As a fan of the novels, i clearly detested both Lynch's 1984 47 million dollar monstrosity and the 2000 mini-series as some say the books are unfilmable no doubt but what this new project needs to be is 3 movies of the first book just like Lord of the Rings trilogy did.
Dune 2018 (19,20,21...)
- Thread starter wayoung
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Doing it as a trilogy would require introducing more plot to fill it out in order to preserve a theatrical 3-act structure to each film. It really isn't that complex of a story, all told, it is just one where you can't depend on action and snappy dialogue to keep the audience engaged.
The challenge is in striking the right balance of political thriller, action adventure and religious epic; not in keeping the run time under 3 hours.
That said, I would prefer to see it as a miniseries on HBO where they can take a more deliberate pace and explore aspects and characters in a way that would otherwise drag down a blockbuster.
The challenge is in striking the right balance of political thriller, action adventure and religious epic; not in keeping the run time under 3 hours.
That said, I would prefer to see it as a miniseries on HBO where they can take a more deliberate pace and explore aspects and characters in a way that would otherwise drag down a blockbuster.
I think you could *technically* still do it as a movie trilogy, each with their own three act structure but it would require massive embellishments, re-shuffling of events (which to be fair Peter Jackson & company pulled off quite well in LotR) and possibly switching genres from one movie to the next.
That last part actually fascinates me somewhat as it would require the first movie to be a political thriller, while the second would need to be a wilderness survival/going native ecological drama and the third would be possibly the largest scale revenge flick ever put to film.
It'd never happen of course, but it's fun to wonder about just as a thought experiment.
^ Yeah, just maybe Dune could work as a movie trilogy as you suggest:
1) Introduce the universe of Dune (Butlerian jihad, development of human skills to replace machines, use of Melange, pivotal importance of Arrakis) with much higher production values than in the "Alan Smithee/Judas Booth" TV version of the movie. Could be kind of lame I guess but LOTR part 1 did similar. The Atreides clan leave Caladan and set up on Arrakis. With the emperor's and other parties' backing the Harkonnen attack, Leto is killed, and the movie ends with Paul and Jessica fleeing into the desert.
2) Paul and Jessica assimilate with the Fremen and start disrupting spice production, Paul realises that he might likely unleash a jihad that will kill billions as the gestalt subconsciousness strives to prevent the genetic stagnation of mankind. The movie ends with Paul taking the Water of Life to enhance his powers.
3) Paul becomes Emperor and the inevitable jihad starts that he feared. Dune Messiah could be merged with this I guess to show the price that Paul pays.
Main thing -- no weirding modules, just the "mind bending reality" weirding way. Either Lynch didn't have the imagination to make it work on film or the technology just wasn't up to depicting it.
The trilogy basically sets the scene for Dune Messiah [depending on whether it's merged or not with part 3], Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune as a second trilogy [or a duology]. I can't imagine that Heretics of Dune or Chapterhouse: Dune would ever be adapted unless the Brian Herbert novels (based on his father's notes) Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune are included to complete the circle. Not sure the audience would stick around for those.
But I still think a new TV series would be better.
1) Introduce the universe of Dune (Butlerian jihad, development of human skills to replace machines, use of Melange, pivotal importance of Arrakis) with much higher production values than in the "Alan Smithee/Judas Booth" TV version of the movie. Could be kind of lame I guess but LOTR part 1 did similar. The Atreides clan leave Caladan and set up on Arrakis. With the emperor's and other parties' backing the Harkonnen attack, Leto is killed, and the movie ends with Paul and Jessica fleeing into the desert.
2) Paul and Jessica assimilate with the Fremen and start disrupting spice production, Paul realises that he might likely unleash a jihad that will kill billions as the gestalt subconsciousness strives to prevent the genetic stagnation of mankind. The movie ends with Paul taking the Water of Life to enhance his powers.
3) Paul becomes Emperor and the inevitable jihad starts that he feared. Dune Messiah could be merged with this I guess to show the price that Paul pays.
Main thing -- no weirding modules, just the "mind bending reality" weirding way. Either Lynch didn't have the imagination to make it work on film or the technology just wasn't up to depicting it.
The trilogy basically sets the scene for Dune Messiah [depending on whether it's merged or not with part 3], Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune as a second trilogy [or a duology]. I can't imagine that Heretics of Dune or Chapterhouse: Dune would ever be adapted unless the Brian Herbert novels (based on his father's notes) Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune are included to complete the circle. Not sure the audience would stick around for those.
But I still think a new TV series would be better.
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^I wouldn't expend too much time on the Butlarian Jihad or the founding of the schools of the mind as it's not directly relevant to the plot or setting. Any attempt at adapting Dune is already going to be overburdened with exposition as it is.
I sure a line or two could be spared somewhere to at least mention it in passing, but front-loading any movie or TV show with a "brief history of the known universe" prologue would be a really bad idea.
Lynch's Irulan intro actually did about as good a job as one could hope in setting the stage. Any more than that would feel extraneous, no?
As for God Emperor: I've said this before but to reiterate I think it best to skip right over it and go straight from Children into Heratics. The substance of GEoD (including some key scenes thanks to Other Memory) can be woven into the world building and plot of Heratics & Chapterhouse.
Mostly because the plot of GEoD itself doesn't really have all that much going on. The real meat of it is in Leto's inner monologue and long conversations with Duncan.
For one thing no studio is going to want to spend several hundred million on what would essentially be '12 Angry Men' starring Jabba the Hutt. Another aspect is that from a larger storytelling PoV, GeOD feels less like a continuation of CoD and more like a soft-reset, which we get yet again with Heratics & Chapterhouse. Better I think to only split of overall saga into two eras instead of three: the age of Muad'dib and the age of the Golden Path.
I sure a line or two could be spared somewhere to at least mention it in passing, but front-loading any movie or TV show with a "brief history of the known universe" prologue would be a really bad idea.
Lynch's Irulan intro actually did about as good a job as one could hope in setting the stage. Any more than that would feel extraneous, no?
As for God Emperor: I've said this before but to reiterate I think it best to skip right over it and go straight from Children into Heratics. The substance of GEoD (including some key scenes thanks to Other Memory) can be woven into the world building and plot of Heratics & Chapterhouse.
Mostly because the plot of GEoD itself doesn't really have all that much going on. The real meat of it is in Leto's inner monologue and long conversations with Duncan.
For one thing no studio is going to want to spend several hundred million on what would essentially be '12 Angry Men' starring Jabba the Hutt. Another aspect is that from a larger storytelling PoV, GeOD feels less like a continuation of CoD and more like a soft-reset, which we get yet again with Heratics & Chapterhouse. Better I think to only split of overall saga into two eras instead of three: the age of Muad'dib and the age of the Golden Path.
God Emperor can't be skipped because it is essentially the lnychpin around which the whole Dune book series revolves, the central theme of Dune.. the avoidance of stagnation and ultimate destruction.
Leto III. realized that humanity was standing still in its development and as we all know something that doesn't evolve is doomed to die eventually so he did what Paul couldn't or wouldn't do.. become the Tyrant mankind needed as a catalyst for a renewed evolution and development. Leto strangled everything under his control by being, at least to the outside world, a brutal dictator who had to control everything. What happens when you put more and more pressure on something? The smallest crack will rip open everything and the resulting explosion will scatter all around.
That's exactly what he did and his death was this final crack that let out the built up pressure on humanity so it would scatter all across the universe thus ensuring the continued development and assured existence of mankind.
Now much of this is very cerebral and there's little action happening, in fact none at all if i remember correctly, so it's basically an exercise in psychology and sociology.. not exactly a topic that draws the crowd and if it would ever get made could well stop the entire Star Wars/Marvel Superheroes Franchise plans after the first, action packed trilogy that was comparatively easy to follow.
I agree with those here that a well funded miniseries would be best, 10-12 episodes per season over several years would give you enough time to really develop the universe, characters and themes and you could also tackle God Emperor as a more cerebral season before returning to the mayhem when the Honored Matres return and Miles Teg fights them (now who could play him? A retired and brilliant General who gets tortured and develops powers on his own.. too bad Ed Harris is tied up with Westworld
).
My opinion of Paul's refusal was always that he didn't think humanity would survive the typhoon struggle. He was raised from birth by Gurney and Co being told that stagnation was death - which is exactly what he says the golden path is when he meets Leto in the desert. He chose a different path for humanity. One without stagnation. He was wrong, ultimately, but I always rejected the idea that it was personal fear of the transformation and destruction of his legacy that made Paul avoid it, which so many believe.
By "skip" I don't mean "discard entirely" I mean you do a time jump from the end of CoD to the events of HoD. The events of GEoD still happened and the vital details of that backstory would be explored throughout both HoD & CHoD with Duncan being both the narrative keystone and the audience PoV character.
If one were to straight up adapt GEoD as is, it would be a whole lot of very expensive, very drawn out and boring events with a fairly low-key climax. A combination that spells death, be it for a movie or a TV show.
Doing it the other way around adds an element of mystery as we only gradually see what became of Leto and his promised "Golden Path". That whole plot with the Ixians and Hwi Noree can be mentioned or left out entirely as it has little significance to the larger plot.
IIRC the key difference was one of perspective. Paul was too human in a sense and couldn't bare the agony of the Golden Path, whereas Leto was born with Other Memory unlocked and had the will to endure it.
Paul had other memory unlocked. He wasn't an abomination like Leto and Alia.
That's also back to claiming he couldn't bear the pain of it. It's a legit argument, I just don't buy it. I'm pro he didn't believe it was successful based on his entire history and the specific objection he raised to Leto "Stagnation! Death!". Stagnation is how he brought down and empire. Stagnation is what the Mahdi was born to prevent. Stagnation goes against every fibre of Paul's being. And the Golden Path was the embracing of it.
The move I think about it the more I like skipping GeoD. Despite the denseness of the novel, the actual plot can be summarized fairly easily and would make a good pre credit sequence of Heretics - a much more accessible, film able novel than GeoD.
That's also back to claiming he couldn't bear the pain of it. It's a legit argument, I just don't buy it. I'm pro he didn't believe it was successful based on his entire history and the specific objection he raised to Leto "Stagnation! Death!". Stagnation is how he brought down and empire. Stagnation is what the Mahdi was born to prevent. Stagnation goes against every fibre of Paul's being. And the Golden Path was the embracing of it.
The move I think about it the more I like skipping GeoD. Despite the denseness of the novel, the actual plot can be summarized fairly easily and would make a good pre credit sequence of Heretics - a much more accessible, film able novel than GeoD.
It's been a while since I last re-read the books, but wasn't the whole stagnation and death thing part of Paul's attempt to avoid the jihad in the earlier parts of the first book? By the end, his experiences had altered his perspective after becoming trapped by his own vision. Also a bit fuzzy on the details, but I recall a conversation between old blind preacher Paul and Leto where Paul flat out says he saw the path Leto has chosen, could have initiated it himself but was repulsed by the prospect.
It's just my interpretation but I always equated this difference to Paul being raised as a person before awakening, whereas Leto and Ghanima were abominations and thus had a wider perspective on what is personally tolerable. The only real human bond they had was for each other, which was again why Leto went through with it: to spare Ghanima from the agony.
The way I picture it, CoD would end with a coda that depicts what is described in the opening excerpt from GEoD, with Odrade opening and exploring one of Leto's storehouses and discovering his journals. A scene that will be later revisited in full.
HoD should start with Duncan's (latest) birth, though one could do an artful credit sequence depicting the broad strokes of the intervening history. Either more literal like the openings of 'Watchmen' & 'Wolverine: Origins' or something more abstract, perhaps with pictographs or similar symbolic rendering played to music.
I'd like to reply in depth but unfortunately I'm restricted for time at the moment but a couple quick notes:
Ghanima was not an abomination. She was the only one of the three pre born to escape it. For Alia she was the junior of the partnership, which is why she was so corrupted and controlled. This was due to her upfront combating the other memories instead of accepting them.
For Leto, he was the senior partner, allowing him the strength of a unification but stopping the other personality from controlling him. Or at least that's what he claimed.
Ghanima avoided abomination because she didn't fight the voices like Alia and didn't have the psychological pressures of Leto's transformation and immortality, so she never succumbed to a true partner - Chani's quick possession of her in CoD was the closest she came to abomination, and helped her prevent actual abomination moving forward.
There are several passages in Dune where Gurney talks about how it was he who taught Paul Stagnation was death, particularly when they are besieging the Corrinno and Harkonnen forces, as well as right before Paul's attack on gurney ' smugglers. His desire to avoid the Jihad was different, that was out of his own personal morals, and by the time he realized the true fact that he was locked in that course (after Stilgar saves him) he learns the only way to stop the Jihad would be for him, his mother, and every fremen in that case system to die that night, which isn't possible. After that his goal is to limit the horror and loss of life from the Jihad as much as possible.
But yes, the wild spreading of Gene's front he Jihad to end the genetic stagnation of the empire was also connected to his purpose, but not the base fear of stagnation IMO.
That first prologue is way to long, and I don't really think the whole thing with the machines is really necessary to the story being told in Dune. All you really need is current stuff like what spice his, and who the guild, Bene Gesserit and the three main houses are. The second one was a bit better in that regard, although if it were me I would have at least added a bit about the Bene Gesserit and the Kwizats Haderach.
It might have been at least a bit more interesting if it was giving us actually scenes of the stuff happening, like in LORT, instead of just bunch of paintings with a voice over.
It might have been at least a bit more interesting if it was giving us actually scenes of the stuff happening, like in LORT, instead of just bunch of paintings with a voice over.
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Yeah, it was very cheaply done to try to make the background to the Duneverse more intelligible. The Brian Herbert novelisations about the Butlerian Jihad and the origin of the Harkonnen versus Atreides feud were nothing like what I envisaged from the information given in Frank Herbert's books. I would hope for a better vision and adaptation for TV/film.
Possibly to avoid a lawsuit from McNelly's estate since he had the copyright to The Butlerian Jihad novel he and Frank were writing together when Frank got sick.
Whatever the Herbert Partnership may claim regarding how the other novels are true to Frank's plans are automatically shown to be BS due to that important fact.
McNelly tried multiple times to be involved in the prequels and was shut out entirely.
I'm not sure if The Butlerian Jihad ever went to the museum or not. There were talks of it around at one point after he died. It wasn't being publicly shown while he was alive. Not without a big pay day.
Yeah that stuff was cut out for good reason. It's the kind of thing you want to try and weave into the narrative rather than lay it all out. I recall the documentary that came with the LOTR:EE DVDs in which they talked about how they struggled with the prologue. The trick is to boil down all the lore to it's bare essentials in order to get across the basic setting without confusing and/or boring the uninitiated.
Even the opening crawl to Star Wars got progressively more streamlined as the drafts went on. Earlier versions went on about corrupt Trader Barons, the Dai Nogas (read: Jedi) who were the personal bodyguards of the King and betrayed by the Legions of Lettow, the tragic Holy Rebellion of "06", yada-yada-yada.
None of it really mattered to the plot.
Even the opening crawl to Star Wars got progressively more streamlined as the drafts went on. Earlier versions went on about corrupt Trader Barons, the Dai Nogas (read: Jedi) who were the personal bodyguards of the King and betrayed by the Legions of Lettow, the tragic Holy Rebellion of "06", yada-yada-yada.
None of it really mattered to the plot.
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He didn't appear to understand the nature of the Prana-bindu training described in the book. Even back in the 80s there might have been ways of filming it without making it look like a silly kung-fu knockoff. Would be a lot easier now of course.
