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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.
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).
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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?
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.
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
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.
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 ?!?
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
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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.
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.
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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?
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
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?
-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."
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.
*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
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.
If you're referring to the baby Leto, then I'm sorry to dissapoint you, but he was killed in the book as well. His brother, Leto II, will become the God Emperor, in the third novel. He and his twin sister Ghanima are born at the end of the second novel..
So RTFB....
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
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.