick up the other books in the Dune Chronicals.
I encourage you to read Amazon.com's customer reviews if you're interested in more. Some love the book, bur you see the others who are critical of it for many of the same reasons as myself. Also note that there is both a newsgroup and mailing list where serious discussion is welcome.
------
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
That secret is the only reason that the Guild monopoly existed. If it was known, the Corrinos would start hording Melange and experimenting with it, and break the Guild monopoly.
--The basis of all love is respect
There are TWO versions of the movie. The one in the theaters that ran around 2 hours, and a "longer" version (NOT a directors' cut, you'll notice Lynch's name was removed from this print at his request) that has a different intro, a formal "narrator", and while it explains things a little bit more, it's just more "kludgy".
The "Six Hour Dune Movie" is an urban legend.
D
I saw all versions of the Dune film before I ever read the book. I did love the book, particularly because of its detail and character development, but there are a lot of things I like in the Smithee version (the "full" version, with voiceover, the painting montage at the start, the juicing of the baby worm, etc) and feel it's truest to the novel.
Still, I thought the films downplayed Stilgar too much, and Feyd Rautha was definitely shafted (he went from a hardass to a whiny petulant little snit).
OTOH I actually _liked_ the weirding modules (thoughts being equivalent to actions) and I thought Lynch really nailed the imagery and ambience in a way that very few other directors could. The whole Yueh scene with 'The tooth.. The tooth..' could have been lifted right out of Blue Velvet, and I mean that in the best possible way.. Lynch also handled Paul's visions very well IMHO, better than most directors I could imagine..
I'd love to see Lynch do a TV miniseries of Dune if he could be lured back to the small screen.. Guy's a friggin genius...
Your Working Boy,
Interesting, I always thought the worms represented Microsoft, not viruses.
That can't be. No product of Microsoft has ever expanded anyone's abilities. The Baron would be a better analogy. Consider, free software has been growing bit by bit over the years, and Microsoft was only dimly aware of it right up to the Jihad.
Alright. So replying to AC's is about as useful as yelling at the wall when the cat makes me mad but...
Yes, the movie was entertaining. If you've never read the book that is or if decent acting isn't too high up on your list of things to expect from a good movie. Let's start with the most glaring example.
The weirding devices. Cheesy. Really cheesy. The Fremen didn't need some little box with a handle to be badasses... they already where! Remember the book "We lost two of our men for three platoons of theirs. Seems a fair trade." (refering to fighting Sadakkar [I know I mispelled that]) The Fremen as a rule were ruthless and tough. You're telling me some offworld kid shows up, teaches them to shout oddly whilst holding a box and suddenly they can't be beat? Paul was needed to be their leader not show them how to fight. They could already do that. Never mind that the whole point of the weirding way was that humans could do it only their bodies (remember the jihad they talk about that removed computing machines?). It's a pretty cheap cop out to assume your audience won't figure it out without some techno gimmick to explain it.
And what was up with Paul's sister in the movie? She looked like a evil muppet or something and the voice sounded like they gave that little girl some helium and asked her to talk even higher.
Let's not even get too deep into the stillsuits. Never mind that leaving your whole freaking head exposed is a quick way to get sunstroke on a Earth desert much less a planet that is entirely desert. Also the fact that you do loose a large amount of sweat through your mouth. Or how about wearing all black out in the blazing sun(s)? If they were that worried about not being able to tell who was who how about some marks on the suits? It wouldn't have been that hard.
Let's be honest. The first twenty minutes or so were decent and then it came to a screeching grinding halt. If you show that much contempt for the material that it comes from where you don't even really try to show the novel correctly then you probably shouldn't be making a movie about it (like Star Ship Troopers but that's a whole other post). The movie wasn't a visual feast by any stretch of the word. It showed nothing really new from sci-fi and nothing sticks with me from the movie (aside the giant worms and they weren't even that hot).
I hope that the mini-series is better. Judging by the shots it will at least look better but I'm hoping for it to stick to the story. Maybe I wish too much.
That might make sense, because its easy to have that happen (for example, film a six minute battle scene from five cameras... there's a half-hour of work-print footage) I could accept that as where the rumors and stuff started. Somewhere at home I have the "Making of Dune" book that came out when they made the movie (which says nothing about a "really really long version", which you would think it would do if there was such a beast). I'll have to see if they mention the work-print thing in there....
I for one was excited when the movie came out, and after watching it for a bit nearly gagged on my popcorn! I've read the entire set: Dune - Chapterhouse Dune at least three times over the years, and I still think it's only beaten by LOTR. I sure hope the mini-series gets something of the vastness, the seriousnes, without the fake bs in the movie, of the tale. Things that really pushed me over the edge about the movie:
The utter ridiculousness of the Sadukar! Jesus-H-Christonacrutch! These fellas were THE bad ass elite killer-soldiers of the Emperor of the Known fscking Universe. All the other Houses were scared shitless of them. Anybody gets fancy ideas - just whisper Sadukar. 'Nuff said. And the movie had them dressed up like chemical disposal workers!
The module-thingies. Nope, no way. Fighting had devolved into hand-to-hand + personal shields. That was pretty much glossed and forgotten.
Scenery: the movie gave me a sense of a bunch of folks on a soundstage - not outside, and not on a desert planet.
Anyway, maybe this series will do a better job. I hope so.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
Here's a good page to get all the info:
http://pages.infinit.net/bonesnet/Smithee.htm
Here's a quick rundown:
-DUNE was originally released to theatres at Christmas of 1984 in Todd-AO/70MM with a running time of 137 minutes.
-It is obvious that David Lynch shot a lot more footage than what we saw in the theatrical print. Lynch himself envisioned a four-hour epic film. Unfortunately, Universal wanted a running time that would be more accessible to its audience since three-hour- and four-hour-plus films were not currently popular in the 1980s. So the studio had Lynch re-edit the film to its 137-minute theatrical version.
-At one point in 1984, Lynch had announced he was going to release a legitimate "special edition director's cut" on home video, but decided to move on to other projects such as "Blue Velvet". Soon, word and rumor about the extra footage had spread everywhere, and by the time DUNE had finished its original cable run on HBO, Universal felt that the time had come to produce a "special edition" of their own, and the result was released to television in May of 1988.
-David Lynch was unhappy with what MCA TV had done and did not approve of this edition. So thus it was he successfully petitioned to take his name off the credits and replaced it with "Allen Smithee", the standard Directors Guild of America pseudonym for directors who do not want credit for their own work.
-This first TV version of DUNE, pieced together under the (mis)guiding hand of Harry Tapelman, Vice President of MCA TV Special Projects, was originally created for the Turner networks, but instead released to syndication in 1988 on the Universal Pictures Debut Network (which also was responsible for the slightly expanded version of "Legend", and the severely edited version of "Brazil"). Although Universal touted this as having "more than 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage", this actually contained 35 minutes of unseen footage. The remaining 15 contained the repeated main and end credits, a newly shot prologue, and so-called "new" scenes fabricated from outtake and test footage.
A complete list of the changes made is available at the web page I mentioned above.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Still, I could wish that the Fremen looked more like the Arabs they were supposed to resemble, except for their blue eyes. But you can't have everything, and it seems to me that this miniseries will give quite a lot. I can actually identify which scene in the book the stills came from. Try doing that with the movie!
And the brethren went away edified.
Paul! What are you doing?
um..
I told you, Never keep your back to the door! If you're going to be downloading porn, everyone can see it, unless you face the door!
Thufir. yes, I'm sorry.
As I'm sure you've figured out.. we have been training you to become a Hacker. And most hackers do end up doing such things... Have some courtesy though!
Wow. Care to tell me which three? Stratovarius, Rhapsody and Sonata Arctica are all coming to Germany in April, and are returning in May. The chances of them being banned are extremely slim. Similarly, Hammerfall have played in Germany recently, and given the size of their fanbase there, I expect them to return fairly soon. Do you want to enlighten us as to just why you think they're Nazis? Oh, BTW, Heavy Metal and skinheads are very rarely two thing that accompany each other. My hair's almost down to my ass... :-)
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown