Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Movies Media

First Pix From New Dune Miniseries 166

Posted by Hemos from the looking-ahead dept.
Killjoy_b writes, "Dune fans never had it so good. First Frank Herbert's son's new Dune: House Atreides book came out in February and now there is a new Dune miniseries in the making. You can check out the pics at this Science Fiction Film Site. The page itself is German. Enjoy. " You know where the fish is.Tim sent this additional page of info. In English.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

First Pix From New Dune Miniseries More

First Pix From New Dune Miniseries

Comments Filter:
  • I've always liked the Dune series of books, I haven't gotten the new one yet, but I'm working on it.

    After the fish translated the page, I was left with one question: On which network would this mini series air on? Sci-Fi?
  • When I was something like 16 years old, I raced to the theater on opening day, excited that my favorite book ever was now going to be a movie, which big stars like "Sting" in it.

    Those of you that have actually seen the original "Dune" movie can likely guess how the rest of that day went.

    So I'm not going to do that again. Until I hear that this has won an emmy or something, I am not even going to think about watching.

  • Not that I was totally unimpressed by the film, but I think it was a mistake to try to film an accurate version of a brick sized tome in less than 6 hours.

    I also hope they make "The Voice" a little bit more convincing.

  • It's just a pity it's Dune (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    While it's always great when a new sci-fi series/film comes out I wish it could have been something other than Dune. There are far more worthwhile SF series that would make excellent series, but Dune is just not one of them.

    Dune is horribly dull and long-winded, spending 100 pages going into mind-numbing detail about the smallest of details, lending itself to that incredible "eye-glazing factor" that is also shared by much of Tolkien's work. I tried to read it several times and each time I gave up in favour of a better written book by someone who had obviously employed the services of a decent editor.

    And let's face it the setting for Dune was hardly convincing. There was a lack of background in some places, leaving the reader to guess what was going on a lot of the time, and some truly dire characterisations. I like my books to be full of detailed, convincing characters who engage in wity, sharp conversations that make them sound like real people. I'm sure you can see why I didn't like Dune - two-dimensional characters a masterpiece do not make.

    There are plenty of worthwhile SF series out there which would make for far more intersting, exciting and challenging TV series and/or films. Let's hope that next time they pick one.

  • On which network would this mini series air on? Sci-Fi?
    Yessiree, Bob! Sci Fi has been talking about this for a couple years, and they started promoting it during their "Sci2K" campaign this past December. So we can probably expect to see it premier during the fall sweeps.

    As long it's closer in quality to Farscape than Welcome To Paradox, I'll be happy. Anything's better than Lynch's long, strange trip.

    Keith Russell
    OS != Religion

  • "On 22 November 1999 begin towards in Prague the turning work for a 6-stuendige TV filming of the novel " the desert planet " (" Dune ") of franc Herbert. The TV project budgetierte with 20 million US Dollar can offer thereby a hochkaraetigen occupation and crew.

    Thus William Hurt (out " draws in space ", " Dark admits town center " among other things or also " to to the end of the world ") took over the role of the duke Leto Atreides, which will have to be seen Italian actors Giancarlo Giannini as Imperator Shaddam IV and to Ian McNeice as a bad baron Harkonnen.

    Barbara Kodetova plays charismatischen Paul Atreides, the main figure of the film as Chani at the page of Alec Newman, that represents. With Uwe ox farmhand, who embodies the Fremenfuehrer very convincingly, is represented also a German actor in this internationally filled production.

    The film script to " desert planet " wrote John Harrison, which leads also direction; executing producers are Richard P. Rubinstein and Mitchell Galin. The line of the camera work took over the three-way Oskar winner Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now). The marvelous kostuementwuerfe come from Theodor Pistek (won a Oskar for the costumes in Amadeus). Additionally the special effect conductor Ernest Farino and the production designer Miljen Kreka Kljakovic is involved in the project. The digital trick effects will come from three of studios, among them AREA 51 and nice one digital (Babylon 5).

    " Dune " produced of new Amsterdam Entertainment Inc., the Scifi Channel and KirchMedia in co-operation with tandem Communications. The US Austrahlung is planned for the last quarter 2000, in Germany the television filming in the spring 2001 to see will be (thus only little later).

    World-exclusively SF Film.de can show the first photos of the set and the turning work here now. Thank you for it at Torsten Dewi!


    Cthulhu for President! [cthulhu.org]
  • If you've read the book, you probably won't like the film. This is true for most book-based films, not just Dune.

    I saw the film without having read the book, and I thought it was okay. A bit bizarre, but okay.

    So maybe you're just expecting too much if you want the film to be faithful to, or as good as, the book it's based on.

  • Geek Metaphors (Score:3)

    by gnarphlager ( 62988 ) on Friday March 10, 2000 @07:00AM (#1212221) Homepage
    Most people fail to realize, but Dune is very important in geek culture for the self-referential metaphors. All geeks realize the importance of self-reference. Take, for example, this post on Slashdot discussing metaphors in Dune. It CLEARLY references itself, and thus gives a good example of self-reference. It also uses the expression "self-reference" more times than any valid post should. But I digress.

    I'm sure you understand the relationship to the freemen and free software. Though it's been quite a while since I've read the book, I seem to recall "freemen" being spelled with only two "e"s. I could be wrong though, so I choose to continue spelling it logically. If I'm going to look stupid, which I often do (I point your attention to my recent post on slashdot regarding Geek Metaphors in Dune), then at least I'm going to admit it, and look stupid in my own special way. But I digress.

    The freemen live in caves in the desert in the Dune books. They are unwashed and seen as lunatics by the more civilized Houses. This is clearly a metaphor for free software programmers. The desert, however, is to be taken literally. Most free software programmers live in caves in the desert. I mean, it only stands to reason. Believe it or not, those caves are mighty chilly, and saves trouble of cooling the server rooms. Though nothing is quite like the pleasure of an ice cold server room. Set aside getting out of summer heat, it lets you wear your all too geeky Mr.Rodgers-esque sweater all year round. I don't know about you, but I certainly like sweaters. But I digress.

    And then there are the sandworms. Giant beasts that burrows through the soil. If ever there has been an obvious metaphor for worm-type viruses, this is it. And worm viruses would not exist without people to program them. Sure, that sort of thing might be a good way to understand how protocols and programming works, but any good hacker grows out of that stuff after high school. Angst-fueled education seems to be very prevailent. But the important thing is to not regret it. Sure, I'm not PROUD of alot of the things I've done in the past, and I'd never do it again, but I DID do it. There's nothing that can be accomplished by feeling sorry about everything I've ever done. Take for example the time that I found the dying man behind the 7-11. Yeah, I could have, and likely should have called an ambulance. But I hadn't eaten in a few days, and truth be told I was dead broke. If I had spent more time programming useful software, instead of releasing everything "free", then maybe I could have bought a taco or two. But no one was around, and I made sure not to leave any fingerprints. And it gave me a chance to use that new meatloaf pan my mother bought me for my birthday. Oh, mother, what you don't know . . .

    But I digress. Cheese is pretty.
  • How could they make the "Voice" more convincing?

    As far as I could tell from the books, the "Voice" is just control over intonation and phrasing that allows someone to cut through the conscious filtering most people use when listening to another person.

    With out the cheesy effect from the movie you wouldn't know when they were using the "Voice".

  • Argh. (Score:1)

    by zpengo ( 99887 )

    The book was one of the greatest books ever written.

    The movie was one of the worst movies ever made.

    I can only hope that a miniseries, which will benefit from a smaller budget than the film, will fall somewhere in between....

    ICQ: 49636524
    snowphoton@mindspring.com

  • Yes, I am one of the few who actually enjoyed Lynch's DUNE. I even liked it enough to have bought the DVD, trading cards, and yes, even built a DUNE website once.

    The stills from the miniseries are missing something though. I read DUNE, and Children of DUNE, and God Emperor of DUNE. Herbert set a stage in DUNE, long winded and detailed, but it was there. And Lynch managed to get that feel right. Undoubtedly due to the on-set presence of Frank Herbert. Stillsuits were almost exactly as they were described, the opulence and Russian Imperial styling worked. The Fremen (lousy special effects aside) carried their character. - I see no attempt to conserve water in those screencaps.

    What I do see is something palatable for television, no doubt dumbed down so that the masses aren't confused by every line of dialag. (Uhhh... hunny, whats that there SAY-A-DINA fer?)

    DUNE the movie was not for everyone, as the book was not for everyone. Fair enough. - But isn't this miniseries just beating a dead horse?

    DUNE fans will not likely support this totally, though there are also the fans of the Novel that didn't like the movie... We'll just have to wait until filming is complete, and the show airs to see if this is another "Leprechauns" or "10th Kingdom"

  • I always thought "Turing Option" by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minskey (not published anymore) would have been a great book to convert into a movie. Great story and characters. Anyone else read this book? Any thoughts?
  • Through www.dictionary.com/translate (Babelfish was hosed)... tried to English-ify it as much as possible:

    1. March 2000 - Author: Florian Breitsameter
    DUNE Miniseries: The first pictures of the set!

    On 22 November 1999 work in Prague began towards filming for a 6-hour TV filming of the novel " The Desert Planet " ("Dune"), by Frank Herbert. The TV project has a $20 million budget(US), which can offer thereby a hochkaraetigen occupation and crew.

    William Hurt ("Lost In Space", "Dark City" and also "Until The End Of The World") plays the role of the Duke Leto Atreides, which will have to be seen. The film will also feature Italian actors Giancarlo Giannini as Imperator Shaddam IV and to Ian McNeice as a bad baron Harkonnen.

    Alec Newman plays Paul Atreides, the main figure of the film. Barbara Kodetova plays Chani, at the page of Alec Newman. With Uwe Ochsenknecht, who embodies the Fremen Leader very convincingly, is represented also a German actor in this internationally filled production.

    The film script to "desert planet" was written by John Harrison, who also directs; executive producers are Richard P. Rubinstein and Mitchell Galin. The camera work is done by the three-time Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now).

    The marvelous costumes come from Theodor Pistek (obtained a Oscar for the costumes at Amadeus). Additionally the special effect conductor Ernest Farino and the production designer Miljen Kreka Kljakovic are involved in the project. The digital special effects will come from three of studios, among them AREA 51 and One Digital (Babylon 5).

    " Dune " is produced by Amsterdam Entertainment Inc., the Scifi Channel and KirchMedia tandem Communications. The US airing is planned for the Fall 2000, in Germany the television airing will air in Spring 2001 (thus only little later).

    World-exclusively SF Film.de can show the first photos of the set and the fiming work here now. Thank you for it at Torsten Dewi!

    Captions
    Reverend Mother Ramallo (?), (Uwe Ochsenknecht) and Jessica (Saskia Reeves)

    Gurney Halleck (P.H. Moriaty), an assassin (?), Paul Atreides (Alec Newman) and (Uwe Ochsenknecht)

    Chani (Barbara Kodetova) and Paul Atreides (Alec Newman)

    (Uwe Ochsenknecht) with blue eyes!

    Richard Rubinstein(producer) and John Harrison (director) in the set for the Siege

    Vittorio Storaro (camera) and Uwe Ochsenknecht in the background

    Source: SFW, audio 51, Torsten Dewi, Victor television Productions, Inc..

  • Why does everyone in those pictures look like a futuristic potato farmer? Its almost as if sometime in the 22nd century everyone decided that drab, brown and baggy was how the future was supposed to look. Hell, even the lady with the scepter looks like she just got finished digging up some roots.

    Give these poor people some style! Where's the royalty? Where's the sleek, efficiency of a Fremen stillsuit? The ones in there look like leftovers from the local Salvation Army.

    -MM
  • Though it's been quite a while since I've read the book, I seem to recall "freemen" being spelled with only two "e"s

    Actually, it's fremen, and according to all the Dune pronunciation references I can find, it's pronounced with a short e, not a long e sound.

  • Yessiree, Bob! Sci Fi has been talking about this for a couple years, and they started promoting it during their "Sci2K" campaign this past December. So we can probably expect to see it premier during the fall sweeps.

    One minor question for people. Assuming I didn't want to get all of cable but say only pay for one channel (bet you can't guess) could I do it? I currently don't have a cable installation yet but I think it might be worth it in the future.

  • > William Hurt (out " draws in space ", " Dark admits town center " among other things or also " to to the end of the world ")

    Err, "Lost in Space", "Dark City", "Until the End of the World" ?

    Love that Babelfish...;)
  • Well, you can rely on cheesy special effects, or you can rely on acting, context and the viewer's intelligence.

    "These aren't the droids you're looking for".

  • There is the following page:

    Dune Mini-Series [arrakis.co.uk]

    It will air sometime towards the end of 1999 on the Sci-Fi Channel.

  • If you've read the book, you probably won't like the film. This is true for most book-based films, not just Dune.

    Well I have seen various filmed versions of Sherlock Holmes mysteries and have seen Wurthering Heights on film and they were pretty acurate.

    I saw the film without having read the book, and I thought it was okay. A bit bizarre, but okay.

    I have heard of this book however I have never read it. Something about some desolate planet where people squabble and kill over spaceship fuel found only on said plannet or am I wrong?

    So maybe you're just expecting too much if you want the film to be faithful to, or as good as, the book it's based on.

    I guess you could compare things like that to say taking War and Peace and converting it to film. Unless you want to sit in a chair for about 15 hours or more and watch a movie you have to cut things down.
  • The Dune movie failed purely on bad directing. I believe it was directed by the same guy who did "Twin Peaks" and "Lost Highway", although his name escapes me. While those two are cult classics, they're _not_ intended for mainsteam consumption, not even mainstream Sci-Fi lovers.

    Consider the dubious solution to the perspective in the book. If you remember, Dune had many sections where you'd read the character's thoughts, and this helped understand the character's movitations. But this doesn't work in a movie setting, so the director did the thoughts as "voice overs". It ended up as a bad directing choice.

    So hopefully the producers will learn from their mistakes.

    -Ted
  • And why oh why oh why did they have it rain at the end? Tim
  • Well, you can rely on cheesy special effects, or you can rely on acting, context and the viewer's intelligence.

    Well from what I know about film (ok I am not an actor but I know a few things) you simply would employ the same type of technique that is used for the internal thoughts of characters where you have a voice being spoken and the rest of the speech being either muted or muffled to allow for the omniscience factor.
  • Frank Herbert was involved in the production of the movie, and approved of it. He told a different story in a different media. The two stories shared major characters and thematic elements. You are absolutely correct when you say that the book should have taken six hours as a movie, but the ecomonic realities don't permit this. Quite frankly, I think the first book is almost meaningless without the context of its two sequels. That's 18 hours of movie for you; almost a prime-time dramatic series.

  • This looks wrong. (Score:3)

    by veldrane ( 70385 ) on Friday March 10, 2000 @07:32AM (#1212249)
    Personally, I'm a pretty big Dune fan but this just looks messed up.

    The spice is supposed to give the Fremen "blue within blue" eyes...perhaps it just a budget thing but it just looked like they just hired the "Aryan Nation Acting Troupe".

    The attire: This is a planet where the Terran Sahara desert would be considered a water-rich oasis. The images portray people running around in Xena-esque garb, which is wrong. Could someone point out one of the images where someone is wearing a stilsuit? To make it worse, one of the images has Paul bare-chested! Talk about that sacrilege of water wasting! (Ok, they could be inside one of the water-tight fremen shelters but still! The suit is an important symbol in the Fremen culture.) No stilsuits and some of them are wearing heavy, cumbersome clothing.

    Blades: Traditional Fremen daggers are made from the teeth of sandworms, if I remember correctly. So perhaps Gurney was wielding an off-world weapon?

    Fremen: I know looks can be deceiving but these people need to look somewhat like desert hardened survivalists. Supposedly they can take out the Padishah Emperor's Sardukar terror troops. I don't see that here.

    All I see is series that may do a few cross-overs with the Hercules-Xena series and all the good guys do flips and acrobatics to take out the bad guys in a non-lethal (and comedic) manner. The fremen are killers, pure and simple. Nothing too personal, its just a basic fact of survival. Even children are taught how to kill at an early age. The survivor of a dagger duel dessicates the loser and keeps the water. The survivor also gains all possessions and marital ties of the loser. I wonder if that will come into play in this series as well?

    I hate to be pessimistic but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and try to watch it if it shows in my area. If they butcher either genre (movie or book) I'll be one who won't watch it again.

    -Vel
  • Wasn't David Lynch (or something) the director?

    Øyvind

  • On 22 November 1999 in Prague starting work began for a 6-hour TV filming of the novel " the desert planet " (" Dune ") by Franc Herbert. The TV project, with a budget 20 million US Dollars, is a full time occupation for the crew.

    Thus William Hurt [go.com] (also in "Lost in Space ", "Dark City") admits to us , "among other things" also "Until the End of the World") took over the role of the duke Leto Atreides, also including Italian actors Giancarlo Giannini as Imperator Shaddam IV and Ian McNeice as a bad baron Harkonnen.

    Barbara Kodetova plays as Chani opposite the charismatic Paul Atreides, played by Alec Newman. With Uwe ox farmhand, who embodies the Fremen Leaders very convincingly, is represented also a German actor in this internationally filled production. The film script to "Desert Planet" is wrtten by John Harrison, who is also Lead Director; executing producers are Richard P. Rubinstein and Mitchell Galin. The camera work is done by the three-way Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now). The marvelous costume work comes from Theodor Pistek (won a Oscar for the costumes in Amadeus). Additionally the special effects conductor Ernest Farino and the production designer Miljen Kreka Kljakovic are involved in the project. The digital trick effects will come from three studios, among them AREA 51 and nice one digital (Babylon 5).

    " Dune " a production of New Amsterdam Entertainment Inc., the Scifi Channel and Kirch Media in co-operation with Tandem Communications. The US Release is planned for the last quarter 2000, in Germany the television filming in the spring 2001 to see will be (only little later).

    World-exclusive SF-Film.de [sf-fan.de] can show the first photos of the set and the ongoing work here- now. Thanks to Torsten Dewi!

  • Yeah. Hell, I liked (parts of) the movie. The Harkonnens should be just that decadent and twisted.
  • There's a movie of "War and Peace" that is supposed to be extremely good, done back in the silent film era. It is something like twelve hours long, though.

    Anyway, what they are squabbling over is an addictive drug that can provide the prescience needed to navigate hyperspace or somesuch. A little more interesting than just "spaceship fuel".

    There have been some good adaptions of books. The most famous in SF is probably Bladerunner, though it wasn't particularly faithful to the book. But on the whole, they tend to be bad because the directors are rarely people who actually like the book in the first place. (Probably the root problem in the original "Dune".)

    The real interesting adaption to wait for is Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. I've heard very positive things about that.

  • The whole trouble with converting the Dune series into books is this: None of the books stand up particurlarly well to being filmed. They're a great series of books alright, but there's far too much detail in there to come across in a miniseries.

    This was what was missing from the new book- the intricate details that you never noticed in Dune because you were so wrapped up in the storyline are missing. Without those the story loses so much of its character. It was the downfall of David Lynch, it'll be the downfall of Brian Herbert, and it'll be the downfall of this miniseries too. So what if they've stuck to the original story more than the movie did? It was Frank Herbert's amazing storytelling that made the Dune books, and those stories retold by others somehow don't seem to have the impact.

    --

  • The Dune movie failed purely on bad directing. I believe it was directed by the same guy who did "Twin Peaks" and "Lost Highway", although his name escapes me. ...

    Silly Rabbit!


    The credits for Dune list the director as Alan Smithee. Alan Smithee is a psuedoname that directors use when the studio fucks them over. David Lynch, who has done some great movies including Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart, never actually completed Dune. After he ran over budget, the studio took his work and did what they liked with it. Imagine if the studio had done the editting on The Godfather or Titanic...

  • If you've read the book, you probably won't like the film. This is true for most book-based films, not just Dune.
    No. The Dune movie was so horrific as to be completely out of range for comparison to any other book-to-movie translation. I read the book first (at 15) and remember that as I was reading it, I was figuring out how I would make a movie out of it. I can't even begin to describe the apoplectic fits the movie gave me.

    The stills from the series look pretty good compared to my vision of the book. I especially like the "look" of Paul and Chani - good casting! But I will withhold judgement until I see some special effects. And then there's acting, dialog and delivery too...
  • Or you could just have the actor say it, Like Alec Guinness did in "Star Wars", and not worry about using special effects at all.

  • Dino De Laurentiis.

    Think about it. DDL brought us such wonderful movies as Barbarella, King Kong, King Kong Lives (where they give King Kong an artificial heart!), and last, but not least, Danger: Diabolik, which was the last episode of MST3K.

    DDL must be stopped! One can not trust a man who lets a line like "Is that stud coming?" get into a film!

    The only person who could possibly be worse is Irwin Allen.
  • ---Start Parody---
    While it's always great when a new fantasy series/film comes out I wish it could have been something other than The Tempest. There are far more worthwhile fantasy series that would make excellent series, but The Tempest is just not one of them.

    The Tempest is horribly dull and long-winded, spending 100 pages going into ind-numbing detail about the smallest of details, lending itself to that incredible "eye-glazing factor" that is also shared by much of Tolkien's work. I tried to read it several times and each time I gave up in favour of a better written book by someone who had obviously employed the services of a decent editor.

    And let's face it the setting for The Tempest was hardly convincing. There was a lack of background in some places, leaving the reader to guess what was going on a lot of the time, and some truly dire characterisations. I like my books to be full of detailed,convincing characters who engage in wity, sharp conversations that make them sound like real people. I'm sure you can see why I didn't like The Tempest - two-dimensional characters a masterpiece do not make.

    There are plenty of worthwhile fantasy series out there which would make for far more intersting, exciting and challenging TV series and/or films. Let's hope that next time they pick one.
    ---End Parody---
  • I watched the movie before reading the book and was completely confused. But from what I now gather the film was badly cut. The new release which I think Sci-fi shows is the 'directors cut' and apparently makes for a better moive.
  • <<This is true for most book-based films, not just
    Dune.>>

    I always felt the the movie "Jaws" was better than
    the book. The movie left out the stupid affair
    between Hooper and Brody's wife.

    Anyhow, I thought the book Dune was rather
    simplistic. One thread that Frank Herbert kept
    on echoing was that people that had a harder life
    made better troops. Herbert was probably hooked
    on the idea after Vietnam. The Gulf War Part II
    showed that training and leadership were more
    effective, the equipment didn't hurt either, as
    long as it was used properly.
  • Upon taking a second look I noticed a few more things. (I can't edit my own post unfortunately.)

    1) The scene with the knife looks hand-made. It also doesn't have that metallic shininess that would give it an obvious metal look so the dagger could adhere to the authenticity of the story.

    2) I saw the token person with Tlelaxu eye replacements. At least they had that.

    3) The close-up of Stilgar was displaying a stilsuit breathing tube, which he wasn't wearing while he wasn't outside. I sill don't see the rest of the stilsuit either.

    -Vel
  • This is just one example of Slashdot's ongoing pandering to negative nerd stereotypes [...] Slashdot's owners assume we are fat, friendless heavy metal fans who have never been laid in our lives.

    Yes, but some of us are :-). OK, so I've got friends and I've been laid, but middle age spread is starting to set in (and I'm not even middle aged yet!). I love scifi, and I'm a heavy metal fan. And proud of it, too! It may well be a stereotype, but it fits a sizeable percentage of the Slashdot readership.

    Sidenote: I just wish the UK was more heavy metal friendly. There's nothing better than a good slab of metal to code to :-) It looks like I'm going to have to go to Germany to see the forthcoming Stratovarius/Rhapsody/Sonata Arctica tour, and I'd rate the chances of Hammerfall coming over here any time soon as pretty much zero. Sigh.

  • "Dune" the original book, is one of the top sci-fi books of all time. Yes, there's a heck of a lot of detail in the first 100 pages, but the universe that Dune exists in is completely different than that of ours that without this detail, we may miss key points later in the book. The ideas present a odd feulism-like society, where a tiny tiny tiny fraction of the population control the power, even less that the European feudlism, and how the various Houses scheme and plan to get a head of each other, not caring for the life that are placed in danger of their plans. And then it all falls down to one thing; longevity as controlled by the spice.

    If you haven't tried reading Dune, or tried and failed several years ago, definitely try again. Sure, it's not an easy read, but the impressions that Frank has written into it are deep.

    Stating that, avoid any of the other Dune books. Like most sci-fi novels, one book is planned, but the author is pressured to write more, and this definitely shows in the latter books. The style is less harse, and is actually an easier read-- which IMO is a failing (compare Neuromancer to Mona Lisa Overdrive, as another example).

    And, as everyone else here as put, the Movie sucked, at least the 2 hrs that were put to the theater. Even the directors cut is lakcing something that the book itself had.

  • Baron Harkonnen was decadent and twisted. He was also extremely shrewd and dangerous. In the movie, he was simply a perverted buffoon. That movie was an abomination and no amount of directing or editing could have saved it. Heartplugs! Sheesh.
  • When you say the movie was 'horrific' do you mean that it was a bad movie, or just that it mutilated the book?

    BTW the game Dune II is (I think) even less faithful to the book, but it's a damn good game.
  • I'd have to disagree that the other books in the series are bad, I think the problem is that the first book is simply too good to top. The second book would be the exception I think, that really did read like a book that he put together too quickly because of pressure from the publisher. Books 3 and 4, though, are pretty good (I'm working on book 4 right now). You get more of Herbert's philosophy which I always find interesting. And I certainly have not found the series to be getting boring. He adds enough twists and suprises to keep it interesting.
  • As a matter of fact, the original movie was intended to be 2 hours longer than it ended up. When Lynch ran out of money and the studio got their hands on the project, they chopped it to ribbons and the result was an abridged and less cohesive theatrical release. The Fox network acually broadcast a "Directors Cut" version of Dune that contained an additional hour of footage. This version was way better than the theatrical version and I was disappointed that it was not the version released on DVD.
  • ...but I doubt that it can be as good as I ever imagined it to be. But then Sci-Fi (and fantasy) never is. Unless something is written specifically for TV or the big screen, it almost never turns out to be as good as you imagine it. After all, when you read a book, especially when you like it and it is describing events that fall outside our normal experience (which is typical of the sci-fi/fantasy genre), you always imagine it in the best possible light, and that depends on the individual. Then, when the book gets turned into a movie or min-series, you will always be disappointed with the result because it was not how you imagined it to be. And that doesn't even account for the 'poetic-licence' that film-makers take with the actual storyline of any book.
  • No. The Dune movie was so horrific as to be completely out of range for comparison to any other book-to-movie translation.

    You have obviously never seen _Nightfall_ based on the Isaac Asimov story. That is quite possibly the worst movie that I have ever seen. I don't know if MST2K ever used it in one of their shows, but they certainly should have.

    Also, Heinlein books (_Starship Troopers_ and _The Puppet Masters_) have faired poorly as well.

  • When you say the movie was 'horrific' do you mean that it was a bad movie, or just that it mutilated the book?
    Yes to both. Bad costumes, bad sets, bad characterizations, bad dialog, bad acting, bad continuity, bad special effects, bad writing, bad story, just evil! evil! evil!

    I'm sorry...did I make my point?

    BTW when is anybody going to get it right? The "eyes of the ibad (sic)" effect _MUST_ be done with scleral (another sic) shells of different shades of blue. The whole eye is affected, not just the pupil! For example, Stilgar should have beautifilly inscrutibal navy blue eyes, essetially black from a short distance.

  • Frank Herbert disagrees with you... (Score:3)

    by devphil ( 51341 ) on Friday March 10, 2000 @08:10AM (#1212280) Homepage
    Like most sci-fi novels, one book is planned, but the author is pressured to write more, and this definitely shows in the latter books.

    Read the foreward that Herbert wrote for one of the later volumes. He talked about how he planned out many of the novels before sitting down to write the first one, and how certain scenes had to be shifted between the books.

    Doesn't sound to me like he was pressured into more...

  • An Emmy? Oy ... Are most shows you watch emmy-winners? Does it prove anything? (Didn't "Erkle" win an emmy?)

    David Lynch was the Director (and he kicks ass), but got screwed on the deal. Even so, the released film is OK if you know the story.

    I've been told the "directors cut" is actually pretty good (and like 6 hours long, though still not complete).
  • Uwe Ochsenknecht - you may also have seen him in "The Greatest Submarine Movie Ever" 'Das Boot' - another production which should feature in geek movie collections.

  • Nobody asked for it, but I'll write another mini-review of _Dune: House Atreides_ here simply because I feel that those who read it without reading the other books (Especially the final two, which many people seem to not have ever read - Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse: Dune) may come away wondering why the series is among, if not in fact, the best that science fiction has to offer.

    The new book, supposed prequel to _Dune_, by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (of Star Wars book fame) isn't exactly a great work of literature. However, if you're just looking for more "real Dune stuff" (KJA actually referred to the book as such), you may as well give it a read.

    The novel itself, though, is rife with contraditions of the later books, extremely poorly developed characters, excessive verbiage, a simple plot which derives a major gimmick from a Star Trek movie, and a tendacy to leave no action unexplained. What is wrong with the latter, you may ask. The simple fact is that the books by Frank Herbert required you to think. The prequel does not. This is akin to why _The Great Gatsby_ is considered such a great work. Many characters are portrayed vastly different from what the earlier books demand. Fenring, as a blood-thirsty murderer, rather than a cultured assassin. Paul's grandfather as a doting old man, rather than the steel-hard leader who is implied. Nevermind the Ixians who did not necessarily exist at this time, the Tleilaxu whose faith seems common knowledge, the Harkonnen as evil. The last is simply wrong. The Harkonnen were ruthless, but not evil. Frank Herbert liked shades of grey, no matter what the surface appearence. Why else did he spend the second book tearing Paul down from the pedestal. My whole point is that _Dune: House Atreides_ detracts from the series by Frank Herbert, and its only genuine redeeming point is that it will cause some number of those who read it to pick up the other books in the Dune Chronicals.

    I encourage you to read Amazon.com's customer reviews [amazon.com] if you're interested in more. Some love the book, bur you see the others who are critical of it for many of the same reasons as myself. Also note that there is both a newsgroup and mailing list where serious discussion is welcome.

    ------

  • The Guild navigators are essential for commerce in the Dune imperium, but they've mutated into repellent, distasteful monsters, shunned by all good folk, kind of like marketing people.

    George
  • Anybody read the new book? Is it any good?
  • especially when the kernel probes for my NE-2000 clone!

    Whoa.

    George
  • An Emmy? Oy ... Are most shows you watch emmy-winners?

    Yes, actually.

    The only shows I watch with any regularity are "The Simpson", "The X Files", "Futurama" and "Win Ben Stein's Money". Three out of four are emmy winners.

    (And yes, I know it might suck even winning an emmy. But the odds that it doesn't improve.)

  • <AOL>
    me too!
    </AOL>

    Dune was actually the second DVD I bought when I got my player.
  • I wasn't trying to prove you wrong. I honestly don't give a flying duck what you think. I was
    trying to point out what I feel is a moderation mistake. Your opinion is no more interesting that if I jump up and start shouting how I love dune and I've read the entire series over 30 times.
  • I borrowed it from our library.

    It's okay, required reading if you're a Dune fanatic, you know, the sort of person who wraps themselves in cellophane before heading to the beach, and who vicously defends their 10 square feet of sand with a white plastic crysknife, like me.

    It adds a lot of background to the story.

    I don't think it's interesting enough to stand on it's own, and I don't intend to buy it unless I see it at a garage sale for $0.25.

    It does raise some interesting questions and plot developments, and I'll probably read the next two when they come up to see how they get resolved.

    George
  • I gave up reading Dune on the fourth page describing how fat the Barron was. I mean, jsut say:

    "He was so huge that small children were sucked into orbit around him"

    and get on with it!

    I enjoyed the movie better than the book.

    I enjoyed National Lampoons' "DOON" better. They did in 150 pages what took Herbet 1,000.
  • The biggest contradiction I saw is that, in Dune: House Atreides, the fact that melange is used for navigation is public knowledge. While it was in the movie, I don't believe it was in the book. Indeed, one of Paul's trump cards was understanding that you used melange for navigation, because he threatened the Guild with revealing the secret.

    That secret is the only reason that the Guild monopoly existed. If it was known, the Corrinos would start hording Melange and experimenting with it, and break the Guild monopoly.

  • The one thing I liked about Lynch's version were the stillsuits. I felt he stuck to the book's descriptions fairly well when creating those. When I first saw these new pics I noticed right away the lack of stillsuits. Someone else said these Fremen look like potato farmers and I'd have to agree. Is a Fremen a Fremen without a suit?

    Maybe the suits are hidden beneath clothing in this movie -- I could live with that. Taking them out completely, though, is just a bit much.

  • May I reiterate the previous poster's challenge to you to list what you consider some "good" science fiction/fantasy books? It may very well be that I agree with you, but I am interested in hearing what you have to say nonetheless.

    ------

  • I also hope they make "The Voice" a little bit more convincing.

    As I understand from recently re-reading the _Dune_ series, the power of "Voice" portrayed in the books is supposed to be a matter of extremely subtle control of emphasis, timbre and intonation, idiosyncratic to each individual, which ignites instant and unthinking obedience in that individual. How exactly are you going to portray a thing like that in a movie without some kind of trickery, like they used in the Smithee version of _Dune_? Some things just won't translate from paper to celluloid without a little tweaking.

  • metaphor, metaphor, metaphor, no comparisons

    fremen = geeks as
    spice = information as
    navigator = marketroids

    George
  • This is actually incorrect. There is NO Director's cut to Dune. There are at least three version's of the movie but there are none which the director actually blessed as ok for release. All of them editting jobs done by the studio.


    Also the credit for director goes to Alan Smithee. The concept of having Alan Smithee releasing a director's cut is truely ironic. Alan Smithee is a name that directors use when they do not want to be associated with the movie.

  • The credits for Dune list the director as Alan Smithee. Alan Smithee is a psuedoname that directors use when the studio fucks them over. David Lynch, who has done some great movies including Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart, never actually completed Dune. After he ran over budget, the studio took his work and did what they liked with it. Imagine if the studio had done the editting on The Godfather or Titanic..

    That is incorrect. There is a version of Dune where Alan Smithee is credited as the director, but it is a 'director's cut' which he disapproved of (ironically) because it added in a lot of scenes which he hadn't put in the final film. The actual theatrical release was clearly credited with David Lynch as the director.
  • You can't be serious!?!? Dune was the best book ever written. Notice I left out 'sci-fi'. It has very rich character development. And the well structured background/history is one of the aspects I fine missing in most stories. Are you sure you aren't confused with some other book?
    Every time a read a Dune book, for weeks afterward the story feels completely real to me like I just read a book based on fact.

  • Like Dude, if you've read the summary and watched 20 minutes of the movie you are totally NOT qualified to comment.

  • This guy looks like a spaghetti western character. Could be a real star in the making. He's got the Clint Eastwook stare down pat.

  • OK, this particular subject keeps coming up. There IS NO six-hour version of the movie. No, you didn't ever see it on TV, Sci-Fi channel has never show the "six hour version" and no, your friend's friend didn't REALLY see it on VHS.

    There are TWO versions of the movie. The one in the theaters that ran around 2 hours, and a "longer" version (NOT a directors' cut, you'll notice Lynch's name was removed from this print at his request) that has a different intro, a formal "narrator", and while it explains things a little bit more, it's just more "kludgy".

    The "Six Hour Dune Movie" is an urban legend.

    D

  • This promises to be the second time they've gotten the age of the main character wrong in casting. Paul was a teenager, and small for his size. Although I imagine that the actor in the pictures could just be the older Paul that's been in the desert for years, I somehow doubt it.

    Also, I'm curious to see if they weaken Jessica's character like they did in the film. She is a very strong female character as written, but the movie tended to downplay that considerably and make her primarily a victim of fate and her own emotions rather than the self-controlled Bene Gesserit witch she was.
  • Ok, I stand corrected :)

  • These are made from the tooth of, um... what, exactly? Perhaps a large PVC pipe?

    I won't even touch the cellophane. Literally.

    :-)

  • This article is fortuitously timed - I just watched a documentarty on Alejandro Jodorowsky ("Holy Mountain", "El Topo") and discovered that he originally bought the rights to "Dune" and started pre-production on the movie! Anyone who's seen his movies will agreed that Jodorowsky would have made a far, far superior product than anything we're see so far. The way he deals with religious and spiritual imagery, combined with his visceral and surreal style would have created a very unpopular, but very true film.

    Other tidbits: H.R. Giger was to work on the design for one of the planets, Orson Welles was cast as Baron Harkonnen, and Salvadore Dali was to play the mad emperor. In the documentary, they showed lots of pre-production materials, like storyboards, comic strips, and design books - I'm sure these are still floating around somewhere. Hmmm..../me goes to ebay...

  • I saw all versions of the Dune film before I ever read the book. I did love the book, particularly because of its detail and character development, but there are a lot of things I like in the Smithee version (the "full" version, with voiceover, the painting montage at the start, the juicing of the baby worm, etc) and feel it's truest to the novel.

    Still, I thought the films downplayed Stilgar too much, and Feyd Rautha was definitely shafted (he went from a hardass to a whiny petulant little snit).

    OTOH I actually _liked_ the weirding modules (thoughts being equivalent to actions) and I thought Lynch really nailed the imagery and ambience in a way that very few other directors could. The whole Yueh scene with 'The tooth.. The tooth..' could have been lifted right out of Blue Velvet, and I mean that in the best possible way.. Lynch also handled Paul's visions very well IMHO, better than most directors I could imagine..

    I'd love to see Lynch do a TV miniseries of Dune if he could be lured back to the small screen.. Guy's a friggin genius...

    Your Working Boy,
  • I won't even touch the cellophane. Literally.

    Geez, you can be a Trek fanatic, wear a Star Fleet uniform all the time and even get selected for Jury Duty, no one thinks you're a nut.

    You can talk Star Wars all day, even carry around a light saber and people think you're eccentric.

    But if you get infatuated with Dune, well, that's something else.

    You should see the looks I get when I go out in my cellophane still suit.

    For some strange reason, people are reluctant to drink my recycled water, come on, the solar still works fine.

    As far as the white plastic crysknife, well metal doesn't work, and ivory is banned, so plastic it has to be.

    And cinnamon as spice works for smell, but it's hard to impress people with the scarcity of it when you can but 2 oz bottles at KMart for $1.79.

    George

  • I once made the mistake of reading a book by Brian Herbert. It sucked so badly I have resolved never to make that mistake again.

    If he is any good as an authour, then why
    1) Is he trading on the family name of being "Frank Herbert's son"?
    2) is he trading on the "Dune" name?
    3) Does he need a co-writer?

    Why doesn't he just give it up and let real authours write Dune books instead? I'm not going to watch as he tears down his father's legacy.

  • And let's face it the setting for Dune was hardly convincing. There was a lack of background in some places, leaving the reader to guess what was going on a lot of the time, and some truly dire characterisations

    Well, although anyone's judgement of a book is, obviously, highly subjective (did you read them all? Or just the first.. Because the third [or is it second] one kind of drags, but the rest are great).. anyway, I LIKE the fact that not everything is explained to me and I have to guess, and infer, and all I sometimes see is people's actions, not every though they're thinking. Makes the book more engaging that way -- instead of having every detail explained to you so you always know what's going on and can just skip over the "boring" parts, you actually have to read the entire book to understand it. Mind you, I enjoy books you can just skim over and read in an hour, but they're not going to have nearly as much of an effect on me as something like Dune. (Or books by Michael Swanwick... my new favorite author).

    I like my books to be full of detailed, convincing characters who engage in wity, sharp conversations that make them sound like real people.

    You want detailed characters that sound like real people, who are engaging in witty sharp conversations? Uhm... you can't have it both ways. You can have characters who spend the entire book dueling in terribly humorous and witty quotes, or you can have people that sound real.. The two are kind of mutually exclusive goals. (Paraphrased: real people don't talk that way!)
  • Stating that, avoid any of the other Dune books. Like most sci-fi novels, one book is planned, but the author is pressured to write more, and this definitely shows in the latter books. The style is less harse, and is actually an easier read-- which IMO is a failing (compare Neuromancer to Mona Lisa Overdrive, as another example).



    I'd have to disagree with that. Herbert had a skill for turning things around and inside out. He also utilized different styles in the different books. It's not as simple as seeing Paul Atreides as a hero and Baron Harkonnen as a villian. There are many more layers than that and the layers change from book to book.

  • I have heard of this book however I have never read it. Something about some desolate planet where people squabble and kill over spaceship fuel found only on said plannet or am I wrong? "

    You're close, but it's a lot more than that. The 'fuel' is a spice called Melange. If eaten or inhaled the spice expands the mind and it's power. Over thousands of years (the story starts circa 10,000AD) the human race was split into various factions (physically altered as well), each using the spice to achieve higher awareness in different ways.

    Because of a holy war against machines, no computers exist beyond basic life-support. No artificial intelligence or warp drives, etc. The knowledge is there but it's been outlawed. To travel across space, a navigator (giant slugs in the movie, more humanoid in the books) uses the spice to achieve a near godlike perception and uses this perception to bend space/time around entire starships, thus travelling instantly without moving (folding space). Cheech and Chong eat your heart out. =P

    As for the rest of it, Arrakis (aka Dune) is just the backdrop for a huge political/religious battle that ends up shaking the known universe to its foundations. Basically humanity has become so dependent on Melange that whoever controls it's flow in effect controls the universe.

    As the books progress it gets more and more complicated and plots weave around the characters, even in some cases millenia after the plans began. If you like science fiction that makes you think, it's a great read. The only trouble is that I doubt it could ever be done justice via movie or miniseries. Not that that has ever stopped hollywood before. =)

    ------
  • Yes but the imposrtant question that must be asked is after its release will there be a director's cut thats like 3.5x as long?
  • I believe the movie answered that question with Alia saying "Why?.....because he *IS* the Kwitazs Haderch (sp?)

    that being said, the complete removal of the goal of terraforming Arrakis from the movie destroys the plot in my mind.

  • I loved the book and the movie, i dont see why you guys didnt, because there is no way in hell that they could fit the books content into a 120 minute movie... I have the DVD of it and it still looks pretty damn good. I hope they put it on the SCI-FI channel, that would be good.

  • Interesting, I always thought the worms represented Microsoft, not viruses.

    That can't be. No product of Microsoft has ever expanded anyone's abilities. The Baron would be a better analogy. Consider, free software has been growing bit by bit over the years, and Microsoft was only dimly aware of it right up to the Jihad.

  • Alright. So replying to AC's is about as useful as yelling at the wall when the cat makes me mad but...

    Yes, the movie was entertaining. If you've never read the book that is or if decent acting isn't too high up on your list of things to expect from a good movie. Let's start with the most glaring example.

    The weirding devices. Cheesy. Really cheesy. The Fremen didn't need some little box with a handle to be badasses... they already where! Remember the book "We lost two of our men for three platoons of theirs. Seems a fair trade." (refering to fighting Sadakkar [I know I mispelled that]) The Fremen as a rule were ruthless and tough. You're telling me some offworld kid shows up, teaches them to shout oddly whilst holding a box and suddenly they can't be beat? Paul was needed to be their leader not show them how to fight. They could already do that. Never mind that the whole point of the weirding way was that humans could do it only their bodies (remember the jihad they talk about that removed computing machines?). It's a pretty cheap cop out to assume your audience won't figure it out without some techno gimmick to explain it.

    And what was up with Paul's sister in the movie? She looked like a evil muppet or something and the voice sounded like they gave that little girl some helium and asked her to talk even higher.

    Let's not even get too deep into the stillsuits. Never mind that leaving your whole freaking head exposed is a quick way to get sunstroke on a Earth desert much less a planet that is entirely desert. Also the fact that you do loose a large amount of sweat through your mouth. Or how about wearing all black out in the blazing sun(s)? If they were that worried about not being able to tell who was who how about some marks on the suits? It wouldn't have been that hard.

    Let's be honest. The first twenty minutes or so were decent and then it came to a screeching grinding halt. If you show that much contempt for the material that it comes from where you don't even really try to show the novel correctly then you probably shouldn't be making a movie about it (like Star Ship Troopers but that's a whole other post). The movie wasn't a visual feast by any stretch of the word. It showed nothing really new from sci-fi and nothing sticks with me from the movie (aside the giant worms and they weren't even that hot).

    I hope that the mini-series is better. Judging by the shots it will at least look better but I'm hoping for it to stick to the story. Maybe I wish too much.


  • check out this translation [magicsmoke.net]

    and it looks like this is the original press release [att.net]

    this is an interesting one too [spacing-guild.com]

  • Hmm, I think Ballmer would make a good Baron, and then maybe Gates as Fenring, the rabbit demeanored guy with the heart of a killer.

    And Melinda would be a good Countess Margot.

    Would this make Linus and Tove Paul and Chani respectively?

    George
  • Many of the people posting criticism of Dune are missing the point. The characterizations are good on the whole, not great, but the book isn't about the characters as much as it is an allegory and a vision. It shows a vision of a mystical world with equally strong ties to mankind's future and past--a vision that is wonderous and frightening. The series illustrates sociological principles that won't change no matter how civilized we become (the inevitability of jihad/revolution, the necessary sacrifice of the messiah-like character in the second book.) In a way, Dune is a book about the setting. The main focus is the universe the characters inhabit, not the characters themselves.

    To relate to recent geek culture, consider The Matrix. The focus of the movie was the setting and the setting was used to convey that reality is a collective halucination. However, a movie about a place doesn't generally have enough dialog to keep people (including me) interested. So, the writers introduced Morpheus and Agent Smith as a on-screen narrators whose job was simply to tell us about the setting when they're not kicking Neo's ass. The movie is not about Neo, it's about the world he discovers and what that means for our perception of reality.

    In a book, the narrator is taken for granted, thus there's no need for a Morpheus character in Dune. Instead, the characters serve to fill the universe rather than the universe being a backdrop for the characters. It's a daring perspective that few writers outside SF use (and few SF writers pull off successfully.) It's the main reason why Dune still sells thousands of copies a year.

  • That might make sense, because its easy to have that happen (for example, film a six minute battle scene from five cameras... there's a half-hour of work-print footage) I could accept that as where the rumors and stuff started. Somewhere at home I have the "Making of Dune" book that came out when they made the movie (which says nothing about a "really really long version", which you would think it would do if there was such a beast). I'll have to see if they mention the work-print thing in there....
  • it follows by definition that I will be interested in lame Science Fiction. This is just one example of Slashdot's ongoing pandering to negative nerd stereotypes. Another example is the assumption that we are all fans of open source, and share the same sense ofcommunity spirit. I suppose Slashdot's owners assume we are fat, friendless heavy metal fans who have never been laid in our lives.

    The assumption that all Slashdot readers are fans of open source is halfway reasonable --- this is a site that grew up around Linux, an open source operating system, after all. The community spirit bit is also important as a prequisite to the function of the site: threaded discussions do not work well without community spirirt, as many USENET group denizens discovered to their horror in the mid-90s.

    As for science fiction: you have a point that often slashdot has more fluff content than hard technical news, and bits about science fiction are heavily involved in that; but it is also true that, for the majority of people in this industry, science fiction forms an important part of the culture --- and Dune, in particular, is part of the limited canon of books (along with The Lord of the Rings, Stranger in a Strange Land, and Ender's Game, among others) that it can be reasonably assumed that anyone who has read any science fiction at all has read.

    *shrug* You can't expect a news service for "nerds" to not talk about such things.
  • Which charactor did Uwe play in Das Boot? The guy who played the captain played Duke Leto in the Lynch movie didn't he? -=RR=-
  • I for one was excited when the movie came out, and after watching it for a bit nearly gagged on my popcorn! I've read the entire set: Dune - Chapterhouse Dune at least three times over the years, and I still think it's only beaten by LOTR. I sure hope the mini-series gets something of the vastness, the seriousnes, without the fake bs in the movie, of the tale. Things that really pushed me over the edge about the movie:

    The utter ridiculousness of the Sadukar! Jesus-H-Christonacrutch! These fellas were THE bad ass elite killer-soldiers of the Emperor of the Known fscking Universe. All the other Houses were scared shitless of them. Anybody gets fancy ideas - just whisper Sadukar. 'Nuff said. And the movie had them dressed up like chemical disposal workers!

    The module-thingies. Nope, no way. Fighting had devolved into hand-to-hand + personal shields. That was pretty much glossed and forgotten.

    Scenery: the movie gave me a sense of a bunch of folks on a soundstage - not outside, and not on a desert planet.

    Anyway, maybe this series will do a better job. I hope so.

  • I can only ask, will Toto do the music?!?

    (or at least, do they have rights to the original Dune soundtrack and its score?)

    Dum.... Dum.. Da Dum.....

    :)

  • Amen! (Score:1)

    by Nermal ( 7573 )
    re: "real people don't talk that way"
    Well said. =:)
    "(no knowledge of subject matter) + (crack cocaine) = (journalism!)"

  • Details of the Dune long version (Score:3)

    by Otto ( 17870 ) on Friday March 10, 2000 @12:28PM (#1212353) Homepage Journal
    Here's a good page to get all the info:

    http://pages.infinit.net/bonesnet/Smithee.htm [infinit.net]

    Here's a quick rundown:

    -DUNE was originally released to theatres at Christmas of 1984 in Todd-AO/70MM with a running time of 137 minutes.

    -It is obvious that David Lynch shot a lot more footage than what we saw in the theatrical print. Lynch himself envisioned a four-hour epic film. Unfortunately, Universal wanted a running time that would be more accessible to its audience since three-hour- and four-hour-plus films were not currently popular in the 1980s. So the studio had Lynch re-edit the film to its 137-minute theatrical version.

    -At one point in 1984, Lynch had announced he was going to release a legitimate "special edition director's cut" on home video, but decided to move on to other projects such as "Blue Velvet". Soon, word and rumor about the extra footage had spread everywhere, and by the time DUNE had finished its original cable run on HBO, Universal felt that the time had come to produce a "special edition" of their own, and the result was released to television in May of 1988.

    -David Lynch was unhappy with what MCA TV had done and did not approve of this edition. So thus it was he successfully petitioned to take his name off the credits and replaced it with "Allen Smithee", the standard Directors Guild of America pseudonym for directors who do not want credit for their own work.

    -This first TV version of DUNE, pieced together under the (mis)guiding hand of Harry Tapelman, Vice President of MCA TV Special Projects, was originally created for the Turner networks, but instead released to syndication in 1988 on the Universal Pictures Debut Network (which also was responsible for the slightly expanded version of "Legend", and the severely edited version of "Brazil"). Although Universal touted this as having "more than 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage", this actually contained 35 minutes of unseen footage. The remaining 15 contained the repeated main and end credits, a newly shot prologue, and so-called "new" scenes fabricated from outtake and test footage.

    A complete list of the changes made is available at the web page I mentioned above.


    ---
  • ...and from the look of the stills, it will be orders of magnitude better than that horrendous movie.

    Still, I could wish that the Fremen looked more like the Arabs they were supposed to resemble, except for their blue eyes. But you can't have everything, and it seems to me that this miniseries will give quite a lot. I can actually identify which scene in the book the stills came from. Try doing that with the movie!

  • Paul! What are you doing?

    um..

    I told you, Never keep your back to the door! If you're going to be downloading porn, everyone can see it, unless you face the door!

    Thufir. yes, I'm sorry.

    As I'm sure you've figured out.. we have been training you to become a Hacker. And most hackers do end up doing such things... Have some courtesy though!
  • The movie was directed by David Lynch (Erasorhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart). All of these were masterpieces of direction. Although Lynch's movie of Dune wasn't everyone's cup of tea, the theatrical release was at the very least, a competent piece of cinematography.

    Most complaints about the film stem from the unavoidable fact that it isn't the book. Lynch did make a brave effort to capture the essence of the novel by allowing the characters' thoughts to be heard. But what so many fail to realise is that Dune contained very little dialogue and very little action; most of the text was introspection. Consequently it cannot be rendered into a film of less than 12 hours length without making substantial cuts.

    Whether the "voice-over" method works or not is a matter of opinion. I was very familiar with the book before I saw the film and I *had* wondered how they were going to deal with that. Lynch chose to tackle it head-on. Not surprising really because there *is* no workable alternative. Either you let us hear the characters' thoughts or you leave it out completely turning it into an action flick, or you invent a whole lot of dialogue to discover their thoughts in connversation, turning all the major characters into garrulous clowns. Only the first of these has any chance of remaining faithful to the book. For me, at any rate, I thought the Director did the best that could be done with the material.

    BTW, The direction credit for the TV release of this movie went to "Alan Smithee". What happened is, the studio drastically re-edited the film for TV release. Lynch was furious about this and demanded that his name be taken off it. When this happens, the "Alan Smithee" name is traditionally used.


    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • Oh and BRW I wish people would stop flaming the movie; that's a sure fire way to piss the director off and get the movie buried. I still hope to see a "Director's Cut" on widescreen DVD some day.

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • three of those bands you mention are fucking Nazis who are banned in Germany

    Wow. Care to tell me which three? Stratovarius, Rhapsody and Sonata Arctica are all coming to Germany in April, and are returning in May. The chances of them being banned are extremely slim. Similarly, Hammerfall have played in Germany recently, and given the size of their fanbase there, I expect them to return fairly soon. Do you want to enlighten us as to just why you think they're Nazis? Oh, BTW, Heavy Metal and skinheads are very rarely two thing that accompany each other. My hair's almost down to my ass... :-)

Slashdot Top Deals

One man's constant is another man's variable. -- A.J. Perlis

Close