Dune - The Book and the 1984 film *spoilers for both*

Watched Lynch's Dune this morning, explaining some to Hubby. Amazing how many lines of this version I know! Yeah, the look is lush, like an Italian steampunk.

 

More like 3500 years.

 

The publication chronology would at least indicate that he wrote GEoD as a bridge from the original series to the unfinished Heretics/Chapterhouse/Dune7.

 

A novel primarily featuring a giant sandworm dictator waxing philosophical is as beautiful an idea for a book as it gets. The rest of the sequels aren't as creative, though all of Frank's works are very good.

 

Its not a bad book by any means, its just that I read it after I'd read the first 3 books several times, so I think it was a bit hard to get into with how different it was. Even then I still liked it. It will be interesting to see what I think about it in my next reading (although I have to finish rereading the 3 House books, and the first 3 Dune books with Paul of Dune and Winds of Dune in the middle of those first).

 

There's a fanedit a very similar to what you're saying named Dune: The Third Stage Edition. It defers to the theatrical cut for all the material actually in theatrical cut (IE Irulan narrator rather than unknown male, no randomly reused material, etc.), but adds in the genuine deleted scenes from the Alan Smithee edition and even ones elsewhere (very poor quality in places, despite being cleaned up the best it could); the faneditor even goes by scene to scene and individually recolors the Freman's eyes to be blue in the deleted scenes. Total is about 3 hours. Well worth watching.

 

There's another one out there (the Alternate Edition Redux) that goes even further by mixing out about 60% of the voiceovers, splitting the film into 'books' (complete with quotes), and chopping 'Paul makes it rain' out of the ending.

 

Well, someone had to do it.

 

The Third Stage fan-edit of the Lynch film is the only one I watch. Fixes so many of the film's problems in regards to pacing, atmosphere-building, character development and clarity.

Lynch's Dune just has so much to love about it. The miniseries no doubt got way more of the plot in, but the direction, lighting and performances were so flat. And the costume design was really terrible. I do still like the miniseries a fair bit though and think they handled the overall political intrigue better, and didn't ruin the Baron like Lynch did. Also, the actress playing Chani was insanely, ridiculously hot. I still prefer Sean Young though. She's the book Chani I imagine .

 

The miniserieses definitely expanded Irulan's role.

 

Exactly. If only we were able to pick bits of each and make one great version.

 

Any movie adaptation of Dune would just be a series of edited highlights and in that regard, the Third Stage edit of Lynch's film is the best compromise we have. Both the Lynch film and the miniseries lack the depth of the novel and that's because there's just way too much going on in Dune for a different medium.

So much of it plays off philosophy, history and nature in a way that can't be shown on film. They couldn't have quotations from Irulan's books every few scenes like they do in the novel, it'd be too weird for audiences. They can't show the characters' inner monologues so they can't capture the complexities of how Paul learns to see time, life and existence. Probably the stuff that most moved me on my first read. They actually have to show Shaddam IV before the finale so he loses his mysterious edge. Lots of little things all add up to a very different movie experience. Dune isn't as simple to adapt as many other sci-fi/fantasy novels. So much of the book's appeal was the details within the details, relationships within relationships, and plans within plans. Networks and Hollywood will always simplify this, so we end up with ridiculously unfaithful stuff like the Fremen beating the Sardakaur because they have better guns, rather than having superior adaptation, training and philosophy.

I do like the weirding modules to an extent, as I believe in the power of words on reality. It just doesn't quite fit in with Frank's story.

 

Well, it was more so that her expanded role in COD felt more natural instead of her just being a placeholder in the first two books and then a major character in the third.

 

So true. Though I can't help but think if Lynch was able to retain final cut of the film, we may have got something that played better as a movie. I realize the extended cut does fix a lot of the problems as you've mentioned in the past here, but it's still just a fan re-edit, no matter how well done it is.

Too bad Lynch had such a horrible time on the film he refuses to do a Directors Cut, because I sure wouldn't mind seeing one.

 

Another fan of Third Stage Edition, which is only version I'll watch now. Though prefer Lynch to the miniseries in most depts, I'd love to see a Lynchian take now that had better vfx for crafts, city vistas, etc. It's one of things I think CoD did really well, and much better cast /acting than first miniseries. McAvoy, Krige and Sarandon terrific, but especially the actress who plays Irulan, who feels like the story's heart for me.

 

Yeah, I might not have thought of her when reading the book, but in retrospect Sarandon seems like the perfect choice to play Wensicia.

I also thought COD's worm capture scene was great, especially since the books implied this was going on but never directly showed it in a you-are-there kind of scene.

 

I don't think it's the weakest of all of them, but it's definitely the weakest of the first four. It exists more as setup for Children of Dune than as a story in its own right.

(Which is perhaps why it worked so well as night one of the miniseries for CoD.)

 

Except for the fact that she's 27 years older than Julie Cox but played her younger sister. Well, maybe that's just visual proof that life on Salusa Secundus is really hard. But I agree that she was a great Wensicia.

I never had an issue with Dune Messiah, maybe because I read it and Children of Dune right after each other so Messiah never had a chance to be a standalone novel in my mind.

I still hope someone someday decides to make an anime adaptation of all six novels, I think it would be the perfect medium for it.

 

God Emperor of Dune would have to be some surreal psychological mindfuck akin to End of Evangelion.

 

Guess she wasn't getting enough melange.