Dune

This miniseries devotes more time than the David Lynch version (but at 4.5 hrs will be less than the two new Denis Villeneuve films). The big success here is that it manages to unpack much more of Frank Herbert's novel, expand the role of characters who were either truncated or missing from the Lynch film. It also gains more depth by including a few more scenes as well e.g. The banquet scene, the interactions with Duncan and Keynes after the death of Duke Leto.

There is one particularly large change from the novel and this is to expand the role of the Princess Irulan who now takes on an investigation role and is used as a way of helping the audience understand the story. This makes perfect sense given that viewers of the Lynch version were largely left baffled.

Where it lets itself down is in production values. Acting is variable in quality and at times below professional levels, some actors seem to be struggling to act in English and are emphasising parts of sentences in all the wrong places. Even oscar winner William Hurt seems dead behind the eyes on this just quietly reading out his lines with little passion. PH Moriarti is often incomprehensible Only Ian Mcneice really shines delivering a pantomime like performance and occasionally breaking the fourth wall.

VFX is generally acceptable though also reused a bit in places. Some really obvious backdrops lets this down badly though in places - not sure why they didn't use green-screen but you can clearly see where paintings have been stuck together in places.

The costume design is another dodgy part of this. It feels like the designers thought making a sci-fi film was a license to treat everything like an avant garde Paris fashion show. Some very silly costumes and ridiculous hats make it hard to take some scenes seriously.

I admitt, for me it is the bbest adaptation of the novels. Without the baroc air, proposing beautiful performances, wise options in technical level, preserving, in faithful manner, the soul of series of Frank Herbert, it is more than impressive but correct in profound sense. Sure, first for actors, second , for the desire to be the fair, honest answer to the viewers expectations.

I've read the Dune books about a dozen times and I have also watched the 1984 movie a few times, and, while it had good ideas, it didn't thrill me. So I decided to give this mini series a try.

The first time I watched it I switched off after hearing Lady Jessica use the Voice for the first time. I disliked the 'spatializer' effects in the movie, and I didn't like them in the series. Months later I decided to give it another try.

I was quite astonished. The series has lots of very strong points.

The Fremen sietches have a very arabian feel to them, just the way they were intended in the books. Having lots of foreign actors added to the overall feel of a universe populated by a race that has split out into different planets. Of course, everyone would speak Galach with their own accent.

The passage to Arrakis is very unique in its approach to the navigators and their skills and I really liked the idea.

Unfortunately it had a few downright flops.

Paul should have been replaced. He is too old, he is too plain and he is way too 2 dimensional. The dream sequences are too unconvincing.

The Voice. It hardly appears in the series, and it's badly done. Trying to copy from the movie as a poor idea. I would have preferred a normal tone of voice, maybe some underlying sound effects and extremely voice trained actors who can snap out harsh commands unexpectedly and at will. The complete denaturalisation the spatializer gives the voice just makes me cringe.

What spoilt it even more was knowing the movie and then watching the series. You find yourself longing for the original Gurney, Leto, Feyd and Paul. Fortunately, you also adore the new Dr Kynes, Chani and Baron Harkonnen.

Finally, as was expected in any adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel that is shorter than 12 hours, I found myself explaining parts of what was going on to my friend, who hadn't read the book.

Overall, it is an excellent series, one to watch and one to buy. It is not perfect, but it is almost there.

Hints for future producers: Skip the spatializer, exploit the arabian and islamic Fremen theme, less technology, Harkonnens are evil, 6 hours are not enough.

First, a small catalog of guidelines for the 3 main types of viewers, and what they can expect from this mini series.

Type One: The Dunatics. For them, nothing can match up to the gospel according to Frank Herbert, so, choices are reduced to 2. Either make allowances towards both limitations and possibilities of the TV format to encounter the new and frivolous concept of fun, or refuse to watch this on the premise that any cinematic adaptation short of congeniality amounts to blasphemy by nature.

Type Two: The Lynch Mob. For them, the 84 adaptation justifies making allowances towards the novel by sheer impact of Lynch's surely unique, but also highly controversial vision - sometimes even questionable, where both Herbert and Lynch share an uncomfortable leaning towards social Darwinism and Riefenstahl-type aesthetics/ideals of 'Uebermensch' and 'Untermensch', sometimes even drifting into fascist cyphers. Noble savages versus the pit full of rotting (and of course 'sexually depraved', by showing the 'classic' negatively coded combination of cruelty and latent/outright homosexuality in men, and deception/treachery and offensive sexuality in women) carcass of the old and degenerated system of the imperial hierarchy. But the belief in 'higher breeding' (birthright of leadership/superiority) transcends both and is never put in question - not even by our 'hero' after the real necessity of a political marriage was gone. Recommendation: Watch Dune 2000. With a certain selective view applied, it'll serve as a welcome spare parts depot for their thesis that the 84 movie casts a shadow which can't be shed by any future attempt. Visually, this new version has enough thinly disguised 'Lynchisms' to justify a gloat session.

Type Three: The Players. They are the least dogmatic section of viewers, first and foremost on the look-out for 5 hours of 'other-worldly' atmosphere and storytelling beyond the mind-numbing standards of SF TV. Recommendation: Have fun and a few good 'goosebump moments' beyond mere popcorn TV.

General aspects:

Looks Let's face it, this one is split. The photography, costumes (matter of taste) and the built sets are excellent but highly individual. One either loves or hates it. On the whole, it looks more like a Visconti epic than Hollywood coded SF. CGI, backdrops, matte paintings and 'outdoor' studio sets, on the other hand, are so unbelievably clumsy and unprofessional that they can easily spoil the whole thing if one isn't capable of blotting them out of one's prime perception. The budget is no excuse. Half a crew from the minimal budget wizards on Farscape would've finished classes above this shambles.

Script This is far better than most give it credit. It has flaws, but they derive mostly from particular expectations of the Dunatics or the Lynch Mob. They tried to loose a bit of the extremely sterile and formalized dialogue from the books and the 84 movie - sometimes going overboard by making them talk too '90's casual' - but on the whole achieving a good compromise between Herbert's and Lynch's extremely artificial diction and something that could be recognized as 'normal' talk in such a highly ritualized environment. On the whole, they stayed closer to the book than the Lynch version, but messed up on a few small but sometimes vital details without an apparent reason. That's of no consequence for those who haven't read the original, but a pity, nonetheless in some cases, especially the lame portrayal of the Fremen. (significance of water in all its aspects)

Acting A mixed bag, here, but mainly due to the 90's approach to characterization/diction rather than bad acting. That sometimes backfires heavily, especially in the case of the lead. The whole concept - no matter how 'updated' it's supposed to be - hinges on a rather simple but nonetheless vital construct of a messiah. So, first requirement is to emanate something 'beyond' a mere character. Messiahs are NEVER characters. They are cyphers to carry and focus ideals no mortal could match up to. Herbert's Paul has at least to function/convince as a kind of Jesus with a pump action to inspire massive battles for the greater good. In that, Alec Newman fails almost completely. Half of that is down to a simple lack of presence, and the other half to Harrison's direction. Granted, Newman portrays a more 'real' person than McLachlan's aseptic and super moralistic uber-noble, but that is the last thing required for such a role. The actor who played Gurney, though, was a total wash-out and shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath with Stewart's interpretation. But there, the pit is already reached. Most other performances range from adequate to good (in the case of non English speaking actors sometimes hampered by the sheer inability to give life to the words beyond mere translation..., with one notable and no less than exquisite exeption)

The acting highlight is set by Ian McNeice's Baron. This is the real gem of the whole piece - and most likely to be hated by both Dunatics and the Lynch Mob. He gives an outrageous Baron! Pure ham, brilliantly constructed to bypass the extremely limited and one-dimensional boundaries of that character set by Herbert & Lynch, like acid, skilfully sprinkled over the plump exterior to outline the hidden and multi-layered menace and the REAL danger. For the first time, one can really see the magnitude and cunning of the Baron's long-term agenda. At the same time McNeice splashes the character's homosexuality at the screen like a paint bomb, thereby totally disconnecting it from his evilness. This Baron is an evil man who merely HAPPENS to be a homosexual. Here, his sexuality is his only Achilles heel - his 'weak' spot amongst ppl who use exactly that to bring him down. An absolutely brilliant acting twist to de-cloak the nature of the co-existing true evil in the same person. And McNeice's Baron doesn't only say he's intelligent and downright exceptional in his scheming skills. He proves it more than once against a whole menagerie of 'allies' constantly underestimating him.

I've seen and own both this version and the original movie version. I have to say there are things I like better about each movie. The mini-series version has much more time in which to tell this very complicated story. However, the writers seem to have felt the need to invent story lines that do not exist in the Frank Herbert books (i.e. Irulan's affair with Feyd). I did enjoy that Irulan had more of a presence in this movie, and I prefer the overall look of this film (the ruddiness reminding more of an arid desert than the cold greyishness of the original movie). I much prefer the miniseries interpretation of what the 'Weirding Way' is, showing it as a technique rather than a device. However, I miss the 'though-overs' from the original movie, and I thought Sting played a much better Feyd. A true Dune fan will need to see both movies...