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Dune 2018 (19,20,21...)

I doubt anything can repeat the massive MCU success in the foreseeale future. For them they got incredibly lucky at the start (if Iron Man 1 bombed and couldn't land such a charismatic lead like RDJ the MCU surely wouldn't be that massive today), made some very wise choices in actors and directors/producers and they had a thorough plan what they wanted to do.

The movies themselves are a perfect blend for blockbuster movies - the plots are easy to follow, villains and heroes are easily identifiable, a good mix of humor one liners, big action pieces, good characters/actors and the stories are perfectly fine and are not too challenging in their themes for the general audience.

With Dune you still have the potential for great CGI scenes (can't wait to see their version of the Sandworms), there is some great action especially in the first book but there is so much underneath the superficial elements that could be a bit too "cerebral" or boring for the mainstream audience.

We will see how Villeneuve will adapt this and how successful it will be to warrant an entire franchise.
 
I don't think anyone would come into this expected to recreate the success and scope of the MCU. But it really doesn't need to. You don't need 20+ movies to be considered a successful franchise. For a while there, just 3 were considered more than adequate. All that matters to the studio is that they make enough money to be worth the investment.

As for adapting GEoD; I've already expressed my views on that subject more than once in this thread over the years and my views haven't changed, so I won't re-litigate it again now. Short version though: Don't. Just skip to Heretics and fold some of the material into the narrative as background.
 
Reverend said:
As for adapting GEoD; I've already expressed my views on that subject more than once in this thread over the years and my views haven't changed, so I won't re-litigate it again now. Short version though: Don't. Just skip to Heretics and fold some of the material into the narrative as background.
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100% agree on GEOD
 
Reverend said:
As for adapting GEoD; I've already expressed my views on that subject more than once in this thread over the years and my views haven't changed, so I won't re-litigate it again now. Short version though: Don't. Just skip to Heretics and fold some of the material into the narrative as background.
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God Emperor is my favorite Dune novel but it wouldn't be a very interesting movie so I agree with you, the important plot points could be done in a 5 minute sequence similar Galadriel narrating the first age backstory at the start of LOTR.
 
It would be...interesting to see someone try to adapt Heretics or Chapterhouse, since they have outright pornographic scenes (like actual detailed descriptions of sex acts, its fucking gross and it comes completely out of nowhere), and some of that is actually relevant to the plot. Obviously they could get away without going into the actual sex acts that the books describe, but they'd still have to deal with the stupid and creepy sex witches shit.

Honestly, the series ends well enough with Children of Dune. God Emperor is (in my opinion) boring as hell and probably unfilmable. If they want more Dune content, they should just adapt stuff from Paul of Dune and Winds of Dune, two pretty decent mid-quels from Brian herbert and Kevin J Anderson. I know saying that anything they did is good is not a popular opinion, but I honestly liked some of their stuff, and even their bad stuff is better written then Frank Herbert's last two Dune books (the already mentioned Heretics and Chapterhouse). I've read every Dune book outside of the Brian Herbert/KJA stuff set 10,000 years or whatever before Dune, and Heretics/Chapterhouse are, in my opinion, easily the worst books with the Dune name.
 
Just for my own fun and to have something to do, I've been working on a fanfic script treatment of God Emperor to see if it actually could be made into something watchable. I'm about halfway through it right now, but... there is a solid two-part movie or TV miniseries there. It just needs focusing, and a couple of scenes amped up for the screen.
 
Fans made Dune what it is (beyond Herbert's original vision and prose), so why not? :adore:
 
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Nightowl1701 said:
Just for my own fun and to have something to do, I've been working on a fanfic script treatment of God Emperor to see if it actually could be made into something watchable. I'm about halfway through it right now, but... there is a solid two-part movie or TV miniseries there. It just needs focusing, and a couple of scenes amped up for the screen.
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I'd say the key obstacle is that it's mostly just a series of conversations and very little actually *happens*. Now that could work fine (assuming VERY well written dialogue and some skilful editing to cope with the languid pace) if it weren't for one little detail: the person having most of those conversations is a giant worm person.
Now I'm not saying that's unachievable (given enough money *anything* is achievable) but there's no way to do it properly without it being expensive and it just doesn't make sense to spend THAT kind of money on THAT kind of story.

You could of course punch up the action, give Siona more to do, expand Duncan's role even further, get more into the Fish Speakers. and make it so Hwi has actual discernible character traits....but then you're not really telling the same story anymore. Part of the point of the whole thing is that Leto saw everything coming and had indeed planned it all so far in advance that even several thousand years after his death he's still accurately predicting events and leaving messages for people he knew were going to be there before their distant ancestors were even conceived.

Better I think for the saga as a whole to subvert expectations and go straight into HoD. That way you can break the whole thing into just two major "eras" instead of three. A lot less work for the audiences part that way and a more economical use of their emotional investment.
 
Takeru said:
God Emperor is my favorite Dune novel but it wouldn't be a very interesting movie so I agree with you, the important plot points could be done in a 5 minute sequence similar Galadriel narrating the first age backstory at the start of LOTR.
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It would make a great limited series though. Several times during the Game of Thrones series I was reminded about the political dialogue in God Emperor.
 
theenglish said:
It would make a great limited series though. Several times during the Game of Thrones series I was reminded about the political dialogue in God Emperor.
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The difference is that the political intrigue in GoT is rather easy to follow.. everybody knows Lannister's = Evil and Starks = Good, they might have put them in Black/White as well.

With Dune i believe it's a little bit more complicated and grey but if you had to cut it down to make it presentable to an audience i believe it could be done, only hardcore book fans would protest at the changes.

With Leto II what he did could be summed up as being a Tyrant with ultimately good intentions, who was ready to have his name be synonymous with evil for all of mankind's history save for the very few in his closest circle who knew the truth.
It could make for an interesting season were Dune adapted to a miniseries but it would mean a complete rework of the book.
 
For anyone who's got 3 hours to spare, there's a fan edit of Lynch's Dune that has extra footage added back in. Whether it makes the film better for some-one who hasn't read the book I'll leave up to others to decide.

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Changes include
* the film opening with the reverend mother ramallo telling the fremen that the prophecy is about to come true.
* explanation of the mutation effect of the spice on the guild navigators.
* the narration and stills from the alan smithee DE are used at several spots in the film where Paul is reading about the Butlarian Jihad.
* rather than big dinner from the book, there's a scene with Leto, Paul, Kynes, Halleck and Yeuh where the planetologist toss his lot in with House Atreides and later that he was Chani's father.
* the fight with Jamis and his body taken for water reclamation where we seen Hannah and her two sons.
* the death of Thufir Hawat.
* NO RAIN ON ARRAKIS AT THE END!!!
 
"This video contains content from Universal Pictures (ZEFR), who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

Not that the admins wouldn't have deleted it themselves anyway. When it comes to discussing fanedits on forums, it's usually better to tell than show.
 
Nightowl1701 said:
"This video contains content from Universal Pictures (ZEFR), who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

Not that the admins wouldn't have deleted it themselves anyway. When it comes to discussing fanedits on forums, it's usually better to tell than show.
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Given it's up on youtube and not a link to a torrent/pirate site I'm not sure why mods would have a problem.

and interesting that shows in as available in Canada but not the U.S.
 
I feel we've discussed these various cuts (theatrical, TV Judas Booth/Alan Smithee, fanedits) before. What might be interesting is what we think Villeneuve and writers may have included/excluded based on these versions?
 
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