8 replies to this topic

[JakeSully]

That's right Paramount Pictures has aquired the rights to bring all the books on teh big screen! The first book will be 4 parts in theaters like LOTR was 3 parts, accalimed French director Pierre Morrell who had good experience even with his solid US debut Taken is director because he is a fan of the novels who grew up with them and should make this a unique project even though there have been similar movies like The Matrix and Avatar which are like Dune.

Hope this improves over that 47 million dollar 1984 abortion of an adaptation by David "F****" Lynch which was nothing more than a big mess when he knows nothing about the books but screwed it up with it should have been Alejandro Jordonsky or Ridley Scott for director originally.

I'm a huge fan of the Dune novels and the best Dune movie is Children of Dune.

[RedAuthar]

Would it be bad to post I have never even heard of Dune before today?

[JakeSully]

Please read the Dune novels, they rock and are the ultimate Sci-fi/fantasy novels in history! stay away from David Lynch's appalling 1984 turd of an adaptation.

[Ratty Randnums]

Not holding my breath for this to turn out well. I still believe the Dune books to be basically unfilmable as they are, it's like trying to turn the exact lyrics in a song into a novel. What works in one medium doesn't necessarily do so in another.
But with a trilogy of three hour movies maybe, just maybe. Though for general audiences they'll have to play up the scant action scenes in the beginning and middle of the book the way they did with the LotR.

Also yeah David Lynch's movie is fascinatingly awful. The only thing I hate more than the Fremen going around in the open desert with no head covering is how he portrayed the Bene Gesserit.
Don't watch it before you read the book, it'll ruin the book for you and it's so badly constructed you won't know what's happening anyway.
On the upswing though it did indirectly inspire (or at least popularize) the modern RTS video game genre and had a pretty nice soundtrack. Also this.

[RedMenace]

And let's maybe hope there's a little less Sting this time around.

[JakeSully]

And who thinks films like Star Wars, The Matrix, The Fifth Element, Avatar, Dark City, The Dark Crystal, Star Trek movies, Stargate, Chronicles of Riddick, Serenity, Nausicaa of the Valley of hte Wind (a.ka.. Warriors of the Wind) etc. had the vibe, style and feel of the Dune novels?

I mean Lynch's expensive at the time mess was just a big WTF movie! I mean bad miscasting like Sting? COME ON, STING?!, wooden acting, bad visual effects that seem laughable, muddled scripting, tasteless scenes that only reek of Lynch including making the baron as a disgusting welt-faced joker and making his relatives into clowns, major confusion and that sort of thing but i do admit the Toto soundtrack is actually cool but better than the film itself.

I've been a Dune fan since i was 12 in 93 with the books as i was hooked and always had a thing for Sci-fi since i was a kid. But then i saw Lynch's Dune movie on video when i was 15 and thought it was terrible then i rented the extended cut DVD at one of my city's video rental stores and thought it was still awful after all these years as not even the 3 hour TV cut on Sci-fi could do the book justice. It should have been Ridley Scott or Alejandro Jodorosky as the director as intended originally when i was film had been development hell for 12 years but NO De Laurentiis had to choose Lynch when Lynch doesn't know jackshit about the book. I'm glad on december 1984 it bombed at the box-office with critics and audiences even fans like myself shun the film, Lynch shouldn't be doing big budget movies for he disowned this movie and learned his lesson to make independent movies.

What do you think of the mini-series from 2000 and it's superior sequel Children of Dune?

[Ratty Randnums]

Yeah the Harkonnens really got shafted in that version. In fact Sting's character was possibly the most faithfully recreated sadly enough.
The Baron was always supposed to be repulsive, he's a massively overweight incestuous pedo slowly rotting from venereal diseases. But he is also no fool, Machiavellian to the bone in fact. Lynch made him a disgusting clown, nothing more.

I haven't got to see them yet unfortunately. Though I think Penance, the other DUNE fan (and a much more knowledgeable one than me) on the forums, has. Ever played any of the video games? They take their style from Lynch's movie unfortunately, and of course ignore character specifics just taking the setting and elements of the premise pretty much.

[JakeSully]

Yes the games were good.

And do you think those movies i mentioned especially Avatar, Star Wars and The Matrix are similar to Herbert's Dune novels? I mean Cameron is a big fan of the novels yet he despises Lynch's fiasco of an adaptation. I mean Avatar is the same thing with the whole outcast being on an exotic planet, falling in love with an alien girl, being part of a rebellous alien tribe, taming the wild like Paul did to the worms, fighting for a precious substance, becoming a messiah, the colonel and the baron being the same, and the same corporations that want the substance. Even Matrix has the same ideas like Dune of being an outcast messiah to even being blind in part 3 like Paul did but have magicial visions.

Sting looks like he is doing a gay publicity poster.

[Ratty Randnums]

Yes the games were good.

And do you think those movies i mentioned especially Avatar, Star Wars and The Matrix are similar to Herbert's Dune novels? I mean Cameron is a big fan of the novels yet he despises Lynch's fiasco of an adaptation. I mean Avatar is the same thing with the whole outcast being on an exotic planet, falling in love with an alien girl, being part of a rebellous alien tribe, taming the wild like Paul did to the worms, fighting for a precious substance, becoming a messiah, the colonel and the baron being the same, and the same corporations that want the substance. Even Matrix has the same ideas like Dune of being an outcast messiah to even being blind in part 3 like Paul did but have magicial visions.

Sting looks like he is doing a gay publicity poster.

I think that has more to do with the enduring archetypes of the hero and or messiah. Remember Paul was very aware of these archetypes (and usually trying to avoid them) even has he fulfilled them. A good book to look at for a more in-depth analysis on this sort of thing would be "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"