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SCI FI Channel To Produce Dune Sequel
Sardaukar writes: "In his first interview since completing the script for Frank Herbert's Children of Dune, Frank Herbert's Dune writer-director John Harrison revealed that the new miniseries will be adapted from both Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, the second and third books in Frank Herbert's best-selling series." I think the first miniseries is pretty impressive, which bodes well for the second.
Did anyone else notice how the actors in the original miniseries seemed to think they were in some sort of play? Listen to the way the enunciate their lines and completely stilt the dialog. Watch the poses the strike when the bad guys say something evil (right before they cackle evily). Watch the lighting change colors and shift based on the mood of the moment. This is the sort of mellodrama that really hurt the miniseries for me.
Just my 2 grams of spice.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
I can stand a book that takes it's time to build tension (esp. in reflection of the Overlook's complete isolation), but the movie just confused me until later on when I got around to reading the book -- I didn't get the guy in the dog suit, for instance, until I read about him. Kubrick, regardless of the spelling of his name, would have been better off with just misc. self-explanatory hotel ghosts.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Niven's stories are almost always entertaining while you're reading them, but the guy couldn't write an end to a story to save his life; I always felt jipped when I came to the end of a book.
Also, he falls into that Heinlein trap of not being able to bear killing his characters (tell me Lazarus shouldn't have died at the end of Stranger -- tell me that last chapter wasn't the most tacked-on POS you've ever read). Sure, he offed Teela, but I think it was just because he didn't know waht else to do with her -- Louis Wu and friends were always safe. I understand that it's nice to carry over all the really developed characters, but c'mon...
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
That miniseries was absolutely painful -- I watched the whole thing just waiting for it to improve, and yet somehow the acting managed never to improve. Christ, the guy playing Paul made a certain young Jedi look like academy award material.
I think the real trouble is they tried to be *too* faithful to the book. It should be obvious that certain things work in print that just don't translate (and, actually, vice versa). I think whoever wrote the screenplay was too reverant to the whole Dune mythos to understand that someplace between that terrible movie and this terrible miniseries would lay a good screen interpretation.
I can only hope for major overhauls; I don't think I could watch another miniseries like that last one. They'll have exactly one episode to change my mind.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Look, there are elements which make a great book and elements which make a great movie. Very few of these elements are in common between the two.
The best movie/book combinations are those in which the screenwriter uses the book for inspiration, then feels free to adjust the staging and the story in a way which will play well on film. Take Fight Club, for instance, or High Fidelity: same basic story, same basic themes, but the movie was a good movie because the changes needed for good translation were made.
On the other hand, think of the really close-to-the-book movies you've seen. Tend to suck, don't they? They either run really, really long or shave out a lot of the entertaining bits.
Of course, this isn't to say that all movies reinterpreted from books end up well, either: American Psycho (the movie) missed the raw, revolting, sarcastic nature or the book. The Shining (Kuberick's) was *boring*. Etc.
Still, I maintain that the only way to make these watchible is to roll the dice and take a chance to make them really entertaining on-screen instead of just lifting directly from the book.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I'm frankly somewhat worried about the titles of the parts: I could sort of see the Messiah one (and it might be interesting to be trying to save someone other than yourself), but the Children of Dune one is just too much. I don't want to know how that guy ends up with children...
Well let's put it this way:
Paul turned out to be a megalomaniac who ended up (ultimately) getting himself into deeper water than he could swim in. He couldn't handle the pressure of being "The Messiah", and eventually was banished into the desert of Dune because of his inability of dealing with the very Jihad he himself created.
His son, named Leto II (not to be confused with the child that was killed off in the original book [and movie]), ended up getting covered in sand trout and he eventually took over... for about 1500 years. *That* guy turned out to be a major son of a bitch as far as controlling the universe goes.
At any rate, read the books... they are *very* interesting, but you run into the danger of getting an inferiority complex since Frank Herbert's writing tens to be condescending to begin with. Add that to the fact that all he wrote about were super-human beings who denegrated the "Regular" human race at every turn, and what you get is a rather depressing outlook on life.
There's my 2 cent version of a book review. :)
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
I'm frankly somewhat worried about the titles of the parts: I could sort of see the Messiah one (and it might be interesting to be trying to save someone other than yourself), but the Children of Dune one is just too much. I don't want to know how that guy ends up with children...
If they're going to fix it like you fixed an animal (Uh, that was already done, thank you!) they can forget about it... :-)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
>why would you adapt TWO stories into one series
Herbert himself did this, by writing
Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune
concurrently. Dune Messiah and Dune have
so many story elements in common that it
must be a challenge to keep a screenplay
interesting. The books keep your attention
on other levels besides plot and local color,
but a movie adaptation has different issues.
Now, if someone wants to produce God Emperor,
I'd just LOVE to see a good, cruel yet benign, Leto II.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>scifi soaps such as Star Wars
If you compare and contrast elements of
Star Wars and Dune, you may find similarities
that will turn your stomach. Parts of the Star Wars universe and some key plot elements are quite obviously inspired by Dune.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>I don't watch TV, so I don't know how the first >mini-series went.
I don't watch TV either, much, and certainly not
enough to be able to catch an entire miniseries.
I bought the Dune release on DVD, and hope that
all these things are released on DVD, as it's
the only way I'll see the whole series.
I love the Dune production because it undoes
some of the damage done by the Lynch debacle.
At least the sci-fi channel screenwriters
seem to have actually read the book first.
It appears they may have a different understanding of certain subtleties (and not-so
subtleties) of the story and the setting, but
it isn't really annoying. A few details of the
miniseries show an outstanding respect for the
novel.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
And if you made it as long as you suggest it'd take, only the hard core sci-fi'ers would spend their time watching it. We all seem to be forgetting that these people still have to produce something which would appeal to 75% or more of their target viewing audience. If you made it ungodly long (without making it a full-blown series) it'd be difficult to keep the viewing audience involved. It's hard to get most sobs to invest a lot of time in something that will not last. Sad, but true.
Also, a number of comments have been made about the wardrobe, etc...stuff that I will call the "stylistic" nature of the miniseries' approach to the story telling. I actually quite enjoyed the pomp of the costumes of those in the royal court and the great houses. This contrasted very well with the simplicity of Fremen existance.
Also, the miniseries' overall use of color, light, and darkness was very compelling. The scene that stands out in my mind is the final fight scene between Paul and the Harkonnen Nephew (damn...not Sting! what the hell was his name...grr...) There is a rising platform/dolly shot that shows your the fighters from an offangle overhead. The lighting consisted only of two powerful lights streaming in through the doorway. The contrasting light and dark lines were phenomenal.
All that said, yes, I liked it, but I also recognize a lot of the problems (don't even get me started on some of the "desert" sets.)
It's best to think of the book, the movie, and the mini-series as separate tellings of the same story. Each storyteller brings new details, and covers others. I think we're all just a little too caught up in the absolutivity of the book, because Herbert wrote it. Herbert created a universe that many people have taken and expanded in many directions. I think this is what Frank wanted, and is the best tribute that can ben given to the man.
I don't know why EVERY single time a book is made into a movie there's a grumpy guy going "the movie sucked ass". Is this part of human nature or something? Is there a gene for this? And if there is, can we breed that out because it's frickin' annoying.
I liked the first miniseries a whole lot. Yes, I've read the books, and I know that things were changed. But big deal! What were you expecting from television? Every medium is different, and I hate to break it to you, a TV show is not a book. You can do things in books that you can't do in television. So when you say that the Dune miniseries "sucked ass" were you thinking to yourself "this Dune isn't nearly as good or artistic as 'Golden Girls'?" I can personally think of only a few things that "sucked ass" less than the Dune miniseries, such as Babylon 5. Actually, that's about the only one I can think of.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
The only problem though, is that your making a movie about a very complex and strange subject. Dune isn't your average piece of literature, but when the person who wrote it isn't around for consulting there might be misinterpretations and mistakes. I'm not saying that the author has to be there to make it a good movie, it just helps. I really enjoyed the first miniseries, but even then, it had a book, another movie, and so on to go from.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
"I see blue-eyed people"
I think he'd be about the right age.
I recall Leto stops aging after merging with
the sandworms, but grows a big tail.
I recall ancestral memory plays a much bigger role
in the subsequent novels. In the first novel it
is mainly the future visions. It is somewhat
difficult to depict inner mental processes on the screen.
Do you get someone who can morph into different
voices and faces like the commedian Rich Little,
or Steve Martin in "All of Me"?
Do you show possession like in The Exorcist?
Or else little figures of talking ancestors standing on ones shoulder?
It's great to see this new miniseries, but why would you adapt TWO stories into one series, rather than preserving the second (actually third) story for an additional miniseries...Strange
The second two books really do go together. The stories follow each other closely in time and the conclusion of the arc really is at the end of the third book. They also share a lot of characters and locations, which makes it advantageous to film them together.
I am worried they'll have to cram more to stay at 6 hours, though.
despite the fact that, on a number of points, the scifi "Dune" miniseries really and truly sucked ass, it was impressive that it was done as well as it was, and that it was produced at all.
hopefully the subsequent sequels will at least live up to the first production, and not go down hill as sequels tend to do
tho, even the subsequent books drifted off track a bit from the original...
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
I've often thought that The Silmarillion would make an interesting series of animated films, intended to be shown as a series, but with each one being independent enough to stand somewhat on its own...
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Not because the first wasn't good, but because frankly the sequels will ruin the story for people. They not only don't live up to the measure of the first book but actually drag it down. (Watch the down-mods pile up.)
For what it's worth, I read Dune when it first appeared in Analog as two serialized short novels, Dune World and Prophet of Dune. I read, and still have, all three in their original serializations.
I have to agree with the review that Dune Messiah received in Analog all those years ago: Dune is about a world, while Dune Messiah is about a man. A great man, perhaps, but still a man; and no man, however great, can compete with a planet.
The sequels, in turning the focus of the story from planet to man, necessarily reduce the scope of the drama. Worst of all, they redefine the original story in a way that to me diminishes it as well. I've read a lot of science fiction in over forty years, and a lot of it wasn't worth reading. Dune Messiah is one of the very few books that was worse than a waste of time, and I sincerely wish I had never read it.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
For them to make the second and third books will require more interesting visual effects (spoilers: how will they deal with the Bene Tlailaxu (sp?) and those little fishy guys that cover Leto II's body to make him the worm). It will also be more difficult to make a GOOD movie about them because, let's face it, they just don't touch the original in terms of quality.
I am still pretty excited to see this, though, because it has the opportunity to show the general public what good sci-fi can be (whether it does or not is a different story).
IANAL, but I play one on
I think that's going in my collection of sigs.
The Silmarillion is one of my all-time favorites. One word: scope.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
There are no such things as weirding modules. Clearly you're thinking the movie (starring Sting) was canonical. Try reading the actual books instead.
You can grep all six books and the phrase "weirding module" will not appear. This was one of the three major departures (read, "made it up out of thin air") that the original Dune movie made from the books. Basically, they didn't have the time to investigate the mystical powers on-screen, so they threw in some technobabble instead.
If the TV miniseries was based on the books rather than the piece of crap movie which was based on the books, then there won't be things like weirding modules. And that's good.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
In "The Lost Worlds of 2001", Clarke describes the experience of writing the novel and the screenplay simultaneously. He really wanted Saturn's moon Iapetus (Japetus) because of its 6:1 brightness curve, but the FX guys convinced him to go with Jupiter in the movie.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he says it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Clarke's Second Law: The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.
Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
uhhh, looks like vaporfilm to me. Although I think Chow Yun-Fat would be cool for Louis Wu. And how about John Goodman for Speaker???!? Bwahahahahaha. Not.
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
was CRAP! Maybe if it were just a standalone movie it would have been fantastic (yes, the visuals were pretty nice in some places), but since it's based on a _book_, it should hold to it. A movie (or miniseries) is made from a book because the book was impressive enough (in and of ITSELF and its OWN plot and its OWN details) to be chosen in the first place. Why the hell can't the director at least stay _slightly_ within the confines of the book when making the movie? Sorry, there was no big Muad'dib statue in Stilgar's sietch. Sorry, Paul can't make water appear out of nowhere with his "magical Kwisatz Haderach powers". And sorry, but if I'm not mistaken, in the book Paul Atreides wasn't a whiny little bitch.
I saw the last part of it on Sci-fi a few weeks back, and was really impressed at how well it actually followed the book. The Dune series has always been one of my favorite books, and while some of the effects looked a little cheapo (not bad considering the budget was probably not Hollywood-blockbuster big), the way that entire blocks of dialog and scenes were taken directly from the book was really great. Hopefully these new ones will keep that up. I want to "see" Frank Herbert's book * of Dune, I don't want something that's kind of similiar to what happened in * of Dune.
I never really liked Lynch's Dune movie, because it seemed in many ways totally unrelated to the book.
Not a flame, just a helpful hint.
Further helpfulness (/. will kill you with it!) The Asmov quote is in fact a mean little twist on the famous Clarke quote:
Something that I'm sure a lot of us can relate to. My magic is usually a hack or a cheat, and not the technological miracle that I'll let my bosses to believe. =)
J
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
I'd like to see some other classic Sci-Fi adapted for TV before another installment in the Dune series. How about Stranger in a Strange Land? Are "we" (US-ian "we") ready for that? I'd guess so, seeing how well QAF is doing on Showtime.
How about Ringworld and its sequels/prequels? There's a hard-core yarn that special effects technology is finally ready to render spectacularly, and the story is as straightforward as any movie-of-the-week. Heck, most of Niven/Pournelle's joint efforts would suit me fine: Footfall, Thor's Hammer, The Mote in God's Eye. These stories are very much more adaptable to TV or motion pictures than anything Herbert has written.
Edith Keeler Must Die
... fix your cranio-rectal inversion.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
The first miniseries was really botched, i mean, they don't even delve into the religious importence of the spice, nor it's wei as a narcotic. The point of the worms interaction with them is mispresented and the weirding modules are completely ignored (this was amongst the things that made House Atreides as strong as it was).
The scenery is also poorly presented; there is no show of water conservation in the mini-series, even among the fremen. Frank Herbert was [practically, at min.] an Ecologist - and the mini-series gave absolutely no attention to this spirit.
There's more, but if you care enough by now there's plenty of sites with more info (or i'm preaching to the converted). The new series will get eaten up - just as the last one did - but that doesn't mean it will be any better. Harrison should do himself a favor and hire an (eclectic) Ecologist or at least a well-schooled historian of some religious venue.
Besides, did you even read my post? I spent most of it contrasting the works, not comparing them.
"We all say so, so it must be true!"
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
- "An apple, like a tire iron, can be thrown at a dog."
- "A tire iron, like an apple, is something I often keep in my truck."
Next.(And if you had any balls at all, you'd be logged in).
"We all say so, so it must be true!"
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
The advantage of this method is that he created a complete cycle right up-front (see next P), rather than tacking on book after book like many hack writers do. The disadvantage is that Dune Messiah is pretty obviously just a stepping stone to Children of Dune. I think the series would have been stronger if he'd left it out entirely, but we would have missed Paul's relationship with Channi, which is complex and interesting.
The first 3 are a perfect cycle, almost a tragedy in the classical sense - a man falling from a high position due to hubris (yes, I know, Aristotle defined tragedy more specifically than that, but I'm too lazy to look it up). The last 3 are much better written, with more interesting plots and characters.
I don't watch TV, so I don't know how the first mini-series went. I find it hard to believe that the work can be faithfully reproduced, however, no matter how much time and money is spent on it. This contrasts with Peter Jackson's upcoming LOTR, which actually may not suck. Tolkien was wordy, but LOTR is a fairly simple work - standard mythology. Dune (all 6) are complex commentary on politics, economics, religion, human nature, oil, water - you name it. Very deep. You can get the action to the screen, but I fear the depth being left behind.
And before Tolkien fans get out their flame-throwers, yes, I love Tolkien. I took (and aced) several graduate-level Tolkien courses in school, and have a deep and abiding appreciation for him and his work. LOTR, however, is a sitcom compared with The Silmarillion, and The Hobbit is a commercial break. No one will make a movie of The Silmarillion, anymore than you could make a movie of the entire Bible.
And yet The Silmarillion is still just a small part of Tolkien's work, and his world. Amazing.
"We all say so, so it must be true!"
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
If anything, the book was a ``novelization'' of the screenplay, not the other way around. The movie was written as a movie by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, and was later adapted into a novel by Clarke. There were some differences between the story that Clarke wrote as the screenplay and the final filmed version, but that is typical of filmmaking.
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
With a movie/series like Dune it does not matter if the movie/series is as good as the book or not. They are not made for the book fans. They are made for people who either can't get enough of the story or people who never got any.
If someone says "that movie ruled" and goes out and buys the book then the people who sold the rights to the movie win twice. If some one didn't like the movie but they still sat there and watches it and made the advertisers happy.
I have read the first 7 books. I have seen the original movie and the mini I saw up to the point where they made bringing back Idaho really hard; it's not easy to get cells from an explosion. At that point I said "Not the same" and turned it off. I am a fan but not a fanatic.
It's about the money not the integrity.
Ascii artist &
Are you smoking crack? This is a television miniseries, not a computer game. Gotta love it when people don't even read the synopsis, let alone the article.
Got to love it when people can't understand humor, let alone how to close their tags.
Josh Sisk
AFAIK, the most faithful adaptation from book->movie was probably "2001", which changed some pretty big details (it was a moon of Saturn originally, not Jupiter), but kept the main ideas intact.
AFAIK, this is because the novel was written from the script that Clarke and Kubrick collaborated on. The script/film is based on an earlier Clarke short story "the Sentinel", but the film's storyline is very different, and the book is based on the script, not the original story.
Josh Sisk
Its good to see Sci Fi doing this. There doing for modern science fiction what TNT does for modern westerns. Producing their own passible to good series and movies. I for one thought that the director of the Dune Mini-Series really wanted it to be a play, which is why it didn't turn out as well as it could have. It was still very fun, so i'm hopefull for this one too.
Also, has anyone else heard the rumor that Sci Fi might be showing/co producing a NEW Dr. Who series? God I hope so...just as long as they get a budget of 3000$ per episode. It looses that whole Dr Who feel if its to pricey.
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
It's Arthur C. Clarke's third law of technology, not an Isaac Asimov quote.
Not a flame, just a helpful hint.
It's great to see this new miniseries, but why would you adapt TWO stories into one series, rather than preserving the second (actually third) story for an additional miniseries...Strange
Is sci-fi actually imune from the television media marketing engine? You can only sell half the ads if you have half the content, so why would they have decided to combine the stories into only one miniseries...
--CTH
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--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
If you'd been watching the telecast, they showed it at http://www.scifi.com/secret/ for a short time.
While it's true that SciFi is making this with a low budget, and it does show, I still find that their adaptation has certain elements I find far more believable than the one Frank Herbert was so deeply involved with, even though that one had far better character actors for the most part.
The SCI FI version seems to get the feel of the culture better, and what the events in the book may have been like, than one found in the original movie, even if it's not as well-crafted.
Plus, the actress who plays Chani is way hotter, and more believable, than Sean was in the same role.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Personally, I felt the only thing the mini-series had to offer was its adherance to the actual dialog and action of the book itself (which Lynch's obviously did not). With that, the b-movie acting and ungodly costume design could be overlooked, since Dune fans could finally see a somewhat literal interpretation of the book. Both messiah and children of dune are infinately complex in their own right as they expound on the minuate of an Empire and its "holy" leaders. By cutting them down and attempting to push that much intrigue into a single mini-series, they are destroying the best part about having sci-fi produce these in the first place.
"Moving through the masses like a fish through water." syrup
Yes, Dune wasn't 100% accurate, but it was a good adaptation, especially for a sci-fi novel. There are a lot worse books->movie conversions out there, such as "The Postman" (where they removed over 2/3rds of the book, and dammit, I liked AI machines). Then there are the truly horrible written fiction->movies out there, which I can't recall off the top of my head, due to a mental block. I'm sure a few slashdotters out there could reply with a horrifying list.
AFAIK, the most faithful adaptation from book->movie was probably "2001", which changed some pretty big details (it was a moon of Saturn originally, not Jupiter), but kept the main ideas intact.
Every time I read a good novel, and think it would make a spiffy movie, I remember what happened in the past, and am therefore content with imagining what traekis look like, rather then seeing them on the big screen.
*sigh*
Oh well, just my $1.02
I am still wondering as to why people want to make movies out of books. They are two completely different mediums. It's sort of like composer putting Shakespeare's King Lear to music. What's that all about?
Dune is one of the best book series of all times, right up there with LOTR and a few others. But it's not so much the style, or the motion, that makes it great, it's the undercurrent. It's so deep on so many levels that it makes you think, _really_think_, about your own life, your own beliefs, your own preconceptions.
Books are an immersive technology, sort of like coding, going into wizard mode, where the world stops spinning and you're transcended to another place and time. Movies don't achieve this level, ever. This level is what book authors aim for, and when they succeed, they are rewarded with god-like fame.
But movies are about money, and are meant to be understood by the masses (even within a particular genre). Books, however, are a lot more selective, and not too many people have read the last book of Dune and understood why Duncan left in the No-Ship taking the BT couple with him.
Movies are made for money, to make money, to increase viewer share. Really great books, on the other hand, are meant to reflect the deepest thoughts of incredibly talented and imaginative individuals.
I rented the Dune miniseries last fall, and altough I am a great Herbert fan, that movie sucked. It was just barely okay. It went through the motion, but never engaged the viewer into deep mode. I have read the Dune series 6 times (all 2000+ pages) and I will read it at least 10 more times in my life (once every 3 years or so). I guarantee I will not see that miniseries Dune movie ever again.
People should just learn to enjoy books. It's amazing what that does for one's ability to write BTW.
As far as the Dune books to movies, I don't see why they have to be done in order. If it was up to me, and if I was to make movies of these books, I would go: 5, 4, 6, 1, 2, 3.
Oh, and you can just ignore the prequels/sequels written by those other two. They never ever reach the deep levels.
Try Maia, by Richard Adams. He gets pretty close. It's a bit boring at times, but it is immersive, and very well written.
"Piter, too, is dead."
The NY times had an interesting, somewhat related article on Sunday discussing the overall lack of quality of the stories of Science Fiction movies (quality referring to the depth of the characters, theme.. etc). I thought of this article when reading this interview. Dune as a whole, to me, is several rungs higher in depth as a science fiction epic. (right up there with Asimov's Foundation series). Its a real pity that scifi epics like Dune arent given the same budget as scifi soaps such as Star Wars(although the soaps are not bad, jsut not intellectually stimulating).
-its almost 4:30
I may be unique in the world for saying this, but I love Dune, the Original movie, before Sci-Fi fucked with it. Yes, maybe it was different from the book, but who the hell cares? They are different texts in different mediums and serve a different purpose from each other. Sci-Fi's remake of Dune only served to make what was a piece with a wonderful feel and effects that were stylistic and beautiful into another crappy Sci-Fi film with B grade acting, C grade digital effects and costumes straight out of Lawrence of Arabia.
The fact is that the Sci-Fi channel is so stuck in its idiom of fiction by the numbers that it can't break out into a truly stylistic piece. Shows like Farscape may be technically well written and full of enough stupid melodrama to put a headlock on anything Vince MacMahon ever thought up, but they're just totally bereft of anything original or even interesting in theme or plot. The original Dune plot took a wonderful little piece of political pulp fiction by a decent writer and turned it into a fantastic adventure that excited me and left me feeling complete. I didn't need any more back story -- I was willing to corral the boring history of the world into some technical addendum a la some of the Star Wars books. Sci Fi managed to ruin a great movie by degrading the acting, enhancing the most boring aspects of the story while losing the ones that had any real cinematic flavour and restricted the camera angles to nothing but interior medium shots. Oh, and while making the movie more boring and not worth watching, they extended what was already a 4 hour film. When they make the sequel, they'll just be extending it furthur -- and since I'm sure they'll preclude it with a replay of their horrendious remake, it'll be a half day worth of boredom I suggest only for masochists, herbert fanatics and college students with nothing better to do.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I've been a big fan of Dune ever since the first version came out when I was in high school. I loved Wolfenstein 3D before that, and I can remember playing Dune until the wee hours in the morning some nights. Dune 2 was similar, but didn't have the same eerie atmosphere and feel as the original. Hopefully, in the 10 years that have passed since the original was released, ID Software will be able to take advantage of new technology and increases in processing power to make the new version of Dune live up to it's predecessor.
"Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or dead." -Kurt Cobain
Lynch wanted to be better known - I think Twin Peaks speaks to that. But, because of Dune, his rising star just flatlined. I think, after The Elephant Man, Lynch was well on his way to reach the status of "great." But, to be honest, I think The Elephant Man was clearly his best work (John Hurt's too, for that matter), and Dune proved to be his undoing, showing he couldn't handle a large ensemble cast or a big budget, both of which were skills he would desperately need with his failed attempt to revitalize Twin Peaks in Fire Walk With Me. Don't get me wrong - I would go see a Lynch movie over most any day, but I get the feeling that he never quite reached the status and recognition he seemed to desire.