Dune - To Be Directed by Pierre Morel (Taken)

[Agenda]

As campy as the Harkonnen were, I think they helped make the movie far more memorable than it would have been otherwise.

But it is true that there was a lack of a formidable heavy in the film. The victory at the end comes too easy, as Sting is more cartoonish than badass.

However, I thought that the Baron does have his moments in Lynch's film, especially when he does that heart plug thing. He just should have toned down the cackling and yelling a bit.

 

[Agenda]

Incidently, I've dreamed up the perfect opening scene to a new Dune movie. Too bad I'm not the screenwriter.

 

[Reverend]

The Harkonnen from the Scifi mini were far superior to those from the Lynch film.

They defiantly had a better grip on what they were about. More scheming, less hysterical laughing. Pitty about the Sardaukar's floppy hats though.

To date, none of the adaptations have been quite right, though I think 'Children of Dune' is the best effort to date. They at least learned from most of the mistakes made in the first mini-series. I think Newman really shone as the Preacher and of course the Inama Mushif bit was fantastic.

As for this new take; WAY to early to say. After seeing 'Kingdom' I was all for Peter Berg as the director, but then I saw 'Hancock' and thought otherwise. No idea what this new guy's work is like. We shall see.

 

[Broccoli]

Haven't seen Pattinson in anything, though, so I can't comment on his effectiveness as an actor.

He's not an actor.

Haven't seen any of the Twilight movies, but he was okay in Harry Potter 4.

Dune can't be compressed into a two hour film... and the studio will probably interfere with this one until the cows come home. I'm not exactly excited about another adaptation.

I kinda hope they will approach it the way they did with the Lord of the Rings and turn Dune into a trilogy, one released a year apart, with each of the three sections being a one movie. The mini-series did it this way and I think, for the most part, it worked. For a movie, they can expand each section to make it a fuller adaptation.

haha, about a year ago i was wasting time looking through the DvD section at Best-Buy, saw Dune there and without paying much attention to the packaging picked it up just for the hell of it. later when i made it to the register (luckily the attendant had a bit of taste, and also lacked much tact...) but he looked up before he scanned the bar-code and asked me "are you sure you want this? you know this one is the sequel right."

i wasnt even aware there was one, and after looking it over more closely i decided to still purchase it anyway. i wish i had taken his advice...

I'm not quite sure what you ended up getting from this description. The Scifi mini Children of Dune is the only thing I can think of which qualifies as a "sequel", and frankly it's the best on-screen realization of the Dune universe to date: It has most of the strengths of the 2000 miniseries, but with a decent budget.

The mini-series was a pretty good adaptation. CoD was awesome.

Incidently, I've dreamed up the perfect opening scene to a new Dune movie. Too bad I'm not the screenwriter.

My idea is to have masked agents of the House Harkonnen knock over a spice bank during which each agent is killed in a systematic way by another until only one is left. That agent will then pull off his mask to reveal himself to be the Baron.

Pretty original, if I do say so myself.

 

[Brandonv]

I'm a fan of the novel, and I consider the David Lynch film to be a guilty pleasure of mine. It is true that the story would have to be streamlined to fit a film, but I think that it should still be possible to get the essence of the story across.

Here are some things that I think the previous film didn't handle well and that the new film could fix:

-The portrayal of combat in the Dune universe was not done properly in the Lynch film. Get rid of the weirding modules and show the weirding way instead. Also, people shouldn't be using so many guns during the action scenes, since shield belts make them somewhat useless (especially since lasers can cause a huge explosion if they hit a shield). Instead, they need to show people fighting in close quarters with knives and swords. For me, the way combat works in the Dune universe was one of the most interesting and unique things about the novel, and I think it would make for some very good action scenes if done properly on film.

-The politics of the Dune universe where not well explained, for example the relationship between the Spacing Guild and the Emperor. This is obviously going to be a challenge for the script writer since the politics are quite complex, but I think that some understanding is necessary to appreciate the plot.

-They need to explain why Mentats exist instead of computers. I don't think the Lynch film ever explained this.

-As has been mentioned, the Harkonnens where too over the top.

 

[Reverend]

I think one of the TV edits of Lynch's film did have a (shitty) prologue touching on mentats & the Butlerian Jihad.

Speaking as a fan of the book, the trouble with adapting the novel with all the political complexity, the plots within plots and the numerous parties and agendas involved is that a good chunk of that stuff if front and centre for about the first third of the book. Translate that into film and you've basically got the even-more-tedious, 90 minute long version of the opening crawl from 'Phantom Menace' (taxation of trade routes, chome contract, spice harvester repair bills, yadda yadda yadda.) While the middle third is a chase movie and the latter third is a lot of innerspace weirdness with about 15 minutes or so of action. So if you can imagine a film made up of a BBC historical drama, spliced together with a Borne film and...Avatar, I suppose, you'll have a good idea as to what a truly faithful adaption might look like.

It might work as a film trilogy, but you'd need one HELL of a script writing team and a studio with very deep pockets and nothing short of an ocean of faith and optimism to get it off the ground. Mind you, I'd have said the same thing about Lord of the Rings about 10 years ago, but what are the odds of that happening again?

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^I think the extended Alan Smithy version of the 1984 does explain the Mentats.

I've never read the books. However, I really enjoyed the 1984 movie. It's very weird for a sci-fi/action/revenge movie (although probably the most normal movie that David Lynch has ever done) and I like that. I like that it's bizarre and slightly campy and doesn't always feel the need to explain what's going on. Baron Harkonnen was kinda gross but other than that I think it's great!

OTOH, I thought the 2000 mini-series felt a bit meandering, as did the Children of Dune follow up. They did a good job of capturing more of the nuances of the story but not as good a job of making me care.

No Berg means no shaky cam!

Yay! I hated The Kingdom for exactly that reason. They couldn't even keep the camera steady during the quiet, emotional moments. Berg is even worse than Paul Greengrass.

A twist? Shh. M. Night Shaymalan might hear you.

*He* could direct the new Dune:

"I see dead Harkonnens"...

That's not until Children of Dune, IIRC.

Robert Pattinson as Paul Atriedes
Carrie Ann Moss as Lady Jessica MILF
Liam Neeson as Duke Leto Atredies
Anthony Hopkins as Emperor Shaddam
George Wendt as Baron Harrkonnen
Seth Rogan as the Beast Rabban

And then we roll dice to see which remaining character(s) will be changed into minority roles.

Duncan Idaho will be a black man...because the character dies. Harry Lennix as either him or Gurney Halleck.

I like this cast, mostly, Harry Lennix included. Although, I think Robert Pattinson might be a better fit as Feyd Rautha. And I think I'd prefer Hugo Weaving as Emperor Shaddam IV.

 

[Brandonv]

I think one of the TV edits of Lynch's film did have a (shitty) prologue touching on mentats & the Butlerian Jihad.

Yeah, I have the extended edition DVD and have seen the prologue. Which reminds me, I never have watched the extended edition in its entirety. I got maybe half way through it and turned it off. I thought it was poorly edited, and the musical cues where all out of place. Luckily, the DVD also has the theatrical version.

 

[Anwar]

Yes, one thing that should be addressed is use of "Human Computers". The audience may end up thinking "Well, how did they explore the universe BEFORE they found Arrakis" otherwise.

 

[Marc]

-The portrayal of combat in the Dune universe was not done properly in the Lynch film. Get rid of the weirding modules and show the weirding way instead.

I think one of the reasons for the weirding modules was to give an illustration. Those who read the book know that weirding was an advanced method for hand to hand combat but how do you show that on film with something that doesn't look like any known martial art?

 

[AJBryant]

of course the Inama Mushif bit was fantastic.

Oh, heck, yes. That's one of my favorite pieces of music of all time. It's a fantastic work.

 

[Lindley]

-The portrayal of combat in the Dune universe was not done properly in the Lynch film. Get rid of the weirding modules and show the weirding way instead.

I think one of the reasons for the weirding modules was to give an illustration. Those who read the book know that weirding was an advanced method for hand to hand combat but how do you show that on film with something that doesn't look like any known martial art?

Children of Dune did a fine job with that "blur-motion" thing.

 

[S. Gomez]

^As did the first miniseries before it.

 

[Anwar]

I remember a fellow I talked with telling me how ridiculous that super-speed combat Leto II did at the end of CoD was. The book's description was that he now had the speed of a lion or something, not crazy flash-speed.

 

[Broccoli]

^ Perhaps, but I think, visually, it gave it more of a mystical quality.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I thought lolcats already did the definitive version.

 

[Agenda]

I remember a fellow I talked with telling me how ridiculous that super-speed combat Leto II did at the end of CoD was. The book's description was that he now had the speed of a lion or something, not crazy flash-speed.

Quite frankly, Leto's 'super powers' were kind of 'out there' to me, along with a lot of the stuff in the subsequent books. I'm not the biggest fan of anything outside of Dune and Dune Messiah, although, I did enjoy God Emperor a lot.

 

[Marc]

-The portrayal of combat in the Dune universe was not done properly in the Lynch film. Get rid of the weirding modules and show the weirding way instead.

I think one of the reasons for the weirding modules was to give an illustration. Those who read the book know that weirding was an advanced method for hand to hand combat but how do you show that on film with something that doesn't look like any known martial art?

Children of Dune did a fine job with that "blur-motion" thing.

but how would Lynch have done that in 1983/84 when his film was in production?

 

[Kegg]

Much of the politics talk is exactly the stuff I'd cut if making a Dune film. George Lucas actually had the right idea in comparing Star Wars to his reaction to Japanese movies - he didn't know or understand about the niceties of Japanese feudal culture, which were presented without explanation, but he was able to follow the plot very well. Likewise here - present rather than explain. There are villains who have set off a plot to kill the heroes and the hero joins the natives to defeat them. Spice is, of course, oil, which was even the case in the original novel (and conveinently enough there's an analogy that has not gone out of style); do we really need to know why exactly the Spacing Guild needs it? The recent vaguely Dune-esque Avatar didn't bother to explain unobtainium either and really did not have to.

I've never read the books.

Well, go and read the first one, anyhow. Or give it a shot.

Hell, I've never seen the Dune miniseries or read the Brian Herbert books (just the six Frank books and the Lynch movie) but c'mon! Dune is just one of those things we need to be a card-carrying sci-fi guy, even as sci-fi illiterate as guys like me are. I might gamely try to nod and pretend I know what people are talking about when they bring up Haldeman, but I've gandered through Dune.

 

[Marc]

Much of the politics talk is exactly the stuff I'd cut if making a Dune film. George Lucas actually had the right idea in comparing Star Wars to his reaction to Japanese movies - he didn't know or understand about the niceties of Japanese feudal culture, which were presented without explanation, but he was able to follow the plot very well. Likewise here - present rather than explain. There are villains who have set off a plot to kill the heroes and the hero joins the natives to defeat them. Spice is, of course, oil, which was even the case in the original novel (and conveinently enough there's an analogy that has not gone out of style); do we really need to know why exactly the Spacing Guild needs it? The recent vaguely Dune-esque Avatar didn't bother to explain unobtainium either and really did not have to.

The problem is that it's politics and power that's at the core of the story - the fear of losing his power that saw Shadam IV determined to take down House Atriedes, the old feud that made the Harkonnens his willing pawns, the policital power the Baron thought he'd gain, the political manipluations of the Bene Gesserit as part of their goal of the Kwisatz Hederach,