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[LeeC]

Dune.  Frank Herbert inspired George Lucas's Star Wars, Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000, as well as other scifi and fantasy stories with his novel about a Duke's son on a vital desert planet.

I remember being a little boy back in the 90s and seeing the cover art for the movie in blockbuster and wanted to see it but never got a chance to.  While staying at my sister's place for a week, her and her husband put in their DVD of the miniseries and had me watch a chapter a day for 3 days.  I was just amazed and sucked in by the end of the first of 3 movie chapters.  by the end of the third day I was mystified by this unique universe.  After watching the miniseries in I then picked up the movie to see how it is.  After they crash the thopter I just have to turn it off.  I just couldn't get into it.  The characters and cinematography was just too weird.  I introduced Dr. Fiancée to Dune about a year ago by watching the mini series.  She just loved it!  When we finished, BBC just so happened to be showing the movie the very next morning.  We caught it at the beginning, but again by the time of the thopter crash we were just sick of it.  Even with Picard there it was just unbearable.  I finally got around to reading the book last summer and thought it was amazing and the miniseries was quite close to the source material.

I do know that the movie has a cult following.  The Nostalgic Chick did a review of it back in 2010 or so.  She voiced her opinion, largely negative, and received a huge backlash from the movie fans.  So bad that she removed the video and put up a new video apologizing.  When I try to search the internet for gifs or pictures of the Dune miniseries, they are so few and even if I type "miniseries" I am still flooded with movie gifs and pictures.  It has lead me to believe that most people prefer the movie over the miniseries, and perhaps I am just in the minority.  I posted an "unpopular opinion puffin" on imgur saying I prefer the miniseries over the movie and was surprised that it was not an unpopular opinion at all. 

One of these days I would love to try to give the movie another chance and then perhaps make a youtube video comparing the movie with the miniseries.  I was shocked to see that there isn't any already!  I would talk about who has the better costumes, character portrayals, overarching story, special effects, etc.  Still trying to figure out how I want to do this but wouldn't mind getting some outside input here on their thoughts of all 3 depictions of Dune.

Long story short what is your opinion on the book, the movie, and the miniseries of the beloved universe of Dune?

[Neko_Ali]

The books are awesome, of course. They are the source of the whole thing, and they can and do go into much greater detail than movies of mini series can. I can't think of any sort of adaption where the book wasn't the better version.

The movie is where I and I think a lot of people started with Dune. Being the first, it tends to be the base line that people judge everything else from. Especially for the time it came out it was quite the awesome movie, full of some of the best things that make sci fi movies good. The actors and actresses were all great, the costuming and sets were fantastic. It does veer pretty far from the book at a number of points. But I honestly don't mind that so much. I looked on it as an alternate concept of some of the things. And others were just streamlined to fit into an already huge movie.

The mini series I thought was great, because it stuck closer to the book. It had more focus on the political aspects of the universe than the movie did. Being a mini series they could take that. I thought the costume design was excellent, but not as striking as in the movie. The action sequences I felt much the same about. However, I much preferred the actors of the movie over the series. The acting in the series was just a lot flatter to me. Nothing like Sting chewing up the scenes as Feyd. The casting of Paul in particular I didn't much like.

In the end, mostly I think it's a matter of what version you were exposed to first. More people are more fond of the movie because it came out much earlier than the series.

[celticgeek]

I read the book, more or less when it first came out.  I also enjoyed the movie, despite the liberties taken with the book.

I have not seen the series, but I am planning to do so at some point.

While on the subject of the movie, I enjoyed reading this account of the making of Dune.

[Kugai]

The Books are one of the classics of Science Fiction and it's always great to drag them out every so often and read through them.  I've not yet read any of the books that have been written by his son, but I do plan to.

The Movie ........ I'm in two minds about.  Granted, it was a serious attempt to film a book that, up until that time, had been considered unfilmable (much as Tolkiens books were once considered).  It's flawed, and at times cringe worthy, but I have to give them marks for the attempt even though I'm not a big fan of it.

The Mini-series was, IMHO, a better attempt to follow the books as closely as possible.  It too has it's flaws, but is a much better attempt than the Movie.  I enjoyed it when I first saw it much more then the Movie, and if there ever is a firther attempt to film the Dune books again, I think that the Mini-series would be a better comparison to go from than the Movie.

[LeeC]

I have not seen the series, but I am planning to do so at some point.

*cough* part 1 *cough*

[BeoPuppy]

Love the books.

The original books.

Not the ones by Herbert fils.

So now I pretend that the series ends after book six. And that works just fine.

[Gladstone]

The original books.

Not the ones by Herbert fils.

I tried several times to read Dune when I was younger, but always quit less than 100 pages in.  So boring.  And yet, I loved the Brian Herbert/KJA "House ___" prequel trilogy.  Admittedly, I was only in 8th or 9th grade at the time, so my judgement wasn't the best.  I should give the originals another try...

[pwhodges]

So now I pretend that the series ends after book six. And that works just fine.

For me it stops working after three.

[Kugai]

I have not seen the series, but I am planning to do so at some point.

*cough* part 1 *cough*

From the YouTube Bastards File


This video contains content from Beta Film GmbH, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

[pwhodges]

Yeah, here too.

[Active Madness]

So now I pretend that the series ends after book six. And that works just fine.

For me it stops working after three.

I do the same, I've tried to read the last three books in the series, but can't get through them. The first three are perfect, though.

[BeoPuppy]

You're the first people I've heard of (seen of) who think and feel like that. Care to share why?

[pwhodges]

I think it was no more than that I read the first three books when they were the only ones, and failed to recapture the excitement when I later picked up the others.

[Stoon]

So now I pretend that the series ends after book six. And that works just fine.

For me it stops working after three.

Me too.

[BeoPuppy]

Wow. There's a whole lot of you ...

[Orbert]

I'm fine with all six of the orignal books, but I can see why some people have trouble after the first three.  The first three are tight, with Messiah practically an epilogue, and Children following close after.  God Emperor starts 1500 years later (IIRC) and with a new set of characters, which can be off-putting.  Sure, Leto II is around, and Duncan (kinda), but we almost immediately dive into explorations of religion and mythology, as well as further exploration the life cycle of the sandworm and the planetary life web of Arrakis, but first off, there's apparently people who want Leto II dead, and it's a movement led by one of his descendants.  And of course Leto II has evolved into a human/sandworm hybrid thing.  That's some weird shit there.

It's been a while, but I believe the fifth and sixth books also jump forward in time, checking in on the mythology and how it has evolved over time.  I thought it was fascinating.  And I liked the further exploration and development of the Bene Tleilaxu and all that.  But the later three books seem to sacrifice actual storytelling for all this conceptual stuff, and a lot of people at least need a coherent story to follow, with characters they like or at least can relate to.  We don't get much of that in the later three books.  It's all this "heady" stuff.  Not everyone's cup of tea.

[pwhodges]

There's that, which fits my view; plus the fact that when I read the first three they were the whole series anyway, and the felt complete (I thought I'd posted that, but I must have pressed the wrong button).

[celticgeek]

I have not seen the series, but I am planning to do so at some point.

*cough* part 1 *cough*

The problem was never where it was, but getting through the first ten or fifteen minutes. 

I have now watched the whole thing.  Better than the movie in some respects, worse in others.  Neither the movie nor the series was as good as the book.

[Akima]

For me it stops working after three.

Same here. I wasn't impressed with God Emperor of Dune, and when Herbert started getting his characters out of tricky situations by having them spontaneously develop superpowers in Heretics of Dune, I lost interest completely.

[Orbert]

Herbert has always done that, though.  As much as I love the original Dune, I still laugh to myself at one scene where Paul and Jessica are trying to get away from the bad guys.  Paul uses Voice on them, and Jessica thinks "Whoa, he can use Voice.  Cool."  Then he ramps it up a bit, pulls some extended Neuralyzer on them, and she thinks "He has the Great Control!" 

Really, Frank?  The "Great Control"?  And yeah, we'd never even heard of it up to that point.

[Akima]

At least the Voice had been introduced earlier in the book, and Jessica's training of Paul in that skill is discussed. Jessica's reference to the Great Control avoids "exposition speak" and "as you know" dialogue. I don't think there's any excuse for Miles Teg spontaneously turning into the Flash.

[BeoPuppy]

Never bothered me ... gholas do weird shit is probably the hand wave I completely bought into.

[Orbert]

Yeah, Paul having The Great Control was actually kinda cool, and even made sense; I guess it's just the name that gets me.  It did get us past a lot of unnecessary exposition.  Obviously, The Great Control is a thing, very few have it, and Jessica recognizes it, all in a few quick sentences.  And I suppose the Bene Gesserit prefer to keep things simple.  If it's just called Voice, then I suppose The Great Control is what you'd call... um... having great control.

Miles Teg was badass.  He always could become The Flash; he just didn't like to show off.  Seriously though, while I understand the complaint, to me it was just another thing he could do that we just hadn't had a chance to see before because the situation never came up.

[LeeC]

Legendary Pictures have acquired the film rights to Frank Herbert's Dune as of today.
http://variety.com/2016/film/news/legendary-dune-frank-herbert-1201923648/

[Kugai]

Hmmmm

It would be interesting to see if they'll take another stab at it and how good or bad that will be.

[LeeC]

They have announced a Dune movie slated for 2019. As of right now it is in pre-production with Timothee Chalamet to be Paul and its to be directed by Denis Villeneuve (The Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Sicario).

I still cannot get through the David Lynch movie so I hope it does better than it.  I liked the SciFi mini series (if only they had better production) and loved the book.  I hope this one does well and honors the book.

[hedgie]

Bless the Maker and all his water.

[Theta9]

So much wrong with the Lynch movie. Like "weirding" being a physical weapon that gives the Fremen an advantage in battle. It was enough for me that they grow up in the harshest environment and are totally badass as a result (as are the Sardukar).
And Paul literally MAKES IT RAIN at the end, never mind that he's just killed all the sandworms and destroyed the spice forever 

The miniseries is far superior to Lynch's abortion, though the definitive version is of course the novel. I made it through the first four and there's a definite perceptible decline as one continues.

And I have no great opinion of Kevin Anderson and Brian Herbert riffling the corpse for loose change.

[LeeC]

some more casting announcements:

Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides
Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides
Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica
Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Harkonnen
Javier Bardem as Stilgar
Josh Brolin as Gurney
Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho
Charlotte Rampling as reverend mother
Dave Bautista as Rabban
Zendaya as Chani (She is only rumored at this point)
Modify message

[Tova]

I'm interested in this, so I'll chime in for now by saying that I've read the first Dune book only.

[Theta9]

I'm interested in this, so I'll chime in for now by saying that I've read the first Dune book only.

Quit while you're ahead.
The rest are non-essential, and I had to tap out after the fourth.

[Theta9]

I still cannot get through the David Lynch movie so I hope it does better than it.  I liked the SciFi mini series (if only they had better production) and loved the book.  I hope this one does well and honors the book.

A production with the story from the miniseries, and the set design and costuming of Lynch's film, would be about as close to perfect as I could reasonably ask for.

[LeeC]

I still cannot get through the David Lynch movie so I hope it does better than it.  I liked the SciFi mini series (if only they had better production) and loved the book.  I hope this one does well and honors the book.

A production with the story from the miniseries, and the set design and costuming of Lynch's film, would be about as close to perfect as I could reasonably ask for.

I like the Atreides costumes from the movie, but I prefer the miniseries' Harkonnen and Fremen costumes.  The stillsuits look too much like skinned xenomorphs (thanks to Giger) in the movies that I can't unsee it, whereas the ones in the miniseries seemed more practical for the desert. I would prefer something different than both for this movie though as far as the stillsuits go. Also no internal monologues. Just no. The sardaukar looked terrible in both mediums.

[hedgie]

Yes, but the silliness of their uniforms is the true secret behind the sardaukar's strength as a fighting force.  They're sent out looking like that and have something to prove.

[LeeC]

Haha. I suppose that could be said about both of them. Although the movie sardaukar are just in harkonnan garb the whole time right? I know we see them in their normal digs in the mini series but do not recall that happening in the movie.

mini series during the banquet for the Atreides.


In the movie, looks like they are hanging out with the Harknonan in similar garb:


What I would prefer in the new movie:

[War Sparrow]

I enjoyed the first and second Dune books. I'm not thrilled about the third, and I liked the fourth. The last two were fine. Needless to say, the second miniseries was not for me; but the soundtrack is awesome.

As the only person on the planet who didn't like Arrival, I am cautiously optimistic about this movie.

[Tova]

Possibly. 

[LeeC]

As of 3/18/2019 they have started filming!

Looks like they are breaking it up into 2 movies.

[Tova]

That is pleasing. It's an acknowledgement that the novel is too big to squeeze into a single film, but they haven't succumbed to the temptation to pad it out to a trilogy.

[LeeC]

I think it helps to know that their are book sequels to keep the cash cow going if its successful. I just hope they don't cut production on part 2 if part 1 flops at the box office.

[cybersmurf]

They will, otherwise they'd be shooting both now.

[LeeC]

I know, thats why I hope it doesn't flop.

[hedgie]

First, I just hope that it doesn't suck.

[LeeC]

Due to Coronavirus the release date has been pushed back. Some pictures have been posted of the production though:


Paul and Jessica


Duke Leto


Liet Kynes


Chani


Lady Jessica


Stilgar on the right


Gurney


Duncan Idaho


The House Atreides: Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, Stephen Mckinley Henderson as Thufir Hawat, Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck and Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho



The books was notorious for leaving out details on how people were dressed and what things looked like (maybe an offhanded comment on Paul having black hair like his fathers), but I do remember they said that house Atreides uniforms/clothes were black and their symbol was a red hawk. Looks like they got the black down. Plus some battle armor is a cool idea considering melee combat is a thing. I am also really digging these stillsuits.

[Tova]

I could let myself be a teensy bit hyped for this.

[cybersmurf]

Given the amount of well known  actors in this means either the script is quite good, or they spent too much on actor manpower and the book adaptation sucks hard.

In the meantime I managed to finish the first book. My imagination of Duke Leto is somewhat taller and more slender than Oscar Isaac, but he might pull it off.
What I am wondering about: the first book didn't exactly have a proper ending, but not like a cliffhanger. It's quite apparent the author had more story to tell, and I wonder whether they'll continue if these movies prove to be successful.

[Theta9]

In the meantime I managed to finish the first book. My imagination of Duke Leto is somewhat taller and more slender than Oscar Isaac, but he might pull it off.
What I am wondering about: the first book didn't exactly have a proper ending, but not like a cliffhanger. It's quite apparent the author had more story to tell, and I wonder whether they'll continue if these movies prove to be successful.

Read Dune Messiah and Children of Dune if you must, but I recommend you read no farther. I slogged through God Emperor and bounced off of Heretics.

[Torlek]

Having admittedly only read synopses of the books, everything after God Emperor just strikes me as unnecessarily dragging out the end.

[Akima]

Paul and Jessica

Yes, Rebecca Ferguson (36) totally looks old enough to be Timothée Chalamet's (24) mother...

Of course Francesca Annis didn't look old enough to be Kyle MacLachlan's mother either in David Lynch's adaptation. The basic problem is that movies invariably cast actors who are far too old in the role of Paul Atreides, who was sixteen when House Atreides took over the fief of Arrakis. Lady Jessica was thirty-seven at the beginning of the first novel, so Ms Ferguson is fine, but Mr Chalamet not so much.

[cybersmurf]

The basic problem is that movies invariably cast actors who are far too old in the role of Paul Atreides, [...].

Look at spiderman. Until Tom Holland, you had actors WAAAAAY too old for portraying a teenager.