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Sci Fi Gives Green Light To "Children of Dune"
fooguy writes "Our friends at the Sci Fi Channel have given the Green Light to begin production of Children of Dune. According to the release, 'The miniseries begins production in Prague in April 2002 and is slated to air in 2003. Dune adapter John Harrison wrote the script, based on "Dune Messiah" and "Children of Dune," the second and third novels in Frank Herbert's six-volume Dune Chronicles series. Richard P. Rubinstein comes back on board as executive producer. The sequel will continue the story of the Atreides family and recount the fall of Paul's empire, with the future resting in the hands of Paul's heirs, his twin children."
The previous miniseries suffered from the problem that they kept forgetting that Dune was a desert; hopefully enough fans can remind them of that fact that it might not be such a problem this time.
And hopefully the miniseries will be better than the "Dune: House X" series (for the assortment of values of X).
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
All I can say is I hope beyond hope, this mini series is better than the last. More along the lines of the movie.
Having read the book and watch both the mini series and the movie, I perfer the latter.
"We deal in lead" - Roland of Gilead
What are all the whiners going to do? It wouldn't be Dune without cries of, "The movie was better!"
On a more serious note, I wonder how well the rest of the books will translate. I thought they were a lot less "action-packed" than the first book, which is saying a lot.
Twostep
There are 10 different types of people in this world... those who understand binary, and those who don't.
I find the timing of this film to be very suspicious. In a nutshell, Dune Messiah deals with corruption in the upper levels of Fremen heirarchy, while Children of Dune deals with how Paul Atreids children sieze control of the Interstellar empire.
If you assume the Bin Laden family = Fremen, and Osama = Leto II, it gets very interesting indeed. I wonder how this will be changed to make the message acceptable for western civilization?
The book is 90% interior dialog. A lot of it is actually important to the overall Dune world though. I wonder how they will handle that? Probably ignore it. Children of Dune is far more filmable, so I imagine that's where they will spend screen time.
garyr
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
This is great news. I hope that he'll get a chance to faithfully reproduce the whole series on-screen. I can't wait for Leto's transformation. The execs at Sci-fi get my vote - I'll be buying this one on DVD...
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Re-watched the remake Dune last weekend. Forgot how bad the Special Effects were ;) Nothing like the slow, blocky shields...
I'm hoping that this can be slightly more interesting... less inner monologue... but if you haven't read any of the books I simply don't see how it will be successfull.
...one of the movies includes such things as imps, cacodemons, cyber demon lords, and lost souls.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
The big problem with the miniseries was that the actor playing Gurney Halleck was absolutely horrible. I guess it's partly because I can't see anyone but Patrick Stewart as him(one of the only redeeming features of David Lynch's debacle). At no time during the series, did I believe that he was an elite fighter of any kind.
Also, neither the movie or the miniseries did Duncan Idaho justice. In the novels, he's a badass but he doesn't even do anything in the miniseries. Richard Jordan was just too old to play him in the original movie. The actor portraying him in the miniseries just wasn't given enough screen time.
I look forward to seeing this on Space or some other CHUM station.
if they get back the girl who played Chani. Double her pay!
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
I was alarmed by some of the omissions in the previous Sci-Fi Channel mini-series. Among other things, they made no mention of weirding modules, which I thought were integral to the story. I hope this series be more faithful to the book it's based on.
Oh, yeah. Let's see they made the first movie last year and got better ratings for it than anything they've ever aired on the Sci-Fi Channel. Ummmm...perhaps the fact that they are in business to make money, and they do that by selling advertising, which is driven by ratings would have something to do with it?
Why look for a complicated conspiracy theory when the facts of the matter point to a very simple explanation. I won't even go into the fact that your analogy is ridiculous...
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
Probably reduced to two or three. But Ix. I want to see Ix.
I'm not being investigated, what are you talking about?
The miniseries was more off from the book than the movie. It started off so well and then just took a left turn somewhere near Fresno. Never really recovered.
Bad Jet Li = Osama and Good Jet Li = the US Military.
It's a frightening correlation - except the whole part about time travel. And the part with the two guys chasing the Bad Jet Li. In any event, it's clearly very suspicious.
Most knowledgeable people are aware that Jet Li is from China, which is very close to the Middle East. And most Chinese food involves oil and vegetables, and everyone knows that the Middle East has oil and Muslims can't eat pork.
Wow, it's great to see a project like this in a small town like Prague, Oklahoma!
It's good to see that Slashdot's efficiency of ruining endings has not fallen. Granted, many people may have read the books, but some have not. Anyone want to ruin the end of Cryptonomicon before I'm done?
... Sci-Fi won't be able to air the rest of the series beyond Children of Dune. CoD is where Dune stops being about knife fights and sandworms and starts being about superhumans and clones running around having kinky sex. God Emperor of Dune and Heretics of Dune will have to be aired on Skinemax. The segue comes when people start gaining superpowers by getting naked with proto-sandworms. That's about this " close to tenticle pr0n, if you ask me.
Har Har Har.
SHUT THE FUCK UP COCK-GOBBLER.
Dumbass karma wh0re. You think you're cool? Or sexy? FUCK NO. I'm fucking your mom right now OH YEEESS UGH UGH
Oh man, I'm coming on her - ahhhhhhhh
Goddamn jackass.
Huh?
The sequel will continue the story of the Atreides family and recount the fall of Paul's empire, with the future resting in the hands of Paul's heirs, his twin children." :-)
And I just finished the first book. Thanks for spoiling it
~~~~~~~~~~
Martee
Just as long as they don't do the stupid hat thing again, I'm happy as a clam. Sardukar as evil pastry chefs, indeed!
taliban in toyotas = rebels in landspeeders
bin laden = ben kenobi
fundamentalism = the force
F22 = TIE fighter
aircraft carrier = star destroyer
WTC = death star
suicidal pilots = luke skywalker
predator UAV = imperial probe droid
terrorists sneaking through airports = "these are not the droids you're looking for"
america strikes back = the empire strikes back
i don't think terrorists are heroes - i live in manhattan for christ's sake - but the parallels are scary.
You just know everyone is going to use this for a "The Movie Sucked!" vs. "The miniseries sucked!" flamefest. Let's just hope these people don't organize into rival houses and fight for control of the world's supply of Dune criticism...
(My take on the whole thing as someone who hasn't gotten around to reading the books (which are sitting with the rest of the classic sci-fi books I haven't read yet) is that things in the movie make more sense after watching the miniseries, and that the miniseries has more emotional depth than the movie. And despite its constant darkness, the movie seems rather upbeat, to the point of silly humor at times, not even counting the screwed up ending. I found the miniseries to be much more subtle, and that made it preferable to the movie for me.)
Who will play Alia, and what will her knife look like.
Hopefully they won't mangle the story as badly ..
..
.. and now they're going to mangle LOTR.
as they did the first time. Am I the only one
that would like to see producers / screenwriters /
directors *stop* inserting their creative fancies
in to classic works such as Dune or LOTR?
And, if anyone out there for the SciFi channel
is reading - please - don't dress the mentats
up as a bishop from a five and dime chess set
they really deserve a little more than that,
I think. Tho both attempts at making a movie
from the book (the DeLaurentis and the recent
SciFi) took quite a few liberties with the story,
I think the DeLaurentis productions costume work
was excellent. The SciFi production looked like
nothing so much as a third grader's costume
party.
Blah
Blah
Blah
Blah
Will the last three Frank Herbert books be squeezed into a miniseries so that they will have a trilogy?Since I don't know any of the later story could someone tell me if that's possible?Regardless I think this is great.
Mon aeroglisseur est plein d'anguilles.
Bwaaahaahaa!!!
;)
And of course Moby Dick is really a metaphorical foretelling of Operation Eternal Snipe-Hunt, where the Whale symbolizes Al Qaeda, Captain Ahab is obviously G.W. Bush and his cabinet. The loss of Ahab's leg is the destruction of the Twin Towers, and the Maori warrior is allegorical of the 'Global Coalition' bent on destroying the White Whale.. Arrgh! Matey!!
Then there's the crew, all of whom have different motivations for setting out on the hunt, and whose resolve waivers and falters at different times during the crusade..
Also, Moby Dick is a cautionary tale that the US government should reread, seeing as blindly following a demented leader is sure to kill everyone except the commentator, Ishmael..
Ishmael, Israel, what's the difference? It is clear that the US is doomed to failure in this enterprise, and Israel will rise out of the ashes of the Middle East - and we are beginning to see this happen as we speak..
Well, but what about the anthrax, you ask.. I'm glad you asked.. The appropriate parallel on the high seas is scurvy.. Yes, the lack of vitamin C which causes one's teeth to fall out is an appropriate symbol for the anthrax scare which has driven the US Government out of it's very offices, rendering the law making process virtually toothless..
Damn!! I'm on a roll!! My English Lit teacher would be so proud.. I should post this to www.adequacy.org.. They'd like it there.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
fascinating results... thanks for prioritizing this request. The boys here in the lab will immediately begin entering this data into our database to improve our cheese-doodle digestion simulation software.
Sci-Fi has agreed to shoot some scenes in my bombed village. I send e-mail to studio and they green light the project!!!! Internet is Great! visit http://www.kabulhalud.com for more information! Junis
Internet is Great!!! junis
Our friends at the Sci Fi Channel have given the Green Light to begin production of Children of Dune.
I've got to protect my good name, so I replaced the erroneous link for "Green Light" that was given in the story. My copy (above) gives the real scoop!
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
Sure:
After 917 pages of drivel including ~3 pages devoted to the "proper" way to consume a bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal - Randy et.al get the gold that's buried in the mountain, by shoving in a bunch of fuel, and blowing the whole thing up.
Whoopee. For a book with 3 great subjects: Computers+WWII+Secret Spy Stuff, Cryptonomicon sucked ass out loud.
How about "The whole fucking Dune franchise" is crap. All decent human beings can agree on that.
Now, if anyone is interested in seeing a really fun film, go find Amelie. Also, film noir with some chuckles, Novocaine (w/Steve Martin) Both worth seeing a second time. Hopefully LOTR will not disappoint, after all the hype.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
if that is insight then
, well, then slashdot is pathetic.
ps. that was a good series, you are just a clueless luser who doesnt know how
to watch tv. lol.
FUCK THE MOTHERFUCkING MATRIX
JOHN WOO IS AN INFANTILE MORON
you are morons for caring about kung fu movies.
you are absolute twist for caring about the matrix.
go get a fucking brain you clueless brainwashed morons.
'a gentlemans agreement'. most people fought it being made.
.. well it happened to me anyways.
the people who made it got all the academy awards though.
ps it was about anti-jewism in america. hmhmhm
but let me tell you what, if you have seen even one movie by
lena wertmuller, a european woman director, oh my god.
she has more balls in her little pinky than i have seen in 15 years of watching american movies.
go see 'love and anarchy' or 'seven beauties'. jesus christ,
a few minutes of her movies will blow you away and you will never forget it,
forever imprinted on your soul.
she has balls.
IFC has balls for showing her movies,
independent film has balls.
hollywood has balls, but only to make money
and tell everything else in life 'fuck you'.
i suppose that takes a certain sort of balls,
or is it a certain sort of cowardice?
How did you manage to remove your crack pipe long enough to read the book?
I thought it was a great book (it's about the journey, not the ending!).
Besides, there are a lot of "classics" that end just as quick and just as flat (for an example, read "War & Peace" or just about any other book by Tolstoy. It's a typical scenerio: great story - flat ending.
Quit whining and go back to your X-men comics.
There are some books that make wonderful movies, there are others that just...well...they don't make good movies for one reason or the other.
Dune had alot of potential. Lynch and his crew could have been the right fit, then again it proved otherwise didn't it? However I just can't see how a lower budget that TV requires can possibly do justice to this series. Dune is best left on pages, not on the screen.
The story is so inner-focused and delves quite deeply in to socialoligical, political, and religious subjects that a resonable length film version just hurts the story that was built in the minds eye by reading the book. The film maker has to cut corners somewhere, and has to make comprimises. Not everything can translate to screen from the page. Inner-dialog seems to be one of the hardest (judging by Hollywood's track record) and this is the backbone of the Dune books.
Sci-Fi channel will have to make this movie accesible to everyone, those who've read the story and those who haven't. I personally don't think they pulled off Dune that well and, although Children is more filmable than other books, I just see it being too much of a stretch to get done in a resonable amount of time and still keep the story intact, plus deliver a vivid and memorable visual experience that both the experienced reader of Dune series and the unitiated can appreciate.
Both Harry Potter (although not even the same league of course) and LoTR I think suffer (and will suffer) the same problem; legions of fans who have a distinct personal attachment to and "vision" of what the characters, scenery and meanings of various points and dialog are who come away from the screen version of the story dissapointed or not satisfied because of the limits that film imposes on certain stories.
I personally would love to have a big-budget Dune made again, especially using todays modern effects capabilities. I don't want it just for the effects, but Herbert's characters and his backdrops demand it. Not even considering the cinematic, plot and overall problems delivering a coherent story on screen, I'm afraid that the TV version can't deliver this how it should be done because they can't possibly justify spending the money to do the effects right. They just don't make enough off the advertising and product sales (DVD, etc.).
My humble $0.02 on the matter,
-s
Actually, there are some extensive interviews with Herbert saying that water is oil.
Exceprt from "When I was writing dune" can be found in the front of the paperback copy of Heretics of dune.
...there was no room in my mind for cencerns about the book's sucess of failure. I was concerned only with the writing. Six years of research had preceded the day I sat down to put the story together, and the interweaving of the many plot layers I had planned required a degree of concentration I had never before exprienced.
It was to be a story exploring the myth of the Messiah.
It was to produce another view of a human-occupied planet as an energy machine.
It was to penetrate the interlocked workings of politics and economincs.
It was to be an examination of absolute prediction and its pitfalls.
It was to have an awareness drug in it and tell what could happen through dependence on such a substance.
Potable water was to be an analog for oil and for water iteself, a substance whose supply diminishes each day
It was to be an ecological novel then, with many overtones, as well as a story about people and their human concerns with human values, and I had to monitor each of thes elevels at every stage in the book
But the islam stuff doesnt stop there. The Telaxiu are Islamic, as can be seen in the later books.
Having recently read Dune it was all I could do to stop myself screaming at the screen.
This wasn't just a few nips and tucks for the film version it was butchery. From the top of my head :
I think I'll stick to the books thanks all the same.
you know my brother was like
,,, until....
GODDAMNIT THERE ARE NO WEIRDING MODULES IN THE BOOK
to me.
and someone else on slashdot was like that.
so im like, ok, there you go. sci fi is allright,
bad-ass series. way to go.
now here you are, troll of trolls, the jesus christ of trolls,
crucified by the moderators, until
UNTIL YOU SOLD OUT.
look at yourself, god, man, you are troll on the surface,
you generate response, and hits, and banner ads, but what?
what is the soul of the true troll? it is to fuck
shit up, to spite the power of the evil cmdrtaco
and his empire of moderato-fascists bent on destroying
all dissent to the linux monopoly with their doublespeak
and their total disregard for peoples ideas and feelings
that contradict their own. the troll, like a shining
fist through the solar plexis of fascism, shoots
bejeweld into the cosmos of despair, hatred, and ignorance,
drawing a path for the children to keep from having
to kill themselves out of disdain for the hypocrisy of their
parents.
It's a formula for success that hasn't (to my knowledge) really been tried yet, so here goes:
Change Nothing.
It's really just that simple. Who is the target audience? People who watch the Sci-Fi channel...or to put it more simply, Us Geeks. And we're sticklers for detail. Don't believe me? Go to a sci-fi con sometime and ask anyone there who Nomad is. You will have your ears talked straight off.
I really wanted the miniseries to make up for the movie. I really did. But as I sat there watching it I couldn't help but say over and over, "Well that's wrong. So's that. She shouldn't be there. Those aren't supposed to look like that. He shouldn't be here yet." And so on.
Other bits were pleasing, and an improvement over the movie. Hearing the water sellers cry in the city was a nice touch. Cloaks over the stillsuits. Fremen popping up from the sand to fight. Details like that are exactly what we're looking for.
So my advice is this...if you're short on time, omit something if you must. That's entirely understandable. But don't change anything! Omissions are far easier to ignore. Having Irulan seduce Feyd was inexcusable.
If I were to take a picture of the Mona Lisa and crop it a bit to fit on my web page, everyone would still be able to tell it was the Mona Lisa. If I put her in a bikini top, give her a moustache and make the background Coney Island....well, it's no longer the Mona Lisa, right?
Please, if anyone at Sci-Fi is reading this...show this series the same respect you'd show any other work of art. Mr. Herbert wrote everything in a particular way to express a story he had in mind - you cannot improve upon it. All you can do is change it, and it's his story that we are fans of. So read the books carefully, and please don't paint another moustache on Dune.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Anybody aware if Sci Fi channel has taken any options on filming Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Dune prequel trilogy?
Having read the first two, although markedly inferior to Frank Herbert's original works, they do strike me as much easier to translate into film than the rest of the original series. Plenty of moments where you can say 'So _that's_ why x hates y! and went on to give birth to z'
To all those who think that a short summary of the series can spoil it: You clearly have not read the series. It is not the WHAT, but the HOW and WHY. What makes the Dune series possibly the very best series of books of all time is what Frank Herbert has to say about humans, religion, government, fanaticism, emperialism and other things that constitute our existence. No film or mini series adaptation has yet touched on these aspects of his writing because it is truly after the first book that he expounds upon them. The Lynch film did the book a fair turn, but cut out much of the story, so ended up confusing to those who had not read the story. The mini-series took serious liberties with the storyline, but covered more territory. No substitute for the books, people. _K
nothing wrong with sex. nothing
wrong with sex with a persons mom.
unless you are raping her.
then you are a fat fucking piece of trailer scum and need to
let the mom have a say in what oughta be done to you.
so basically, youre either saying 'im having consensual sex with your mom' , which isnt bad, i mean shit.
unless its some kind of adultery, but what if the dad is polgyamous?
then so what? what if they are reverse mormons?
but like on the other hand you might be saying
'im raping your mom'. now that is some seriously fucked up shit
and you ned to take a good long fucking look at what your
stupid ass is saying. dumbshit.
I was SO disappointed with their last stab at Dune. It was like watching really bad theater. I was half expecting Paul and Chani to burst into song at certain points.
Granted, the Sci-fi cahnnel's version was better than David Lynch, but that's hardly high praise.
Pooty tweet
The "deus ex machina" of the Duniverse was spice, with some dosing of mental sciences like the Mentats and such.
The thing that struck me as being the real plague of the "Plague of the Dune" spinoffs was that they were so hot on throwing in bits of, well, late 20th century technology.
The Butlerian Jihad was all about utterly rejecting the use of computers and artificial forms of intelligence. That is not the sort of environment in which it makes sense for people to get excited about the Galaxy Wide Web :-).
Frankly, one of the neat things about Dune was the notion of the people systematically rejecting things like computers. You have to think a little bit to come up with the sorts of alternative sorts of technologies that come out of people refusing to think down those paths...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
The new mini-series was incredibly ugly! While there were a lot of pretty colors, I think most people would agree that the books dont evoke images with pretty colors. Also, there was absolutely no style to the miniseries. The look they achieved was "incoherent, silly, sci-fi cliche". I hope they will put more money into visuals & fx.
Also, the acting was pathetic. Especially compared to the Lynch movie. But the fact that the miniseries was still enjoyable, even with shite acting and visuals, speaks volumes about the quality of the original story.
-dbc
They may have been very weak on getting the story right, but the appearances of the characters still strike me as quite wonderful.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
'subtle'? whered you learn that, college?
fucking sissy. go back to princeton you moron.
"oooh it was SO EMOTIONAL" "OOOOH"
well screw you buddy. real men like three things:
sex, steak, and death.
the first movie had lots of all of that.
the fucking miniseries was a bunch of female
bullshit. in fact, me and my buddies decided to
all become homosexuals after watching it.
not pansy sissy homosexuals such as yourself, but rather
hardcore greek-warrior homosexuals like socrates,
alexander the great, sparta, that type of thing.
i believe the lesbians call it 'butch'.
now, if i ever met your pathetic fairy ass on the street,
me and my butch buddies are gonna pound your
dune-miniseries-loving ass back into the goddan
pastry kitchen where your sardaukar came from, as
another manly-man poster referenced above.
i banish you from slashdot, and from all talk of dune,
you and all other miniseries worshipping candy asses.
the real dune is david lynch, full of homoerotic
overtones, giant worms, manly men in the desert, and
no goddamn sissification dream sequence meditation
negotiation bullshit!
thats because all lynch knows is looks. he is a brainless
fart wad. look at that movies, i mean come on.
the miniseries was all about the inner self, something
which you only touch via the medium of vaseline.
you really need to get a life.
I think there were about 4 different version of the 1985 effort (original, directors, tv etc.), one of which, special weighed in around the 4 hour mark. Still couldn't cover a story that rich though.
Why are you all calling it a scooter? I'd say that's a bit of an understatement.
I think all the people who are saying "electric scooter, big whoop. $3,000, yeah right" are slightly missing the point. Yeah, it's kind of wimpy for the price tag. Yeah, it's kind of expensive, and it's questionable who would want to use it.
But this is just the first model. It's more sort of a proof of concept--a demonstration that the scooter can work, and looks as neat as all get-out in motion. As time goes on, the performance will improve and the price will fall.
Look at the Palm (Pilot). The first model was, what, 128K? With no backlight, no infra-red, or anything? And how high was the price tag? And now the Visor Deluxe, which was at one time the wet dream of anybody who even looked at a Palm, is only $130 brand new.
Look at the DVD player. The original models were expensive enough, the first bunch of discs were glitchy enough, that a lot of people scoffed and made snide remarks. But the DVD went on to become the fastest-adopted new consumer technology ever.
So here we have a relatively slow, electric-powered self-stabilizing scooter, for $3,000. Are very many of us going to buy it? Do very many of us have the money to sink into that sort of gee-gaw? No and no. I know I'm not going to be spending three grand on something like that myself, either. Nor would I be likely to spend two grand, or even one grand for that matter.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Let's just hope these people don't organize into rival houses and fight for control of the world's supply of Dune criticism...
If you oppose us Bene Hackeritt, we will cut off your supply of bandwidth, which, as you know, is needed by all Kernel Gurus to forsee the future of Linux.
I think that's what the previous poster meant about getting the design of the Weirding modules right. Not having them would make them right.
For that matter, I hope that they get the Eyes of Ibad right. I sort of always thought that "deep blue whites and pupils" meant something other than "light blue pupils."
The characters would look a LOT different if you couldn't see their pupils. It would do more to convince everyone that all of the Fremen are addicts of a very dangerous drug.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Wasn't the first batch bad enough? This must be the most wildly overrated piece of crap ever produced in the sci-fi genre.
and apple computer hardware is made in china.
so basically, what youve got here,
is a global worldwide conspiracy for
the sci-fi fuckheads to make money
by selling the dead carcasses of the
victims of the sep11 attacks. why do you think
they pulled all the network cameras out of the
area? why do you think we dont hear anything
about the bodies being recovered?
sci-fi is fucking selling them on ebay, and
you know what else?
sci-fi is going to use those body parts as props
in dune! its horrible! i also heard aliens
are coming to visit earth, and sci-fi is using
'dune' as some way to get in good with the aliens.
The "proper" way to consume a bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal was a funny look into a geeky mind.
;-)
Cryptonomicon was a long book but was great all the way through, and didn't even suffer from the "truncate book here" type ending nearly as badly as Stephenson's other work.
I'm guessing you're still bitter that too much Cap'n Crunch destroyed your attention span as a child.
For that matter, I hope that they get the Eyes of Ibad right. I sort of always thought that "deep blue whites and pupils" meant something other than "light blue pupils."
They didn't even get it right on the t.v. miniseries of Dune a while back (on Space Channel for those of us in Canada)... dark blue on the front of the eye (glowing too!), but when their heads were turned (we see a different angle of the eye), the eyes were basically white.
The t.v. series was apparently better than the film (which I haven't seen yet, but my father insists that it is so). Unfotrunately, I don't remember much about the book anymore... I'd love to compare both to the book (in the way that I believe that the Starship Troopers movie should have gotten the super-armour right...)
MIKE
Beware the JabberOrk.
10000 years in the desert and they don't eve have a tan?
when is herbert and everyone since finally going to realize, the fremen are BLACK.
"The direction controls are the same in Nethack as they are in vi." "Yeah, I hardly ever die in vi anymore."
I sure hope this new TV movie gives us a little more detail on the weirding modules mentioned throughout the books. It was really my favourite part.
> ...and recount the fall of Paul's empire, with the
> future resting in the hands of Paul's heirs, his
> twin children.
Strange that no-one seems to have mentioned this yet, but Leto II got killed at the end of the mini-series, and he didn't have a sister. (Of course, in the books they didn't have children at all until Messiah.) Let's see how the producers wriggle out of this one...
Lynch films.
"We've got to take artistic liberties, of course, but we'll at least try to keep most of the dialogue the same."
Sci-Fi.
"We're Sci-Fi, we can rewrite anything however we want it!"
My favorite thing about Sci-Fi is how they keep picking up old shows from other stations and labelling them "A Sci-Fi Original".
Har.
as slashdot readers, we need to support sci-fi, because they essentially cater to US. Of course, who knows who they're owned by. Sure would be tite if they were some crazy spinoff group that, because of their stronghold on sci-fi programming, don't have to listen to the likes of AOL Time-Warner and whomever else. Of course, it's just specualtions. But to the sci-fi techies and crew; We at Slashdot salute you!
It may boggle your ST:TNG-saturated brain to learn that Patrick Stewart is actually a very accomplished actor of stage and screen. See, a long time before Gene Roddenberry was ever born (yes people DID live before him) there was this guy called Bill Shakespeare. Patrick Stewart has done a lot of Shakespeare on stage, and the majority of his career was NOT spent playing Captain Picard. If you had anything resembling an attention span, you wouldn't have come upon this mental contradiction of yours. Now go bask in the glow of the TV again, because you seem to be going through withdrawl symptoms.
Know now that it is the year 10,191...
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Let me sum it up for you:
The movie's better!
No, the miniseries!
No, the movie!
I like swords.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
... they hire actors who can act?!?!
I mean, in the scifi channel remake, everyone's acting was flatter than a pancake. That and the cheap-ass sets were the two most distracting points of the scifi channel remake.
Kyle MacLachlan (Paul, Lynch) had more talent in his left pinky than Alec Newman (Paul, Scifi) And what the heck was up with William Hurt (Duke Leto, Scifi)? Normally a fine actor, in the remake it was like he was on prozac the whole time! Jurgen Prochnow (Duke Leto, Lynch) might have been somewhat oddly cast for the Lynch production, but at least he had emotions!
Come on guys, be a little daring this time, try some location shots. Dont be weenies and do everything on stage sets.
I know that people say this a thousand times, but the movie/book barrier is something that is always going to be argued by book people until the world ends.
You don't compare ballet with painting, do you? Its hard to do. So we argue the one similarity with books and movies, plot points. If I wrote a bestselling science fiction book and a winning movie about the same thing, you would notice that I would gloss over and pass through things that I talked extensively about in the book.
Matter of fact, I might even leave out characters that are too complex. All of those changes are necessary. Absolutely necessary to make it possible to make art of a movie. Just like backstory and depth is the art of the book.
Books and movies are both art.
I actually love the David Lynch movie because of the art it represents. I like the miniseries because it shows the lonliness of Paul on his quest to change the world. They both have strengths. I own the David Lynch movie. I don't have the miniseries... the spouse had a fit at the store.
A book is a book. They are a different medium than movies. Keep that in mind. I want to see more Dune anything.
And I finally noticed - really noticed - the line "He who can destroy a thing controls is." With that, and the references to the Empire crumbling without spice, it finally penetrated my thick skull that maybe there was a symbolic level of the Dune novels. Hmm...desert...strange substance on which universe depends...religious fanatacism...holy wars...might the novels have been metaphors for the middle east?
I freely admit it, I'm an idiot.
One more note: I gotta say, it was creepy as hell watching the Fremen chant "Jihad!" and "Muad'dib". I think a previous poster was right - Dune will mean different things to different generations. I certainly look at it in a different way after 9/11.
It's still the Best SF Universe Ever, of course.
I'm the stranger...posting to
What I want to know is:
Where is the rumored European cut of the miniseries with the naked Chani?
I was a bit dissipointed with the SciFi version when they cast Jessica and Paul to look about the same age, but I understand their wanting to put attractive young actors into the main roles...
Are they going to cast the twins as two hot 20 year olds that are supposed to be 8? That would suck. Maybe with Duncan and Alia they can reach their sex quota, but will they be able to resist temtation and actually cast young children into two of the main rolls?
Did I miss something VITAL or is Stephenson on the crack pipe again?
Otherwise it was a pretty good book. Except for Andrew Loeb suddenly becoming the raving, slinking villain out of nowhere (WTF?). Except for the ending I saw coming. Except for...
Having read dune in middle school(22years ago)
and 3 times again since, I was thinking about
the Jihad reference the 2nd week after 0911.
(took me that long to reassess everything else).
But I keep hearing the following phrases:
"In these uncertain times.."
"In these trying times.."
"This will have to be reassessed.."
"That will have to be reassessed.."
We can just start rewriting all of our literature and media so that it doesn't
incite or offend. Jihad in Dune is
supposed to represent something horrible
on a galactic scale. Just because some
bastards attack us an kill alot of us
doesn't mean that we should start destroying
our culture. The looming threat and
aftermath of Paul's Jihad and the previous
aftermath of the Butlerian(sp) Jihad are
the main framing piece of Dune. Don't
Fsck with it.
I'd rather they did a miniseries of DOON - the Dessert planet"
A much more entertaining read....
And he shall pour a beer without head, and it shall be nothing
www.eFax.com are spammers
I can't wait until CG actors allow us to
have the cast from the Movie fight the
cast from the miniseries. Age of combatants
should be the ages during original filming date.
My money would be on the miniseries cast,
they kicked some serious ass (both the men and
the women).
Well, the Olsen twins managed to play a child of about 4 years old well into their early teen years. Although how they plan on making one of them male is beyond me (not that any self-respecting geek would care, c'mon, these are the OLSEN TWINS!).
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Pull out an atlas sometime. China is about as close to the middle east as England is.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Besides the fact that you just aligned some vague concepts with some more vague concepts, without explaining yourself, there's really nothing scary here at all. The term 'strikes back' is a common english idiom, and was rather natural for CNN et al to use.
However, just for the record, 'rebels' never drove around in landspeeders, and Luke was neither a suicidal pilot, nor was he attacking a weapon capable of blowing up planets...
Ben Kenobi / Osama? When did 'gentle Ben' ever advocate killing millions of innocent Empire civilians? Star Wars episode 4.5: Ben Gets Pissed?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
It's MANY levels better than the "original" programming they usually have on.
Hint!
Just because something is original (and i use that word sparingly!) , doesn't mean that it's better, or even watchable.
See Andromeda for an example.
Actually Jews are in Chapterhouse, I believe. Whatever analogies people want to draw they will draw. I just like the books.
Jews were in Chapterhouse, as the sect that had the secret alliance with the bene geserit. But the Telaxiu were Islamic. They spoke the language "Islamiyat" and had Jihad and Shariat and Powindah as ideas.
It wasn't just hinted at. Herbert came right out and said it.
I have read all the Dune books. After doing that, my conclusion was that only the first and the last (Chapterhouse: Dune to which Heretics of Dune was a reasonable 'intro') were worth reading. Nothing really happens in the books in between.
I think they should have stopped after making the first Dune movie. I'd rather see film versions of 'The Demon Princes' by Jack Vance. These stories *all* rock.
Just a personal opinion.
Take the time to actually read the books before you open your big mouth
I've read the series many times, though a long
time ago, and do not remember a claim about
pigmentation.
please give refference when using such claims.
(my guess, fremen are based on bedouin, which are levantine, not exactly black, but darker then europeans.)
anyway, why are you so excited about this ?
Working for necessity's mother.
Also, neither the movie or the miniseries did Duncan Idaho justice. In the novels, he's a badass but he doesn't even do anything in the miniseries.
And even less in the movie. I've read the books peripherally, but even I know Duncan Idaho is more than a "Good to see you!" afterthought character who Paul greets in passing.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
The Sci-Fi Channel's Mini-series adaptation of "Dune" was a lot better than the muddled and incomprehensible 80's movie (which was apparently mostly a vehicle to get Sting on the screen).
The Scifi "Dune" is hardly perfect (mostly because of TV-grade acting) but tries to follow the book relatively closely and it may be as good as it gets for Dune fans for a long time to come. If you didn't see it it's now available on DVD... probably worth renting at least.
Frank Herbert's worlds, like Tolkien's, are already fully developed before the author starts writing. The books are so rich with sub-plots, hidden agendas and cross-interactions between characters that squeezing them down to feature-film length sacrifices many of the sub-plots that show us that the story is about a world (galaxy?) and those in it, not one person and the people they bump into.
I have high hopes for the Lord of the Rings series because they didn't start with the premise that they could wedge three books into one movie.
Hopefully they'll get skilled actors and CGI providers this time around.
The only performance that was barely acceptable was the guy who played Stilgar (and even that's being generous)
Of course I don't want to fsck with Dune - it's an awesome novel and series. Frankly, I think the fact that I thought of it in connection with 9/11 is a GOOD thing - a novel for the ages should speak to us in many circumstances, disaster being one of them.
I'm the stranger...posting to
A little too quick to the post button, lol.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Every time I see ST:TNG, I always think Patrick Stewart is about to call Riker "a young pup" and make him play a Baliset.
I didn't know anyone in the 9/11 disaster. Sure it was a "tragedy", but since I didn't know _anyone_ who was affected, I'd be lying if I said that I cared. Doesn't change my day to day life one bit.
LOL. That wasn't flamebait, it's funny. Summarizing the ending in one sentence just to ruin it for someone who asked for it.
Hell no. Kyle Maclaclan would beat the snot out of that no-name punk from the mini-series. The same goes for Francesca Annis, Sean Young, Patrick Stewart, Jurgen Prochnow, Max Von Sydow and Richard Jordan VS their crappy mini-series counterparts.
Also compare the crys-knives from the movie VS the mini-series. In the movie, they were large, sandworm teeth. In the mini-series they looks more like dull fruit knives.
Don't even get me started on Stilgar from the movie VS that fat, dirty bum they used in the mini-series.