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 know that everyone has problems with David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune, but after seeing the television version that adds some scenes, it's grown on me. I never understood why until I saw the new SciFi Channel miniseries. It was the acting. They had little to work with, but they were fascinating. The new miniseries gives the book a much more proper story treatment, but the acting falls short. My best example is the Paul-Feyd contrast. Although, Kyle McLachlan seemed too old to me, he and Sting made excellent opposites in the Lynch version. The two actors cast in the miniseries looked so much alike and were both so wooden to me that it took me half the movie to be able to easily tell when Feyd appeared. As has been mentioned in other comments, the rest of the cast is good, but the 1984 version just had such a great cast that the acting is tough to beat.

I wish that the 1984 cast had the miniseries treatment to work with and it would have been grand. Perhaps after several viewings the acting in the miniseries will grow on me. All in all, it's nice to see more of the book's depth filmed.

The problem with adapting books to the movie screen, especially huge epics like Dune, is that a certain interpretation of the original is necessary. Making a 2-3 hour movie out of this novel simply requires a lot of interpretation along with picking and choosing of the source material. So, I know a lot of people who read the book Dune and really hated the movie adaptation for all the same predictable reasons -- "Why did they change that?", "How could they leave that part out?", and "Where did they come up with that?".

I have a unique perspective on Dune -- I watched the 1984 movie first and absolutely loved it, I watched the 2000 mini-series adaptation and thoroughly enjoyed all the familiar scenes/words but with the added depth, and then I read the book. The book, of course, still was different from the 2000 mini-series and I still wanted to know why so many things were different in the mini-series than in the book -- my interpretation of the book would have been different. So, even the mini-series falls far short of the depth of the book and anyone who reads books knows they can be better than any movie.

The 2000 mini-series conveyed a much better story than the 1984 movie did, but the 1984 movie was simply a much better movie -- much better performances, much better visual effects for the most part (and 16 years earlier), and much more *excitement*. No matter how good the 2000 mini-series is, it can never be described as being as exciting as the 1984 movie. In short, the 1984 movie is worth buying and the 2000 mini-series is only worth renting unless you have no intention of ever reading or buying the book. If you're a book reader, just buy the book and skip this mini-series.

I could only give this mini-series a 6 out of 10 stars (barely above average).

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...

I consider Frank Herbert's "Dune" to be the greatest science fiction novel of all time. Others would disagree, but they would have to admit that it is up there, even if it isn't their #1. I'm not talking about the whole book series, I'm just talking about the original novel. So I'm a serious fan of the material.

The 1984 film adaptation was an abortion. The depth of this novel cannot be conveyed in a two hour film, and David Lynch was badly undercut by the producers, who changed things to match their own desires. In its defense, however, it contained very high production values, lavish production design, a stellar cast, and much incredible visual imagery that sticks in the mind. If you can just try to forget that rain falls on Arrakis at the end (without reason), the rock group Toto's score, the ridiculous and distracting attempt to allow the characters' inner monologues be heard on screen, and the truncation of many plot elements, you can stand it. If you don't know the novel at all, you could be lost.

John Harrison's new adaptation takes the breadth and depth of the book and really makes a go of it. He slowly unfurls the intrigues and action of the novel, allowing character to be built and introducing the nuances of the novel, sometimes in clever ways, at other times not so subtly. One gets the feeling when watching that Harrison really cares about the source material, and wants the viewer to be included in its richness. This causes it to be slow moving at times, but it becomes more and more engrossing as time goes on. For many elements of the film his production designers, who did a first rate job, borrowed heavily from the 1984 Lynch adaptation, especially in their portrayal of the Harkonnens, who are comic-book villains again without a dash of dangerous cunning. In other cases I was thrilled by Harrison's renderings - of the Fremen sietches, much more livable than in the book, and the scenes where Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother. I don't feel gypped by this adaptation - it feels proper.

The movie is hamstrung a bit by a lack of budget - considering the subject matter, $20 million for six hours isn't much, and every penny and then some is there on the screen. He makes do by using a lot of international actors, and filming in Prague and Tunisia had to help. The special effects are for the most part CGI and bluescreen and are very effective for the money spent. Production design is EXCELLENT, especially when reminded of the total outlay for the film.

The calibre of the cast in the first film was so high that they pose a hard mount for any followers to climb. The only one who is clearly better is William Hurt in the expanded role of Duke Leto, as opposed to Jurgen Prochnow in the original. Alec Newman is fairly new to the screen and was a bit old, and not self-absorbed enough, to play Paul as well as Kyle Maclachlan did in 1984, but he has developing charisma and his performance at times radiates Muad'Dib's complexity. Saskia Reeves is good as Lady Jessica, but once you've fallen in love with Francesca Annis as Jessica it would be hard for anyone to replace her. Of course the original's Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, Dean Stockwell as Yueh and Freddie Jones as Thufir Hawat are insurmountable, regardless of the brevity of their roles. I rather liked the Scottish Duncan Idaho, although I don't know if his brogue will hold up well in the potential sequels.

The nicest thing, for a fan of the book, is to see so many of the great scenes of the novel finally brought to the screen that could not be included in the two-hour film. These add a depth to the proceedings that was only hinted at in the 1984 adaptation. I am thoroughly enjoying this adaptation, and hope that the expanded Lord of the Rings that will be released theatrically will have as much care as this one did.