OK, just finished reading "Dune" for the first time. The film - meh (spoilers)

[bluesbassman]

So, I've seen the film several time, and while I enjoyed it on a quirky kind of level, I never thought it was a top sci-fi flick.

Now though, having read the book, I believe Lynch totally screwed the pooch on that film and it is one that sceams to be done again.

Here's some gripes with the film:

The Guild Navigators were not giant slugs.

The way he portrayed the character's inner dialogs was ham fisted.

Paul's evolution to a Fremen was lame - little development of his bonding with them, and it took like what, two weeks?

Great book, poor movie adaptation IMO.

[some guy]

1. What I remember of the film

is that the theater had a one page handout glossary of terminology to help the audience understand it.

:D

I had read the book before I saw the film, so I knew the story, and felt a bit sorry for anyone wandering into the film without having read the book.



I did like the sand worms though.

[bluesbassman]

3. The worm were about the most authentic part.

Baron Harkonnen was pretty decent to.

I remember the first time I saw it being confused on the terminologhy too so a guide would have been handy.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. I had also read the book before I saw the movie, and

I almost got lost a few times in the movie trying to figure out what was happening. When I heard everyone saying it was a lousy movie, I knew why---you must read the book first because they did not do a good job of introducing the whole concept. But I did enjoy the movie since I had been able to follow it.

But the book is superior in every way. An excellent book.

[MrCoffee]

2. Welcome to the wonderful world of Dune threads

Fresh meat!

[bluesbassman]

4. LOL. Into the fray!!

:)

[UnseenUndergrad]

5. I recommend...

That you try to find the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries adaptations (Dune and Children of Dune (encompassing Dune Messiah and Children of Dune))

[TZ]

6. That was going to be my suggestion...WAY better than Lynch's POS

movie. Dune is one of my all time favorite novels. Lynch's movie...:puke:

[MilesColtrane]

8. +1

Yes, the writers of the mini-series adaptation obviously had a better grasp of, and respect for, the source material than Lynch did.

[BOG PERSON]

41. i don't think lynch even read the source material

[sarge43]

9. Lynch's biggest problem was time constrains

No way in hell could anyone could tell that story in feature film length.

That's why the mini series worked better, albeit it had its faults, too.

Agree about the navigators. Further, they wouldn't have confronted the Emperor. They were the tools of the Guild, not its leaders.

[bluesbassman]

12. True, but the time he did portray was extraordinarily compressed.

The movie really felt like the events took place over a 3 to 6 month period. Just seems like Lynch focused on the quirky twists in the story and the plot was secondary.

[sarge43]

35. Well, Lynch isn't known for his logical plot driven films.

He likes quirky, weird even better.

His Dune started off well, but IMO unraveled about half way through. The second half seemed rushed, almost throw away.

[Blue-Jay]

10. Most of the Dune books are very good.

Then Frank Herbert died.

[PassingFair]

28. My favorite: "Doon"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon%27s_Doon



snip>
But soon after arriving on Doon, with his heir and son Pall and his concubine the Lady Jazzica, an adept of the galaxy-spanning sisterhood of chefs and event planners known as the Boni Maroni, Duke Lotto and House Agamemnides fall victim to a scheme originated by Baron Vladimir Hardchargin and implemented by the Duke's own accountant Oyeah, who, without the Duke's knowledge, kept a secret second ledger. When the Emperor called for an audit of the fief, the duplicate ledger made it appear as though House Agamemnides had been cooking the books. In return for this act, Oyeah hoped the Baron would give him a start as a stand-up comic–which he did, but on the Imperial prison planet, Salacia Simplicissimus. Ruined, Duke Lotto's brief reign over Doon is ended and House Hardchargin is reinstated as fief-holders.

Banished to the sugared wilderness, Pall (now head of House Agamemnides) and Lady Jazzica meet with and are eventually accepted by the planet's native population, the Freedmenmen, a process made easier by previous prophecy-seeding by the Missionaria Phonibalonica, via the Great Prophet Phyllis. Indeed, the natives are receptive to the fulfillment of the prophecies even after the revelation that Phyllis's decanonization resulted in her prophecies being discontinued sometime before. Pall, given the Freedmenmen name Assol and taking the secret name Mauve'Bib (after the purple napkin that all Freedmenmen wear about their necks) begins to ascend the power structure of the tribe (as well as the Freedmenmen girl Loni as his lover), realizing that he could use the Freedmenmen to return to a position of power, taking back not only Doon but the Imperium itself. He also realizes what the planet's Imperial Planetologist and liberal economist, Keynes, had puzzled out some time before: the rampaging Giant Pretzels (known as Schmai-gunug) actually produces the beer as a byproduct of its very life-cycle. The Lady Jazzica ascends to the status of Revved-Up Mother of Hootch Grabr, becoming known as Jazzica-of-the-Weirdness. During her ascension, while getting drunk on the beer, she realizes that she carries Lotto's daughter. Her intoxication opens her foetal daughter to the thousands of years of Boni Maroni culinary history; the result is Nailya-the-Truly-Weird, a toddler who spouts recipes as though she were an adult. <unsnip

:rofl:

[Blue-Jay]

42. I used to have that book.

[Lucinda]

11. Didn't care for the movie...DID like the miniseries a lot

:hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. The book is one of the greatest of the last few centuries. Lynch's movie is pretty cool on its own,

That is, it's a pretty cool movie if there never had been a book. But it's a really shitty adaptation of the book. Just awful.

The scifi channel's movies are really well done, except the acting is so often just... fucked up.

I wish they could have used Lynch's cast again. The Lady Jessica and Mohiam in Lynch's were absolutely perfect. Yueh was great. The Baron was remarkable. I loved Sting's Feyd. Chani was great. And of course, you have Patrick Stewart as Gurney and Jose Ferrer as the Emperor, so they're fucking amazing.

[bluesbassman]

15. That's one of the things that blows my mind. The cast was stellar.

Could've been a great film.

[Dr. Strange]

18. Don't forget Piter!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7IKPRFKqwg

On the other hand, the syfy guild navigators come across as some kind of rejects from the William Shatner School of Disco;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LNija_nUss

[sarge43]

24. The Shatner disco dudes weren't the navigators.

They were the Guild's human functionaries. The navigators were so mutated by the spice they couldn't exist outside of a spice gas atmosphere. They were the end result of the addiction; what total long term saturation will do.

The navigator(s) are seen once in the first SyFy series -- when the Atreides are traveling to Arrakas.

[Dr. Strange]

29. Did you just lecture me about Dune?

You're right, of course. I still had the navigators in my mind when I posted the link to that video. Truly, I need more spice in my coffee.

[sarge43]

31. Spice is in coffee.

Have you ever tried breaking a coffee habit?

[MilesColtrane]

44. But, did you have the 1979 Avalon Hill board game?

My parents gave it to me for Christmas one year.

The only (big) drag was no one would play it with me.

:(

[madrchsod]

14. yup..the movie totally sucked

one of the few books i`ve read cover to cover

[Dr. Strange]

16. The beginning is a very delicate time...

Now though, having read the book, I believe Lynch totally screwed the pooch on that film and it is one that sceams to be done again.

You should check out the syfy version: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142032
More faithful to the book, but the acting and special effects are mediocre.
In any case, a new movie is in the early stages of production. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419

The Guild Navigators were not giant slugs.

I'm not sure if that's what Lynch was going for. Herbert didn't make an attempt to describe the navigators until after Lynch's movie. I think/hope that what Lynch was shooting for is making the navigators look like worms. The idea being that mass consumption of the spice was causing humans to "evolve" into the sandworms from which the spice comes. It's an interesting idea. On this point, the syfy version of the navigator pales in comparison.

The way he portrayed the character's inner dialogs was ham fisted.

Boy and how! You speak much truth on this. My suspicion is that it was Lynch's way of pushing the plot along: tell, don't show.

Paul's evolution to a Fremen was lame - little development of his bonding with them, and it took like what, two weeks?

It certainly appeared to move fast. But the fatal poison in Lynch's movie was the dopey "weirding modules." Bad director! The Fremen were fierce warriors, they didn't need fancy weapons, they just needed to be united.

If you've read more of the Dune series, then after watching syfy's Dune miniseries, you should check out the Children of Dune miniseries.

[pokerfan]

46. I hate remakes/reboots

But I think it's time for someone to do high-budget film that's faithful to the novel.

Re: Guild Navigators: http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Navigator

In the original 1965 novel Dune, Duke Leto Atreides notes that the Guild is "as jealous of its privacy as it is of its monopoly," and that not even their own agents ever see Navigators. Leto's son Paul wonders if they are mutated to the point of no longer appearing human. A Navigator is fully revealed in the first chapter of Dune Messiah (1969). Here, the Guild Navigator Edric is called a "humanoid fish," and described in his tank of spice gas as "an elongated figure, vaguely humanoid with finned feet and hugely fanned membranous hands — a fish in a strange sea." The Navigators' "elongated and repositioned limbs and organs" are noted in Heretics of Dune.

In 1985's Chapterhouse: Dune, Lucilla notes that "Navigators were forever bathed in the orange gas of melange, their features often fogged by the vapors," that they possess a "tiny v of a mouth" and "ugly flap of nose" and that "Mouth and nose appeared small on a Navigator's gigantic face with its pulsing temples." She also notes that their mutated voices require translation devices, describing "the singsong ululations of the Navigator's voice with its simultaneous mechtranslation into impersonal Galach."

Film Canon

In David Lynch's 1984 film Dune, the Navigator's mutation affects his entire body, with 3rd stage navigators resembling either a giant whale or slug with a heavily deformed head, V-shaped mouth and vestigial limbs suspended in huge tanks of orange spice-gas. He however is not shown to have the blue-in-blue eyes of a spice addict. Frank Herbert reportedly liked the idea of different stages of navigators as mentioned in the 1984 film and incorporated it into his later books.

In the Children of Dune miniseries, navigators appear more true to Dune Messiah.

[Orrex]

17. Regarding the characters' inner dialogue...

It has to be said that Herbert himself was pretty ham-fisted about it himself, so Lynch can't bear all of the blame.

Whatever else can be said of Herbert, he simply wasn't a great writer. In particular, his "inner voice" sequences are pretty close to unbearable, running along these lines:

She suspects that I'm not really a vegetarian, Paul thought.

I suspect that he's not really a vegetarian, thought some Bene Gesserit character.

He also has a habit of pointlessly dropping characters and totally missing the moment when it comes to climactic scenes.


Okay book. Disappointing movie adaptation, though I admit that I liked the navigators.

[Dr. Strange]

19. Once again the elfin Orrex makes his case.

Plans within plans...

[Orrex]

21. Look here, buck-o

When I want your opinion, I'll ask TZ for it.

[Rabrrrrrr]

26. "Hmmm", thought Rabrrrrrr, "Orrex responded with uncharacteristic snark. Could he be a ghola?

Did the Bene Gesserit infiltrate DU? They've long wanted to master the power of the Lounge. The Lounge. Why does it always come back to the Lounge? It must hold even more power than the commonly recognized one. I must ask DrStrange about this, but I must be careful. He has the Imperial Conditioning, but as we saw with Radiolady, that can be broken. Ellipses within ellipses."

[TZ]

27. Somebody is just begging for an ass kicking

Just sayin.

[Dr. Strange]

30. Yeah, good luck with that.

I asked her for my opinion about a pumpkin spice latte a week ago, and I have yet to find out what I think about it!

[era veteran]

20. The film sucked spice.

[solara]

22. I agree Lynch's movie was horrid even though the cast was nearly perfect, however

I thought the Baron was lame, as he wasn't very intense or smart nor did he appear large enough to need a suspensor. Also, they should not have dubbed in Alia's voice, which was quite annoying. Obviously there was not enough time to explore the intriguing complexities of each political faction, nor the growth of the characters, which was very disappointing. One of my truly petty complaints was the total lack of understanding of the still suits.. leaving the head uncovered completely negated the suit's purpose.

I enjoyed the mini- series much more, tho' I agree the cast was not as compelling.

The book was great.. the Trilogy, which I read about once every two years, even greater.

I am afraid that I,too, am a Dune geek

:hi:

[NewJeffCT]

23. Loved the book back in the day

the movie ruined the book for me, though. Good cast, disappointing result. The book is also too long to be adapted into even a 3 hour movie. I don't remember even watching the Sci-Fi miniseries.

I remember the movie battle scenes being far more one-sided than the book portrayed them.

[baldguy]

25. Ornithopters fly by flapping their wings.

Lynch's didn't

[MadHound]

32. Movie sucked in a major way. The books started sucking after the first one,

And really went downhill after the third one. Now his son started writing them, blargh.

Herbert should have stopped after the third book in the series. I remember reading an interview with him thirty years ago and he was feeling trapped by the series. That shows in his later work on it. However his other, lesser known works like Whipping Star are great.

[Ikonoklast]

33. Author tells publisher, "This is the last sequel I'm going to write."

Publisher backs up dumptruck load of money in author's driveway.

Author reconsiders previous position.

[TZ]

34. Dude you are in a whole spiceload of trouble

There's at least one fanatic of God Emperor of Dune in this thread. He's gonna go all Leto on you!

[Orrex]

36. My favorite book is the one with Duncan in it

[TZ]

40. Hey Oval face, er Orrex...

You might want to look at a lounge thread from earlier today that literally has your name on it(I can't link at the moment)

[CrownPrinceBandar]

37. That would be me...........

but I'm not going to fight about it. I'll just send my Fish Speakers to do the dirty work for me.

[kentauros]

38. I have TRIED reading the book, twice,

even the illustrated copy and never could get more than a handful of pages into it. Friends have said, and I quote, "Once you get past the first couple of hundred pages, it gets good!"

Sorry, but 200 pages is a decent-length novel to me. If I have to slog through 200 pages of boring history and political crap that I can get here on a daily basis, then forget it! I'll take the movie and the first Sci-Fi Channel mini-series any day!!! :P

[MilesColtrane]

43. I had a similar experience with the "Foundation" series.

I was just a young punk when I tried to read "Foundation", but it just didn't click for me.

...odd because I loved Asimov's short stories and Robot series.

I wonder if I picked it up now, 35 years later, just how I'd like it.

[Orrex]

45. You'd probably say something like:

"He could have accomplished exactly the same thing in 40 pages and lost nothing. Also, Asimov's dialogue is half-assed and his characterizations are pretty weak."

That's my guess, anyway.

[JitterbugPerfume]

39. I loved Dune.

I found the whole series at a garage sale many years ago, and I devoured it!

The Sci Fi series was outstanding . The Lynch movie is ok if you have read the book first.

A LONG time ago Will Pitt was doing book reviews ( I think it was in the old Meeting room)and there was a real intresting discussion about Dune.We used to do things like that
:shrug:


spice=oil