IMO Dune needs to be a tv show that likely runs several seasons so all the world and backstory can be explored properly so the audience can get a full experience.
Think The Wire in terms of plot discovery and forwarding (leaves out bogus exposition, means you have to pay attention to get things etc that moves along at a good pace and has forward development each episode.
It would be expensive, but it’s the only way I can imagine Dune being done to its fullest extent on screen
SciFi did a fairly good job, with two 3-part miniseries.
They show their age, but the acting was great, and they did a fairly decent job of honoring the spirit of the books.
Swapping Alice Kriege for Saskia Reeves (as Jessica) was a bit jarring, but, at least, they both looked old enough to be Paul's mother (as opposed to his sister).
James McAvoy did a great job. It was probably one of his earlier leading roles.
The problem is that nobody wants to acquire Dune to be a critical success. It needs to be a commercial success.
This of course implies the addition of much lazier exposition than The Wire, which IIRC never had more than about 4 million viewers. I'm sure it's different in the streaming era, but more and more, audiences are making it clear that they are definitely not tuning in to shows that require thought.
If anything streaming makes shows like The Wire more accessible and viable as commercial successes. It's hard to keep details in your head when the show airs an episode once a week, and if you're tuning in for the first time you've got no idea what's going on and find something else to watch. Neither of those issues he to exists with streaming, although more and more they're switching back to an episode a week model, but rewatching episodes in between weekly releases is an option now at least.
We are still in the early days of figuring out what works.
One issue: media execs don't know anything except "that was profitable, so let's do it again". Have you noticed that Netflix now has fifty cooking shows, split between one-shot game shows and tournaments/"reality" dramas? "Iron Chef" worked and "Top Chef" worked, so they get cloned and slightly modified. All of these sink.
For a long-form SF/F show, what hasn't been done?
- two 1 hour chapters weekly
- dropping 2-4 1 hour chapters at a time, rather than either single episodes or the whole season
- irregularly sized episodes matching the plot
- six episodes of rising tension, a flashback episode to explain backstory, and then a finale that begs for a second season (just kidding, Netflix seems to think that's optimal already)
This is the one I've been thinking about for a while. I'm not sure why the MCU or Star Wars aren't doing more of this. They've kind of figured out how do to different sized plots (Daredevil vs. Avengers, Rogue Squadron) but why aren't they more connected? Why aren't they doing more multimodal storytelling. Have a big blockbuster movie, a 90 minute heist movie, a prestige tv season about politics, one about the military. Have some books about complicated stuff, a video game about the actiony parts, tiktok and instagram as storytelling devices instead of martech, etc.
Eventually special effects will become so easy to do well that a cheaply produced Dune will capture all its facets. Although you'll still need a good writer to make it compelling.
I would say the opposite. The first book is good, but pretty typical sci-fi fantasy fare. The next books are what really fleshes out a really interesting concept, this universe where humanity is far more advanced than today in a humanist way instead of technologically.
They also help make the point of the first book clear - that Paul wasn't a hero, but a tyrant. This is easily lost in the first book because of the comparison with the Harkonen and the previous Emperor, and because we're used to rooting for the main character. But Herbert's point wasn't to further the myth of the philosopher king, but to dismantle it - which is quite rare in fiction, and made extremely clear throughout the series.
I'd also say that the exploration of Leto II's psychology in the God Emperor of Dune was the most interesting writing in the series, so that's what I'd consider the pretty clear high point.
SciFi did a miniseries, just before or just after they changed their name. It wasn't bad. I think it was about 10 hours.
The problem is that a lot of the payoff is at the end of book 3, and then book four tips the whole thing upside down with some deep religious and philosophical elements that I'm not sure everyone is ready for.
I'm always a little surprised how few people have read Dune relative to Lord of the Rings, but the more I think about Dune the more I get it.
I don't understand all the love for Dune. I read it, it was ok, and that was it. 3 underwhelming film adaptations is more than enough.
Special effects don't make a movie anymore. What matters is plot (and music). For example, "Colossus the Forbin Project" is very good. Some other very good scifi movies:
> I don't understand all the love for Dune. I read it, it was ok, and that was it. 3 underwhelming film adaptations is more than enough.
It's the Count of Monte Cristo meets Star Wars, with great world building, pretty good plot and characters and a lot of interesting philosophy, sociology, strategy and tactics. What's not to love?
The scifi miniseries was decent. The 1984 one was...barely Dune, though I enjoyed it. The current one is the first really good adaptation IMO, I don't think it's overrepresented at all.
You should read the count of monte cristo, it’s in an entirely different league in terms of writing compared to Dune. The philosophy is transparent, the tactics and strategy are basically nonexistent, and the sociology is missing any kind of coherence.
Kinda strange considering its movie that turned him away from making big movies. He hates the final version, was not allowed to the cutting room and the studio basically tried to make very different much more pop shorter vision with material Lynch shot.
I think there are still rumors about him having/making directors cut that could happen. That would surely be very dofferent movie.
I agree so much. The new dune is expertly made but it washed of so much of the trippy stuff from books. Even the aesthetics are playing it on the very safe side.
Then again this is the directors style. It would be probably end up worse if they would bend too much out of their comfort zone.
While Dune can certainly stand on its own as a great work, it's best appreciated as a critical response to the utopic techno-determinism of Asimov's Foundation series. The discourse between these two series contains some of the most interesting ideas ever penned in science fiction. I think you'd need to read at least the first three Foundation books and the first four Dune books to get a handle on it, but this is a good primer: https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/ch05.html
I'm not sure I understand why you find those lines particularly comedic. Campy? Most definitely. They also don't really work out of context, so I sat down and watched the actual scene and well... they're still not a particularly funny line, and I don't think the scene is meant to be funny. Are you suggesting that they're intentionally hamming it up? Honestly, I can't even tell if this point.
Wikipedia seems to support this theory as well:
"Lorenzo Semple Jr. wrote the script. He later recalled:
Dino wanted to make Flash Gordon humorous. At the time, I thought that was a possible way to go, but, in hindsight, I realize it was a terrible mistake. We kept fiddling around with the script, trying to decide whether to be funny or realistic. That was a catastrophic thing to do, with so much money involved... I never thought the character of Flash in the script was particularly good. But there was no pressure to make it any better. Dino had a vision of a comic-strip character treated in a comic style. That was silly, because Flash Gordon was never intended to be funny. The entire film got way out of control."
It seems like the kind of show that would fit well in mystery science theater though. This is likely just one of those things that is more of a time capsule, or a period piece, it's likely very difficult for people who grew up watching this type of show to be able to objectively have an opinion about it without nostalgia creeping in.
Personally, I can't fathom thinking the 1980s Flash Gordon was a good movie while the 1980s Dune movie was not.
It was supposed to be an acting vehicle for a football player. It's so camp.
But it also has Max von Sydow in it, and Brian Blessed is every bit as over the top as he is in season 1 of Black Adder.
It occupies much the same genre as Big Trouble in Little China and the Evil Dead movies. If you're looking for something deep, you're in the wrong place.
There are some fun themes in there and I appreciate that it begins as a somewhat typical "hero's journey" tale and then turns that whole idea inside out. I like the intrigue and plotting and how various factions are always plotting several steps ahead.
But none of that is why I absolutely love Dune (the novel). For me it just has this vibe that I've never been able to explain.
Maybe that's why I like it: because I can't even figure out why I like it.
Anyway, that's all crazy subjective and I can easily see why many are not enchanted by it.
Star Wars: I saw it the day after it was released. It was groundbreaking in every way. Nobody had seen anything like it before. It just blew everybody away. ESB just did not have the impact SW did.
T1 was very focused. Again, nobody had seen anything like it before. The terminator stayed true to form in its relentless purpose, summed up in Reese's little speech. T2 rehashed the same plot, adding an asperger sidekick robot for comic relief. (I thought Harlan Ellison was way off base claiming that T1 was stolen from him.)
These are great sequels, but they are Hollywood action movies compared to their predecessors. I do prefer ESB, but Star Wars has better structure and a more satisfying ending, so it is close.
The best thing about ALien is that when it came out, you had no idea who the "hero" was in the crew. Tom Skerritt was the biggest star, had first billing, and was the white male captain. There was no expectation the someone else would be the hero and survivor.
And you have to let everybody know just how bad you think Dune is, in the most snarky and belittling way possible. Seriously, every reply of yours on this entire topic is combative.
Have you considered what your agenda here is, and whether you’re participating in this discussion in good faith?
Oof, looks like I touched a nerve. I’m providing a measured response to the unexamined breathless enthusiasm for mediocre writing. I’ve had to talk lots of people into reading a second sci-fi series because they started with Dune and decided that the genre isn’t worth it.
Dune is fine. But people need to re-read it as adults or something before extolling it’s virtues from the rooftops as they do in this thread.
You should consider that you feeling attacked is as much about you as it is about me.
I’m not feeling attacked, and didn’t say I was. I'm just sorry for the folks you’re responding to.
Edit to clarify: for the precise reason that “you have terrible taste” is ad hominem, and contributes nothing to the discussion. This isn’t appreciated on HN.
I think if you worked on your delivery you might find folks have different reception to your ideas.
I might give your words some weight if it wasn’t for the great big pile of upvotes on my comments. I like that reception just fine, but thanks I guess?
If they have an issue they are welcome to raise it, no need to go white knighting people.
I enjoy Aliens—it's the bigger, more over-the-top production of the two.
But I prefer Alien for its intimacy and slowly growing horror. John Hurt's character's arc stunned me as a child, and is still one of my favorite turns of storytelling. I love the set design and overall tone of the movie. It's a different space mood than other space movies. And it nails that feeling of being hunted on a spaceship (so far as I would know).
There’s so much good dialog in Aliens that I’m always amazed was written in the mid 80s and would play just as well if it were new today (mostly spoken by Hudson): “Game over, man!”, “yeah, but it’s a dry heat”, “ Somebody said "alien" she thought they said ‘illegal alien’ and signed up!”
Aliens is more of a vanilla monster movie than scifi. I don't recall any science in it, other than the setting.
Alien was based on a short story in "Voyage of the Space Beagle", though the implementation of it was fresh. The discovery and exploration of the alien's life cycle was good scifi.
Can't agree with you there. I think even Cameron would be the first to say that Aliens is primarily a thrill ride. But it is also objectively true that at least two hard scifi elements provide the scaffolding for the events of the movie.
Two of the most central themes of the movie were fairly hard sci-fi... although admittedly one of them was nearly entirely deleted from the theatrical cut.
One: What would a person experience after decades of hibernation? In many ways the film revolves around or is set in motion by Ripley's extended cryosleep after Alien. She is now alone in a strange world where her skills are no longer relevant or current. This primes her for manipulation by Burke. She has also missed out on her deceased daughter's entire life, which primes her to think of Newt as a surrogate daughter and protect her with a mother's ferocity. (Unfortunately, the exposition about her daughter was removed from the theatrical cut. Huge miss.)
Two: How would mankind react to alien contact? Would we treat it with ontological reverence or would it be business as usual for warmongering corporations? The second half of the movie is set in motion by Burke doing the latter on behalf of Weyland-Yutani.
The terraforming stuff.... yeah I agree it's just a setting.
You do raise some good points. I never thought those issues were the central theme of the movie - just a setup for, for lack of a better term, a bug hunt.
Science fiction doesn’t imply science being in it.
>fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets.
Aliens isn't much more than NYC with monsters in the sewers, with a different backdrop. It was ok and I didn't feel like it was a waste of time, but that's about it.
I don't know if that bit of dialogue was in the original script, but it is pretty much the story of how the actress Jenette Goldstein went to audition for the movie - she thought it would be about immigrants (she was one herself, an American in the UK).
Agreed, the dialog had some good laughs. When Paxton asks Gomez "did anyone ever think you were a man?" and she replied "no, did anyone think that of you?" A comeback worthy of Winston Churchill.
Not GP, but I think I made it to about 20 pages into the third book before giving up. I actually enjoyed the first book, but it just got more ponderous as it went on. And this was around the same time I read the Foundation series by Asimov, so I didn't necessarily need at pot-boiler.
I'm not sure if one of us misunderstood "pot-boiler" but Dune is surely no popcorn entertainment. It felt ponderous because its author invests much time into the development of characters, philosophy and politics. It's not for everybody, but it surely is not a pot-boiler.
It’s a cargo cult. Dune itself is pretty standard sci-fi. The sequels are where it goes from good to great. People deify the first one because they think that’s where the great reputation comes from, not understanding that the really interesting stuff is in the later books. I mean, the giant worm-man, the endless clones experiencing existential dread, and the trans stuff all come after book 2 and really after book 3.
I've only read the series once, >20 years ago, but I thought the opposite. To me it started out good but ended weird and stupid (I admit I remember almost no details though, so can only give the impression I'm left with). I've read other books I thought much better than any of them though.
I couldn't make it after the second book, Dune Messiah. But I enjoyed the games, especially the RTS, the miniseries and the recent movie which is quite good.
All of those are popcorn. Even Alien - which is a jump scare creature feature expanded with some token politics and superb horror aesthetics. And Star Wars, which is a fantasy for ten year olds in space (according to George Lucas), but with ground-breaking special effects.
Dune - the book - is not popcorn. The series is probably the most brutally surgical examination of power, politics, religion, and economics ever to appear in print.
There are giant worms and weird drugs and such, but they're all metaphors.
If you're looking for the literary equivalent of CGI, that's very much not what it's about.
>with some deep religious and philosophical elements that I'm not sure everyone is ready for.
This is how I felt about Battlestar. I barely remember watching the original series as a kid, but I just remember a couple of character names, Cylons (which I thought were cool), the space ships, and the human in the dark room ontop of the pyramid shape the Cylons talked to. That was it. Then I watched the reboot, and was shocked by the religious overtones. Clearly, I never researched anything about it until that point, and then it all made sense.
I'm nervous about Buck Rogers (biddybiddup, what's up Buck!) might turn out the same way on a reboot.
Religious overtones or are ancient religious texts the original sci-fi where its adherents a few generations removed never got the memo? Only kinda joking. I too picked up on battlestar, resurrection, the twelve tribes (or colonies?) lords ok Kobol and so on. I think someone told me at some point the original was Mormons in space.
The original show's creator, Glen Larson, was a Mormon - so it tracks that the show incorporated a lot of that theology. Also, one of the main antagonists is Count Iblis, someone who seeks to lead the colonists to follow him, though he is revealed to be essentially a prince of darkness. "Iblis" is the Islamic name for Satan, so another religious element. Even his backstory is similar to the Abrahamic view of the devil, "he [Count Iblis] was previously a Being of Light who fell from grace after using his powers for evil purposes."
Ron Moore's reimagined version of Battlestar includes strong themes of reincarnation and life being a cycle, which also tracks with Moore's past interest in Hinduism and other Eastern religions.
You can never reboot Max "perhaps you should execute their trainer" von Sydow as Ming the Merciless. Melody Anderson. Queen soundtrack. A true masterpiece.
Slightly unrelated, but there is a 19 hour fan-edit of the Hobbit + Lord of the Rings -- i.e someone glued all 3 Hobbit movies and all 3 LotR movies into a 19 hour video.
In the "2-3 hours of the hobbit which was good" are you including the animated versions as well? I'd be hard pressed to find 2-3 hours from the travesty that Jackson made
Even in LOTR there are some wobbly sections outside the big story beats, when you re-watch it now. It's a good book to film adaptation of difficult material though.
With all of the creative licensing that was taken with the content, I was really hoping that the Hobbit would have reduced the camp and gave it different tone to match the rest of the "universe". Instead, we got 20 minutes of dwarves throwing plates around and singing songs that does nothing except show examples of how the thinnest book was turned into 3 friggin' movies.
That's just one of the issues I had, but they don't get any nicer from there
Different person, but just about everything. It simply wasn't enjoyable, at all. I'm just talking about the first hobbit, I have somehow managed to purge the memory of seeing the others from my memory.
I liked the LotR adaptations, though there were a few things I was pretty disappointed with.
But when it came to the Hobbit films it was a different story entirely, I saw the first and didn't love it. I saw the second and actively disliked it, so I figured I'd save myself the pain and haven't seen the third and I have no intention of watching it.
It's a shame that it was badly rushed, and split (needlessly) into three parts. But despite the close association it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the LotR films, which I rewatch every few years.
You probably want the "Maple Edit" of the Hobbit (also known as "J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit"). It is 247 minutes and is setup as a single film with intermissions.
"people copied our cool effects for Matrix 1, what if we make the action scenes so long and expensive no one would even bother to copy them because they all went home before they were over?"
I wouldn't mind sitting in a screening of Dune pt1 followed by Dune pt2 when it comes out. Sounds like something Alamo would do. While not 10-14 hours, I would be willing to sit in the theater for 4-5 hours.
AMC by me did all 3 LOTR films in 3 nights just before the hobbit came out. I enjoyed it a lot but by god by the time the 3rd movie ended I was done, and then I still had to sit through another 45 minutes of endings.
Reminds me of the outrage over the $100M budget of Water World and how it barely got made. Today, a $100M budget is nothing. We've already had several $300M budget films this year.
Occasionally, they are aided (or hindered) in their travels by the ship's frustrating and only partially-functioning computer system interface, known as Mu Lambda 165 (portrayed by William Osler, who also provided the opening narration for each episode).
in retrospect the ark was in trouble, perhaps the AI was applying the emotive context in response to questions that are a misdirection of effort, considering the situation.
Wikipedia says The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction described the show as "dire" and The Best of Science Fiction TV included the show on its list of "Worst Science Fiction Shows of All Time”. But the full episodes are available on YouTube, so as a fan of 70s sci-fi, I’ll decide for myself. :)
It had some talent behind the writing, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison. For the first few episodes it seemed legit and to be going somewhere, but lost its way at some point. Production values were always quite low, but not that much different from Dr. Who from the same period.
I rate it as worthwhile from a sci fi archeology perspective, but not good in any traditional sense.
On the topic of disasters, I recommend reading about The Starlost:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starlost