[b]Children of Dune[/b] on Sci Fi: Criticisms? Comments?

Cafe Society
1

OK, I’ve seen the movie in its entirety and have had some time to process it. First, I have to say that COD is my favorite of the books in the series. I loved the first book, but Leto II is the most compelling character in the series, IMO, so I went into this miniseries skeptical but hopeful.

Overall it was decent, but I have a few criticisms:

  1. Why did they make Leto and Ghanima teenagers? Was it b/c the idea of a 9 year old sacrificing his humanity too hard to take? Well, that’s the entire point of the sacrifice. Leto gave up everything he could give: youth, love, humanity, and ultimately, life AND the release and rest of death. Why flinch away from that? Yes, it would have been freaky to see a boy in this role, but then again, Leto did freak everyone out.

  2. When Leto covered himself in sandtrout in the book, he didn’t just put three bugs on the back of his hand and wait for them to spread. He covered his body in sandtrout, which is what enabled him to become super strong/fast/tough. When he had only a few bugs on his hand, it seemed rather silly that he became Superman. However, the slow spread did give me an opportunity to ogle James McAvoy’s lovely torso… which may be all the reason anyone needed for #1.

  3. Was it just me, or did Leto and Ghanima have a serious incest vibe going between them?

  4. The wedding outfit of Farad’n and Ghanima were so absurdly ugly that they cracked me up. I’d have expected Ghanima in traditional Fremen wedding garb, not in something you’d see Eddie wearing in Absolutely Fabulous.

  5. Minor quibbles: the pronunciation of Chani as “Cheney” make me think of our Veep, which decreased my enjoyment of the show. Why say Leto as LAY-toe instead of LEE-to? Stilgar: no beard? How did he shave without using water?

  6. Why did some of the Fremen have Czech accents, but not others? Why did Alia have this Slavic accent, but Jessica, Stilgar, Ghanima and Leto had British accents? This isn’t a big deal, but it was a wee bit distracting.

Positive comments:

  1. I liked that none of the actors was drop-dead Hollywood gorgeous (though Alice Krige is lovely). They were attractive and had nice bodies, but they looked like real people.

  2. However, Barbora Kodetova, who played Chani, was beautiful and elegant. One could see why Paul was in love with her. I also liked Susan Sarandon, deliciously bitchy as Wensicia.

  3. The prescient visions were effectively rendered, all fragmented and cryptic and scary.

  4. I liked the transformation of Paul into The Preacher. The makeup and vocal changes were effective, and I found that storyline poignantly rendered.

  5. Edric was smaller and less fish-like than I pictured, but I think overall he was well done.

Anyone else have thoughts? Do you think they’ll do God Emperor of Dune next? That would be something to see.

2

Yeah, I liked it, though it has been 25 years since I read the book, therefore I had a little trouble following who was who.

There was a definite incest vibe going on, and it was a little creepy. She was a babe though.

I think it worked better with them as teens than kids.

I thought Lady Jessica was very well cast, a very good actress and extremely beautiful.

As was stated in a recent thread, I had a little problem with the dichotomy of the technology - there were spaceships, 'thopters, etc., but in the market, there were animals, etc. in cages made of sticks and twine, everybody had robes on (what happened to the stillsuits?) and such.

Overall it was good though.

I’d like to see someone take a shot at making a movie or miniseries out of Herbert’s “Jesus Incident” books.

3

Two things: Why on earth did they make Wensicia older than Irulan? They should have left Jessica’s eyes spice blue.

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Earlier thread on this:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=170338

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1 - I don’t know of an actor that could both pass for nine years old and do the part justice. Would you want to risk seeing Jake Lloyd as Leto?

2 - This was disappointing, but I bet it was the best they could do with a made-for-tv budget.

6

If someone could answer a few questions for us non Dune book reading people that didn’t watch the whole 6 hours series.

  1. What was the difference between what Leto did, and what Paul did? At the end of the original Dune I didn’t get any sort of “next step” vibe. I thought that he had pretty much achieved the highest level possible.

  2. What was Leto turning into? Is that stuff just going to keep covering his body? Will he stay ‘human’ or turn into some other creature?

  3. If the desert is dying, because of the ecological changes being made by Paul/empire, won’t that cause the worms to die? thereby getting rid of interstellar travel?

Thanks for any help…I was left feeling very confused at the end.

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]b]Pantology**: I think they could have found a could of 10 year olds who could have played Leto and Ghanima. It’s Hollywood; anything is possible. Have you seen the French movie Ponette? The little girl in that movie is 4 years old, and she’s an amazing actress.

Atrael: Leto was the real Kwizatz Haderach: the man who could bridge past and future. I think it was the wild Fremen genes, plus Liet-Kynes, in combination with the Atreides and Harkonnen, that did it.

Paul’s victory allowed the Fremen’s dreams of a paradisical Dune to be realized; the problem is, water kills sandworms. No sandworms = no spice = no interstellar travel, no Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers, no superannuated rulers. In other words, chaos and possible extinction.

Paul, via his visions, knew what his revolution would bring, but he could not bear to do what it would take to prevent it. Leto saw the killing box into which humanity was led by Paul’s visions and realized that the only way out was his Golden Path.

At the end of Children of Dune, Leto has covered himself in sandtrout to form a human/worm hybrid. In the short term, this gives him superhuman physical powers. In the long term, Leto matures over the course of millenia into a worm, as all other sandworms on Arrakis die off. During his 3,500 year reign, Leto breeds humanity until he creates a human (an Atreides, of course) who is invisible to prescience. This individual will spread her genes and will render all future Kwizatz Haderachs, and the attendant dangers, impossible.

This human is also the person who kills Leto-- he falls into a river, where the sandworm parts of him slough off and return to Dune, starting the cycle all over again. Dune is once more dessert, spice is again produced, and humanity is safe from prescience forever. Sadly, Leto himself cannot rest; his awareness is encapsulated in each worm, locked in an eternal dream.

Thus, Leto sacrifices his youth, humanity, life, and the release of death to save the human race. For his trouble, he’s called The Tyrant and assassinated. Pathos on a Shakespearean scale.

8

[sigh] Before I go on, I’d like to say that watching these Dune series … well, it was possibly the most depressing thing I’ve ever watched. So very good, but oh so dismal.
At any rate, despite that, I really enjoyed it. People complain about the costumes and hats - well, what the hell do you know about how people will dress ten thousand years from now? People from the 1950s would think we dress stupidly today, so I’m more than willing to ignore the costuming, which I honestly thought pretty neat.

The effects were excellent. Much better than the old film. The battle at the end of Dune was very cool, and everything from space to worms were rendered beautifully and with much greater attention ot detail that the previous, lousy film.

Paul is a great character throughout. The actor was very good. I have to say I’m still confused as to what Paul actually is, since Leto Mark III is the real Q-H. Anyone?

Poor, poor Duncan Idaho.

Lastly, the entire situation with Alia. Wow. Absolutely my favorite part of the whole thing. The poor kid - something that never should have been and only to die for being posessed. Her character was my very favorite and I loved watching the battle of wills and her complete downfall. Very dramatic and the actress was excellent.

9

My only complaint was how Children of Dune ended:

Alia should have jumped through the window screaming and falling to her death. Instead we have the melodramatic scene between mother and daughter that harkens back to the first Dune mini-series. Bleh.

Oh don’t worry. There will be plenty more where he came from.

10

Yeah, I know. Kinda what I mean. He’s bloody disposable.

*We have more Duncan Idahos per war than the leading competition! *

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There are some who think that the entire Dune series was actually the story of Duncan and his incarnations more than anything else. I have a hard time refuting that.

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JustPlainBryan: I agree with you about Alia’s end. It was corny in the movie and more poignant in the book. There was no last-minute cry for Paul, no opportunity for Jessica to comfort her. She just fell and died, a death that perfectly paralleled her life.

Gorgon Heap: To each his own, but I thought Ghanima would have been dressed in Fremen wedding garb, which I am 100% sure would not involve a bared breast bone and a huge, floppy hat. Farad’n outfit was laugh-out-loud ugly, IMO. Someone thought they were being cool, but really, they were being silly.

But I agree: Alia is a great character. It’s hard not to hate Jessica for abandoning her daughter, dooming her to insanity and suicide. On a similar note, one also can hardly help being angry at Paul for dooming Leto to a fate far, far worse than death.

As for who Paul is if not the Kwisatz Haderach: I don’t know. He was very nearly what the BG were striving for-- he could access his past memories and he could see the future. What he lacked (and what the BG couldn’t have foreseen) is the ability to change the future. He allowed himself to be locked into a hopeless dead end. Leto had the dubious advantage of being pre-born, which gave him access to the Fremen memories, all the Atreides, Harkonnen and BG memories, plus Liet-Kynes. He was, therefore, the more potent mind, and I think that plus the spicetrance was an overwhelming push to godhood.