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Dune Scores Huge Ratings
aldheorte writes "CNN is reporting "out-of-this-world" ratings for the now-complete Dune mini-series. Apparently, 3.06 million homes tuned in, making for the biggest orginal series in Sci-Fi Channel's history. I think it is a fair to good adaptation of a very difficult work, though I would appreciate a doubling of the episodes including more scenes from the book as well as more background on all, especially supporting, characters."
I've also decided that the ultimate goal for any living human being is
to get to be in one of those "I am Sci-Fi" commercials. I immensely enjoyed the series, and look forward to them continuing the saga.
If the original novel was good enough to sell MILLIONS of copies and inspire a movie and a television miniseries then why change key elements of the story?
Paul had his sons in the next book and not one of them was killed in the first.
The emporer's daughter was created solely for this television adaption.
There were no weirding modules in the television mini as there should have been, nor did Paul use the weirding voice to crash the ship that was taking he and his mother over the desert! Key to the development of the character's awareness of his abilities!
Duncan did not rescue Paul and his mother from the deep desert.
They never attacked the Harkonans until Paul was Moadib and they had the weirding modules.
He DID NOT marry the fabricated emporer's daughter in the book! Complete garbage!
Oh, and the guy playing Gernie sucked a dead donkey's balls dry. He was horrible!
I thoroughly hated this series. There was absolutely no need whatsoever to alter the story from the original in any way. They had a six hour canvas to treat it with respect and do it right. But, like all television projects based on books, they failed miserably.
Yeah. It's kinda weird though: AFAIK those "primitive limeys" have a democracy that actually works...
Democracy? Hello, they've got a fuckin' Queen... They have an entire house of Parliment that is populated with Nobility... democracy my ass.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I watched the first hour or less of each night, and gave up in annoyance each time.
I won't comment on the effects since its mostly a matter of taste, and while I liked them overall, I also realised that they were acting on a budget.
A friend of mine (female) who had never seen Dune (the movie) or read any of the books was really getting into the story and enjoyed watching it a lot. There were definately some things that she didn't understand (_some_ voice overs, or background info at the beginning of each segment probably would have added to most peoples overall enjoyment).
Gee... If you stopped watching after an hour then I guess you didn't notice a few things, like the storm that sweeps in when they blow the shield wall and pumelts their shields into uselessness, with the ornothoptors flying through in the middle of the storm to destroy some fleeing airships... of course since you saw that bit you must have watched it almost to the end.
I agree, they downplayed the Worms a bit too much (either from budgetary constraints, or from fear of comparison to the movie). The group that Paul sends into the desert, are you refering to the group he talks about when confronting the emperor and telling him that he has men ready to pour changed water of life into a large patch of pre-spice mass thereby beginning a chain reaction that would kill all the makers, and purge arakis of all spice production? (last twenty minutes of the movie or so, so you may have missed it in your haste to flee). I do admit they could have done more with the worms.
They also cut a few scenes I wouldn't have, but I also liked some of the liberties they took. The use of captured 'thoptors to maintain air superiority is not unreasonable, the introduction of the young empress earlier on in the story makes her less of a shallow character, and we are now well aware that she can be cunning and dangerous (since she obviously manipulated her own father at the end of the story to get him to Dune).
Overall this was much more faithfull to the book than the Lynch movie (at least these still suits covered your whole body... yeah... we're going to march through terrible desert wearing a suit to reclaim our moisture and protect us from the desert... oh, and it doesn't cover our heads).
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
The sound is not actually louder, but in a way it is. A common practice is to use a sound compressor to boost the level, and then a limiter to keep the level below the maximum allowable. This means that explosions and normal conversation will sound just as loud, and so what is really happening in the commercial is that the guy talking about the new car you should have is lifted to the level of the massive explosion you just heard in the TV movie.
This, when overdone, makes the sound crappy, but allows for all sound to be near the maximum level. In effect, the ads are louder overall, but everything is kept within the threshold of the actual programming.
I believe that this is used more on late night TV and specialty channels, and less in prime time on the major networks.
This post is all "as far as I know" so please correct me on technicalities, etc...
There is a maximum allowed deviation that the FCC allows a standard broadcast signal to achieve. Any wider, and it would clip as it passed through the transmitter (or cable tv sender amps). The source (program) material is attenuated so there is a 6 to 9 dB difference between program and commercial material. So, yes, the scumbags that do this can say "no we don't turn up our commercials" with some honesty - they just turn the program down.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Yes. But all television commercials are louder, SCI-FI is just getting really, really bad about doing it.
Oh please.
You're talking about David Lynch here. DAVID LYNCH. ( http://us.imdb.com/Name?Lynch,+David )
His adaptation was so far better that it's embarassing. He's a goddamn genius. (see eraserhead, wild at heart, blue velvet, or lost highway or reference)
And I think it's a testament to what a spectacular filmmaker David Lynch is that a movie he made 16 years ago is more believable and has beter special effects than a movie made today with all the digital tools available.
And worse than that, you're saying that this blonde kid's acting was better than Kyle MacLachlan? Please, please, please. The scene where he kills Jamis was so poorly built up, I didn't even care who won. It was extremely poor.
Let me repeat, D-a-v-i-d L-y-n-c-h. One of the greatest filmmakers to ever live. And you're trying to compare a tv mini series to his work?
</end rant>
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I watched the first hour or less of each night, and gave up in annoyance each time. Some of my gripes:
Cheap Effects- The title credits, where "Dune" breaks up into puzzle-piece chunks. Blowing away as individual sand particles would have looked much better. Or were they using hand-me-down Wintel desktops to do the renders?
- The opening shot of Arakeen (landscape view of a big fortress, Shield Wall in the background) was just a static matte. It was probably just an oil painting, and it showed. Definitely should have been a 3D panning shot instead.
- The worms somehow moved across the desert by magic. I only saw two scenes, each about a second long, that actually showed undulating segments to provide locomotion. The rest of the time they looked like fish lures being pulled forward by an invisible cord.
- Desert backgrounds behind characters in close-up invariably looked fake. Lighting angles were usually way off.
Bad StorytellingNo the voice kill thing was not in the book. Paul and Jessica taught the weirding way to the Fremen, which is a special way of fighting taught by the Bene Gesserit. What do people think of the way this was portrayed in the movie?
Tired of sitting at that karma cap? Start a flame war today! See just how low you can go!
Yes, my good friend, that is exactly why I plan on making a living by buying lotto tickets.
No, thanks. I'm trying to give them up.
Jeff
A bit more digging found this:
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
They're looking for ppl who are "Progressive. High Tech. Exciting. Futuristic. Cutting Edge" That sounds about right. Of course never having met Slashdot's fearless leader, I wouldn't know.
It only takes three seconds to pop his name into the form. Wouldn't you like to know you helped CmdrTaco complete "the ultimate goal of any human being"?
mcSey921
Free your source and the mass will follow.
About Paul, you wrote, "he looks like a crazy religious psycho to me."
I thought he played the part to perfection. For some reason, the religious fanatacism that Herbert was trying to get across never really struck me, but when I saw the character transform himself from "annoyed kid stuck when his dad got a job transfer to some hick town" to "atheist exploiting a legend" into "messianic fanatic", wow, I think he did an excellent job making the part and character come to life! Just seeing that him play that part causes Children of Dune and Dune Messiah to suddenly make sense.
I also thought they brought the character of Irulan out very well. Smart, scheming, flirtatious, playing all sides (including her father) against each other -- all of that was never made so clear as in this version.
Chani also came out better here. In the Lynch version, you hear the voice-over of Irulan saying "Paul's love for Chani grew." Five thin words to describe a torrid romance? At least she gave Paul a character he could love.
Feyd was also played very well. Condescending, smug, arrogant, haughty, he had it all and balanced it well. And at least the Baron wasn't given to perversions we couldn't understand in this version.
But there was also some really bad acting. William Hurt (the only "name" in the SciFi version) couldn't have inspired a troop of Cub Scouts with his lack of enthusiasm, much less lead a Great House.
The navigators were just stupid. "Hey, lets wave our hands mystically and dramatically when we get upset." Why? And what was with the melange of bad accents? It was like being at the Rennaisance Festival trying to figure out if any of these people had actually ever been to Britain.
And ugly? How about Stilgar? Paul should have just called him out and taken his middle-aged, balding, paunchy water. He looked more like a pointy-haired boss than a knife-fighting, water-starved, sietch-inspiring leader. I couldn't get past his appearance far enough to notice his acting.
The SciFi version did bring some fresh new perspectives to some of the characters. I found it more engrossing than the Lynch version, by far.
John
John
hellish planet = Salusa Secundus if memory serves me correctly.
I think....therefore I am
I reject your reality
I am not living in the US, so I have not been able to watch the mini-series, but I had a chance to have a look at the trailers on TV and it certainly looked quite yummy.
What I'd really want to know is whether the mini-series made the same huge mistake as in the movie. No, not the sound weapon thingies, I am talking about the major spoiler about the secret of the Guild being revealed within the first few minutes of the movie... The whole point of creating a Kwisatz Haderach is about being able to peek through a cluster of male thoughts hidden to the Bene Gesserit, which happen to be those of the Guild and contain their secret. This is the real key to understanding why domination of Arrakis is domination of the empire. The end of the first volume of Dune is the end of the Guild as a major power, much more than the end of the Corrino dynasty...
I was extremely unhappy when I saw this ugly squid-like monster in its cloud of spice 5 minutes or so into the movie...
So tell me... did they choose to spoil the story the very same way?
Isn't TBS the ones who made that made for tv movie about the computer virus that killed people?
After watching the Dune mini-series I can say that this was better than any other original Sci Fi Channel movie I've seen to date (and that's not saying much). At first I thought it was better than the 1984 movie. But on thinking it over it wasn't. And I didn't like the theatrical version either. I really hated the rain scene at the end. The mini series showed the digital sand morphing into digital grass at the end.
Baron Harkonnen never flew around. His immense bulk was merely bouyed up by suspensors. But he flew around in both versions. It's too bad when Alia pricked him with the gom jabbar he didn't pop or fly around the room like a balloon with the air rushing out. Oh wait he did do that.
The Sardaukar were portrayed as being worse shots than Star Wars Imperial Stormtroopers. Not only could they not hit the broad side of a sandworm they couldn't stop Fremen armed only with Crysknives. And don't get me started on the knives. The screenwriter had no respect for the novel Dune and if he did it didn't show in the mini-series. At least David Lynch did have respect for the novel.
I think the actor who played Stilgar deserves the 2000 Mannequin Skywalker Award for Wooden Acting. And what's up with his grey Smurf outfit at the end of the movie? For that matter what was up with Paul's Karate Kid Emporer outfit. Not to mention how stupid the vast majority of the costumes looked.
My vote for worst scene had to be when the Fremen killed Rabban. So they are stabbing this guy to death and this little kid makes off with his head. I guess they were so busy stabbing they didn't notice his head was missing. The kid runs up some stairs and holds Rabban's head up and the people stop stabbing the now headless corpse and look up and cheer.
If I remember correctly the glowglobes weren't basketball sized papier-mache lamps. I think they were about the size of a grapefruit.
I could go on but I won't. Yes a screen adaptation is going to be different than the original novel. It has to be. They are different mediums. Overall this adaptation sucked bigtime.
And finally here are the original titles of the Dune book series:- Dune
- Dune Messiah
- Children of Dune
- God Emperor of Dune
- Heretics of Dune
- Chapterhouse: Dune
- Dune: House Atreides
- Dune: House Harkonnen
I think if the Sci Fi Channel decides to do the entire series they should use the following titles:"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I did notice some of those problems.
I watched it all the way through, but somehow the way it was paced made it seem much longer than it really was. It was nice to have more than just the 1 hour of a TV show or the 2 hours of a feature film to explain all of the stuff, but somehow the combination of lack of music, theatrical staging, and iffy effects didn't keep things moving enough through the whole 6 hours.
Not that I could do better, though. Apparently adapting sci-fi classics for the screen is tougher than it looks. Still more watchable than the Lynch version, though.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The pronunciation differences were the results of British interpretation.
I don't understand why people would be so bugged by that, as there is no right answer.
Do the people of Dune speak the Queen's English or Webster's English?
Does it even matter?
Positives:
Negatives:
This was a great effort, and I'm glad that so many new people are being exposed to the series. Too bad I haven't heard plans to go the distance with the books - my personal favorite is Chapterhouse: DUNE, the final book in the series. Darwi Odrade is probably Herbert's best character in the series and the other characters (Teg, Murbella, Idaho, and Lucilla) are probably his best ensemble. *sigh*
Rock on.
No kidding -- I was halfway through that ad before it dawned on me that we weren't back in the program watching Paul have a vision.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
I think they mean original as in "we made this", as opposed to, say, "we bought the syndication rights to this".
I am convinced that the commercials were louder than the program. Did anyone else notice?
and i didn't ven watch
Adapting Dune is a nightmarish concept, a huge, sprawling, detailed mixture of metaphor, historical reference, psychology, and politics. The question is, do you feel its worth adapting and can you make the story transition to the adaption.
Well, as it is a classic, I felt it was worth trying to adapt it, if for nothing else but the challenge. If it went down in flames, then lesson learned, life goes on. The question is, how well did it transition to the screen? I'd say, pretty good. It was never going to be perfect (and we'll hear of this again when Lord of the Rings coms out). But I felt it suceeded on several levels.
- The basic story of a feudal culture in space, the making of a messiah, and the repercussions was told.
- The major elements of the story were kept in, and fortuntely (mostly) cabbagehead-level explanations were kept out.
- The actors, though not always perfect, did a good job, and I feel that the cast had fun making this.
- Liberties taken, in general, were done to help move things along and condense the book. (Some of the Irulian stuff bugged me, admittedly).
Success? Yes, I feel. Perfect? It was never going to be.In the end, I feel this success will open up media people to new ideas, to adaptions of classics, to more limitied but larger-scope series. It'll change the status quo, hopefully.
Dune itself did that when it came out. It's just doing it again in a different medium ;)
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I"ll second that motion. I don't know how the rights would work out, but I think that could be quite a series.
Of course, then there's the whole consistancy issue (I think just about every scifi series ever has had some of those), especially if the series was in the same universe as the books
Umm...the "sonic" technology was purely from the Lynch movie...didn't exist in the book at all. I've re-read the bastard 10 times looking for any reference to the "Weirding Way" as anything other than an extremely advanced method of close fighting technique. Seems to be a mix of superb martial arts training with bits of Bene Gesserit mental and physical self-control tossed in. Mix this with the inherent stamina and toughness of the Fremen and you have very powerful fighters.
As far as the "religious fanatic" statements, that's because the Fremen see Paul as a religious figure. He is the Mahdi, the Voice from the Outer World, the Savior, the One who will bring them Out of Darkness. If that ain't religious, I don't know what is.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Don't make me come over there.
Literally "Thou shalt not make a mind in the likeness of a man's".
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Give Gurney a break, he was tring to best Patrick Stewert back when he could actually act.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Watch the first 10 minutes of the movie, it mentions the rebellion against machines in the voice over.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
"Overall this was much more faithfull to the book than the Lynch movie (at least these still suits covered your whole body... yeah... we're going to march through terrible desert wearing a suit to reclaim our moisture and protect us from the desert... oh, and it doesn't cover our heads)."
Yeah, and while we're at it, lets make the still suits BLACK. In the desert, that'll work real well.
Lynch movie had some very nice artistic elements to it, but it fell down on quite a few 'reality oriented' points.
erp... thanks, I had to go look it up.. been about 6 years...
"This mini series is a blasphemy."
Isn't ironic that your comment should be about a work that is critical of religious hierarchies?
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
Feyd-Rautha was the best character in the miniseries.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
what's that mr. quacky? you hate the powerpuff girls too?
I kept thinking while watching this series that the art direction would work wonderfully for the Wheel of Time series. Paul looks like what I imagine Rand to look like, the Fremen like Aiel and with some minor modification the bene Gesirate could look like the Aes Sedai.
The "weirding way" refers to the Prana-Bindu training of the Bene Gesserit. This is basically an ultra-fine honing of the senses that allow one to discern what an opponent is going to do before he does it, because of the miniscule body launguance clues prior to the action. It also encompasses superhuman control over one's own body. In the book, the painbox scene is explained better than either of the screen adaptations: the mind's control over pain is what sets humans apart from animals. (Most wild animals will chew off a limb to escape from a manmade trap, so I never agreed with this theory -- though that's another discussion entirely.) The Voice, truthsaying, and prana-bindu are all part of BG training; but they are not synonymous.
You are absolutely correct.
:)
But that's not going to stop me from refusing to see the movie ET!
The SciFi channel (the Dune site is at Scifi.com/Dune) says they will be releasing the series on VHS on January 23rd, if I am not mistaken. They have already released the "behind-the-scenes" on DVD, so I am hoping they will also release the mini-series.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
Read the book, and pay attention in the early chapters that provide history and context.
The main personal handgun or long gun of the day is a sort of laser. These lasers interact explosively (on the order of a small fusion bomb) with personal force shields that are very common. Hence the shields preclude the use of the lasers except as a form of suicide bombing.
The shields completely stop fast moving projectiles like bullets and shrapnel but allow air and slow moving solid objects to penetrate. Hence the art of knife fighting is very important as hand-to-hand combat with a sharp, pointy object is about the only way to get past the shields without significant collateral damage. One main story point about Paul is that he is trained in this knife fighting technique by the best fighters of the time, and he ends up being very, very good at it. He teaches these skills to the Fremen, making them more deadly warriors than anyone else within the strictures mentioned above.
Finally, the whole story was set in a historical context which is hyper-influenced by the "Butlerian Jihad". This was a conflict which apparently affected the whole interstellar civilization. The basic premise of the Butlerian Jihad was to overthrow and exterminate mechanization of human talents and emphasize, glorify and enhance human abilities in the humans themselves. The Prime Directive of the Butlerian Jihad was something like, Make no machine which can usurp the authority or ability of humans. Associated with the hatred of machines was a passion for extending human abilities. Hence you get the human computer "mentats" (Thufir Hawat)), the political genius of the Bene Gesserit (Reverend Gaius Helene Mohiam), and the incredible fighters (Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halek). There was strong opposition to even exploring non-human methods of accomplishing just about anything, including fighting. The overwhelming emphasis on combat was for personal, hand-to-hand fighting of humans not seperated from each other by the hated machines. Major military forces generally had two classes of weapons: mass destruction with nuclear weapons and large, highly trained fighting forces. That was it, no subs or tanks or aircraft carriers. War was conducted either with great big bombs or hand-to-hand with almost no in-between.
These plot points are absolutely necessary to support the importance of Paul's training and the fighting abilities of the Fremen in relation to the similarly trained and constrained Sardaukar. Indeed, the main reason that the Emperor helped bring down Paul's father, Duke Leto, was that the Duke had come close to raising and training his own army that was as good as the Sardaukar. Paul succeeded in the Fremen where his father's efforts with his own army were cut short. All of that knife fighting was very, very important to the story. Don't just dismiss it as silly within our own military context of today.
Oh, hell yeah, Chani did have a nice rack!
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
"But the figures leaping from the worm backs were men, and the blades flashing in that omnious yellow light were a thing the Sardaukar had been trained to face. They threw themselves into combat. And it was msn to msn pn the plain of Arrakeen."
That is how the book describes that whole battle. Of course, it does talk of the storm and the sandworms coming in, with lightning in their mouths, but I found the whole thing to be anti-climatic. In fact, at one point I thought they were riding in on spice harvesters and not worms.
Also, part of the beginning of the attack was to take out the Emperor's thopters so they would not have air support.
I just wanna know why he had to tell Gunney a few times to blow the wall...very odd.
You've got to be kidding. That last battle was at best comical. Let me see if I can explain myself. (disclosure: I haven't read the book, I have seen both movies. Premise 1: The Fremen become masters of the weirding way. Premise 2: There are no military forces available to the Emperor that can use the weirding way. Premise 3: The Emperor employes the best soldiers available to him, as a standing army. Premise 4: The Emperor's army would naturally use the best weapons available to them. Premise 5: The weirding way only works if you've got a knife. Premise 6: The space ships are equipped with planetary bombardment weapons. Setting: flat ground with very few obstructions, maximum visibilty, no strategic advantage for either side and no strategic buildings. No buildings that can't be destroyed. On one side the emperors army, knowing that they're about to be attacked. Strategy: Fremen: The Fremen ride worms into the battlefield, jump off and stab the other guys. They don't use the worms to a tactical advantage. They don't use the weirding way to a tactical advantage. In fact they just don't use the weirding way at all. Bad guys: The Emperor's army doesn't shoot at the incoming Fremen, as the guns they've got only work in very close range (read sawed off shot guns), and they don't bother getting other guns. They don't call for air strikes against the Fremen or the worms. They don't force the evacuation of the Emperor. Basically they wait until the Fremen get close enough to bludgen with their gun stocks. Conclusion: I'm sorry but this is too all over the map and internally inconsistent for me. There are movies with "realistic" battles, (Saving Private Ryan), I don't think Dune succeeded at all. The way the cards were dealt in the movie, the emperor should have shredded the Fremen, the fact that he doesn't implies to me that there were constraints described in the book that were not depicted in the movie. It could have been a really cool battle, pitting guns against knives and the tactics and strategy that is employed by the Fremen to win.
What do people think of the way this was portrayed in the movie?
;)
I thought it was pretty cool, kinda like wires-3 on a street sam or something
Your Working Boy,
In the books, Herbert notes that lasers and shield technology don't mix. They tend to have an explosive interaction.
The whole knives vs. guns thing might have looked alot more plausible if the actors in the Fremen army had some martial arts skills (or acting skills for that matter ;)
The broadcasters do not turn up the volume during commercials. There are two things I can think of off hand that cause louder commercials.
The first thing is that the show is doing something different than the commercial. That is, the background music is subtle, and people may even be whispering, or having no sound at all. Then BAM! A guy is suddenly yelling at you to buy used cars.
The second thing is that commercials try to be as full as possible, and use any means they have. They use as much "bandwidth" on their recordings as possible - in other words, they take the loudest part of their commercials, and crank up the recording so that the peak level is the highest level they possibly can use. I do the same thing when I'm recording cassette tapes - I listen to the loudest part of the song first, and adjust the level to match the highest the tape is meant to hold.
So, in effect, they are turning up the volume - but the broadcaster isn't doing it, it's done by the ad agencies on the source tapes.
In other words, if you used a decibel meter, I'm sure commercials would be louder, overall, it's just not due to the guy at the TV/Radio station cranking up the output. Probably the peak level of the commercials would be equal to the peak level of the movie/show, but the commercials are giving it to you constantly while the movie only gets really loud at a certain few parts.
I also noticed, when I got my first stereo TV, that the only thing I got in stereo were commercials - so there's another factor. Old content recorded in mono, while advertisements, using all the features available to them, blasted in stereo. Advertisers use the whole box of tricks to make their ads go above and beyond everything else.
----------
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Moderators, get a freaking clue.
This is on-topic to it's parent. If it is offtopic, so is the parent.
Cute bits, but got old fast.
;)
I dunno, the Moby one was pretty cool IMHO.. He kinda looks a bit like an alien
Your Working Boy,
My impression of the miniseries was that, although they got many details wrong, they managed to capture the overall "feel" of the book, and the overall plot, extremely well.
/.ers will be posting these same criticisms) but here are a few of the details they got wrong:
This will no doubt be redundant (thousands and thousands of
- Baron Harkonnen was supposed to capture Thufir Hawat (the Atreides Mentat) and use him by persuading him that Jessica had been the traitor. Instead, Hawat seemed to die in the raid (I think?) This was IMO a good choice for a plotline to drop if you have to drop one at all, because Hawat didn't really play much role despite being in Harkonnen's employ.
- Irulan's role was, of course, all wrong, but I suspect that that was deliberate. It made it possible to explain a lot of events without having to resort to voiceovers or narration.
- No explanation of how the Fremen blew a hole in the shield wall (didn't they use the family atomics or something?)
- Too many more to count...
On the good side, though:
- They got Alia right - young, cute and *really* spooky.
- They got the ending right (... "history will call us wives"). It didn't rain!
- Many of the scenes looked *exactly* as I pictured them when reading the book - especially when Paul and Jessica first met the Fremen. Overall, the "atmosphere" was very good.
- Most of the important plotlines were preserved, even the seemingly minor ones. For example, Gurney's attack on Jessica, and the death of young Leto.
Overall, I was extremely impressed. It wasn't a perfect rendition of the book, and they took a few liberties with the storyline, but it worked really well overall and captured the *spirit* of the book.
I think this station got slashdotted [grin]. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Why don't the Fremen wear sunglasses?
--hongpong.com
Yeah, and while we're at it, lets make the still suits BLACK. In the desert, that'll work real well.
You realize the Fremen generally only go out at night (to conserve water and avoid being spotted), so the black stillsuit provides you a little extra warmth (from reflected energy off of moons and the like), and makes you harder to see (although with the lack of shadows on Arrakis, this is dubious). Also, Dune doesn't appear to be all that hot of planet, since nobody ever seems to break a sweat when out in the sun, not even those sweaty Harkonnens.
I read the internet for the articles.
Although after watching the first episode I was pretty happy and figured the mini-series would be ok. Then, Monday night I got home, got the tape out of the VCR went to my friends house and started to watch the second half. Now I'm pretty sure that a spinal tap with blunt lemon by an amazingly lethargic sloth would have been more fun then watching this second part. I cant begin to explain the utter crap that this episode consisted of, although I really liked the soft core porn edge it had =).
"You are only the sum of your thoughts."
I wanna see a story like Ringworld, but written by someone who is a decent writer. Maybe it's just me, though some of the amazon.com reviews agree with me, great story idea - terrible execution of it.
-Face Dancer (as opposed to Tleilaxu Master)
-Swordmaster of the Ginaz
-Imperial Bashar (or Caid)
-Fedaykin Death Commando
-Rigessian
-Laandsradd Noble (non-Harkonnen/Atreides/Corrino)
-CHOAM Director
-Chilling on Tupile (Where renegade houses go)
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Thanks to TiVo, I've only watched the first two hours of this.
I have to admit that I haven't read the book since before the '84 Lynch movie. I thought that the movie was awful. The atmosphere was all wrong, the internal dialogues were stupid and confusing, the story was too big for the time alotted.
OTOH, the mini-series (or at least the first 2 hours) was excellent. Paul was as Paul should have been. When the Bene Gesserit woman spoke to Paul, the voice effect was what was needed. All the things that I remembered imagining 20 years ago were *just* as I had remembered them.
I think too many people here were over influenced by the Lynch piece of crap. They wanted a rmake of that, not a filming of the book.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
If the Fremen were shown WITHOUT their stillsuits it is NOT a good adaptation.
So we are just to excuse all their goofs because its a made for tv mini-series and not a big production film.
At least the film got the uniforms right, hell the mini-series managed to botch hair colors!
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
:-)
"Mood?" "What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises - No matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting."
Sorry, just had to do it..
Oh, is that why Paul said "Shall we fight, cousin?" in the book at the beginning of the fight? Granted, this is still definately different than what the series did, but still.. Also, Paul did surprise him in the book as well, and it would have taken a lot more explanation to tell the audience why he said "I will not say it!"
Of course, was I the only one wondering how they were going to show Feyd getting caught on the floor? I think that would have been kinda silly to show correctly. And I'm not going to go into the rest of the fight..
CmdrTaco could walk up and give me a $1,000,000 and I wouldn't know who he is. C'mon - prove it! :)
:(
They used to have a real cool one with Jet Li where he split an atom.
Besides - didn't you see the ads for their movies coming up on sci-fi - I know what you did last summer, idle hands, etc... all recent cheesy horror wannabes.
Where's my friggin Dr. Who!
Are you absolutely SURE you don't want a picture of Queen Victoria?
- Have a picture
Don't dis the Powerpuff Girls, man. They rule.
- Have a picture
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Well, if you want to go the illegal route I have noticed that some kind souls put the mini series onto VCD format and posted it on the net (from the looks of the sizes, they cut out the commercials for ya too!). You may not have DSL or cable, but there's probably some VCD selling warez places out in the EU that do, and I'm sure they will sell the Dune mini series to anyone who wants it.
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
All clear, wail the sirens!
I prayed about it, and God said, "Don't do it!" But I thought, "I know better."
My wife, having not read the books, was completely lost, she was unable to follow many of the major transitions, I got repeated questions about terminology "who's shai halud", "what's the water of life", "what do they mean by changing the water", "what happens if the worm goes under while everyone is riding", etc. etc. ad nauseum. And understand that my wife is not by any sense of the word a moron. She's been able to understand the vast majority of Sci-fi's I've forced her to sit through (she's not really a sci-fi fan).
My primary problem with the mini-series is that the director and associates touted this as the "fans movie" that this would be a make up or redo for the '84 Lynch movie. Honestly there should be a lemon law for badly produced TV mini-series and made for TV movies. The problem happened when I went in with the expectation of getting one thing and in the end getting something completely different. If they had marketed this as "John Harrison's Dune - The Broadway Play" it would have gone over little better in so far as what people's expectations were going into it. But NO they marketed it as "Frank Herbert's DUNE" even though Frank's been dead for several years and they left out so many key elements that it seemed to be more like "John Harrison's interpretation of Brian Herbert's interpretation of Frank Herbert's Dune - THE PLAY". Sad sad sad.
I'm really tired of hearing people say "aw give em a break, a book can't translate completely as a movie" Why not? The argument is usually "it would be too long". BULL! People are more than willing to sit through hours of programming, set up their VCR's to tape them, wait for days for a plot to develop. Remember all of those 80's miniseries, Thornbirds, Shogun, the Civil war shows, Lonesome Dove. Why were they such big hits? Because they made characters that the audience was enthralled with, they developed relationships between the characters, they developed history and motivation for those characters, when someone died or got hurt you felt the pain and anguish or were saddened by the loss. This pale comparison of a miniseries had none of that.
I could excuse all of the glaring inaccuracies and inconsistencies if they had simply made characters that inspired me. I could deal with the bratty spoiled acting Paul, if his attitude had somehow effected those around him. I could look up to Gurney if his brief biography (about Leto rescuing him from slavery) had inspired me in any way. Personally none of the characters inspired me, they were all too one dimensional. Paul continued to portray the bratty misfit by the end of the movie with the only added trait being a sense of vileness brought to the character. These were all stage actors to me, people who would do well in plays on broadway or off, in whimsical Shakespearean productions, or grand musicals, but not in a sci-fi epic.
The casting just really seemed off, too young, too old, too heavy, too thin. And all the details to fill in plot devices were non-existent. EX: You have a society that lives on a planet that is completely covered by desert, they've gone to the trouble of cremating their dead and reclaiming their water, creating stilsuits that reclaim water from sweat, urine, and feces. This all gives the impression that they are super conservative about evaporation or loss of any water, right? Yet the first scenes you see are of a woman sloppily squeezing water into peasants cups in front of the main house. Peasants who although out in the open, in mid day, when the heat has got to be unbearable, are not wearing stilsuits and are loosely dressed lots of exposed skin (nothing like a true desert person would dress). Later you see the fremen living in pueblo like caverns openely exposed to the desert air, walking about without shirts or with open front tunics, no seals on doors, walking through the desert with ill fitted (loose) stilsuits and masks not conforming/sealing to the face, no worry of losing water, no consistency.
It's little details, small seemingly insignificant details that make a movie a 'good' movie. It's when every little detail of the movie builds on the last detail and in the end makes a the picture of what's happening all more clear. So many of the devices used should not have been because their was no need. IE Paul in the room with the Hunter Seeker, there was no need for either voice over or the maid to be in the room. The look and motion of the Seeker should have explained well enough it's intent (no need for a sinister looking slithering cgi, a simple cylinder with a needle on the end). The look and lack of motion from Paul would have suggested that it could detect only movement. This would have been reinforced when the Shadout Mapes entered the room (and the seeled door made a hiss) and the Seeker went toward her. Not everything need be explained in lurid detail as it unfolds. Allow people to use their imagination somewhat and it will be rewarded.
I could go on and on about the failings of this mini-series: The lack of character development (Yueh, Thufur, Piter, Raban, Mohiam, et al). The exclusion of characters (Jamis' wife and sons, children being taught the weirding way, any visual representation of the fedayken (they were mentioned several times, but never visually introduced). The poorly designed and filmed back drops (an oval sun/moon, showing as such because the camera angle relative to the back drop, poor shadowing, and the same three birds flying across in different directions every time a back drop is in the shoot). The reuse of extras in every single scene (people remember faces and no matter how you dress them people can still recognize).
To me it just appears that they tried to appease the fans by reversing the things that the DUNE movie supposedly did wrong. IE no voiceovers, no dark sets, brighter costumes, fill in missing scenes, etc. Well those 'fixes' can also be failures IE no explanation of an event or process, no distinction of geography/location, flamboyant (damn not even gay people dress like that) costuming (why is it that people in the future always seem to dress like something out of Rocky Horror Picture Show/Studio 54), missing scenes are in, wrong people speaking lines other scenes now missing, character development now out because of time constraints.
Oh well maybe in another 15 years someone will retry and get closer to what it should be, entertainment.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
While this is true, I recommend that you *NOT* read the rest of the series!!!! Yes, I know, the vision of paul summoning the three worms that scream in agony while grass covers the sand is weird. Yes, it did make sense if you have read some of the other books. No, it is not worth the pain and agony of reading the other books just to understand that scene. Read book one. Stop.
At least then you can live happily in the illusion that Dune is a good series and Frank Herbert is a good author. You really don't need to read on and learn what a crappy author he is, and how he is capable of taking a wonderful story [one of the best in scifi] and ruining it. DUNE is a series that you will enjoy less with each book you read, and your are better to stop after the first book.
The last two books which deal with the BG almost exclusively, I'll admit, would also be a good adaptation since they're getting hunted and lots of action can ensue.
Well, there's lots of Bene Tleilax and Ix stuff they can cover, as well as Miles Teg..
I'm just glad we'll get to see other adaptations as well...
Your Working Boy,
I partially agree that the Lynch version was better, not as far as telling the story, which the mini did better, but as far as setting the mood with visuals and the acting.
The movie gave a sense that living on the planet was absolute hell, whereas the series gave you the impression of having Luke Skywalker as a next dooor neighbor. Some of the CGI was great, others looked like some college film student made it.
And speaking of similarities with Star Wars, what was up with portraying Paul like some poor, naive orphan. Kyle Macgaulin(sp) acted like royalty. Some one who grew up in the atmosphere of politics and intrigue. Someone that had a pair. And after watching William Hurt's acting, I think that he is actually dead and they were actually using his corpse with wires to control it.
The only thing that really bugged me about the whole series was the costumes. What do I mean? Two words: Silly hats.
Someone Lynch a couple hundred million and let him make a film of the book, start to finish. I don't care how long it is, I'll go see it. Just give us an intermission or two.
In the business section of all things, CNN has a good article on the making of Dune.
You will find a number of insights into their decisions, plus a good rundown from Alec Newman's point of view.
You can find it here
Oh great...
I can see it now
5:00 pm Dukes of Hazzard
5:30 pm Star Trek TNG
6:30 pm Dukes of Hazzard
7:00 pm Star Trek TNG
etc...
SciFi is going down. Who could resist the "Dazy Dukes" in one and Counselor Troy in the other. *sigh*
In case it comes up, here is a quick rundown of my dislikes from the miniseries:
1. Overacting. Every member of the cast felt like someone pulled directly off the stage, not understanding that camera closeups allow for nuances of expression rather than gross exaggeration that is required when delivering a performance to people thirty meters away. Seeing the fremen portrayed as idiot savages turned my stomach. Skulking about in hooded capes in broad daylight like charactatures from an old black and white movie. BAH!
2. Poor adherence to the storyline/environment of the book. 'nuff said.
3. Weak character development. Every character appeared to be an oversimplified version of the character in the novel. Baron Harkonen should have had a black cowboy hat on and Luke..er..Paul should have had a lightsaber and a visible chip on his shoulder. He wasn't a messiah, he was an annoyingly shallow kid drunk on revenge.
4. Sad soundstages. The LOOKED like soundstages. I admit that they were operating on a finite budget, but less money could have been spent on the facade design and more on the functional design of the stages themselves. Once again, this is a TELEVISION production, not a damned play on a stage.
Basically it boils down to the fact that they had six hours to tell a story that was better done in the three hour director's cut of the Dune movie. It's sad, really.
Primalchrome
Let me start by saying that, while not a fanatic, I did like Dune, both the book and the movie. And I like the SciFi Channel version as well -- in spite of itself. Anybody else notice that the Muad'ib looked suspiciously like a big, grey-eared Pikachu? And apparently drinking the converted water of life turns you into a Solid Gold dancer. Ick. Much scene chewing, poor sets, hideously delivered dialogue...still a great story. My $.02 doesn't buy as much as it used to.
The last line of the movie was taken DIRECTLY from the book- Jessica making the point that although she and Chani were destined to be only concubines, history would remember them as wives. I thought that was a wonderful ending to the book, and I also thought it an appropriate ending to the movie.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
the whole breeding program is lost in the mini-series other than two refrences to the KH and the part where Paul says he's before his time.
if that was a mistake remains to be seen in the next mini-series.
I think the series turned out pretty well, although the ending was weak. Actually, I sort of liked the ending, but my wife asked, "What just happened?" There really was no closure. Of course, they wanted to leave it open for a sequel...
It appears that the Sci-Fi version is guilty only of using the "received" pronunciations from the Herbert estate. I've heard some selections from the Harper-Collins audiobook version of Dune in which Frank Herbert pronounces the words as in the miniseries.
This doesn't make the pronunciations any less wrong -- for example, "kwisatz haderach" should almost certainly be accented on "DErach" (= path, way), not the definite article "ha", and "fedaykin", a plural, should be accented on the last syllable, as with the Arabic "chamsin" or "mujaheddin". Of course, the stresses might have shifted in 10000+ years.
Disclaimer: damn it, Jim, I'm a computer scientist, not a linguist!
I guess I did not see the same movie you guys did, cause I have never been more disappointed in a movie than I was the Dune movie. Was there more then one movie made? Did I miss the good one?
I just posted something similar in another thread. Most of the movies they were talking about they are showing soon was things like Idle Hands, I know what you did..., Carrie II, and so on...crappy horror wannabes.
:( I'm home sick this week with bronchitis and it's the same shows over and over - old Star Trek (You...with the red shirt - die!), and a few series from the 90s that made it one season (space: above...) or shows that have a small sci-fi tie in (Sliders).
And the shows they have constantly are crap. I guess the good shows cost to much, and they are probably spending a lot on Farscape and a couple other (decent) original series.
I used to be all happy that I was finally getting sci-fi, until I tried to watch it
And then later you get the crap like "Crossing Over"
And like I said in my other post
Dammit---I want my Dr. Who!!!
I realize this is your opinion, but you do not speak for all Dune fans.
I could care less about the matte paintings or CGI. I could care less about the costumes, sets, and silly hats. You probably spent too much time making fun of and paying attention to those things to actually grasp what was going on.
What Dune, and I'm convinced, all great literature, especially sci-fi is about, is people. The miniseries brought this to the fore far more than the Lynch movie. The evolution of Paul, the love affair with Chani, the conflict with his mother, the political intrigue, the religious mania, the ecological message, it was all there. In short, the things that really mattered to me.
I know people who loved it, people who hated it, and people who could care less. Dune fans on all sides.
I noticed that on Sunday and Monday, there were NO ads for that stupid "Crossing Over with John Edwards" show. I only noticed because when the ad came on tuesday night, it really ticked me off. I don't know about anyone else, but those ads really bug me. They're on all the time, it seems. I did, however, enjoy the miniseries. Granted, there were definitely some parts that made me wish they'd done a better job, But its a made-for-TV movie, after all. Besides, the best theater is in the brain. Books are by far my entertainment medium of choice.
for those about to rock, make sure the runner of the chair isn't broken off.
Paul had his sons in the next book and not one of them was killed in the first.
Chani gave birth to a son and a daughter in Dune Messiah, Leto II and Ghanima. Their first son was killed during the raid on Sietch Tabr. (erm... might not have been Tabr, but I believe so.)
The emporer's daughter was created solely for this television adaption.
Shaddam IV had a daughter named Irulan. Yes, they took great liberties with her character in the TV adaptation, but she was not "created."
There were no weirding modules in the television mini as there should have been, nor did Paul use the weirding voice to crash the ship that was taking he and his mother over the desert! Key to the development of the character's awareness of his abilities!
....and all of these elements left out of the tv miniseries were complete bastardizations of the BOOK. "Weirding modules" et al, were figments of Lynch's imagination and had no basis in Herbert's writing.
Duncan did not rescue Paul and his mother from the deep desert.
RTFB.
They never attacked the Harkonans until Paul was Moadib and they had the weirding modules.
Again... RTFB
He DID NOT marry the fabricated emporer's daughter in the book! Complete garbage!
Ummmm.... well, at risk of sounding like a broken record... RTFB. Read The Fucking Book.
Oh, and the guy playing Gernie sucked a dead donkey's balls dry. He was horrible!
And after all that garbage, you finally say something true. Gurney Halleck was a badass warrior-- this one was a doughnut eater. Just like the doughnut eater who played Stilgar, another character who was a lean badass in the books.
David Lynch might be an impressive film maker, but I think it's fair to say the Dune movie he made butchered much of Herbert's great work. Lynch turned the story into his own unique style of story (which is very different from Herbert's). It might have been a good movie, but it lacked a great deal of the sophistication of the original story. I for one much prefered the mini-series, and that's probably partially because it's a medium that's better suited to the story.
;-) really can ehlp.
As far as the special effects go... well, there were somethings which were better in the movie, but I wouldn't attribute this at all to David Lynch. That's the special effects department (and what I know of David Lynch suggests he had little involvement with that), and it's proof positive that low-budget digital effects (as are required for TV mini-series) are not always a replacement for traditional high-budget special effects that are done in movies. Having a bigger budget (remember to adjust for 16 years of inflation
As for Kyle MacLachlan's work in the movie... I don't know. I thought Kyle just plain didn't GET the role. It could be he was limited by the script. Either way, I think this was not one of his better performances, and I think it is arguable that the guy in the mini-series did a better job.
sigs are a waste of space
I think that they're replaying all three parts in order this weekend. Check clicktv.com.
-- !todd erases a red dot! I steal music on the internet.
Sci-Fi Dune had its ups and downs. The biggest downs were the costumes. Half the costumes looked like they had been pulled right out of 70s and 80s Sci-Fi, making it very hard not to think I was watching Star Wars or BattleStar Galactica. Add the fact that the actor playing Paul Atreides bears a good resemblance to RoTJ era Mark Hammill, without the dated hairstyle, and you can see where a lot of the design influence was drawn from.
Other costumes in Dune were pretty weak, too. The Harkonnen costumes were all obviously drawn from fuedal Japan, but with a bright shiny look that took away the evil nature one would expect from the harkonnen. Add in that the Harkonnen were more often than not bathed in deep red light and they were looking more like victims of bad taste than the devilish men they could have been.
Better done was the imperial court. The victorian look of the emperor and his daughter went over reasonably well at time, although his decidedly 19th century office seemed a little ridiculous for a man in charge of the Universe.
Also lost was the dark, forboding sense that lead one to feel something epic was happening. Everything was so brightly lit and so beautiful that it underscored all of the hardship, evil, and opression that created a mighty crescendo that built to an explosive climax in the Lynch film. As much as Lynch did wrong, one thing he did right was bring in H.R. Giger to do design work, and it should have been done again here.
That said, I still enjoyed the movie. It went much deeper than the last one, filling in many gaps. It also made it clear that this is not just a "happily ever after" tale, and that there would be much more to the story of Dune. The acting was good, and it all made sense, without all of the little things here and there being cut to save time like the had in the Lynch film.
Now if only it would come out on DVD with no commercials!
Another thing I missed about the movie was the voiceovers. The book contained a lot of thoughts and bits of history/writings that are missed without the voiceovers. While Lynches wasn't totally accurate I still feel his was better. It had a better look, mood, and script/acting. Closer to what I get from the book than this was.
I remember there was a ban on "atomics" as they called them.
I agree with you. I enjoyed the mini-series much more than the movie. These guys saying that the movie was so much better have me thinking that two movies were made and I missed the good one. The movie I saw was the worst I had ever seen.
My vote for the worst FX goes to the (twice shown) kangaroo mouse ("muad'dib")
FREMEN: What name do you want? Your real name isn't good enough.
PAUL: What do you call that little creature?
FREMEN: Pikachu ?!?
Paul: as many have said, whiny, annoying - original movie Paul would have kicked his ass
Jessica: Ugh. In the movie, she was a badass - powerful, mystical, beautiful, dangerous. Miniseries version was really a dissappointment
Gurney: Movie version (Patrick Stewart) was *way* better. You *knew* this guy would hand you your balls on a plate if you crossed him. The training session early in the movie was *much* better presented. He too would have kicked the ass of the miniseries Gurney
Duke Leto: I normally like William Hurt, but I really didn't get much from him than he was just sort of sleeping through this. Movie version again more dramatic and convincing.
The Baron: Movie version blew this guy away - you know from the movie he's a perverted, sick, disgusting, horrific pig. Miniseries really watered this guy down to some overweight clown.
Overall the feel of the miniseries was too soap-opera-ish. As for the voice-over controversy, I think Lynch's version is better for them - makes it possible to express a lot more information needed to explain the facts without extra people and dialog shoved in to provide explanation. I'd also really like to know more about house Atreides "wierding way" - was this the "sound" weapons (which *rocked*) or the extremely fast moving (also looked cool but doubtfully enough to allow them to overthrow the emperor and his forces) - one more reason to get the damn books. Still enjoyed the miniseries, but recommend everyone go back and watch the movie again - it gets better with age
One can lead a child to knowledge but one CANNOT make him think. R.A.H.
Actually, he reminded me of a young Kevin Bacon...
-- !todd erases a red dot! I steal music on the internet.
I am a big Dune fan, and have read all the Dune books, so before anyone lays in on me to try and defend the mini-series, understand this: I know it could not be perfect, I did not expect perfection or even an absolute adherence to the book. I'm simply not that kind of fan. I really enjoyed the Directors cut of the original Dune movie (didn't think the theatrical release told the story well enough).
So, with that in mind, what I expected was a good telling of a great story, at the very least. Afterall, they had plenty of time to build the story up. Instead, I got a bad telling, by poorly cast actors, directed by someone who barely seemed to understand how to tell a story in an even midly interesting way. Frankly, unless you've read the book, I don't see how the mini-series could be even remotely interesting. Its almost as if the director worked long and hard to suck the life out of every scene in the series.
To say I was seriously disappointed with the series is an understatement. If I did not know what Dune was I would have changed the channel. And before anyone starts trying to defend it, I was not expecting perfection. I was expecting something dramatic - in the artistic sense. This adaption of Dune was almost lifeless!
I mean the final battle scene was so anti-climatic I half jokingly asked, "what just happened"? And the final climax with Paul killing Faed was also a yawner. Talk about sucking the life out of a fantastic story with poor casting, a lack of creative cinematography to capture the grandure of the Dune universe (although the space scenes were fairly impressive), weak CGI effects that caused my friends and I to heckle the scenes with an MST3Kish "fakey!" (you know, there is such a thing as filming someone besides a sound stage), lame costumes that looked totally out of place and so on.
I could go on and on, but at least the Directors cut of the original Dune movie, while imperfect and incomplete, was far truer to the heart and soul of the Dune story than this miniseries was. It had something the mini-series totally lacked: suspense. I'm not sure how the director of the mini-series pulled it off, but he managed to turn every suspensful or climactic part of the story into a boring overacted use of bad actors in totally inappropriate costumes (come on, what was with all the Japanese costumes!).
Frankly, as bad things go, the Mini-series ranks up there in the top ten. If MST were still being made, I could look forward to it being heckled and given a proper burial. Perhaps the SouthPark guys will give this stinker the ribbing it richly deserves.
Python
Python
Having read the books, seen the movie, and now the miniseries, I've been thinking about what it would take to "do Dune right".
First up, money. Lots of money. I know that SciFi was on a budget, but you need to shoot as much as you can "on location". Much of the movie and the mini were shot on sets with backdrops and matte paintings and folks, it shows. Either you spend the money to take the entire production crew to someplace with a lot of water and plant life for Caladan or you pay computer whizzes to create a moving, three-dimensional world in the background. You have no choice but to go on location for Arrakis; there are just too many scenes that take place in the desert to do on a stage or in front of a greenscreen. You also need Giedi Prime, Kaitain, good space shots, and so on.
You also need time. Lots of time. There's very little in the book which can be left out and still end up with a coherent story. What people do is no more important than why they do it. You have to take the time to explain the events of humanity's past that led to the Empire in 10,191 and its blend of CHOAM, the Great Houses, the Imperium itself, the Bene Gesserit, the Bene Tleilax, the Mentats, the Suk doctors, the Spacing Guild, and so forth. It's all an elaborate, intricate world and even the small parts contribute to the whole.
You need computer whizzes. Think of the dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park" and consider that a sandworm can really only be done in that way. Models, even fancy controlled-by-ten-puppeteers models, don't look alive. Think of the Guild Navigators in both the movie and the mini -- that's what a puppet gets you. Now think again of the T. Rex chasing the Jeep in "Jurassic Park" -- that's what computers get you.
You have to be able to show it without commercial interruption. You take for granted that people will "set it aside" for meal and bathroom breaks, just like they do with the book, but the magic of "Dune" is the mood, the spell it casts over those who are willing to sink into a world where giant worms reign over the deserts where a mind-altering spice is gathered by randomly-stepping warriors in search of a Messiah to lead them to...whatever. You don't capture that mood by breaking to sell high-availability servers or home fitness machines.
Finally, you have to love "Dune." Not just as a rich source of a Messianic story that will let you play with some FX people, but as Frank Herbert saw it: the world central to the universe at a time when humanity itself stood poised either to sink back into its animal origins or make a Great Leap Forward and become something so different that only a special few could even comprehend what might be. You have to be willing to discount the fact that people will say "Lynch did this better" or "Harrison did that better" and just find out how to get on screen what Herbert put on paper.
Where's our eccentric billionaire and "Dune"-lover to fund such a thing?
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
IIRC (having read Dune only once), but wasn't it revealed towards the end that the Sarduakar and the Fremen were related? In Lynch's movie this wasn't even hinted at... just a mention of Fremen fighting ability and ferocity when Aliyah was brought before the Emperor. The miniseries also glossed over this, with just Paul mentioning that if the "smuggler" was able to get past his bodyguards, he had to be Sarduakar.
but wouldn't that make 8?
3 (first book) + 5 (other five books) = 8
unless you count Brian's prequels...
Oh, wait, this had nothing to do with the intent of the post...
william hurt at no point screams out "duke". his low-key perfomance turned me off immediately. I thought that the ONLY reason he was in the movie was for name-reckognition. Seriously, he seemed more like a beaten down father than a powerful and stoic duke. It was like he was depressed and hoarse the entire movie!!
And the baron was bad, but not as bad as Lynch's Baron. Both seem to forget that the baron is a freaking bloodthirsty leader instead paiting him as (and ONLY as) a pederass. Oh well, still better than lynch's.
I thought Jessica was better than the movie, but not as strong as in the book.
i think that is funny how people can have such grossly opposite opinions from others. :)
I am honeslty suprised no one has posted about the dismissal (yet again) of the dinner scene between House Atreides and the various merchants of the planet.
This scene was by far my favorite in the entire book and served to identify Paul's magnified perception... even above Jessica's. It also was instrumental in hilighting the "plans within plans within plans" the book emphasized and the series (more so than the movie, even) failed to convey.
This was one area I think the movie was superior to the series, in that it showed more of the political schemings (the voice-overs worked, IMO) while the series ignored so much of it.
But anyways, I read the dinner scene over numerous times I enjoyed it so much... the series got my hopes up with the intro dinner scene but dashed them to pieces with Paul and the princess' botched scene.
Ah well.
Actually, yours sounds closer.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
You, my ignorant friend, need to read up on the history of me. My brother was killed as a baby, yes, but can't my father have more children later? Is it so inconcievable that he name his second son the same as his first? A son who dies so quickly doesn't do justice to the name Leto, so naturally my father wanted to give the name Leto a second chance. I think I gave him what he wanted. I did what my father could only dream of doing. He knew what he needed to do, but he frankly didn't have the stones for it.
Your God Emperor,
Leto Atreides II
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
From the CIA World Fact Book entry on the United Kingdon:
Country name:
conventional long form: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
conventional short form: United Kingdom
abbreviation: UK
Government type: constitutional monarchy
Then again, they probably don't have a clue about what they are talking about either, huh?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
The US Congress cannot alter the Constitution, because their authority flows from the document, rather than the reverse. INAL, but all English law, by contrast, is a creation of Parliament, and can be changed by Parliament.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Evan Reynolds evanthx@hotmail.com
Evan Reynolds evanthx@hotmail.com
Two peanuts crossed the street. One was assaulted.
I mean really, why didn't they use a REAL kangaroo mouse, I don't remember from the book the mouse being a foot tall. But even if they had to have a big mouse why didn't they use a wallaby or something? Or just use creative camera work to make the little mouse look bigger. Some things are best done without using computer generated characters.
Anyone get it up here in Canada? We have a Sci-Fi channel, but I don't recall seeing any ads for the Dune series.
Hopefully the series will come out on tape.
This
Well, if the miniseries was more true to the book, then i can come to only one conclusion: The book must have been mindnumbling boring!! Now, i don't mind actors talking, but there was very little of anything else. And it didn't help me understand things any better. All the 'extra' stuff seemed very pointless to me, and left me yawning. True to the book or not, the sci-fi version was boring!
I have read all of the Dune books, including the one Frank's son did to give more background on a lot of characters. This mini series is a blasphemy. The sets were cheap, a number of the characters used didn't have the right feel. It was horrible. The first movie is far and away the better, and should not have been redone unless it was a multi billion deal that would have stayed totaly true to the book and used better costumes/sets/actors/etc.
also salsa was never transformed into a paradise world, hence I beleave it was the 3rd book when the tigers were trained there, it was still a desert wasteland.
Anyone got any ideas how us poor sods living outside the US and don't have cable can watch dune. Sticking it up on the web is not an option. Most of us don't have DSL or cable modems (duh) either.
pronoblem
Jeez, do I sound enough like a Dune geek now? :-)
John
John
Has anyone noticed the overwhelming number of horror movies/shows that the Sci-Fi channel shows? I'm not trying to be a troll, but to point this out. I don't think the suits/production people at the Sci-Fi channel realize that there is a big difference between science fiction and horror. Many times when I turn on the sci-fi channel the shows have a lot of fiction but very little science at all.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
I read Dune (all 9 or 6 books in the trilogy, depending on how you see it) I thought I was the only one. But why are geeks (like myself) so attreacted to and enthrawled with this work? I've been wondering about that alot lately. Does anyone know why a bunch of bit pushers in so interested in a world with alot less technology? No 'computers' per se. No Internet. Why? Why? Why?
No, my main problem with the miniseries was with the acting. Among the main characters, very few actually seemed like they were thier character, like they had any passion at all. Paul seemed like a whining boy for most of the shows, Leto (William Hurt) was wooden as hell. The characters of Thufer and Yueh were nonexistant, just old guys in robes, and Gurney was the most passionless of all. I really got the feeling whenever Gurney was speaking (especially in part 3) that he was just reading from a cue card.
Now, I did enjoy the Baron most of the time, I thought he was what the Baron Harkonnen was supposed to be, evil, cunning, and a grand character. Feyd was good, Rabban was good.
My biggest problem with any characters in the miniseries were the guild representatives. What the hell were they doing with thier hands??? It seemed like the director couldn't think of any way to make them mysterious so he just said "weave your hands around and look mystical", standard head-humpie alien treatment that everything gets these days.
Overall, my rating is a W for "Whatever". I really don't care after watching all that, and don't think I could sit through another showing. Maybe I will just re-read the chronicles...
The actors used, especially the Baron was a HUGE dissappointment. Paul was hollow. Jessica was an amazed house wife Shaddam had to have been a soap star somewhere ...
William Hurt and the Actor that played Liet seemed to be the only ones that gave any depth (obvious with Hurt) to this at all. Irulan was not too bad, but was kept in a limited role ... which helped.
All in all .. at least avoiding the obvious liberties with the story ... I thought that they stuck with the story line pretty well .. more so on the second show. Added things in that the movie left out .. The Feyd fighter issue especially .. but then never really developed it.
on a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a 7.5 :)
All these things were dealt with in the book, and admittedly could have be clarified better in the movie.
On some other points: in the book as I recall the Fremen were able to use the worms for a more significant tactical advantage. However, the worms could not actually invade the place grounds, as they were built on rock. The emporer's men were indeed shooting at the incomming Fremen, but their weapons DO have limited range (because projectiles have to be slow enough to enter a shield). Additionally, the worms provide pretty good protection against ranged attacks. Even if air strikes WERE available to the defending troops, it's VERY hard to call an air strike on a quickly advancing set of troops.
I agree all of this could have been made more clear in the series, but it's tough to fit in all kinds of military strategizing into a fast action sequence on TV. If you want a clearer picture, read the book.
sigs are a waste of space
The funny thing is, CmdrTaco is probably more recognizable to the stereotypical "Sci-Fi" audience than most of the people in the commercials. The only one I recognized was Moby, and I even hate his music.
Hmm... I see cross-marketing potential here. Imagine Malda and Bates in some Matrix-esque synthetic environment battling evil first-posters and trolls. The camera fades as it zooms out to show them surrounded by old computers and junk food bags, laying on couches with wires coming out of their heads. Cut to a monitor with Mozilla running, and Slashdot loads with the top story "I am Sci-Fi; Posted by CmdrTaco and Hemos".
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
The first part though was so drawn out that I fell asleep after the first 30 minutes of it.
I missed the other two nights, real life was more important.
But, I would rather wait till it comes out on DVD will all the deleted scenes put back in and commercial free.
I still feel like I was missing a lot of information.. now I will have to go out and get the Dune books and read up on it so I can figure out what all is going on.
There was no director's cut. I assume you are talking of the "Alan Smithee" version, which is about as far from a directors cut as you can get, because the director pulled his name from it.
Some where in an appendix of the book, it explains that the sardakar are strong warriors because they come from the planet Salusa Secundu( sp?). The planet is so hostile that something like 70% of its inhabitants die before 12-15 ( if I remember correctly). They each could easily take on 10 regular house soldiers because of their backgrounds. However by the time of shaddam IV( sp?) they had become somewhat lazy and lax because of their belief that they were the best. Now the fremen also lived on Salusa Secundu for a few generations before migrating to Arrakis ( which is even more, if not the most hostile ) of planets. They were slaves ( or smugglers i think) on Salusa Secundu. So it takes the harshness of SS to create the sardakar, and the harshness of both SS and arakis to create the fremen. Add 80 years of horrible harkonnan ( sp? ) rule over the fremen and the slow break down of the sardakar to the mix as well. Hope that helps to explain? mike rondello
I agree whole-heartedly, although I have not read the book. From watching the series I got the impression of immense potential unrealized. All interesting metaphors and passionate moments were ruined by bad acting, bad special effects, and weak camera work. The costumes were interesting, though.
-Brian
--
if ($good != $safe) {
eval(++$risk);
&take_action(rand($decision));
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
All in all, I think it was a valiant effort. The effects could have been a bit better, though I thought that the costuming was interesting. I have to agree, though, that they would have been served well by extending it another episode or two in order to develop the characters more and slow down the pace of the plot. Many of the pivotal moments seemed very rushed and plot points were introduced too quickly to really get a good sense of why they were significant or what they meant. The pace really hurt several key elements like the betrayel of Yueh, which lacked any emotional 'punch' for me since the character had so little screen time and little to no interaction with the main characters. I barely knew which one was supposed to be Yueh. While there is much maligning of Lynch's version, I think this is something he did much better.
Eric Christian Berg
As far as juxtaposing ads go, I thought it was hilarious when they had that Brita ad with the waterfall in the middle of the second part!
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Did anyone else get the feeling that Paul felt like he was stumbling towards a take over of the empire? In the book, I felt his triumph over the empire was part of a grand plan, a great campaign. In the miniseries, it was like "Well I guess he wants to be emperor, so we better let him marry Irulan". Oh well, parts of it were good, parts of it sucked. To expect a fabulous miniseries that perfectly followed the book is ridiculous.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
The effects and machines didn't follow the book at all. The costumes made the characters look like they were in a circus side show. The acting was horrid. They tended to cut short the really interesting scenes like the battle for Arraken. The only good thing I have to say for it is that it did a better job of following the chain of events than the David Lynch version, but I'll take the Lynch version any day: at least there they had good acting, believable costumes, and ships and effects that were more true to the story and far more realistic.
While the depcitions of the Corrino household were ludicrous, the depictions of Geidi Prime were far cheaper looking than what Lynch put together.
The acting in this series was horrible, hopefully if they do further films, they'll get more competent talent, or at least in William Hurt's case, at least keep them interested enough to stay off of sedatives.
It's been a while since I read the books and after the disappointing finish of the miniseries last night I'll probably be reading it again soon, but I don't think Herbert ever wrote that the fremens' eyes glow in the dark... one of the most irksome things about both the Lynch version and the miniseries was the cheesy blue eye effect.
Am I the only person who thinks it would have been much more convincing if they had merely changed the eye color without adding luminescence? Glowing eyes are great for crappy horror movies, I guess, but they're a source of constant distraction in both versions of Dune.
I thought it was almost completely skipped. I saw the Lynch movie, but didn't read the book and assumed the "weirding way" was related to "the voice". I was not able to determine anyplace in the miniseries where they explained that this was a fighting style.
Similarly, when the bomb blew up the section of mountains, I had no idea where it came from and could only assume that it had something to do with the changed water of life and the pre-spice mass. I was confused about that until the end...
- StaticLimit
"Before I start...the mini-series was visually stunning. It was a real treat to see modern special effects applied to Herbert's classic. That said, I think that the agenda for making this movie must have gone something like this: " are you on some kind of mind altering drugs(not that I have anything against them), the visual effects were incredibly crappy, the only thing that made it good was the story, I enjoyed the series over all, I didnt like the changes, such as the birth of only leto II and not his sister. also, I was hopeing for a continuation onto the other books also but that may be hard without his sister or at least they will have to rewrite some of franks shit, (which I dont think they could do justice too).but back to the subject at hand the effects were crap, the backgrounds on soo many scenes looked like they were painted there, the worms looked like 80's cgi, nto to mention the muad-dib looked like a disney charector. over all the acting was ok, cept for I realy hated the guild reps and the emporor.
That was not a storm. One puny wave of sand, then it was over. Look up, and it was still sunny. It was supposed to be a monstrous level-5-hurricane of a storm.
since you saw that bit you must have watched it almost to the end.For the record, the attack started right before the 10pm commercials, and it's when I turned off the TV.
use of captured 'thoptors to maintain air superiority is not unreasonable,Except that the freaking storm was supposed to take care of that. Can't fly if the skies are full of sand and lightning. They replaced a smart element from the book with bad CGI airships. Why?
For many reasons such as; the ending scene. After the fight with Fayd, paul uses his voice and knocks him almost a foot into the floor! That's bad-ass! Secondly, the new series completly short-changed Paul's sister! She's quite a creepy character, and they didn't really show that as well as the movie did.
"You can't play with my yo-yo"
the 80's movie had great effects for its time. much like the original star wars trilogy(episodes 4-6) the special effects were way ahead of their time and still are pretty nice to watch today. the original movie left out many major elements of the book. The original movie DID however retain the mood and atmosphere and EPIC IMPORTANCE of the book. The harkonnen were horrifying, the fremen fearsome desert warriors, the baron a grotesque figure, feyd and raban ruthless punks. paul was a noble heir. Patrick stewart as gurney was amazing. even the mentants thufir and pieter were very distinct characters with depth and great lines and performances. the emperor shaddam was well doen and the guild and the navigators, a great example of good sci fi design and performances. the original movie made a great legacy and gave us strong images, lines, visuals to place to all the great characters of the book. the soundtrack by toto was appropriate and memorable. direction was solid. a great movie then and now. there was the dune games, particularly dune 2 the predecessor to all the real time strategy games you see now. the intermission scenes of dune 2000 held close to the movie and also had a very nice portrayal of ornithopters. these were even better than the sci fi channel mini series. now we go to the mini series. if i pointed out everything bad in this i would be writing for two days. the acting as many other posts have stated was worse than a high school kid faking a stomach ache. "i am the instrument, of his family's demise." WTF? was this baron a terrifying figure, or a shakespearean actor specializing in melodrama? feyd and paul were identical pretty boys more suitable for roles on "i know what you did last summer" or "dawson's creek" the harkonnen looked like firemen and idiots in leisure robes. dont get me started on sardaukar. the strongest troops in the universe? more like 18th century french court jesters. fremen looked like robin hood's merry men. why did the fremen get portrayed as a total ridiculous rabble of medieval peasants with middle eastern culture/chanting? and how can we believe that they overcome harkonnen and sardaukar troops after they jump off the sandworms and go toe-to-toe with their daggers? the movie was much more effective in making you believe the fremen were a power to be reckoned with. all the major characters were forgettable. gurney was not even half the actor patrick stewart was. sting made feyd a true warrior. this fool made feyd a teen pop idol. raban was nondescript. the emperor? whats with his shiny purple clothes? and chani, as stated in other posts, despite a huge chest, was a horrible actress and her hair was a huge ugly mess. i can keep going but lets wrap this up. major points:everyone had different accents. weres the continuity? why does lady jessica have a british accent and paul and leto not? and then just about everyone else is either french, eastern european, or some other painful accent? and whats with the mispronounciations?!?! its "harKOnen" theres an "O" in there! not harkinin. and the "call him out"?? chanting "call him out..call him out.." repeatedly reminded me of middle school brawls. "ill meet you at the bike racks after school." "ooh he called you out!" special effects nice. sets were nice. designs of ships and costumes were horrid. superimposing characters over backgrounds was horrid. music was forgettable and the slow "water of life" type music was stolen from the original movie. the mini series barely kept me awake. the bottom line:okay the mini series held true to more points in the book and had more detail. btu at the sacrifice of all else. the original movie was a much more solid and dynamic rendition of the classic sci fi novel. IMPORTANT NOTE:the movie MAY be even BETTER than the mini series COMPLETELY, because there is a longer 4 hour version that is very rare and hard to find. i KNOW it exists because i once caught a glimpse of it on the sci fi channel quite some time ago. it was much longer, had more scenes obviously and i recall the most notable difference was an old man's voice narrating instead of princess irulan. if anyone has seen this version please post comment.
It seemed to me that advertisers noticed as well, as I could have sworn there were more (and differant) ad's last night than there were on sunday night.
My wife didn't like it that much, because she hadn't read Dune. I think there could have been more background for those unfamiliar with what was going on. Overall I thought it rocked, with only minor annoyance at some of the cheesy background effects (some looked REALLY fake)
Gavin Fischer
It was my understanding that the ornithopters in DUNE were elegant bird-like flying machines. In the miniseries they were made to look like big grasshoppers. The lift was supposed to be generated by the flapping of the wings not fans underneath them. The Harkonnen ornithopters were far closer to what i had envisioned, the Artredies ones just looked plain stupid.
Someone mentioned that the total prpduction cost
was approx 20M. I timed the commericals and the
program segments (9min show + 4min commercial) and
it seems that there where only approx 4.15 hours
of show. If the commercials cost 10K per second I
think it was a very good return on investment.
Does anybody know with more accuracy the return
numbers?
I also would like to know when they will be playing them again, perhaps in order. I didn't catch all of part 1, and missed all of part 2.
Those who don't know me, probably shouldn't trust me. Those that do know me, DEFINITELY shouldn't trust me.
I don't think Lynch butchered Herbert's work, after all, Herbert was aware of the production and probably had some influence. I still think Lynch's work is pretty spectacular. I hear that he was considered for the role of director of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. I wonder how would those Ewoks have fared in a Lynch inspired filmscape?
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Having read Dune dozens of times, I don't think it can be put to screen properly (that is, doing full justice to the book) in less than 12 or so hours of screen time. It's just too dense, and that's what makes it so good. The richness of the characters and the universe Herbert creates are what have made me come back and read it again and again.
That being said, SciFi did a fairly good job and I did enjoy the series. Kudos.
-k
I got sci-fi just for sune. The day after the series ended. I promptly cancelled my subscription. Beer!
Ideally, I would like to see this dialing scheme:
Unfortunatelly, the CPUC seems to think that taking away 7 digit dialing is the greatest evil. There were four area code overlays planned in the bay area, for 408, 415, 650 and 510, and they were all cancelled. At least 408 is now in serious trouble of running out of phone numbers. They are conserving numbers now, but I fear that at some point they will resort to another split... btw, under the original overlay plan all calls would be 1+10 digits, so there still wouldn't be local/toll distinction.
I have no data to support this, but I suspect that there are such exchanges as 408-650 and 650-408 in use, which would prevent a switch to 10 digit dialing with a transition period. I think the only way for California to switch to 10 digit dialing is to
My biggest complaint with the movie was that you really need to have read the book to really understand the movie. Otherwise, large parts of it are just going to make no sense. Of course, I think someone has more of a chance of understanding this one than they do of understanding the David Lynch movie. Overall, though, it was pretty okay, but not great. Reasonably true to the book. I'm definately looking forward to seeing Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
In the movie, you see a battle with the Sardaukar, in which you get to see a 'slow-bullet' screw it's way through the shield and into a person's head.
In the series, Paul makes a point of saying "Fast on defense, slow on attack" as he slowly pushes his blade through Gurney's shield.
Missing these points means that the viewer wasn't paying attention.
As for Chani, she was definitelly a major character in the series - much more so than in the movie - and as such, was robbed of a well deserved introductory credit.
W.r.t. lack of technology.. This has always bothered my about Dune as a concept. Spacecraft, but no computers. Ornithopters and craft that will put you into orbit with willful avoidance of all but the simplest technology, just never really clicked for me. The movie and series don't need explanation - they are science Fiction after all, but the concept always bugged me. I accept it as part of Herbert's world, but I just find it unpleasant.
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
the hole wasn't blown by a pre-spice mass. It was blown by nukes (as clearly stated in Lynch and the book). Don't feel bad, the SF version didn't even HINT at this.
It's one of those situations where directors have to take liberties with the original work in order to translate it to a different medium. You need to be able to see the actors faces or, well, they won't be able to act, and the audience won't be able to tell them apart. This is why you see war movies where bomber crews never seem to wear their oxygen masks for more than five seconds at a time.
Lynch's stilsuits couldn't cover his actors heads or faces. Harrison's could, but he (wisely) let them spend a lot of time wandering around outside with their faces uncovered. Neither is realistic, but it needed to be done one way or the other.
I actually preferred Lynch's black, fetishistic suits. I know they weren't that way in the book, but they were much more visually striking on the screen. In a movie, little things like that matter. It may make some of the purists I see posting here unhappy, but they're always going to be unhappy. Frank Herbert didn't write a screenplay, he wrote a novel. When you adapt a novel to the screen, changes will be made, and not everyone will like them.
Likewise, I actually liked the glowing blue eyes Harrison used. Again, another liberty with the novel, but one that was used to good effect on the screen.
Come to think of it, I'm actually rather fond of both Lynch's and Harrison's versions. They each have their strong points. Lynch's movie clearly had better writing, better acting, and far better special effects. But Harrison's mini-series has the time to delve into the complexities of the novel that the movie did not.
But they both suffer from the same flaw: they're simply not very accessible to people who haven't read Herbert. Admittedly, I don't know if it's even possible to make it accessible without very drastic simplification. Or doing something heavy-handed, like that awful, cheesy introduction that was tacked on to the beginning of the the so-called mini-series that was made out of Lynch's footage a few years back.
But I had fun watching both. And a new director can come along and make a new version of Dune every five years as far as I'm concerned. I'll watch.
I really, really dislike David Lynch's work. Not just Dune, but all of it. Especially that horrible TV show, Twin Peaks.
He just does all this wierd stuff, and builds up this idea that something is going on, and then in the end there is no resolution, nothing is explained, and all the wierd stuff goes nowhere, and is just strange for strange's sake.
He's not a genius. He's a pretender.
Frank Herbet. Now there's a genius.
just my 2 cents.
Never read the books, but I wouldn't mind seeing the movie, now could someone direct me to a TV channel sending it in Norway, or the nearest *gasp* DivX site? :)
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
yes... here's an old review of it... published way before the shocking horror of the miniseries could comparatively elevate it to the near-perfection:
http://www.fremen.org/museum/docs/cinefan.html
i have. when i was in college and living in a crappy apartment with negative income and questionable hygiene.
they don't do it with a box hooked to your set anymore. for a month, i was asked to record what shows i watched (including channel flipping, if i watched any particular channel for more than 5 minutes). being uberbusy with classes and keeping an odd schedule, my responses were, at best, anomolous.
let's see. MASH reruns on cable from midnight to 1am. the news for 7 minutes the next morning. Cartoons all day saturday followed my godzilla movies that night. hmm.. how should i record scrambled playboy channel?
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
Two words: Silly hats
Agreed. Hi, we're Bene Gesserit and you can identify us by our white heart-shaped cowboy hats!
Or.. Hi, we're Sardaukar, and we can be identifed by our black pastry chef hats! (I'm not sure what they really were, actually).
Or.. Hi, I'm Feyd-Rautha, and you can identify me by this huge triangle I wear behind my head!
--- Where's my X.400 protocol decoder?
Yeah, there were some trailers on the CNN page, but they were poor quality.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
I think you should ask David Lynch what he thinks of his movie Dune. He seemed embarrassed by it when I last saw him discussing it.
:)
I heard that it has been the only movie that he didn't have creative control over (& the right to determine the final cut, etc.) The mish-mash that resulted mirrors the power structure(s) behind the creation of the film; there's an interesting book called "The Making of DUNE" which should be available in second-bookstores the world over, I know I've seen a few around
deus does not exist but if he does
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines int he hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." /human/ mind.' Have you studied the Mentat in your service?"
"'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind,'" quoted Paul.
"Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible," she said. "But what the O.C. Bible should've said is: 'Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a
Does anyone recall a book from the late 70's early 80's that had a title something like 'Atlas of Alien Anatomy'? It was a book that had artistic representation of creatures from several dozen science fiction novels that had never been realized on film or in a presentation like a comic. The art was fantastic and the descriptions of the creatures include dimensions, climate, nutritional requirements, religion, relative intelligence to humans etc... I loved this book, but lost it in a move. If anyone knows what I am talking about, post it here or email me. The Navigators in this book looked like some sort of 'aqua-people' with gills, blue skin and webbed hands. Not at all what I had imagined when I read Hebert's work. I liked John Harrison's interpretation of the Guild.
I did like Sting's performance in Lynch's film. Patrick Stewart as well.
pronoblem
I was disappointed by the David Lynch version in the mid-1980s, and thought that this was well done. The visuals were beautiful (though a few loq-quality matte shots could be seen), the score matched well and the costumes were superb. And it was shown in letterbox. This made the DirecTV subscription worthwhile. Somebody asked about the low audio, relative to the ads...an A/V guy in my office mentioned something about it being originally mixed in Dolby 8.1.
My only question: when will it be released on DVD?
My understanding is that Leto II when he makes the transformation is able to see what Paul had done to lock humanity in, and the risk of virtual human extinction from new machines from Ix. He then sets about trying to undo the damage. Paul had his own noble motivations for his actions he just couldn't see the consequences. Nobody except Leto II sees the danger from Ix.
In the TV miniseries they killed Leto the child, So where is the God emperor supposed to come from? I'm not sure if this happened in the book, it's been a while. Leto II was "II" because of Paul's father Leto.
In anycase there were substantial variations from the plot in the book. The Lynch film got a lot of scenes closer to the book than the miniseries but totally screwed up the big picture for example the travasty of rain at the end. But the miniseries was sailing close to the wind and almost lost the plot.
that's absolutely correct. I saw him in an interview and he says it's his worst movie. But come on. Of course it's not as good as the introspective/identity searching/mteaphorical/allegorical mind blowing stuff he does. It was written by somebody else. heh.
___________________________
http://www.hyperpoem.net
hyperpoem.net
rant
/rant
The only things Lynch got right were the production design and the casting. The movie was hopelessly confusing and where the heck did that whole "Weirding Module" thing come from???
And if you're going to let him get away with the Weirding Module, then why did Stilgar (when grabbed by an unarmed Jessica) say "Stand back, she knows the Weirding Way"????? How the heck did Fremen know about some TOP SECRET WEAPON presumably just by Jessica's smell???
I remember going to see that film on opening night and they were handing out terminolgy sheets.
When you have to tell the audience what something in the movie means, you've not done your job as a storyteller.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
I think you should ask David Lynch what he thinks of his movie Dune. He seemed embarrassed by it when I last saw him discussing it.
-Feyd was perfect. Foppish, cunning, and deadly all in the same breath. Bravo.
-Paul is a Bad Ass in the second and third installments. In the first episode he was a whiny Luke Sywalker character, but he is one of th main reasons the series got better as it went along.
-Chani (sp, it's been too long) is also a Bad Ass, and she is HOT. My kind of woman.
On another note:
-The Fremen "army" looks more like the rabble from the Life Of Brion than any kind of army. They are supposed to be deadly warriors, not kids with knives.
-The Sardaukar berets just serve to make them silly. It's an interesting style, but they have to look as potent and menacing as possible.
Overall, a great series. I can't wait until the next one comes out.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
or other countries for that matter
I just started the first chapter of the original book. I am still looking for a reasonable explanation instead of some weird supernatural power Paul(muad'ib) holds that make his men 10 times stronger and invicible.
Now down to acting:
Like some other posts have pointed out before me, Paul was a naturalborn leader. But instead in the mini-series, he looks like a crazy religious psycho to me. I can stand all other characters, but paul, man, I would go straight up and beat the crap out of the guy if i see him in real life. He is *That* annoying.
I didn't read the books and haven't tuned in for the series, yet. Can anyone give me the gist of the story, (history) of the story?
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
I agree. I was all excited when I saw the begining of that scene but it got cut short for some royal flirting. *sigh* What I did like, which was new, was the part where the sardarkar guards were nose to nose with the Gurney and his men. I liked it so much because symbolically, the Duke's men are the only ones at this time who could ever even think of standing up to the Sardarkar. Still, I digress. We only did get a glimpse of other political forces going with different agendas. Sadly, only a glimpse, tho.
The fact that three million people watched the sci-fi channel is pretty amazing, considering these guys can't seem to ever get their head and their neck wired straight- especially when it comes to original programming. Out of the viewing base, how many are actual fans of the book? How many have read the entire series? (hint to Lynch fans who've only read the first book- read the rest of the series and parts of the movie will make a LOT more sense!) Anyone notice that the TV version, in addition to commercials, has more per capita innacuracies than the initial CNN reports on the Florida elections?
Dune is too complicated and epic a story to give to a television budget and system of Producers. I personally feel that a director such as David Fincher would be best cut out to create an interesting, accurate version of Dune, or perhaps Dune: Messiah.
Let me explain two of the most annoying things in the movie set for me.
#1 - Camera angles on Geidi Prime.
This was just plain stupid. Every scene on Geidi Prime that included the Baron would be shot at some odd angle, and the camera would go swerving around. What is this? Bad-GuyCam? Is it supposed to contrast with the Baron floating about? These shots were moronic, and hopefully will be completely abandoned when they do the next series.
#2 The rhyming Baron.
Why? Why, oh why, was such an idiotic thing done? What they trying to insinuate? That rhyming is the indication of an evil villain? If I were 8 years old, I would still realize that this was tripe.
So, here are some of the things I learned from watching Sci Fi's Dune:
If the camera shooting the scene is swerving around a lot, then you are looking at Bad Guys.
If the last words said in a particular scene end in a rhyme, it was a Bad Guy that spoke them!
If a character starts a sentence with "As the ancients used to say..." or "There is an ancient saying" you can damn well bet your buttons that even though it's past the year 10,000, the characters are refering to sometime in or around the 20th century. Yes, out of 100 centuries.
In another 80 centuries or so, everyone will be required to wear a stupid hat.
Matte settings look real. No, really. They do.
:(
Stil
i don't have cable, so I am hoping it shows up at my local Hollywood video store. does anyone have any reason to believe that this will happen?
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
I just think that they could have been more faithful to the book than they were. I mean, they cut a lot of wonderful dialog from the book, but still made up things that weren't even in it. Voice overs revealing character's thoughts would have saved the entire series, telling things to the viewer and alleviating the need to make up plot devices to explain them. All in all, I think that the Lynch theatrical release was better than this miniseries. I'm not even sure what Sci-Fi was thinking. Did they think that no one watching had read the book? I can understand them dumbing it down a little or adding action to make it viewable, but all they did IMHO was hack up the story while tossing out the style. I give it a C+ for effort.
I really loved the book series, but if Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are going to be like this, I might just skip them.
"...heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
the sardaukar are the emperor's private stock of guards (like the crimson guard in star wars, but more exclusive) born and bred in a secret location to produce superior fighters.
the fremen are similar - born and raised in a harsh environment, taught to fight young, made tough by attrition.
it's the Kal-El syndrome: Krypton has higher gravity, thus, on earth, he is a Superman. Dune has a harsh environment, both physically and socially, thus those that survive are better suited to kicking ass.
what makes them tougher is that (a: they are on their home turf (b: they're not pampered (c: one word: Jihad.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
it wasn't 1/10th the epic that the movie was. Never was I excited or amazed, I was simply dissapointed.
Thanks for giving it away you big jerk. Now I have no reason to watch the sequel to the Sci-Fi miniseries in 2002. :P
[said with weirding way]... forget this last post. Moderators, mod this post up to 10-insightful.......
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"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Anyone else get really weirded out that Sun deployed what appeared to be a nuclear pulse-weapon against a boardroom full of incompetent technologists?
I was a little disappointed that they seemed to go out of their way to make Paul look and act like everyone's favorite whiner in the first two episodes. The third made me wonder if Luke could have been improved with a better haircut too...
Well, this is all fine and dandy but I wonder if this will make a difference. Will we start to see more sci-fi now? Will more actors be willing to join the fray? Will we see more books and articles about sci-fi? Will Time and Newsweek and other media drive up budgets?
(Note: I think Dune rocks, especially since it is sci-fi that doesn't have much computer technology. Almost zero! That is damn hard to pull off when you really start to think about it. Thinking of alternate technologies is a tough business... Rock on Dune!)
- John
John S. Rhodes
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Seeing Dune from start to finish gives me high hopes for the D&D movie. It couldn't be any worse of an adaptation than Dune was..
:)
Although I'm quite picky about the movie not sticking to the story, and not really giving much thought or depth to many of the "secondary" characters. Also I feel that being unable to see what is going on inside of Paul's head is what made him seem like an arrogant brat who discovered coccain half-way through the series..
And was it just me, or did the fremen seem like a clan of ninja assassins when they came riding in on the worms in their stillsuits?
All in all it was interesting to watch, but lacked the depth that I had hoped for.
No Patrick Stewart!
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
It has already been said about 4 times, but you have forgetten part of the story: Leto is Paul and Chani's first son and he is killed during a Sadurkar(sp) raid in the southern regions. In the next book Chani will give birth to twins Leto II and a girl whose name escapes me.
I was actually dissapointed during the movie because Paul's sister did not portray her sorrow at the death of her nephew that I remember her expressing in the book. Something along the lines of "If you kill me at least I will not have to tell my brother of his son's death."
Leto II from Dune is not the Leto II that becomes God Emporer of Dune. Chani and Paul's next son, part of the twin set, is the Leto II that we all know from following novels. My wife had to remind me of this, I totally forgot the early child that was killed. Had to look it up to see if she was really correct.
My only complaint, the horrible back ground and green-screen effects.
Chaswell
After night one, I was quite disapointed with the show, but nights two and three were quite a bit better. In all, the princess being introduced at the beginning and playing a part in the whole of the story rather than the very end helped to make the adaptation more streamlined for the new viewer, and I found that in many places, Irulan took the place of Count Fenring and Lady Fenring.
:)
Although I did not like the way Fenring character was placed as the Emperor's side kick and not as the deadly eunuch that he was, Irulan made sence as a political tool of her father. She included the sexual draw of the Lady Fenring in the book, but also was the political chreature that the Count was.
All in all, a very enjoyable adaptation of a great novel. I enjoyed the whole of the mini-series, but might be using liberal fast-forward durning the first two hours.
ahhh the heart plugs were COOL! in the director's cut the Baron kills a boy by yanking it out, clearly enjoying it and being very true to his character...
rain was ok, excessive but it made the point (this IS the ending... ain't it climatic?)
wierding modules were pretty cheezy... but kind of cool...
In the Dune mythos, "thinking machines", i.e. robots and computers, are either banned or regarded as an abomination. Neither screen adaptation mentioned this, as far as I can remember.
And why would they? I mean, do you go around every day saying out loud: "It is a good thing that we worship technology and use it - all hail the stealer of privacy, and let none forsake the god of technology for their petty self interests!"
No, it's just how you live. If you were to expound on it, it would have to be a voiceover of an historian, since it is not something you're that conscious of.
Shields - we had the training lessons in both adaptations, although I noticed a much lesser use of shields in combat during the SciFi adaptation.
Chani is one sexy babe!
Yeah, how come no bio or screen credits on intro for her? She had major screen time, and more than upheld her role. I think it's a "just a local actress" phenomenon, where they dis her just because she's not a Yank or a Brit.
Note that in the SciFi adaptation that Chani starts of not being appealing and becomes moreso as the series progresses - also the fact that Paul found the local working girls attractive during the banner-hanging scene so that we knew it wasn't his first infatuation. I found her role quite well done, even if it was a larger one in the Dune movie.
That said, I want to see the European cut - more Chani!
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
If it weren't for the different hair styles, I would not have been able to tell the difference between Paul Maud-dib and Fayhed. My guess is both actors read for the Paul role.
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I can live without the cute kids, but as for following the story, maybe a butcher job wouldn't be a bad idea. Ringworld is a neat idea with a lame story. As long as they keep the "neat idea" part, I'm happy.
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I've been looking forward to this adaptation of Dune for a really long time. I watched the trailers, i read about it, totally geeky. And just in time for the weekend my local cable company decides that's the ideal time to rip up the cables running to my area, and leave them ripped up until yesterday. Until Dune, I could watch tv. Of course, there was noting i wanted to watch. After Dune, I could watch tv. Of course there is nothing I want to watch. The only thing I've been interested in watching in months is Dune. Sigh. I hate comcast......
In the book, the Fenrings represent the ruthlessness of the BG breeding program. He is an "almost-Kwisatz Haderach, a genetic-eunuch and a killer." She seduces Feyd to save his genes for the program. This is lost in the miniseries, as far as I could tell.
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
I'm confused now. Did Dune take place on Arrakkis or in Whooville?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
If you've never seen them before, you can find them on their web site, in RealPlayer format. Follow the "I Am Sci Fi" link on the right.
My personal faves are Lara Croft losing at Pong and Moby remixing Close Encounters.
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
Was possibly my best use of a TiVo ever..
If your trying to justify one to your wife use the "no loud comercials waking up the kids" line.
easier,
I am Jack's HTTP Server
I found out recently that the series is supposed to be released on video Jan 23.
*Ahem*
Please allow me to add my thoughts to this most worthy subject. I'd like to start by pointing out that (and its so obvious I shouldn't have to write it but...) the different mediums everyone is comparing against is quite different and should be treated differently. A book is much different than a movie. A movie is much different than a miniseries for different reasons. (Where else can we see so many dang Sun commercials for starters!) In this respect one can only pay homage and/or differentiate where the need arises. Having said that I'd like to say to all the naysayers (And there are so many of you), learn what you are looking at and try not to impose your net of thought onto it. The first step in understanding is knowing that you do not know. My greatest joy in watching this series so far is not knowing what exactly to expect next. Lines which are changed from both the book and movie ("Tell me of the waters of your home world, Muad'Dib") to be more poingnant and lean are both necessary and elegent. Scenes which are changed for the medium such as the hunter-seeker scene, which was probably the most to-the-book scene from David Lynch's Dune, was changed to get rid of those blasted voice-over-thoughts. ( Side note: The voice overs was the NUMBER ONE COMPLAINT from the series so leaving it behind was more than necessary). Other scenes were added compared to the movie and then changed from the book to get the point across (Dinner scene for example). Yet others where so to the book, it was beautiful (Jamis' fight and funeral). And still, yet other scenes where omitted due to their lack of addition to the plot point due to such a short amount of time. Witness that the first movie drastically cut down the scenes where Thufir is being manipulated by the Baron Harkonen and that the mini-series doesn't include it whatsoever as if they did it on cue. With all these points in mind, all in all what we are witnessing is probably most of what we can expect from a visual adaptation of dune.
The watermark by which you can identify a visual book interpreatation is how much you have invested yourself into what you are seeing and how much you can understand. If it gets the point across and you're on the edge of your seat, even if you haven't read the book, then they've succeeded. So now the question is, what is the main point of the book? And since the Sci-Fi Channel is going to the next two books, what is the main point of the series?
Well there are two points really. First theres the bigee...The Fallacy of the Messiah... The archetype of so many stories of our religions/myths and of course the cause of so many deaths of our people in his name. Paul doesn't want this but has no choice and the universe pays the price. The Bene Gesserit prepares DUNE with this classic myth and everyone falls hook line and sinker, including Paul.
Secondly, on the science fiction aspect, the whole book series can't get off the fact that a Kwisatz Haderach can "see" into the future. Later on, everyone is so scared that another KH will come along and lock them into a present where nothing is new. In other words, seeing into the future makes the present into the past and locks them forever out of the unknowable present such as the one we enjoy today where anything can and does happen. His son, Leto II, was the only one who could bring them out of what Paul Muad'Dib did to them. And if the Sci-Fi Channel is going to do the next two books, they MUST at least do God Emperor Dune which in my opinion is the most interesting and rewarding of all the books. The last two books which deal with the BG almost exclusively, I'll admit, would also be a good adaptation since they're getting hunted and lots of action can ensue.
Having said all that, I have only one gripe... an inconsistent use of the pre/post commercial "DUNE" screen. Some people are trying to tape these as best they can you know!
Duke Leto
I think that Lynch got the idea from near the end of the book. Paul, with his mightah powah over the Voice, manages to seriously screw with a Bene Gesserit. The applicaple passage: :)
>>
"Silence!" Paul roared. The word seemed to take substance as it twisted through the air between them under Paul's control.
The old woman reeled back into the arms of those behind her, face blank with shock at the power with which he had seized her psyche. "Jessica," she whispered. "Jessica."
"I remember your gom jabbar," Paul said. "You remember mine. I can kill you with a word."
The Fremen around the hall glanced knowingly at each other. Did the legend not say: "And his word shall carry death eternal to those who stand against righteousness."
<<
I think Lynch just got a little too creative with this
Though it has been about 15 or 16 years since I read Dune, I came away from the mini-series thinking that they didn't utilize their time to explain some of the aspects of the Dune Universe. I'm sure many were left scratching their heads wondering about some of the terms.
I can say, though, that the mini-series did portray the politics of the novel very well and it is the politics of Dune that make it a 20th century masterpiece. Dune's palatial intrigue would give dynastic China a run for its money any day.
I'm wondering if the second installment won't get a relatively frigid reception from the viewers. A couple of reasons. First, would be my perception of the readership of the follow up books. I honestly don't think a lot of people have read the other books in the series. Second, the newness will have worn off. I couldn't wait to get more info from SciFi when they announced they were making a dune miniseries. The announcement of a second one, now that I have the first, doesn't make me feel quite as psyched.
I really want to see all of 'em made, but if the second installment flops badly I can't imagine that SciFi would continue to throw money down the toilet.
I'm normally a nitpicker, one of those awful people to watch TV/movies with, as I have ready criticism for any and everything wrong or awkward. In contrast to most of my friends, I go in assuming that the show/movie will insult my intelligence and be awful. I expected the same of this series, especially after absolutely loathing the David Lynch version, and having felt for some time now that Dune was really unfilmable. This version of Dune succeeded in creating such an ambience of Arrakis that my complaints seemed small by comparison. There were definitely glaring differences between the SciFi version and the actual text, but I think they captured the feel of the work.
This is good news for the SciFi channel, however, because they will have something with which to draw better advertising and won't have to rely on small channel mainstays like exercise machines and "revolutionary" bedding. Sequels may have better adverts.
I heard on Sci-Fi last night that they are going to show the entire series, start to finish, in one day, again this coming Sunday.
.. You know how they are .. they play everything at least 20 times ;)
Come, on
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Doesn't anyone find it odd that the importance of spice was so simply stated? I think this is what causes confusion in the movie/mini-series with people who haven't read the book. In both the movie and mini-series, it's simply taken for granted that spice is important, yet it's not explained to its fullest. The movie did a much better job with it, but it was still lacking, IMHO.
This is necessary...life, feeds on life...
I seem to recall the spice being described as tasting cinnamon like. So this is accurate as far as i know...
True, this atrocity shitting out of the TV screen could make an episode of the Powerpuff Girls look like Shakespear. I didn't realize unitl after prolonged discussion with my office manager about the miniseries just how good the original Lynch theatrical cut really was... the best proof is the differences in the theatrical (Lynch) and "director's cut" (Allen Smithee)- the latter sucking horribly.
Lynch managed to cast the film quite well and do some amazing things with the effects of the time- I'm not going to justify the damnedm ini series because "they got the eyes right" at the expense of everything else. The man also managed to pull of something interesting that proved he'd done the reading (where it seems with the miniseries that the screenwriter was read the book as a bedtime story and was going from memory)- the addition of the automated warrior systems (such as the thing Paul fought on Calladan)... which didn't appear until long after the first book.
Amongst other issues with the Dune series, I took particular note of the balliset played by Gurney. As some of you will notice my nick is Lute which is the physical device actually used on screen by the actor.
The prop was a Renaissance Lute of either 6, 7, 8, or 10 courses. It was missing the frets for the top one third of the neck. Though I assume this is an attempt to make it resemble the ancestral Arabian instrument from which the Lute is derived: al'oud. ("the tree" in Arabic)
The actual musical soundtrack was an 'oud and not the lute.
I would expect that 10,000 years of civilization would produce an instrument more futuristic for the balliset. But I can't complain too much that my favorite instrument got some screen time!
P.S. You all should try to tune one of those things when the strings are made of gut!
P.P.S. For inquiring minds: the lute was the piano of its day roughly 1440 in Italy through 1625 in England as the Renaissance period progressed across Europe. It evolved in to the Baroque Lute with many additional strings. Subsequently the guitar came into vogue because of the fewer strings: it was easier to learn and play.
The 'oud came across the Med with the Moors and their Spanish invasion.
Yes, I also remember the bluish humanoid-fish quality of the Guild Steersman. The book has lots of other great renditions of sci fi aliens. I still have my copy.
I am sure that Barnes&Noble can get a copy of the bok or else try Half-Price books or one of your local resellers.
The series played the Guild Steersman closer to that Atlas' rendition, but I did not see the spice environment hat they need to live in now that they have changed into Steersman. The Lynch movie gave more of a feel for the Guild's living conditions.
It sort of takes all the fun out of it if you just characterize all the technology as devices to support the plot of the story. Poor Frank Herbert, can you imagine what a mess he had on his hands as the stories progressed trying to maintain the consistency of the technology?
I think the Holzmann field in particular is used mainly as a plot-enabler, since many of its characteristics are the underlying cause of the way things are in Dune. The knife-fighting is a good example...how else could it be justified? On the other hand, it seems incomprehensible to me that anyone would live in a world where anyone with a laser pointer could blow up a (shielded) government building or VIP with the force of an atomic bomb! But without it there is no interstellar space travel, knife fighting, floating glow globes or flying Harkonnens!
I do like the idea of wing-flapping ornithopters for the same reason that I like the knife fighting...it brings back the element of skill to flying. Probably just another plot device though.
Overall I think the technology is much more interesting than Star Trek's transporter, another blatant plot device.
Personally, I like keeping technology to a minimum in my humble apartment. I deal with it all day. Why do I need to have that computerised toaster that I can check my emial with?
Is that because a computerized toaster...
A. adds no value to the job of making toast
B. becomes less reliable than Grandma's toaster
C. reminds you too much of work
Or possibly all of the above? I have to agree with you, nothing irritates me more than having tech problems at home after fixing them for other people all-the-live-long-day at work.
I'm not parting with Grandma's toaster because it makes perfect toast every time, and I don't even want to think about email until after the toast and coffee consumption is complete.
Are you talking about the miniseries (the 4 "movies" with Eva Habermann) or the regular series (being in Europe and thus having no access to SciFi)?
I only know the miniseries... and it rocks *g* it's one of the funniest SF parodies I've ever seen.
-- KDE programmer and computer science student in Klagenfurt, Austria.
The idea of a stillsuit won't work anyway, so I can't complain too much about the Lynch movie's botching of Herbert's concept. (Consider: a stillsuit reclaims water by recondensation of perspiration. Perspiration allows a man to keep cool in the hot desert sun by carrying off all that heat in the vaporization of the water. When you recondense the water, it has to yield up all that heat. Therefore, a man wearing a stillsuit would not be cooled off, and would cook in the sun.) hyacinthus.
This is either good or bad writing depending on how you look at it. Either this is a message of hope for humanity in an increasingly technological present because Herbert's far-future puts humanity at it's center, or it's nothing more than one in a long list of devices needed to hold the story together and make it work.
Herbert's intergalactic empire sees the return of Feudalism, clannish, secretive guilds, brutality and chattel slavery as institutions (those women bathing Feyd and the dead boy with the surgically emplanted poisoned needle found by the baron were NOT wage-earners and Lady Jessica herself was a '"bound concubine") and these are things that bring Dune closer to pulp genres than most of the people who really like the books tend to advertise.
The technological view in Dune is driven more by plot and awe (as in, 'ghee-whiz that's cool') than high-tech accuracy (as in, 'I think we could build that if that if we had stronger metals.'). Ornithopters with flapping wings are silly if you can negate the force of gravity as even tiny machines do in Dune.
Lots of the technological items in Dune are there to support plot- and scene-devices. The reason that people fought with knives in Dune is not because of complex sociological needs but because of a shield effect that wears a lot of hats when it comes to making things work in the story.
The Holtzmann-someone-or-other shield effect in Dune stopped masses travelling above a threshhold velocity, making ordinary projectile weapons useless and making knife-fighting with a slow final attack the only way of coming to grips with an enemy. The same device (pun intended) also caused energy weapons to be avoided because firing a laser at a shield caused an energy release equivalent to an atomic explosion, and, just to keep things dangerous in the desert, the same shield effect was said to attract sandworms and drive them into a killing frenzy.
Herbert uses a lot of technology in Dune, but all of it is subordinate to Herbert's need to tell the story.To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
I want to see a Ringworld mini-series!
Screw this literature type crap, I want to see Puppeteers, flashlight lasers, and general products hulls!
TANJ!
Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.
I always laugh when I hear how many people watch a show. Assumedly, they get this information from the Neilson ratings. There's no way they can really tell how many people tune into a particular show. For all they know, X number of the Neilson Family are watching one show, and the rest of the country is watching Simpson's reruns.
The Neilson Ratings are just another statistics, and we all know how useful statistics are.
like i mentioned in my lengthy post, the dune 2000 PC game had better movie clips than the entire mini series. the ornithopters in the game are very close to what you are describing and the wings DO flap.
The miniseries was kind of like reading the Cliffs Notes of Dune, as has been pointed out on past threads on this subject. It was just a (more-or-less) literal retelling of the events of the book. No internal dialogue, no psychological struggle, no suspense of any kind. Ugh.
I mean, do we really need to see what the "place-that-we-cannot-look" looks like? Although there are many problems with the Lynch retelling, I think he managed to capture the tone, feeling, and drama of the book very well.
Can your IM do this?
If it had been done on a stage, I would say it had been a great job, given the constraints placed on a play's resources. But for a movie, even a made for television movie, I thought it was crap. I've seen more convincing acting from schoolboys trying to fake a stomachache. The set design was ridiculously cheap--I can't count how many backgrounds were obviously backdrops. And don't even get me started on the costumes. They lent little in the way of character credibility.
As for the plot itself, it was closer to the book in a lot of areas than was the original movie, but there were two things that REALLY bugged me about it. First of all, the changes they made to the plot did NOTHING to contribute to the feeling one was supposed to get from the book. For instance, Leto was supposed to be the benevolent one, the ruler who would change things, which was one of the reasons for him stopping the dinner ritual in which the splashings would be given to the poor outside the mansion (or whatever you called their house... a palace, maybe?). In the movie, Jessica does this, but it doesn't do anything to help her character development. In the book, Jessica's loyalty is to her family--not the bene gesserit, not the Fremen, but her family. Most of her actions in the movie are consistent with that. but the drippings ritual bit does nothing to further that view; in fact, it conflicts with it. Another example is the elimination of Paul's clan name, Usul. There were a lot of these little instances that bugged the hell out of me.
The second thing was that the directors had an annoying habit of introducing some plot element--the explosive nature of a pre-spice mass, for instance--with an offhand comment that wasn't explained for half an hour or more. When Liet/Kynes died in the movie, all he said was "a pre-spice mass", like we're supposed to know what that means. (of course we all did, but that's beside the point--we read the book.) You can tell its explosive from the ensuing explosion, but theres no explanation of why its explosive, or even what a pre-spice mass is. A better example might be paul's order to put the water of life over a pre-spice mass--we're left wondering what the hell is going on. A good writer (Frank Herbert, for instance) would have explained it at the time or at some point beforehand.
enough. I won't watch it again. I'm certainly not looking forward to them butchering Children Of Dune.
The Atreides family is sent by the Emperor of the Galaxy to Arrakis (Dune) to wrestle the spice production away from the evil Harkonnens. Spice is pretty much what crude oil is today. Paul Atreides befriends the Fremen, the Dune natives. The Fremen recognize Paul as their spiritual leader, and name him Muadib. They agree to mine spice for him, and he leads them into battle against the Harkonnens. And that's where the film ends.
Does my bum look big in this?
If they put their efforts into staying true to the story, and including as much as possible, then they could have a cult/underground hit.
I guess they want their money right away, which means they need lots of people watching. If they instead put out a quality film, it would last longer, and over time actually make more money for them.
Not that I expect this to happen, but wouldn't that be cool for Dune, or any other quality book?
Those who don't know me, probably shouldn't trust me. Those that do know me, DEFINITELY shouldn't trust me.
Thanks for noticing. I will send an e-mail, but I have to do so on my personal account and not thru the work account
.It may be later today, but most likely on the weekend.
Say, the pronoblem site looks quite impressive: the beowolf cluster and the AI research. I would love to hear about the AI research
I actually have only one oud' recording worth mentioning, but others related.
pronoblem
Explanation 1: There is no 'weirding way' in the book. That was totally invented by Lynch for box office profit. Explanation 2: N/A Explanation 3: The Saudakar(sp) are not better fighters than the Fremen hand-to-hand. The Saudakar were trained on a harsh planet called Salusa Secundus, which was destroyed in a nuclear attack. The Saudakar are 75% ex-prisoners. The Fremen live in a MORE harsh environment that Salusa. The book explains very carefully that a single Fremen can take down as many as 3 Saudakar. Explanation 4: The best weapon available to them is the lasgun. However you don't know, because you didn't read the book, that lasguns and personal shields react with each other to create a large sub-nuclear explosion. Lasguns are ONLY used in places where shields are not. Maybe you remember that scene in the mini series where that CGI clear-blanket envelops that building outside Arrakeen. That was a shield. Explanation 5: see explanation 1 Explanation 6: The space ships are equipped with planetary bombardment weapons. However, due to complicated Landstraad/CHOAM/Guild/Emperor political elements that the series didn't bother to bring up, planetary bombardment from space is a violation of Kanly. One of the most important values in the Dune universe is adherence to the 'forms'. The forms MUST be obeyed. Setting: Arrakeen is built on a rock slab, it is surrounded by rocks on most sides. And you are right about the worms. They did eat a bunch of Saudakar and Harkonnen in the book. And I already mentioned that there is no such thing as the 'weirding way'. The term was used in the book, but it was in reference to Voice, an ability the Bene Gesserit use to manipulate people aurally. The Saudakar do shoot at the oncoming Fremen, but worms don't give two shits about lasgun fire. It burns them a little bit, but they heal just as quickly. This is known because Leto II is shot a few times with one in God Emperor of Dune and Children of Dune. Lasguns are not close-range weapons, though. Quite the contrary. There could be no airstrike, because there was SUPPOSED to be a storm going on, and all thopters were SUPPOSED to be grounded. That scene that showed Fremen thopters flying in the storm made me do a double take. Nobody can force the evacuation of the Emperor. Come on, he is the Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe. Are YOU going to take him somewhere he doesn't want to go? They didn't know that their Saudakar were weaker than the Fremen. That is why there was no evacuation. You don't seem to get that hand-to-hand fighting is the standard in the time of Dune. You can't compare it to a movie like Saving Private Ryan because there are very few projectile weapons in 10,19* (the years Dune takes place in). The only projectile weapon I can think of off the top of my head is the maula pistol. I think that was those crossbow things the Fremen had in the miniseries. I thought the book described them a little differently myself... As well, you assume the Saudakar had many advantages they didn't really have. I strongly urge you to read the book, because it WILL add a new dimension to the plot you don't see yet.
I don't remember the ships being described by Mr. Herbert in the books, and can only wonder at the remarkable resemblence between the SciFi version ships and the David Lynch version ships.
I found just too many striking similarities between the two versions to make this version stand out. I was grateful for the lack of voice-over thoughts (a la Lynch), but was disappointed that many of those thoughts weren't then exposed through dialog or action.
Oh, well, all bitching aside, it was good enough to keep me up way too late finishing the series last night. :-)
John
John
Yes, Herbert repeatedly described the cinnamon smell/taste qualities of Melange in all the books in the series. But... I got another one for you:
Melange is described repeatedly as SMELLING and TASTING like cinnamon, but it was NEVER ONCE in the books described as LOOKing like cinnamon. (Not including the two stupid prequels that are FULL of plot holes and mistakes anyway) Furthermore, for those of us who have read God Emperor, please tell me if you remember this: When Leto takes Moneo to one of his spice caches, isn't Melange described as being *whispers* blue ??? Let me quote:
"The place had filled Moneo with awe. Great bins of melange lay all around in a gigantic room cut from native rock and illuminated by glowglobes of an ancient design with arabesques of metal scrollwork upon them. The spice had glowed radiant blue in the dim silver light. And the smell-bitter cinnamon, unmistakable."
Both the Lynch movie and the mini series like to make Melange look orange, but I thought the fact that it was blue was the explanation for the Ibad eyes and the ease of spotting a spice patch in the open desert. Just goes to show how much research both the movie writers and the series consultants bothered to do....
What are these "I am Sci-Fi" ads? So sort of Sci-Fi channel clone of the successful Molson beer ads? I don't see them on adcritic.com.
Totally offtopic... I caught Babylon five in its entirety on TNT at six in the morning this summer- right after the five AM run of Doctor Who on BBC America... it was the live action equivalent of Toonami, and a hell of a lot more interesting.
Why does Sci-Fi have to rely on movies, the OLD star trek and the occasional bet-the-farm miniseries like this piece of crap Dune "interpretation"? Why can't they break the Comedy Central mold they seem to be following so tightly and actually get some of the really popular older Sci-Fi instead of all of thhe hypercrap like Incredible Hulk and Six Million Dollar Man? If they had sunk even half of the budget blown on Dune into, say, buying half the seasons of Star Trek the Next Generation, they'd be in fine shape. Grabbing Bablyon 5 is a great start... Dune was a step backwards... what next?
complete with bad acting and cheesy special effects.
It looks like all 3 parts will run on Sunday Dec 10 at 1PM EST. Check http://www.scifi.com/schedulebot/.
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LN2 is cool!
So, did anyone else notice an inconsistency?
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
Why worry about Dune, when we've got this?
Actor Dan Cortese, who co-starred on the now-defunct NBC sitcom, "Veronica's Closet," is about to get lost. Really lost.
Cortese has joined the cast of "The Triangle," a TBS TV movie about friends who get lost in the Bermuda Triangle. The supernatural thriller also stars "90210" veteran Luke Perry and Olivia D'Abo ("Wonder Years").
Now that's entertainment! I mean, Wow! The highly original plot! The plethora of first-rate actors! A cable channel known for it's high-quality original programming! It's got everthing!
Now if you'll excuse me, I must go and subject myself to a frontal labotomy in a futile attempt to forget this information.
we're really sorry about yesterday's outage- let us explain.
I believe on Sunday (10 Dec) from 1-7 PM EST they will be showing all the episodes back-to-back. So if you're up for six straight hours of spice-addled goodness, go for it. (Info courtesy of my TiVo.)
This series was terrible. Doesn't hold a candle to Lynch, much less the book. I watched it in the same sense that I watch this election mess: I hate it, I'm appalled(sp?) by it, but I HAVE to watch to see how much worse it could get. Painful.
did Feyd(baron's slender nephew) remind anyone of Freddy Mercury?
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
CNN seems surprised with 3.06M, but could this possibly be the first ever known slashdot effect on TV? Wouldn't it of been cool if it was too much for the TV networks to handle and they went out? =)
this one seemed followed the same storyline as closely as i can remember the difference is the effects and acting. the acting in Lynch's Dune was much more complex. many of the actors in the series seemed like they were reading lines instead of saying what they felt-- and what was with baron harkkonan (no idea how its spelled)'s stilted and unemotional iambic pentameter? there's probably alot more comparisons (like i liked both versions of the harkkonan prince (Sting in the old Dune), but such critisism is quite subjective.
the effects tho... bleah the still suits, Lynch's were sweet and the fremen wore them all the time as if they were a permanent part of life in the desert. in this one they wear them to retain every precious drop of water from a super arid planet, but quickly don street clothes when they are not in the sands. how is the air not as dry just outside of a cave? the new one made me feel like they were in some weeny desert, and the still suits were one step better than standard issue fatigues. the pain box was better in this one, the personal body shields were about the same, as was the worms, but the muppet mouse that Paul name's himself after, that was plain silly looking
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Okay, is it just me or was there a little something missing from that last installment. I was really looking forward to people blowing the crap out of things with there little voicebox contraptions! Was that NOT in the book or something? Why would they leave something so cool out?!?!?!? AAHHGGGHHH!!! Still, I loved it, and I'd watch it again, and again, and again... especially when you consider the caliber of the rest of the crap on TV.
...or maybe not.
Okay, so the sets were nothing but a big pile of sand with giant wall sized photos. Also, I hated the freaking outrageous big hats.
The acting was passable.
I like the fact that they did try to include more of the novel than the Lynch pic did. And the kung fu fighting! Woo hoo!
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
I liked this a lot. I liked the original movie because I saw it before I read the book. I liked the book even more, and this movie really brings the book across. I love that they at least touched on what's really going on. The whole idea that humanity has a race conciousness is very powerful to me and though they did not exactly say that (as it was just a realization that Paul had in the book) they did at least put some of the spirit of it into the converstation between Paul and Jessica.
Good miniseries and a great use of SciFi dollars. It does not make up for their making Lexx instead of picking up Crusade, but it's a damn good start.
The original was inaccurate and goofy. But in spite of the cheesy Toto soundtrack, it was at least entertaining.
I never thought anyone could make the first book look as dull as books 2 and 3.
explaining yesterday's site outage...
One thing though that I just don't understand is how they chose to leave out certain elements from the book in the screenplay and yet include other directly related elements. I.E. in the book Leto finds out about the traitor and his inner circle suspects its Jessica due to hard evidence they've gathered. The inner circle believes this even when Yeuh betrays Leto. Meanwhile, Leto confides to Paul that he knows it cannot be Jessica, but that he cannot reveal this even to the inner circle in order to make the Harkonnens believe he's taken the bait. The payoff from this, in the book, is that Gurney tries to kill Jessica later when he's reunited with both Paul and her. The mini-series blew it by including Gurney's attempted revenge (the payoff) but leaving out the fact that he ever suspected Jessica (the setup). To me that is just plain poor writing and that type of thing occurs 3-4 times during the mini-series.
Another quick example - I love that they include (or at least paraphrase) Jessica's advice to Channi at the end - 'I hope she [Irulan] gets satisfaction from her books and writing - she'll have little else.' While this is faithful to the book, this is one thing that would have been best left out - in the book the impact of this comes from the fact that we never see Irulan except in the chapter headings - all taken from her *writings* about Maud'ib - and at the very end when she's to be married to Paul. We know from this that Jessica speaks the truth. In the mini-series, this line is pretty pointless because even though they try to show that Irulan likes books, there's no way for them to create the same impact.
I wonder if this sort of thing is going to start a backlash with the major networks soon. Cable channels are really starting to steal viewers.
For example southpark, or the power puff girls, or the sopranos. Cable channels are turning out shows that are stealing awards and becoming pop culture icons, usually after the major networks turn them down.
How much longer until NBC,CBS,FOX, and ABC stop turning out the drivel on the "major" channels and start taking notice that this is what people want. Probably never, they will just probably patent funny things that happen in a half hour time frame with product placement and then sue the cable channels to get them to stop. It's called the Rambus improvement model.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
For once, they seemed to have a good grip on who their audience was going to be.
;), Wall Street Journal (ahh, the joys of IPO's), and new shows involving scantilly clad women and spiffy special effects.
By and large it's seemed that cable stations will throw any ad at any time during any show. But during Dune you saw primarilly ads for Sun Microsystems (hmmm... how'd they guess geeks would be watching?
*sigh* if only they'd had a few of the ones for Victoria's Secret.... Then I wouldn't have been leaving the room after hitting the "pause" button on the VCR, ya can be DAMN sure.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Original it might TV wise be but there has already been a film, however many books, at least 2 MUDs, etc.. so calling it original is stretching it a little. Also it's no wonder it beat all the rest with all the popularity it has already. It's like releasing the next Star Trek on SciFi and wondering why it beats all the other programs. PS UK based and so didn't see it :
It seemed to me that the Hunter Seeker, Worms, and Thopters were similar in design to what you see on Sci/Fi's Lexx series.
The Hunter Seeker looked like a flying sperm cell, the Worms like giant dildo's when raised to the sky, and the thopters like household flies.
These design elements seemed to have been designed by the same people who do the series LEXX (although toned down a bit).
Anyone else notice this???
My vote for the worst FX goes to the (twice shown) kangaroo mouse ("muad'dib").
Shown once with Paul & Jessica during their escape, and once with Alia. That thing looked incredibly fake. How hard would it have been to get a real trained rat?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Before I start...the mini-series was visually stunning.
It was a real treat to see modern special effects applied to Herbert's classic. That said, I think that the agenda for making this movie must have gone something like this:
Day 1: Shred novel
Day 2: Watch Lynch's 1984 version of Dune
Day 3: Begin shooting.
Really vital background information skipped, charaters speaking lines Herbert wrote for other characters, major plot points out of sequence...
Making a movie out of a novel is always a matter of choosing one's battles when it comes to the integrity of the story line, I realize this. I just feel that an opportunity was missed here.
In 1984, Lynch spent two hours of screen time drawing us into to Herbert's world. His version had some glaring ommissions, I grant you, but what was on the screen was largely consistent with the novel. The folks at Sci-fi had three times the amount of screen time, yet seemed to be so enamoured of the beautiful sets and great special effects that they let the integrity of the plot fall to the wayside.
It is fun to see these characters come to life once more though...
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About the movie
I don't know about a miniseries, but a movie is supposedly planned. According to a story last month in the Hollywood Reporter (as interpreted by Space.com), "Phil Tippett, Oscar-winning visual effects mastermind behind Star Wars, Starship Troopers and other FX-driven spectacles, will make his directorial debut with the project".
I'm not sure that I'd hold my breath, but it does sound intriguing.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
is it just me or did that chick the main character was sleeping with have the biggest boobs?
This seems the perfect time to mention the Dune board game, by Avalon Hill, circa 1979. I've played it a few times with some geeked out friends of mine, and it's a WHOLE lot of fun. Parker brothers made one too, but that was in response to the movie... but I doubt it's as much fun. info here (you can get it on ebay... they don't make it anymore.)
See you, space cowboy...
Well, I wasn't very happy with the series. I don't think it was all bad but my number one complaint was the gratuitous sex/semi-nudity. I don't recall that stuff being in the book. The scene between Laeto and Jessica, ok that was fine. But, Irulan and Feyd?!? And I don't recall Paul and Chani sneaking off to the desert to "get it on." I know they did eventually in the book since they had kids but it just seemed like the sex and nudity was there simply for the "Hey, look, it's a naked chick" factor. Some people on here are saying that they left certain things out of the movie because of time and they weren't needed. Well, why didn't they leave some of the sex out so they could have put in some of the plot points that were left out? I'm not a prude or anything, I just feel that these things weren't necessary. David Lynch didn't even have it in there and well, we all now he's definitely not opposed to lots of sex in his movies
There are two technological paradigms that aren't explained adequately in the mini-series or the David Lynch movie, and the lack of adequate explanation may puzzle those who haven't read the book:
In the Dune mythos, "thinking machines", i.e. robots and computers, are either banned or regarded as an abomination. Neither screen adaptation mentioned this, as far as I can remember.
In the Dune mythos, much fighting is done with knives and low-tech weaponry due to... shields! The shields stop any object that is going beyond a certain speed. Lasers and shields didn't mix in the mythos, either. These shields are seen in both screen versions, but their functionality is never explained.
Overall, I like the mini-series, though. Chani is one sexy babe!
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.