"Children of Dune" miniseries
- Thread starter Tulin
- Start date
But that is beside the point... You have to discuss the movie as it is, not as Lynch "would have made it".
While my memory of the Lynch movie is very hazy, I do know that in the book Paul used the threat of using water to destroy all the spice to get the Emperor to cave in. Therefore in the movie, assuming Paul still made this threat, it would seem incredibly stupid of him to carry through with it after he won. What the hell does he gain?
Lynch's Dune, even his Director's Cut, is so laughably bad that it's still widely considered an infamous, almost proverbial flop.
Only a handful of die-hards most of whom saw it in 1984 and were impressed with the (what were for then advanced) special effects actually prefer the thing. If nothing else, the two scifi channel miniseries got the Sandworms right.
Only a handful of die-hards most of whom saw it in 1984 and were impressed with the (what were for then advanced) special effects actually prefer the thing. If nothing else, the two scifi channel miniseries got the Sandworms right.
I first saw the movie on a used VHS tape I bought about 5 years ago. It made perfect sense to me and I still haven't read the books. (Of course, I suppose it helps that the Emperor's daughter pretty much explains the whole plot at the beginning.)
You mean the ocean footage that plays over the end credits of the David Lynch movie? I'm not sure that's even supposed to be taken literally.
There have been multiple extended cuts circulating on VHS... some of them had this extended intro that explains the universe. But the theatrical version did not.
I did get the new DVD version of Lynch's film as an Xmas present last year - I suppose I should pop it in and watch it again sometime.
There's no mention of that in the film nor as I said the effect of water on the worms so people wouldn't of known.
In the book Paul's instruction also is also for them to take some water of life and dump in into a pre-spice mass.
In the book he had Jessica use her new Reverend Mother powers to turn some of the water of life into the water of death. He then threatened to use it on baby sandworms and kill off the next generation, creating a chain reaction that would've ultimately destroyed all the sandworms and all the spice.
IIRC, both versions have a prologue that explains the plot. The theatrical cut has the Emperor's daughter fading in & out as she explains the story. The extended cut has an extended prologue with drawings of the events narrated by a generic voice over guy. I had the one with the Emperor's daughter.
The narrative in the extended cut goes into Dune's backstory really in depth, explaining just what the Bene Gesserit and the Guild are, hell even explaining humanity's slavery by the Thinking Machines and the Butlerian Jihad.
It was also REALLY naff.
Still it could have been worse. I remember reading about an adaption some French bloke was trying to make before Lynch (not sure if that was the project Ridley Scott was involved with or not.) If you think Lynch wandered away from the source material, this guy makes him look fanatically faithful! From memory, the two wackiest details I can recall are Paul being immaculately concieved from a drop of Leto's blood and Dune was a rouge planet without a star.
On the scale or total ignorance of even basic scientific reality, it was up there with the "wooden world" draft of Alien 3.
Except there's a scene in the extended cut where you actually see them drown a juvenile sandworm to get the water of life. Granted it's not in the theatrical cut but the ending in both is the same, betraying a rather blatant lack of thinking.
Still it could have been worse. I remember reading about an adaption some French bloke was trying to make before Lynch (not sure if that was the project Ridley Scott was involved with or not.) If you think Lynch wandered away from the source material, this guy makes him look fanatically faithful! From memory, the two wackiest details I can recall are Paul being immaculately concieved from a drop of Leto's blood and Dune was a rouge planet without a star.
On the scale or total ignorance of even basic scientific reality, it was up there with the "wooden world" draft of Alien 3.
The "Wooden Planet" from Ward's version of A3 wasn't made entirely of wood, the script goes into that...
As for messed up takes on the Dune film, I remember one version of the ending having Paul get killed by Fenring's wife and then it being revealed that Paul had become a psychic consciousness that now controlled Jessica and all the Fremen.
As for messed up takes on the Dune film, I remember one version of the ending having Paul get killed by Fenring's wife and then it being revealed that Paul had become a psychic consciousness that now controlled Jessica and all the Fremen.
I think I remember that, and yeah it really wandered from the book. Alia was in fact the daughter of Paul and Jessica(!), the Harkonnens were drag queens, Emperor Shaddam was an android(?) and Duke Leto was one of the Thundercats (seriously, I'm not making that up). Talk about weird.
I seriously doubt wood would be even remotely capable of maintaining nominal atmospheric pressure, to say nothing of radiation shielding. It simply wouldn't work.
Physical reality aside, the idea that the company would go to such lengths to slowly kill the inhabitants makes even less sense. For starters one would think wood would be a rare and valuable commodity in a galaxy apparantly sparse in life bearing worlds. In the very least it can't be nearly as readily accessible as basic ores and metals that can be found in most asteroids, of which there is no shortage at all. On top of that, if the company really wanted them dead there's much more efficient ways to go about it than that.
In short, it's a fantasy story, not a science fiction one.
The backstory explained it a bit more, the people living in the orbiter were legally judged to be political exiles who were banished from Earth but the Company couldn't just have them executed so instead they dumped on the Orbiter as a penal colony type situation. But they still wanted them dead so they designed the place to run down after decades (by that time the rest of Earth would've forgotten about them) and still kill off those left.
And I don't think Wood was ever said to be that rare, nor is there anything said about a "lack of Earth like worlds". As for the planet's design, it's best to just read the script. It explains it better than I could.
And I don't think Wood was ever said to be that rare, nor is there anything said about a "lack of Earth like worlds". As for the planet's design, it's best to just read the script. It explains it better than I could.
If you're talking about the failed Alejandro Jodorowsky attempt I don't think that was part of it.
http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/timeline.asp
Similar threads
