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Dune Miniseries Airs Tonight
A number of readers wrote in reminding folks that the
Science Fiction Channel's Dune miniseries is airing December 3, 4 and 5. CNN also has a write up about
the series -- here's to hoping that it won't blaspheme the legacy of Frank.
According to the Canadian space channel, this Miniseries doesn't air in Canada until 2001. Unfortunately they do not give a date for the actual showing. From the www page:
Dune
Originally aired: brand new series. Will first air on the Sci-Fi network in the USA, December 2000.
number of episodes: 6
The first time I read Dune and its three successors ( there were only four Dune books at the time), which was about 18 years ago when I was a sophmore in high school, it seemed that I was reading some of the most profound science fiction ever written. Frank had written a compelling story that had a lot of profound ideas regarding religion, government, society and politics.
I re-read Dune four years later when I was a sophmore in college, and I was terribly disappointed. The wonderful story that I had read as a high-schooler was gone and instead what I read was a diatribe on Franks views on religion and government, etc. What made it worse to read is that when Frank had a point that he wanted to make, he repeated the idea over and over and over and over until he was pretty sure that the reader, regardless of how dim-witted, would get the point. Unfortunately, I was a bit more critical of a reader at the time, and I found his repetition hard to endure.
Don't get me wrong, I still think that the story behind the books is a good story, but Frank is a better story teller than a writer. Hopefully, the miniseries will be done well and not dumbed down to the masses - as Frank's book were.
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
Sure it can, I believe it is as bad if not worse. My feelings, and they are only that, are that this version is a disaster from a continuity standpoint. The timeline and the needed information that should lead us from sequence to sequence are simply missing.
Well I watched the first part of Dune last night and I don't think I like it. I have read all the Dune books even the new ones by his son. I have read Dune itself many times. I don't think there doing a good job on this movie. I really don't like the guy playing paul. He wines to much. The baron sucks. I would have to say the first movie was better even though it did miss alot. Forget these stupid movies and read the book. Nothings better then your own imagination.
-Todd
Does anyone here but me find it funny that SUN had all those ads during the Miniseries?
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
/*
:-)
It was obvious to me from the release of Star Wars (aka Episode 4, "The New Hope") in 1977 that George Lucas really wanted to make a Dune movie. It is ironic that when people now revisit Dune that Star Wars is the reference point they use to speak of it.
*/
It certainly is.
You can also draw parallels between the Star Wars series and Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Star Wars has Coruscant; the Foundation series has Trantor. Star Wars deals with the fall of a galactic government, the Foundation series deals with the fall of a galactic government. It remains to be seen, in the next two movies, if the Skywalker clan's saving the galaxy from itself is part of some spiritual part; I'm not sure how one could draw a parallel between Skywalker and Seldon.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Erm,
Okay, so you're stating that, since in your opinion the show will suck, that this isn't news, and that no-one else that reads Slashdot will care, either.
I care, so shut up.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
And to top it off, the assholes didn't even look up the word ornithopter!!!!!!
I give it a five billion thumbs down
"The visuals are quite good in most places"
Snippet from a Spitting Image (satirical tv show in the UK) book:
q: "How did you manage to avoid making the giant worms look like they were made from cardboard and coat hangers?"
a: "We didnt"
Quite frankly, this mini-series is the reason I bought a TiVo. Primed and ready to go. Anybody else doing the same thing? Also, how long do you think it'll be before it shows up on the internet?
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
"From the approximately five hours of film in the original footage, only about two-fifths emerged from the cutting room. "
He must have known that no-one was going to watch a five hour long version of Dune? Even his mother would have made her excuses and left by the end!
The Samuel L. Jackson and Gwyneth Paltro school of wooden acting prodly present: (a small, hacked, poorly acted portion of) Frank Herbert's DUNE!!! This sucked so bad I won't even waste any more electrons on it - but it just goes to show that $100M in CGI cannot save $.5M in acting
Even casual involvement excludes total freedom by it's inherent nature. John Valby
I'm watching it.
... It will destroy us all!
It sucks ass.
The lameness cannot be contained
Would you shut up already?
And then there's also a parallel between the Foundation series and Dune, hence Asimov's "Other series of the Foundation type followed, the most successful being Frank Herbert's Dune series." (Gold, pg. 258). Is there such a parallel? I have no idea and I don't intend to find out. My scientific brain doesn't enjoy literary analysis too much so I'll leave it to all you fun-loving English majors out there.
"A good conspiracy is an unprovable one." -Conspiracy Theory
Too late - the legacy of Dune has already been blasphemed by a bunch of books with names like "God Emperor of Dune" and "Chapterhouse Dune."
Did you actually read through all six books, or what? The books dealing with Paul are simply backstory. They're interesting history that you'll need to understand the meat of the story, which is all about Leto II. Chapterhouse is pretty much a wrapping-up of everything. Oh, and a small nit that needs picking -- the quote was "blashpheme the legacy of Frank". Frank wrote the books you claim blaspheme the legacy of Dune. Two different concepts, there.
Anyway, if you must bash on a Dune book or two, complain about the new Dune: House * books. While not being bad books in and of themselves, compared to Frank's work, they're crap (oh, and they have some continuity problems, as well.
Good lord man, I don't want to read a bloody dissertation. I could just read the book instead.
"A good conspiracy is an unprovable one." -Conspiracy Theory
My friend siad she is going to record this after I finish work I will watch this
Uhm....perhaps because they're both sci-fi messiah flicks? Star Wars is a reference point for 95% of people....
Crikey! Did John Harrison read any of the books, or just the cliffnotes? Just glancing through the gallery on scifi.com, it appears Princess Irulan is not a blonde bombshell, Stilgar and Otheym are beardless (a beardless Fremen???), and the blue within blue eyes of spice addiction seem to glow in the dark freakishly. Granted these are relatively minor incongruities, but they bode poorly for the rest of the miniseries. And I must say, as much as I hated the David Lynch movie, the new Feyd looks like a goofy frat-boy in comparison to Sting. At least this time around we won't see Maud'Dib teaching his Fremen to bust up rocks with sonic brain power... I hope.
On the surface, the Dune books are an imaginative tale... but the real meat of the Dune story is in the concepts it presents about everything from religion to government to drugs. Can we really expect anything more than lipservice to these ideas from a condensed, mass market venture like this miniseries? Mmmm... Commercialization...
Yes, we Americans are pretty stupid. You would think the sight of nudity would make us melt like the wicked witch of the west or something. If a TV show on a broadcast network or standard cable so much as shows half an ass they need to have a disclaimer. Hopefully one of the canadian channels that we get on cable here in northern Vermont will carry the uncut version. We do get exposed to an occasional boob on CFCF 12. With my luck I will have to watch it in French.
--
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
No fucking shit? *drools* Ok I'm rushing out and buying myself a -brand new- tv decorder card for yule and i'm making MPGs finally! :) (my vid collection is shot to hell :( )
--
We ruin sci-fi adaptations by focusing on action and technology. Europeans, especially the BBC, take a much more thoughtful, character-driven approach. Dune will demand that approach.
The BBC has given us some great sci-fi. I would put Cold Lazarus or the BBC production of John Christopher's series The Tripods over most any TV that has come out of the US. The last truly great thing that has come out of the US was the PBS adaptation of Lathe of Heaven. It was so good, it's probably a Canadian production.
A&E set the bar pretty high for a compelling TV mini-series with Longitude. A testament to the fact that if you take the time needed to tell a story and don't underestimate the intelligence of the audience, great TV is possible.
To watch this series would be blasphemy, and I do not wish to discredit the masterpiece from Dino De Laurentiis and David Lynch.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
The plot isn't all that interesting or new, the characters aren't all that deep or symbolic and theme isn't particularly wonderful. What's left is just a remake of the same slow tedious story in the first movie just dumbed down a little so that when the bad guy says things like "make them confident, it leads to carelessness" we all know what he means.... The visuals are new and different but that's not enough to carry the whole load. What's with William Hurt anyway? You'd think that he'd be thrilled to be working instead of shuffling through his gig like he's tranq'd out. And the Paul character...sounds like a whining jerk from Dawson's90210Buffy complaining that the world needs to kiss his on both cheeks
Is Anna Pacquin in this version????????
That's the point where I switched off and left the VCR to carry on without me. In the Lynch movie, with (the incredible!) Sian Phillips and (the entirely adequate!) Kyle MacLachlan, that scene conveyed so much meaning. "Are you human?" Is it understanding or mere animal sense that controls your actions? If you are an animal, you die. Brrrr!
This Newman dweeb conveyed nothing in that scene. He all but shrugged when he pulled his hand out of the box unharmed. I almost expected him to say "Psych!" If the experience meant nothing to him, how is it supposed to mean anything to us? Pfeh!
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
- Casting: Hurt's too soft, Gurney's too nice and The Barron can't deliver the lines strongly enough.
- Writing: They just don't get Maud Dib. He's supposed to be riding a river of internal turmoil over the destiny he can sense. He's supposed to be one of the best natural leaders ever born with the training of a Bene Geserit. What do we get? A boy who is a passable dukes son. Oops.
- Skipping neccessary parts. We need to know who Yueh is before he's revealed as a traitor. One quick flash of a knife and an off-hand mention of his Suk training is not enough. We probably needed a bit more form the Reverend Mother.
Ok, that's it for the bad. I liked this movie. Here's why:karma be damned, i'm responding to a sig-
incredible quote, incredible movie. good choice.
----- --- - - -
jacob rothstein reed college
1. Future Super Beings are VERY whiny
2. Spice does not cure baldness
3. Ornithopters are unbalanced enough to fall over on the ground
4. Guild Navigators look like orange rubber vampires
5. Spend 80% of budget on special effects - well, some of the special effects - but we don't need no stinking dialect coaches!
6. Old Bene Geserit Witches are younger than young witches
7. William Hurt - when saying something profound - be sure to mumble
8. Stilgar looks like a janitor from the Ford truck plant
9. Be sure to sleep with the windows open when your life is in constant danger and the ambient humidity is 0.00003%
10. You would get arrested for exposure for displaying a sand worm in public
11. Wow! There were books written about this? Kewl! I'll read them later - gotta finish the mini series script now.
When they originally announced that Dino was going to do the Dune movie, I was just certain it would suck. Considering the limitations of special effects technology at the time - Dino did one hell of a job. The casting was excellent, everybody could act, and he followed the book pretty closely.
In fairness to the makers of the mini-series, they didn't do *everything* wrong. As far as I could tell, all scenes were well focused. Good camera men.
"Help! I'm getting dizzy! The spinning!" - Frank Herbert (from the grave)
"Reality is independent from perception." - RDH
Both Lynch's attempt and Harrison's venture, does show one thing: The filmmaker's own interperation of the book and a attempt to appease all sides.. The book did have some pages that would have, if shown on film, have wound up on the cutting room floor. For instance, the Homosexual tendencies of the Harkonnens, and their brutal gladitorial-style combat, and just for Fey's birthday, he killed a captured Atreides solder, to boot!
As for Paul's love life, the book delved into it, as any good book would, but if portrayed on the big screen, would have put the audience to sleep, guranteed. Look at the theaterical conversions of The Hunt of The Red October, Flight of The Intruder, as well as Patriot Games. O they do come close to the book, but IF they try to follow word for word, then they would be in deep dip with either the company for budget overruns of with the Moviegoers for putting out a borring show. Pack a pillow folks, if someone tries to.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Let's face it, you couldn't do dune correctly in under 12 hours, and you'd need the inner voice commentary to make it work.
More importantly, you can't rail against the acting. SciFi channel is no money tree. They certainly could not afford name american actors (not even many american actors at all is my guess). So the complaints about accents and such is just blathering.
Anybody who is complaining about cheesy effects or bad accents or bad acting is at least partly unwilling or unable to embroider the visual performance with their imagination. Anybody ever see Doctor Who? Or is everyone utterly spoiled by the very fun but plot thin Star Wars/Star Trek mentality where everthing is spelled out for you?
So far, the miniseries seems much more faithful to the book than Lynch's flawed but fun effort. Whole sequences of dialog are lifted directly from the books. Some plot concessions were inevitable, but the largest of these seems reasonable to me: no mention or emphasis of the Butlerian Jihad/role of mentats in society.
Most of the changes seem to be ones made in the interest of slimming down screen time to fit in 3 2-hour TV blocks.
No rendition of such a rich book is going to be even remotely a interesting. But SciFi seems to have made a decent effort given budget/resource constraints. It is certainly more interesting than a million other bad scifi movies I can think of (starting with Highlander 2 which I was forced to watch for 20 minutes last week).
-- "Vote Democrat. Because the current crop of conservatives are just bugnut crazy."
Yes, I quietly changed 'legacy of Frank' to 'legacy of Dune' so I could make my point.
You are, of course, entitled to like the later Dune books. After all, nobody except me has good taste all the time.
I haven't read the new Dune books. A friend recommended one, however.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I can't agree enough about Blade Runner and PKDick's original story.
Just an annoying 'me too' post, with nothing of any real merit to add. Oh well!
**>>BELCH
For those of you comparing this and that, nit picking everything... you are all a bunch of moronic dolts. Look at it as though you have never seen or read anything Dune. Clear your prejudices and just enjoy a movie for once.
All in all, I know I could have done no better, and appreciate a look at the story from a slightly different perspective. I wish all the loudmouth whiners who have been posting before viewing the movie enjoyed the movie for what it is, and not expect it to include every single detail that the 500 page novel did.
What are other's views on the deviations from the original, and how the story was handled???
Does anyone have any thoughts about the "amazingly big event" style in which this version is being presented? (Look at all the stuff on the Sci-Fi site, Dune sweepstakes?) Is all this marketing beneficial and in good taste?
dtach - A tiny program that emulates the detach feat
Ooh damn... can always count on SciFi chan to carry great Miniseries... if only they'd carry better full-lengths like Red Dwarf, I'd be a happy little coder.
--
I don't know if it is because I am used to the original movie or what. I have skimmed the Novel (Dune, not the offshoots or continuances.) But I sat here tonight either going 'Oh' or 'Whaa?'. I don't think the series (Maybe I should wait till I've seen all three parts.) should have gotten all the hype it has recieved.
So maybe w/ the Hype, The skimming of the original book, and the love of the original movie, maybe this is why I think part one of this remake just sucked big time. I felt like I was watching a futuristic Gone with the Wind (Which also bores the hell outta me.)
Nice effects, Nice casting of Duke Lito, but everything else (From the new plot changes and deviants from the original.) to the Boring cast (including Paul.) just leaves me wondering if I should even bother trying to catch part 2.
They rerun the series after the first run, so you don't have to miss X-files. Or you can get a TIVO.
Yes you're right... get those two confused. Hurt dissapointed me in several movies, Lost in Space being the most painful.
Daniels has sucked ever since Dumb and Dumber and 101 Dalmations.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
I'm not sure, no, but my memory says that Bladerunner was the book full of missing manuscript bits--but _The Unteleported Man_ comes to mind, too. I'm dead certain that it was a heavily dystopian work, as suicided didn't seem surprising at all from one with scuch a dark view of the future . . .
Maybe you should have written your response AFTER you saw the movie last night.
Quicktime trailer-based reviews. A new low in critic over-estimation of their own importance.
Dimwit.
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
This is the single worst adaptation I think I have ever seen. Did they even READ the damn book? Jesus, the Tommyknockers was better than this. I won't be recording the next 2 episodes.
You are all fartheads.
Another lame commment from the uninformed masses.
As far as picture quality, maybe you need a new tv. I watched it on scifi via my new dishnetworks satellite system and it was near-DVD quality.
And as far as your KPT Bryce skills, well, I guess you can just go ahead and make demo CGIs of "your best effort" for the slashdot audience.
I for one look forward to that.
Lame-O
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
I was really looking forward to this based on what I'd read and seen of it, and unfortunately I was a bit disappointed in the first part, but who knows, maybe the second and third parts will be better.
The lighting, sets, and costuming were all very well done (although I didn't care for the ultra-futurism look, it seemed inappropriate, especially in light of the Butlerian Jihad, blah blah blah).
Some things that irked me:
- Dr. Yueh is pretty much cut from the film. Also, they took away his death monologue - pretty integral to the character, but I guess if you've dropped him from the film already... Actually, this is just one example of tons of those little cuts/changes in the original dialogue that really end up making this version flat and uninspired
- I'm not really a big fan of Lynch's Dune, but a lot of it was just better directed. I found the pacing of the first part to be flaccid, and scenes that should have been exciting or tense simply weren't
- We have the Gurney/Paul training scene, and Gurney killing the Sardukar, but everyone else uses guns, which is pretty undramatic and silly. The Atriedes soldiers (or the Sardukar) are never shown to be any more skilled than Stormtroopers, and Duncan gets killed by a bomb!?! I really would have enjoyed it if they probably would have spent a bit more on gettting some bladed cqb going on. This of course would have fit the scenery better if the sets were less "hi-techy".
Oh well, I'll be watching tomorrow anyway.
Those immortal words of MST3K about sum it up...Speakin of which I think I'd rather have watched it on MST3K.
This just reenforces my belief that almost all TV and movies are going down hill. The idea of character development was a total loss to those who made this movie. Thufer, a mentat, with red stained libs, don't need them, we'll just ignore that. In fact we'll ignore the whole mentat subplot and make Paul a laxed spoiled child. Not the born leader that Mr. Herbert gave us... Political jousting? Nan... we can do with out it, it just makes things complicated. We'll make it simple and brainless. Lets see should we even introduce the traitor before we use him...no... whats the point of forshadowing anything.
We'll use some small parts of the book but barely give them any context. That way no one can say we did not read the book. Other major things like the doctors imperial training we can leave out.
The best way I can sum up this movie is that its what would happen if you left the people who made Starship Troopers a copy of the book and a kindergarden class to read it to them!
My recommendation is to read the book, or go to www.booksontape.com and get the unabridged audio book. You'll enjoy it far more.
Philip K. Dick's "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep" was a so-so book -- too disjointed to be truly entertaining and captivating. "Blade Runner," the movie Ridley Scott made out of that book was a cinematic masterpiece.
More movies that were better than the original book:
Are you moderating this down because you disagree with it,
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
Otherwise it's a great movie. I saw it not that long ago with my girlfriend and I was stopping it every few minutes to explain what the hell was going on. However, I noticed that every time I did that, the very next line after I restarted the player explained what had I had stopped the movie to talk about.
You see, they got everything into this movie, but it's a lot of stuff. EVERY SINGLE LINE is important in the movie. If you miss a single line, you're lost. Coupled with the fact that there is a lot of "whispering" to indicate private thoughts, it's easy to miss a line. I think that's why people don't like it. Otherwise I think the movie is a masterpiece and is relatively faithful to the book.
BTW, I love to play the out of print Avalon Hill DUNE board game. IMHO it's the best board game ever created. It's best to play with six players, each player gets to play one of the main factions from the book: Atreidies, Harkonen, Fremen, Emperor, Bene Gesserit, and Guild. Each character is played slightly differently according to the actual character in the book: The Guild tries to prevent other players from gaining control of Dune, if nobody controls Dune by the end of the game then the Guild wins. The Atreidies have limited prescience but find out that sometimes that just means you know you are going to get fsck'd and you can't do a damned thing about it. The Bene Gesserit have the voice and can force you to do or not do certain things in battle and they also must predict the winner of the game (and in what turn they win) before the game starts. If they are successful in manipulating the game so their prediction comes true then the Bene win and everyone else looses! The Emperor is rich and kicks ass, the Harks are treacherous and unpredictable. It's a great game and copies are always available on eBay of course.
Burris
There's nothing to see here.
Move along.
</hand wave>
No Fremen booty? Awww... There's nothing quite like the American fear of language and sexuality..."My Baby saw a Booby and started killin' folk! You'd think all those years of emotional isolation, corporal punishment, and unmoderated access to firearms would have kept him from such actions." Truth is, Sci-Fi is notorious for butchering films. Even when the content would have been considered acceptable by 1970s standards. I've been unfortunate enough to catch their "version" of Evil Dead 2...They actually cut a few instances where people say the main character's name...thinking Ash was something else. If you want to see that in action, just watch the part of the film where good Ash and Evil Ash first face off. Thankfully they're not attempting to represent that creepy priestess sex we got in Chapterhouse. "You mother father!"
"I ain't got no flyin' shoes."
Is this thing coming out on DVD? I love Dune, but my cable reception looks like shit, and I don't intend on suffering through 6 hours of trying to figure out what the hell is going on...
To paraphrase another responder to your message.
Dude. It is a six hour mini-series broken into three episodes. The first one was yesterday. There is a show tonight, and one tomorrow.
The chances of Sci-Fi cancelling the show TODAY are fairly low.
Idiot.
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
Other benefits to waiting for the DVD include:
1. Indirect support of the RIAA and MPAA in suits against Linux advocates.
2. Propagation of the (illegal) "Region Coding" scheme.
Cheers,
Slak
I saw 'A Boy and His Dog' when it came out, when I was a kid. I found it to be creepy and depressing for all the wrong reasons. I'll have to give it another go, but I don't think it's gotten any better with time.
I'm a fan of Ellison, but mainly of his rants, essays and criticism. I have yet to read a piece of fiction of his that I would recommend to anyone. His short-story compilations all consist of work he did 30-40 years ago. What little writing he does now seems to be childish invective against childish detractors and re-hashes of his great battles of yore. I kept waiting for him to really write something good, funny or important, but if he has, I missed it.
**>>BELCH
It took 16 years to clear Lynch's name.
Now, what do I mean by that. Well, there is far too much narrative exposition in the novel to translate to the screen. Herbert does not use action and dialogue to expose the culture of his future. He tells you about it. Narrative exposition makes for lousy film, way too many hours of voice overs.
Think of how many films resort to having one character say to another, "Of course you know that, blah blah blah." Trite, but often the only way to cue the audience in to the necessary plot devices.
Look at the scene with the hunter-seeker. In the novel Paul is alone in his bedroom when he is attacked by it. But if he were alone in the film there would be no way to explain to the audience what that little silver thingy was. So, put a maid in there with him so he can explain it to her.
Dune is so full of things that do need explaining that there is bound to be more of this sort of stuff in the next 4 hours.
Contrast this with a writer like Chip Delany, who hardly ever explains anything, but allows the reader to discover the future he is creating through the actions and dialogue of his characters. He describes what is happening, rather than explaining it to you. Anyone think Dhalgren would make a fine mini-series? (That grinding sound you hear is a can of worms being opened.)
Just my 2 solari.
The closer you are to the code, the happier you are. - Ancient Geek Proverb
And everybody knows that Harlan Ellison would be nothing if it weren't for the genius Gene Roddenberry mentoring him...
Have you ever read any of Ellison's fiction? You know: 'Deathbird', 'I have no mouth and I must scream', 'Just adrift off the Isles of Langerhans?', '"Repent Harlequin", said the Ticktockman', any of those ring a bell? How can you say Ellison would be nothing without Roddenberry? If you think Ellison's writing is bad, that's one thing, or if he bugs you as a person (Ellison certainly wouldn't be tops on my list of people to go on a long camping trip with), that's another, but saying he'd be nothing without Roddenberry sounds like a total fanboy who hasn't read anything but ST novelizations.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
Well, after sitting through the first part of this three part mini-series I can't say I am dissapointed in any real way, of course I did not have extremely high expectations either. I did enjoy it enough to record the full 2 hours and will take it to my friends house tomorrow after the second half to watch again. Although there are a few inconsistencies from the book, I dont think any of them detract from the over all entertainment factor of the show. I think you have to face facts that the book could never be faithfully converted into a movie, it's just to damn complex and although in the written word this complexity only adds to the experience of reading it, trying to watch a word for word rendition would well kinda suck. I think they have done a better job of it so far than lynch did. And I think that just about anyone would at least garner some entertainment from it, of course this is all IMHO
"You are only the sum of your thoughts."
i enjoyed the movie...and i thought Stewart did a fine performance.
(FYI: Lynch only disowned the TV version.)
There's a number of items the miniseries got less accurate when compared to the novel than the Lynch film did (the appearance of the Navigators, the purpose of the gom jabbar test, others) but I think part of that was conscious differentiation from the Lynch film: by making it slightly less accurate in some ways, it's more faithful to its own interpretation, and less a slavish copy of the Lynch film. Definitely plan to watch the remaining two episodes of the miniseries.
Here's some other links for you:
Dictionary of Dune terms from the books
behind the scenes of the Lynch film, lots of good pics
Fremen.org Dune FAQ
As with the vast majority of the SciFi-produced shows I've seen, I am sorely disappointed with this interpretation of Dune. As someone who's read the books multiple times, I'm intimately familiar with the plot. I'm also familiar with what does and does not work onstage and onscreen; I'm an actor. I think Herbert's original literary decisions make outstanding screen decisions too.
Unfortunately SciFi felt the need to produce a lukewarm rendition of what is one of the most complex and emotionally charged science fiction series ever written. They concentrated so fiercely on the razzle-dazzle effects they completely missed the point. Dune is in very select company among science fiction series. It's not just about what the future may hold, it's not just about technological advancement, it's about the human condition. Dune speaks to mankind's ultimate questions. While the Lynch movie receives a lot of criticism from my fellow Dune fanatics, it at least succeeds in capturing the mysticism that is so central to Herbert's world. I get no sense of religious or emotional depth out of this miniseries. The scene where the Reverend Mother tests Paul was the most unimpressively flat scene I've seen in my life. Where did the mysticism go? And most importantly where are the feints within feints within feints?
I was also entirely disgusted with the butchering of decades of accepted pronunciation. Did they consult noone? Who is Duke "Lay-dow"? I only know of a Duke "Lee-tow" in that story. And the "Hark-a-nins"? I only remember "Har-kon-ins". And the Fremen have the most ridiculously inaccurate accent I've ever heard. They're desert people, they don't speak English with a British accent. If they speak it at all it's with a middle eastern accent. They should have listened to an Israeli Jew speak English.
If you'll excuse me I have to go read the books again to cleanse myself.
--
Brandon D. Valentine
I'm watching it now - Very different from the first version. Plot order is different, charactization are different, even basic pronucisation is very different.
So - is it better? It's surely different from both the book and the movie....
Then again I also liked the Lynch version back in '84. Of course the Lynch movie only made sense if you read the book first and was a collossal failure as a result.
Most movies have differences from the books, and one must accept that. I felt this mini-series is doing a good job telling the story that is Dune, whereas Lynch tried to relay all the information of the book onto the screen.
What I mean by that. In the book you hear the unsaid thoughts of the various characters, and lynch tried to portray those. As an example, when Profession Kynes observes Paul whering a stillsuit in the Lynch movie, as in the book he observes "He shall know your ways as if born to them."
That interpretation wasn't evident in the mini-series version of the book. Which is actually better in some ways, at least as far as making a movie is concerned. The Lynch movie confused a lot of the audience with these inner voice comments.
So far I prefer the costumes and casting of the mini-series. It's not nearly as comical as the original film, especially the Baron and Emperor.
Anyway, I enjoyed it and look forward to the remainder of the story to unfold.
It's been too many years since I read the books, but I had the impression that the whites of the eyes turned blue as well, not just the irises.
Here's to hoping that the Dune miniseries doesn't turn out to be another Phantom Menace
Are you serious?
The Advertising industry's idea of a tastefull campaign is akin to:
"Excuse me sir, do you have any Grey Poupon?".
I'd like to comment on some of the loaded statements put forth in the posts here. Could everybody please be a bit more objective on the movie. As one who has read all the books except the second prequel and watched the movie numerous times including the long version, I think that Lynch did an adequate job. A book as complex as Dune is *expected* to be warped to a great extent.
Look what Hollywood has to do to satisfy Joe Smith:
* Make the concept simple
* The ending must have closure!
* 8 to 81, appease all ages
* Reduce any complex problems to individual drama
* etc.
As you can see, the above can only hurt Dune. So ask yourselves the questions when watching the film,
Has the director captured the essence of the book?
Has the director transfered the plot well?
Has the director transfered the characters well?
Your answers might be different than might, but I'd have to say adequately for all three. For example, when the Baron exclaims, "The Duke will die before these eyes, and he'll know, HE'LL KNOW! That is *I*, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who encompasses his doom, blahahaha," I got the same impression of raw, crazy emotion that I did from the book.
I know I'm being a bit didactic here, but I'm simply trying to give some perspective to all you film critics.
More on topic, the previews for the series look interesting, if not pure eye-candy. I do not expect any of the actors, nor the director, to give a rats ass about the book. I'm also willing to bet that the "Dune Purists" will be even more offended from the mini-series. However, instead of watching the series, picking out every little "inaccuracy" I'm going to get a Coke and some popcorn, put my fat ass on the couch, and enjoy myself. I'm just grateful to be entertained once again by Herbert's masterpiece.
NAS
I'm sure "On Golden Blonde" can compensate for anything we miss.
Don't sweat it.. If history is any guide, SciFi will be sure to play it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until they start foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards...
(Or is that TNT?)
Your Working Boy,
Who wrote this? In the entire trailer, I only recognize about two lines from the novel. Come on, Herbert's Dune had pretty good dialogue -- better than this, anyway.
I'm sad that some hack screenwriter thought he could improve a masterpiece. From the little I've seen, it seems to have changed the characters and the feel of the story for the worse.
[ Before I get flamed to a crisp, I must point out that I enjoyed Bladerunner, but the "androids are people too" sentimentalism of the plot was pretty much a Scott creation]
The way the point is made in the movie is quite different than the way dick made it, but the bluring of the line and the questioning of what qualifies for 'human' was one of the big dick themes.
Are those that set their emotional state with a dial more human than those that act on the basic drive to survive? If you spend your time wondering whether you are human, why change your opinion of someone/thing else when you learn it was engineered?
Scott didn't have to add much, mostly he had to take away. Isn't caring about an android frog a bit sentimental?
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
Well of course they are. They have to have something for the buy-me sticker that'll be the dvds they'll pump out if this thing is even a moderate success: "Unseen FOOTAGE! Director's Cut!"
Yeah, the land of the free can't even stomach watching their own species' bodies. How evolved our we?
For those who want to see the uncut version do wait for the DVD. It is scheduled for release in March. Other benefits to the DVD release are:
1) 16:9 picture, no pan & scan (although having been shot for television, the director probably did a decent job framing for 4:3)
2) Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, the best you are going to get from the network is Dolby Surround
3) No commercials!
4) No waiting for the next night's episode.
Myself, I am going to skip the airing. If the reviews are good, I'll get the DVD instead.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The director, David Lynch (sp) was also not up for the job.
I disagree! He did some really interesting things in Dune ("The tooth! Remember the tooth!", the voiceovers and hallucination visuals, the baroque technology feel) that reflect his other work (particularly 'Blue Velvet' and 'Twin Peaks') and that qualify as cinematic art IMHO.
Considering the size and scope of only the first novel, packing the backstory, worldview and context into less than 2 hours would be impossible for ___ANY___ director, guaranteed. When I saw it during first-run release, the theatres were handing out little backstory + translation dittoes, which says it all.
If the Dune film was a failure (and having read the entire series _after_ seeing the film, I've come to appreciate the difficulty of Lynch's task), it was certainly a magnificent one.
I am also really looking forward to the SciFi film. I hope that the extended format works well for the source material, and given that the people making this film also did the miniseries for 'The Stand' (the opening sequence alone nailed the whole thing for me), I think it could be very good. Comparing the two would be unfair, as the newer version appears to have much more in the way of producer/backer support than did the beleagured Lynch production.
Your Working Boy,
Well, I guess you're just too cool for us...
You ever notice that when there's a story about a science fiction event (movie, website, game, whatever) there's always some snooty sci-fi "afficionado" around to tell everyone how misguided their devotion to said author/director/program?
Well, swordgeek, you rock and you're just a little more sophisticated than everyone else here.
And everybody knows that Harlan Ellison would be nothing if it weren't for the genius Gene Roddenberry mentoring him while he co-wrote (with Gene) the legendary script to "The City on the Edge of Forever".
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
while not sci-fi has some hilarious kiddie editing.
"Yippee-ky-yeah, Major Falcon."
--
+&x
One thing the /. post doesn't mention is that the Dune screening is only in the US.
So if you get the Science Fiction channel in Europe you'll just have to wait a little longer.
Damn I'm jealous....
I've seen plenty of people figure out ways of hanging it out their window, etc.
And if you have a window that doesn't use lead class that faces in the right direction, you could even have the dish inside of the window...
Just a thought...
--- polarbear
[ Before I get flamed to a crisp, I must point out that I enjoyed Bladerunner, but the "androids are people too" sentimentalism of the plot was pretty much a Scott creation]
BTW, if you're a big BR fan, rent the Soldier DVD (yes, the one starring Kurt Russell) and listen to the commentary track.. Werra Werra interesting...
Your Working Boy,
Whoops, I meant the television "event." :)
As a an avid fan of the Dune books, I was dissapointed the first time I saw the movie. Then again, I was younger. Lynch's Dune captures the dark, feudal society that is Shaddam's Empire, and the harsh world of Arrakis. The acting was poor, the character developement was poor, and the plot was chopped to pieces.
What Lynch's movie did was tell the Dune story in a different voice, a different perspective(which was, I think shoddy at times). But my whole feeling of Lynch's movie is that it had alot of great -parts- The Shooting was fantastic. The editing sucked. I don't know if the actors really sucked, or if it was just poor dialogue that they were stuck with.
I don't nitpick Lynch's Dune tho. I accept it for what it is. Dumbed down, fit for the everyman's entertainment. It had a flavor that I have never seen in another movie tho, a mood.
This Mini-series, I don't expect to be better or worse than Lynch's. I expect it to be different. Different sandworms, different sets, different story(longer, shorter, cut, uncut, it won't be the book no matter what they do). I noticed that they've mangled the dialogues quite a bit, and changed the story to boot! For example, Paul and Irulan's chat on the upper level of the ballroom/main hall. That never happened! But hey, if they work it into the story, it may be interesting. That is my greatest hope for this Dune: that they justify their changes by entertaining me(well) with them. Soap Opera's have pretty complex character development(and pretty far fetched, but...) so if the miniseries can AT LEAST capture that, no matter what happens with the plot, the characters may just be memorable.
Oh and to the guy who said Gurney is a doofus in this miniseries? I say to you: Heheh
Maybe, but a deadly one.
--Chris
Enough whining, already! People like you are the reason why so many other classic scifi/fantasy novels aren't adapted for the screen. In case you missed it, the key word here is "adapted". 99.9% of movie making is a business -- not an art. Sacrifices have to be made along the way to keep investors happy and to stay within the budget. It's no different than anything else in life. For example, you'd probably rather drive a BMW or a Ferrari or a Land Rover (depending on your taste, of course), but your budget and practicality convince you to drive that Honda Civic. In the end, you are driving *something*, (and maybe you can get a Ferrari key chain to make you feel better). If you can do better than Scott's version or the new SciFi Channnel version, then by all means do it! I simply have respect for whoever decides to put in the time, money, and effort to even attempt screenplay adaptions of scifi novels, because somewhere in that group of writers, producers, directors there's somebody who loves the story and has to make the hard choices of what to cut and what even to simplify in order to reach the largest audience. Maybe, just maybe, the recent production will inspire a few people to actually go read the book. That's what Scott's version did for me. If it accomplishes that, then in my mind it was a success.
I do agree, the quality of writing did go down hill as the books progressed.
The first book was clearly the best.
Most of the acting is really quite bad. Even William Hurt seems to be just spitting out his lines to get them over with. Gurney's character is made out to be a bit of a doofus - nothing like the tough-as-nail Patrick Stewart rendition. The actors playing Paul, the Rev. Mother, and the Baron are equally lame.
I had high hopes for this. Too bad. It really doesn't seem worth tuning in for the next two nights.
I don't like the casting job they did for Paul, he seems like a bit of a spoiled brat in this flick. Also, without reading the book I would have been completely lost. They're cutting all the wrong parts out, most notably, the begining.
I saw the first movie before the reading the book, and I loved it. This I'm having serious doughts about. I have never seen a decent movie made by the Sci Fi channel.
god this sucks, i'm traveling on business (have to launch a major auto racing web site by 2/1) and am here in atlanta, and this damn ritz-carlton hotel does not carry the sci-fi channel... so even though its being repeted three times each night i'm totally SOL... doh!
Being a Gainax fan for over 10 years, I just .. like making more money off of
;-)
can't see them doing a animated version of Dune
let alone the whole saga. Shite.. If nobody can do a decent live action version, then why bother fathoming a animated version? Gainax has better
things to do
Evangelion
Might as well ask Tomino to "adapt" Dune and
have Sunrise animate that. That would be a lot
closer to their style then Gainax.
Danielle
My Boredom Has Outshined The Sun
spoilers.
i wonder how well this would go over with someone who wasn't intimately familiar with the storyline?
overall, well done. very well done. some of my favorite dialogue fragments survived. good scenery, intriguing costumes.
i understand most of the sequence changes that occur. unlike the goon who posted earlier, i'm not put off by a brunette irulan but i was a little irritated by the crappy dialogue written for her scene with paul: "don't judge a book by it's cover". jeez.
i somehow failed to notice who yueh was until i saw him at the episode climax. only then did i recall seeing him in earlier scenes. but i don't think he was ever clearly identified before that.
the guild heighliner was good. the navigator was a mite gratuitous but not unacceptable.
i'm highly anticipating tomorrow: "who rules here? *I* rule here!"
Now Yamaga has a superior talent when it comes to writing, as was evidenced by his story for Royal Space Force. I for one would like to see Gainax focus on Blue Uru, the 70 years-later sequel to Royal Space Force, but given that it took 12 years for RSF to break even (and thus paying back to Bandai the 800 million yen that Okada's golden tongue got the toy company to dump in Gainax's lap in 1985), it may take a while. Particularly now that animation budgets across the board in Japan have been slashed about 40% as of April 2000. There won't be any Cowboy Bebops or Blue Sub Sixes or Card Captor Sakuras made for a while. The production values are going to drop sharply, and "new material" scares anime bankrollers away in Japan in these recessions like crazy.
Hm, this is about Dune, isn't it. Maybe the Square guys in Hawaii could pull off a decent Dune movie. Of course they have to survive the $100 million price their FF movie is going to ring up, first. As it is Dune the book has two big problems when trying to convert it to the screen: 1) it takes too long to read (about 20 hours) to get the proper feel for a motion picture. 2) Too much of the story is told in interior monologue, which when tried in the 1984 screen version, fell flat.
The skiffy channel version is better at this, but there is just too much *book* to film and impress upon the viewer, animated or live-action.
Crow
I couldn't watch this. I tried, but I had to turn it off after suffering through the first hour.
The scene where they rescue the Spice miners from the worm was almost completely CGI, and it looked it. I groaned aloud at the way the worm was rendered. It didn't look organic whatsoever. All the teeth in nice nearly-perfect concentric circles, etc... The ships themselves looked atrocious, and the Harvester looked like a simple box-and-wedge contraption with texture-mapped surfaces. Titan A.E. was supposed to look animated -- Dune wasn't.
The acting in this remake is abyssmal. Not a single one of the players has a tenth of the charisma of the original actors in the Lynch adaptation. Everyone delivers their lines in a monotone, completely devoid of any emotion or inflection. No one moves when they speak, they just stand there, almost rigid, and deliver their lines to another equally immobile actor/actress. Where's Sting when you need him?
The costume designer for this miniseries should be taken out and shot. The butterfly dress? What in the Hell was that? None of the uniforms seemed to be put together very well, and they looked as if they were rented from a cut-rate costume shop. I've seen better costumes made by soccer moms for their kids' school plays.
I give this thing zero stars and two thumbs up the asses of everyone involved.
This is not a Fugazi
The original dune was IMHO a feeble attempt at an undertaking that couldn't be accomplished regardless at the time. The technology was not in place to create the world that Frank Herbert described in the first book of the series. The director, David Lynch (sp) was also not up for the job. He was more infatuated with making a "social impact" on the film world then he was with honoring the flow of the book.
I eagerly await this evening when I can tune in and see the first installment fo the series, but I don't have my hopes up. As with all great books, which Dune holds the highest title for me, the movies are always dissapointing. There is too much that can't be translated to picture.
There's at least four choices that I'm aware of:
:)
1) The original "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", which i believe has asterisks in a few places to show missing portions of the manuscript (due to the author's suicide--I might be thinking of _The Unteleported Man_, but I don't think so).
2) The movie "Bladerunner" as it first appeared in theaters, with the voiceover and happy ending
3) An edited, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep."
4) The director's cut of _Bladerunner_, without the voiceover and with the dystopian ending.
Actually, I think the voiceover worked better in the film, but that's life
hawk, who's still trying to convince his wife that "They Live" and "Terminator" are dystopian science fiction, not "Rambo Movies" . . .
how many of you are involved in things that won't allow you watch an episode of the mini-series firsthand? how many of you have to watch a tape of it? i have a concert to go to tonight. i have been planning to go to it for almost 4 months. I am going to see my namesake, Boy Sets Fire, in concert with Snapcase and Death By Stereo tonight in Pittsburgh. i hate having to watch stuff like this on a crappy copy of VHS....argh!
"One man's "magic" is another man's engineering."-- Robert A. Heinlein
Too late - the legacy of Dune has already been blasphemed by a bunch of books with names like "God Emperor of Dune" and "Chapterhouse Dune."
The Dune series spans a greater range of quality than any other series I know. (Although Anne McCaffery's Dragon series might give it a run for the money.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
The nice thing about a profound piece of literature is that it is open to creative new interpretations now and then. Look at the endless round of Shakespeare, Austin and Christmas fable movies. I look forward to the "millennial Dune".
most of the cnn pictures didn't seem to correspond with what they were talking about. from the picture, it looks like that's a kindjal (fits the descrption for to the t: "double-bladed short sword (or long knife) with about 20
centimeters of slightly curved blade.")
I definitely hope that that's not a crysknife, at least...
(Apologies if stinky Konqueror posts this twice)
-------------------------------------------
What's bad about it: First of all, the sound guns really ARE a big deal. As it stands, you may as well just use missiles, since there were only two shields in the entire movie. So why bother with those stupid sound guns when conventional weapons would be far more powerful? Besides, it was explained in the movie that the the sound guns are an Atredies thing, which makes the Fremen look like worthless savages without Paul. The Guild presence went from mysterious in the book to kick you in the crotch obvious. The whispering was hard to hear. Most of Paul's future predicting abilities were not explained, despite the fact that that's really the whole point of the book. Without Paul's abilities Dune is nothing more than a Tom Clancy-esque war novel.
I could go on, but suffice to say that I regard the Dune movie as an example of why Dune could have been a good movie, but in and of itself it was not. There's a reason it was directed by Alan Smithee... (for those who don't know, Alan Smithee is the name directors put on movies they no longer wish to be associated with)
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
> Has the director captured the essence of the book?
> Has the director transfered the plot well?
> Has the director transfered the characters well?
can i suggest that before asking those three excellent questions, you ask yourself, "is this film any good?".
if not, then you can enjoy critiquing the conversion. if yes, then perhaps you should just watch it?
(on the other hand, the answer in the case of Lynch's dune is that it's a terrible movie apart from that part of Sting which begins at the belt and ends just before he starts acting. and it insults the book.)
This is not accurate. The Firm, for example, took a so-so book and made it into an excellent movie. The Godfather movies are among the masterpieces of American cinema. Not often, but sometimes you do get a movie that is even better than the book. Admittedly, Dune is not likely to be one of those, as it is too long, and its plot does not exactly lend itself to movie form, but your broad statement does not really hold up.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Here's hoping that bill brings the kind of energy to Atreides that he brought to the role of George Washington on A&E's thing about the crossing of the Deleware.
(ducks)
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
This sounds like a competent job, at the least. Am I the only one feeling faintly dizzy at the idea of people taking the source material of science fiction movies somewhat seriously?
I'd be happy to see an end to the days where fantasy and science fiction books were pillaged for a few cool gimmmicks, while having their plots and characters completely eviscerated. Witness the Lynch Dune (I guess I'm one of those "few" who hold some real animosity towards it - see the CNN sidebar) and Bladerunner.
[ Before I get flamed to a crisp, I must point out that I enjoyed Bladerunner, but the "androids are people too" sentimentalism of the plot was pretty much a Scott creation]
It will be interesting to see if non-Herbert readers can make any sense of the mini-series, though. It's a astonishingly complicated book, even for a six-hour mini-series. I guess I'll have to wait for it to make it to Australia...
Heh, looks like you spoke to soon. We will get to see horrible versions of dune messiah and children of dune, Wow, I wonder how many kids will be turned off to the books becouse of this crap mini series.
Mind you, 3 4-hour segments isn't much longer than the 4-hour "director's other cut" version of the movie, but this one was intended to be long. The problem with the movie was cramming such a huge, complex story in such a short time.
I just hope they don't sanitize the ending, but they probably will. Yay war for the sake of genetic diversity!
Are you saying in the end that you'd rather have no production at all than one that doesn't meet your standards?
I have been a devoted fan of Science Fiction since my parents hooked me on Star Trek some 20+ years ago at the age of 4. In that time of watching and reading, somehow I've managed to read Dune or even see the movie, just because there's a whole lotta scifi out there.
So now, I'm watching the miniseries as my first contact. Granted, I don't know what from the book is missing. My status as a purist is worthless. But as a result of this event, I >will read the book. I will rent the original movie. I'll take them apart and compare them and criticize them and in doing so will become something of a fanatic. (this is how it usually works with me.) I can't believe that I'm alone in this.
From what I've heard, cramming the book into 2 hours was impossible. 6 hours is still going to miss a lot. But for anyone who really wants to get into it, the book is already there. How many others will read the book for the first time just because of this event.
Can that be a bad thing?
Before going off on a smart-ass tirade, you might want to, not only pronounce the Dune words and names correctly, but spell the English ones correctly or use the correct words (in your case, both).
planed OR planned
ever OR every
Mis pronounced OR mis-pronounced
sceane OR scene
don't drink and post...
Its not a mini-series. There is just to many things wrong with this mini-series to carry the DUNE name, rather I would say is a planed farce.
I have come up with a new drinking game to follow the series, and now its enjoyable.
Needed: Alcohol
Recomended: Tivo, Copy of the Oringal Dune book
Take turns being IT You bet shots against the other people in the room.
For ever Mis pronounced Name that you catch you make someone drink, For everyone one you miss that is pointed out by someone in the room, they make you drink. Same goes for randomly inserted extra characters that dont belong in a sceane.
Everyone Drinks for gross plot errors, which include sceane timing.
Be sure to have extra drinks on hand, and make sure your health coverage also applies to liver damage.
The "sentimentalism" you deride as a Ridley Scott "creation" is actually one of the two central themes explored in practically every one of Philip K. Dick's published works: "What is Reality?" and "What Does it Mean to be Human?". No wonder Dick was so pleased by Scott's interpretation -- at last, someone understood him and didn't deride the work as "sentimental". And can anyone tell me why Dick, who is (arguably) the most "interior" Science Fiction author of them all, is so popular with film directors? Re-read "Do Androids Dream..." or "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" and explain to me how anyone in this universe could have made successful films of these works.
The miniseries finished airing about a half hour ago in the West Coast, and it just plain sucks.
Effects are barely worthy of a B-series movie (I can create better mountains and dunes in KPT Bryce!), acting is average, sets are soap-opera quality, and sound is horrendous with a background noise that's impossible to remove.
And did I mention the bad picture quality and jitters?
As far as the story is concerned it's a pathetic adaptation that insults the book.
I'm not going to bother watching part 2 tomorrow.
I expected that, I was just hoping to be wrong.
Ah well.
you do realize that your request is somewhat illegal, and i doubt sci-fi would appreciate their material being thrown around the internet like that. But nonetheles, i am very sure someone will make a VCD or DivX out of it, where it shows up is another story, but i'd look to usenet, it tends to have most of everything =^)
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I need satellite....
Troy Davidson
"If I could wave my magic wand. I'd make everything alright."
THE EYES!!! I mean really, its blue-on-blue, not a glowing blue center. Grrr, if anything i thought they would have fixed the eyes, i guess not.... other than that it was ok, i remember some of the dialogue (from the first few scenes) from the book [something about a tripod]. Other than that, I think that for someone who doesnt have time to read the book it is a passable substitute (at least perferable over the movie).
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
My DirecTV setup is about $20 a month less than what I used to pay for Digital Cable.
Theatre movies generally have an order of magnitude more financial resources than TV movies. I hope the TV series isn't too compromised.
There again most theatre remakes of TV series have been dogs.
That was what I though too - that the Fremen were already blue-eyed due to their ancestry, but the spice turned the sclera of their eyes blue too. Thus, blue-in-blue eyes.
Or I could just be reading a little too deeply into things, as usual.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Actually, I think that the design work that Giger had done was actually for a different Dune movie that never quite got off the ground. There was even a story here on slashdot about the whole thing a while back...
This series looks pretty damn bad too.
My dream would be for "Dune" to be remade a third time, only as an animated series. My choice to do the work? Gainax, who brought us "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and "Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise."
Those guys are definitely up to the task. One of the great strengths of Gainax is the way they create an entire parallel world. In "Honneamise" their attention to detail was mindblowing...the Honneamisians' (?) world was created from whole cloth, from the utensils they use to eat to their very different looking vehicles to the clothes they wear and the religions some follow.
In "Evangelion" you had an amazing apocalyptic story which united such diverse influences as the Qabalah, HP Lovecraft's Elder Gods, and the Mecha/Giant Robot strain of Japanese Animation and Manga. Lots of speculation about where the course of human evolution was taking us, very complex characters. The TV series sprawled over 26 episodes and 12 hours. The rest of the story took a couple of movies to finish. That's the kind of time it would take to really do the Dune saga justice.
All the weaknesses of attempts at "Dune" in the past would be neatly swept away. Want really convincing Sandworms? Animate them! Want Fremen who really look like their eyes are glazed over with a thin blue film? Animate them!
You really *can't* do "Dune" justice in live action. Too bad that people in the US still think that animation is for kiddies. *sigh*
---- Hey Grrl Geeks! Your very own geek news site has arrived!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Aha! That's it! This miniseries is going to suck as badly as "The Stand" did.
"The Stand" miniseries completely misconstrued a lot of aspects of the book. The Boulder Free Zone in the book had the flavor of a hippy commune, the one in the miniseries seemed like a commercial for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Las Vegas stronghold of Randall Flagg in the book was a place that had a suffocating sense of conformity and grimness, sort of a Nazi Germany feel, not a Hell's Angels debauch. The take-home message of the book "The Stand" was that not even the Apocalypse could stop the power of human free will. The miniseries just turned it into another imagining of what the Book of Revelation would be like as future history and not as a metaphor for the Christian Church going through the persecutions of the reign of Nero Augustus Caesar. (if you transliterate Nero's full Imperial name into Greek and count the letters as numbers you get 666!)
Get ready for another botch, folks. I stand by my thoughts on the matter even more strongly knowing the people responsible for the "Dune" miniseries are the same ones responsible for "The Stand" miniseries.
---- Hey Grrl Geeks! Your very own geek news site has arrived!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Are we all talking about the same Dune here? The incredibly long, rambling, dreary bit of SF that Frank Herbert wrote and won too many awards for?
To be fair, it wasn't an awful book or anything, it just wasn't truly great. Much better SF has been written, and at least one of those stories was turned into a really good movie. (A Boy and his Dog - Harlan Ellison)
*shrug* I just don't see what the fuss is about.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Being that most folks in the US are apartment dwellers and can't put up an antenna, we have to rely on cable as our sole form of TV delivery.(somewhere over 60% of US gets TV over cable) This is why HDTV will never succeed untill the FCC forces the cable co's to carry local HDTV channels.
Don't get into that FCC antenna rule nonsense. It might apply to folks with condos and balconies, but most of us don't even have access to the roof, so that's out.
So I'll just have to wait for the DVD...
My friend in the movie businerss tells me it's pretty common for movies to be released with more violence in the US and more nudity in Europe.
I don't know why everyone acts surprised when Americans act like prudes. I mean, this country was founded by people who left England (England!) because it wasn't prudish enough for their taste.
Then on the other hand, when the Europeans cut the violence, is it any surprise they have to come whining to us to fight their wars?
yah, the glowing eyes are really annoying.
from the Terminology of the Imperium, emphasis mine. elsewhere in the books, it's mentioned that most eyes became so dark that the blue within blue makes the eyes appear practically black.
personally, from a visual perspective, i think the original (cryo) dune game is really the best of everything that's been put out there. except for their depiction of the emperor. could never figure out what was up with the horns.
Is anyone intending on making a MPG or DIVX of the series? I would like to dload it and view - I dont have a television. Can you post a link in this forum please.
Well, looking at the TV guide listing for Dune, i see that they repeat each episode 3 times (8-10, 10-12, 12-2) on each night of airing. I could understand it if they wanted to hit many different audiences by showing it at several different times... but right next to each other? Anybody who can will probably see it live, anybody who can't will tape (or TiVo) it and watch it later. Am i missing something or does the Sci-Fi channel just have the programming time to spare?
~Kooshman
Damnit can at least one weekend go by where I do not have to program? ;^)
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Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
But I must say the Piter was a letdown. The Lynch Piter was a little to edgy and fragile for me (despite the fact I like Brad Dourif), but between this guy's think accent and the fact he looked like a body double for Black Adder, I was glad Piter's role was one they sacrificed a bit in the adaptation to the screen.
At this page you can read all about the failed attempt that Alejandro Jodorowsky, Gieger and Moebius made way back when. Oh well... Since it never actually happened, it will always be perfect in our imagination I guess
Whoa, hold on, what's this? I still think they should have been faithful to the edition the majority of people read, but if there is some kind of alternate version that more resembles the movie, I'm quite curious. Care to elaborate any?
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
The Alan Smithee Tribute Page
Dedicated to the greatest film director who never lived.
Take, for instance, the science fiction epic Dune (1984). Under the protest of original writer-director David Lynch, the film was recut for television broadcast, bloated to 190 minutes with previously unseen footage and new narration. Lynch immediately disowned this version (he also exchanged his screenplay credit for the traitorous pseudonym "Judas Booth"), and the notorious Smithee was given credit as the ill-fated epic's director. Under Director's Guild guidelines, the assignment of the name "Allen (aka Alan) Smithee" is an official procedure of credit arbitration. Although the "last-resort" usage of the name has grown somewhat rare, new works by "Smithee" will continue to appear as long as filmmakers find a need to distance themselves from a project that has gone creatively sour.
cpeterso
I agree, I thought the movie was great... er however David Lynch strongly disagreed :) hehe, He thought his own movie was so horrible that he wouldn't even put his name in the credits until some time later. Patrick Stewart also hated it. He said it was one of his worst performances. It's funny, but it seems only the most hardcore geeks actually liked it. Makes you wonder how it got so much television play.
Looks like you never actually read the book. THe Lynch movie was a piece of shit. The only reason anyone watched it is... well it was Dune. Now we'll see what it should have looked like.
- Why is the ninja... so deadly?
While this version of the story has a closer resembelance to the actual book than the first pathetic attempt to render it on the silver screen, one simply has to wonder if the screen writer had actually read the book ever. The timeline jumps around, important sequences are left out and I personally think it could have been done better and more accurately in BLACK and WHITE. The story simply isn't being told. My wife asked me what was going on every few minutes, and I really was at a loss to explain the rational behind the scene. The story should be complete and if we need a narrator, he/she should be there when the scenes cut to parts that do not follow the book. Mr. Herbert would probably shit his pants, then call a lawyer.
The book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner talks about how Philip K Dick was totally taken with Scott's and the screen writers interpretation of the novel. Also I recall that William Gibson was also totally blown away by the movie and he was also impressed that this movie had better visuals than what he was dreaming up for his novel Neuromancer (which hadn't been published yet).
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
The reason that I am really looking forward to this mini-series is that it opens the possibility of the other books being put onto film as well. I think the sci-fi channel probably will be able to do that if the response is good; however the Dune universe is an immensely complicated one (just look at the now out of print Dune Enyclopedia).
One thing that is unfortunate is that H.R. Giger did a bunch of preliminary design work for the Lynch movie that was never used. It doesn't seem to have been used for this film either. Partly because I think that Giger is probably fantastically expensive, but it is still unfortunate. He did a lot of work on the Harkonnen (of course). Examples of his work (and a little blurb about work on Ridley Scott's Dune) in the movies section of Giger Page . You can even see the "Harkonnen Chair", and buy one I think. They are the chairs in Giger bars.
"Politics is for the moment, an equation lasts eternity" -A. Einstein
Grr... they still haven't done the eyes the way I pictured them while reading the series. Did anyone else picture the eyes as being a deep blue marble color rather than the glowing blue that the movie and TV series have made them out to be?
;)
That aside, I'm hoping that the Sci-Fi series is a whole hell of a lot better than the movie... if not I suppose I can just start drinking heavily partway through it
It is supposed to be much more faithfull to the book then the David Lynch movie. Review of the series here.
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"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Naturally, if you watch the Sci-fi channel you will see promotion. This is completely normal, nothing to worry about.
The happy ending of Bladerunner was demanded by the studio, Scott's original ending was much darker.