It’s been two years since Peter Berg confirmed he was attached to direct the third adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal science fiction novel Dune. Of course, the first adaptation was auteur David Lynch’s avant-garde, torpid 1984 film, the second being Sci Fi Channel’s miniseries in 2000. But little has been said about this third attempt to corral the story of Paul Atreides and his family amidst a futuristic feudal interstellar empire as they take control of the lone source of spice melange, the most valuable resource in the universe. It’s no wonder Dune has proved a worthy foe when condensed into film form.
(H/T: @MelissaTweets) I don’t know why people hate the David Lynch Dune
Moe Lane
It’s been a long time since I saw the Lynch Dune, and I didn’t mind it.
I wonder if I should see it again and remove all doubt, or let it live in my mind as not being so bad.
Like the Lord of the Rings, Dune is probably best suited to about nine hours of film. How is that going to happen?
Well, they forgot the 1973 version of Dune, but it’s obscure so not many people know about it.
I liked the David Lynch, but I liked the Sci Fi series a bit more. Honestly don’t see the need for another version except to prove the point that Hollywood is out of ideas.
The movies were ok, but the book I found….how should I put this……less then gripping. I welcome yet another try.
I think any attempt to make Dune into a movie is doomed to fail–the story is just too long to fit into 2 or even 3 hours.
Consider: there are 6 major groups of players: the Atreides, the Harkonnens, the Corrinos, the Bene Gesserit, the Guild Navigators, and the Fremen. Then, of course, there’s the various technologies, the spice, Arrakis, ancestral memories, the Kwisatz Haderach… and that’s just in the first book.
I know I’m in the minority, but I much preferred the David Lynch version to the Sci-fi one. The Sci-fi one was more true to the books, sure, but to me the Lynch movie was just overall better done. The casting of Stilgar in the SF series was especially poor – nobody that body shape would ever have been the Fremen leader.
Oh, and Matt, given all the prequels, etc., that have come out in the Dune series, if the question were asked ‘what order should you read them in?’ my answer would be ‘Read Dune, then stop’. And I’ve read probably 90% of them. I just don’t recommend it if you’re not OCD enough to force yourself to read the whole series when you start it. So if the first one doesn’t really get you, I’d say just say no then.
Dune has always lived in my mind as a state of being. When I was a kid, we used wrist rockets to shoot Herbert’s tray cans…made a hellacious racket, and my English Teacher introduced me to the book …..Dune requires someone who has grown up with the Book, and that can trully hate the Harkkonnen swine like Thufir Howat…..just my opinion…
Like Hawat? How about Halleck? I read a summary from one of the more recent sequels, and it spells out what they did to him and his sister. Ugh.
Reminds me of the heartache that caused me to quit the Clarke/Lee Rama books.