Sci-Fi Dune

[Monsieur Xavier]

The whole tone of the movie was wrong, the Harkonnen were portrayed as degenerated monsters (heart plugs? the portrayal of the Baron) instead of just power-hungry politicians. Dune is not a horror story.

What about the navigator folding space? They do that in the books (okay not them directly, their Holtzmann machines)

That was I meant by "extreme short cuts" and "condensed". For the Harkonnen it was a quick way to tell the audiance that they are ruthless, dangerous and without mercy. I am not saying it was a good idea.
Otherwise I don't think the "whole tone" of the movie was wrong, I liked the inner thoughts and the portayal of many characters ( The Lady Jessica, Doc Huey, Thuffir and Gurney were great too ).

About the navigators you answered yourself They see the safer paths, they don't actually fold space themselves.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

ah, I see.

But I do not need to worry here, the new Dune will be a very safe PG-13 (okay I think the Lynch movie was that, too). I just hope they drop all of Lynch Dune's specific designs that crept too much into public's consciousness and the computer games and work just from the book.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

I hope they will give the movie a decent budget and at least a 2h30 running time, 2 x 2 hours movies would be best but I am dreaming.
The director also need to have a vision of grandeur and epicness.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Hi,

Like I said in another post in my edition ( the french one ) the first book is splitted in two books.

At work, every time we have documents translated into French, they come back twice as long at least, so I can only imagine how much longer a French translation of Dune's rich text must be!

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

There is not much difference size wise between the two if you consider the fonts size and paper thickness to be honest. I have both versions.

I find that in English you can translate your thoughts much more directly than French thus using less words ( maybe not in all case and writing style but sill ), that is maybe the reason of your issue in your translation work, I don't know.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

English is a quite simple and short compared to the other European languages, it's a pidgin language.

 

[Gabe99]

DEADLINE EXCLUSIVE: Sands Of Time Running Out For New 'Dune'

 

[Spider-Fan]

Decided to look up the status on this since I have been reading books in the series I have yet to read. Yeah, this Dune movie is looking to not happen.

I have been looking at a lot of talk elsewhere about Dune adapting, and I must disagree with people saying it can't be done in one film. If you let it run a LOTR esque runtime, yes...you easily could do it justice. You just have to be willing to let it run that long, and history shows recently, long films do well at the BO if they're good. More often better than shorter ones.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Yeah, this is beginning to look like one of those projects that will never happen.

 

[Spider-Fan]

It will get off ground eventually. Dune is too big not to be made.

 

[Spider-Fan]

On the issue of Lynch's Dune film...I think it is underrated. It is by no means a GREAT movie, but I do think Lynch did a great job with the visuals (especially given when it was made) and I love the design of the stillsuits and a lot of the more visual elements of it. I also liked the narration he had in the film.

On the other hand, the issues with it are obvious. But, same applies to the miniseries for me. The mini-series did a good job at keeping things in, but it felt like a mini-series in that the alien world wasn't amazing and the effects looked fake.

 

[Xtroid]

Best review of Dune that I've read.

http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2010/06/cult-movie-review-dune-1984.html

 

[Pink Ranger]

Dune is a very cerebral book, not just because of the science fiction but also just the dynastic plot elements. It would be very hard to convince a studio to fund a film, or more likely set of films, because it's too intelligent.

 

[Spider-Fan]

It's the best selling science fiction series ever. It's not hard at all to convince a studio that it is a good idea. It just seems to be something directors can't figure out how to properly adapt.

Which is funny to me, cause people were fine with LOTR, and those were all a pretty talky 3hrs. Dune could easily be as visually appealing.

 

[Pink Ranger]

It's the best selling science fiction series ever. It's not hard at all to convince a studio that it is a good idea. It just seems to be something directors can't figure out how to properly adapt.

Which is funny to me, cause people were fine with LOTR, and those were all a pretty talky 3hrs. Dune could easily be as visually appealing.

I like LOTR, but it's an easier to adapt than Dune. Once you take out all the odes, songs, poems, and gigantic paragraphs describing a bubbling creek, you can distill a clear and linear story from LOTR.

Dune is a novel for intelligent adults. It's not so much about the amount of dialogue, but the level of detail those words contain. "Plans within plans" is something hard to pitch to a fat-arsed producer sitting in his swimming pool with a martini, especially for a Star Wars-sized budget and a Gone With The Wind-sized cast you'd need for this film.

 

[Spider-Fan]

But what you fail to see is Dune is the best selling Sci-Fi book series EVER! Dune has an audience. That audience is large. If you made a good Dune film, it'd be huge. But, you'd have to make it good.

 

[TheVileOne]

And Lord of the Rings was like the best selling book series EVER. It's audience was only second to like the Bible. It transcended genres.

I love DUNE but I don't really care for the sequels. I only really like the first book. I liked the TV miniseries. I think you could make the first book into a big popular movie but the sequels would probably suck. Audiences wouldn't like it.

That's the other thing, movies aren't made specifically for book readers either.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I think the sequels get more heady than the first book does, but I think Dune Messiah and Children of Dune would still be quite bankable. Once you get to God Emperor of Dune, this is where you either love or hate it and they get REALLY heavy.

My favorite Dune novel is actually Dune Messiah, but only by a slight margin over the first book.

 

[TheVileOne]

People will not watch or like the sequels. They are too dark and depressing. Too confusing and complex. You can't simplify that material for audiences.

It doesn't have those satisfying and euphoric moments that LOTR does which is part of why LOTR transcended the genre and became so popular and was more adaptable as a film series.

They did the sequels as a big budget TV miniseries. Not even James MacAvoy could save them. Awful.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Actually, I thought the Children of Dune mini-series was a pretty good attempt. The score was excellent, and the stories worked in the context of the series. Not perfect by any means, I think making the twins essentially adults undermines the point of Children of Dune a bit, but it was good.

I think being overtly complex mostly applies to God Emperor and up. Dune Messiah and Children of Dune I didn't feel were hard to follow. No harder than Dune at least.

I agree Dune is harder to adapt than LOTR were, but that doesn't mean it can't be done, and can't be done well. Personally, I would use Lawrence of Arabia as a good model of what to do with Dune. Complex story mixed with grand scope and an epic plot. Combine that with top notch SFX we have today, and Dune would be huge.

 

[TheVileOne]

It's been done. There was the Lynch movie and the TV miniseries. I love the 2000 Dune Sci-Fi miniseries. It was a little cheap looking in places, but overall it was a solid adaptation of the book and got pretty much everything right. The unedited version is even better and longer.

The thing is to do this onscreen today and to do it justice it would freaking expensive. Like no way they could do it beneath $100 million. I don't see it making that kind of money. DUNE is just too cerebral and too philosophical of a property.

 

[Pink Ranger]

It's been done. There was the Lynch movie and the TV miniseries. I love the 2000 Dune Sci-Fi miniseries. It was a little cheap looking in places, but overall it was a solid adaptation of the book and got pretty much everything right. The unedited version is even better and longer.

The thing is to do this onscreen today and to do it justice it would freaking expensive. Like no way they could do it beneath $100 million. I don't see it making that kind of money. DUNE is just too cerebral and too philosophical of a property.

Agreed. The only good film version of Dune is exists within all our heads, but it would be nearly impossible to make. Not because we don't have the technology, but it would be very, very difficult to get funding for anything more complicated than "Avatar" these days.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I disagree. Dune is a property that DESPERATELY needs a good movie. Another badly received film kills the franchise forever, so you need something with good WOM. Hopefully, whatever studio takes up the reigns after Paramount likely loses the rights understands this.

 

[TheVileOne]

So the rights have expired with Paramount and the producer and rights holders can now take it elsewhere. They could still use the scripts they had done but they still have no one to finance the budget which would be upwards of $100 million.

 

[Lord]

It can be done, and it can be awesome. Lord of the Rings was very complex too, in fact, many people that watched it only understood that they had to kill an evil ring, many didn't notice some of the subplots.

The film must have anough spectacle and an easy to follow main plot, in this case, Paul becoming the emperor, it must have a big scale or it won't work, there's also the possibility of dividing the first book in 2 movies as the original book consisted of 2 stories published in a magazine, but i think one big movie could work.