Maud’Dib. He is not human. He does not have the blue within blue eyes of the Ibad. Why do you waste water by speaking to him? He will die the little death for his sins.
My take:
I’ve read all of the dune books written by Frank Herbert (I will not touch the prequels).
I liked the Lynch movie for the atmosphere and most of the effects, but they screwed up the story and added some really wierd stuff (Pretty much all the harkonnen stuff was screwed up. The rat and the cat in the cage? What the hell was with that?).
The mini-series followed the book a lot closer, and I liked the fact the Fremen actually fought with swords, but I really didn’t like the visuals (The Bene Gesseriat looked like nuns or milkmaids, the glowglobes were like beachballs, etc).
I’ve read the first two books (the third is next on my list, and I’ve read the original a good half-dozen times), and I like the David Lynch version (minus the voice-weapons; “his name is a power-word” indeed!). The original Dune book is, IMNSHO, a masterpiece, not only of science fiction, but of literature in general. That said, it’s hard to appreciate any cinematic version (particularly David Lynch’s) without reading at least the original book first. I actually played the Avalon Hill game before reading the book (I think I was ten), and that got me interested in the books. The story, and consequent details, are really complex, and unless you’re willing to devote a significant part of your attention to the book, it’s going to be hard to get; Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy is much the same way.
I can’t recommend it as a good adaption of the novel, but I enjoy the 3-1/2-hour version of the David Lynch immensely for its casting of People I Like and for its camp value. Some examples of delightful goofiness:
[ul]
[li]Dean Stockwell’s eyebrows.[/li][li]The magnificent grotesquery of the Harkonnen family.[/li][li]Sting in little leather panties shouting “I will kill him!” [/li][li]People blowing up rocks by shouting at them.[/li][li]Cat milking![/li][li]The '80’s-style electric guitar music that plays when the Fremen ride the sandworms (which are pretty cool, btw)[/li][/ul]
The mini-series, by comparision, is dreary. As others have mentioned, Paul here is an unlikeable little whiner–so much so that I believe they introduced a child just to be killed by the Harkonnens solely to try and drum up some sympathy for our hero.
The only thing I found interesting were the scenes that tried to give the Princess Irulan some background and character. Oh, and the silly hats were entertaining.
I think it’s a very difficult book to adapt to the screen … very thoughtful and literary in tone, which means you either have to sacrifice a lot of texture, detail and back-story, or you wind up with impossible longueurs on screen. And Paul is an almost impossible role to cast.
The two screen versions so far sum up the problems. The TV miniseries is faithful, dull, and uninspired, rather like a Lego model of the book. The Lynch version takes liberties with plot and characterization, and veers wildly in directions of its own. Neither one is a good adaptation of the book. The miniseries is a good introduction to the book, and the film is fun in its own right (if you like David Lynch, which, on the whole, I do).
I’m not entirely happy with any version. I know of three:
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The David Lynch movie as released in theaters.
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The David Lynch movie as released on TV. This incorporated a lot of unused footage shot for the film, along with some drawings and new narration to explain what’s going on. Lynch had his name taken off, and directoral credit given to “Allan Smithee”, the perennial Hollywoodism for “Nobody wants to take credit”. Nevertheless, this version wasn’t assembled by a hack, but by someone who knew and loved the source material.
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The Sci_fi Channel version with William Hurt.
My thoughts: -
It’s always a bad sign when they have to hand out notes so you can understand the movie. I saw the film the day it was released, and got a two-sided 8.5" X 11" sheet that contained a glossary. It’s not good when the film can’t be expected to speak for itself.
Nevertheless, the visuals arew frequently gorgeous and weird (which ought not to be a bad thing in SF). I loved the retro-military look of the Atreides. The personal shields and the training modules and the Gob Jabbar and the Hunter-Seeker were all well-done. The Harkonnens were a disaster – Baron Vladmir was supposed to be a super-Machiavellian plotter. How could you take him seriously when he’s behaving like a lunatic with terminal acne? The heart plugs and the milking cat were actually pretty good touches, but the “sqood” (rat-in-a-bottle) and the general scene of industrial chic were pretty stupid (why does the Baron celebrate his plan by taking a shower of used motor oil?)
The sandworms looked great, but the sand-riding scenes looked stupid. The sonic guns came out of nowhere. I don’t recall Paul making it rain at the end of the book.
Some things were just not well thought-out. The Butlerian Jihad abolished thinking machines – so why does Paul have a ThinkPad that explains the planets to him? I know – it’s because they wanted to set up the situation for the audience who hadn’t read the books. But then computrers don’t show up ever again.
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The TV version adds needed footage that just made the film too long for the theaters. Voice-over narration is usually an admission of failure – you couldn’t tell the story through the film, so you just explainined it. But the feature release already was a failure in this regard, so the new opening narration that explained it all wasn’t bad, and got rid of that superfulous computer.
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To be honest, I don’t completely recall the TV version. The CGI and some of the sets were gorgeous, but it says a lot that I can’t remember the performances.
Miss Mapp- you forgot the best part of the Lynch/Smithee TV edit of DUNE- Patrick Stewart on the sitar!
I didn’t dislike the miniseries but these characters did indeed suffer in comparison to the Lynch version
Paul- at least Kyle’s wasn’t a whiner
Dr Yueh- How can anyone surpass Dean Stockwell?!?!
Feyd- ditto for Sting!
Baron Harkonnen- Lynch’s was marvelously degenerate, SciFi’s just a ditherer
The Emperor- Jose Ferrer, 'nuf said.
The Reverend Mother- stylin!
Amazingly- these SciFi performances matched the original-
Lady Jessica-a tough job masterfully done
Aliyah-an even tougher job!
Paul’s Fremen Wife (I can’t recall her name but the SciFi’s actress was more fleshily attractive & had more vitality than Sean Young)
Maud’dib
Bring it on, rat boy.
oh dear.
i’m the only person who likes the prequels?
well, i havn’t read house corrino yet, but i read the first 2, and liked the way the back story was filled in. nice writing style (easier than herbert original) and no major plot holes.
and yes, i’ve read all 6 (it is 6 right?) books in the series. but several years ago.
loved the first, not keen on the 2nd or third, liked it much better after muad’dib’s son died (no spoilers here!)
but the last book was too strongly influenced by the death of herbert’s wife and his illness.
keen on the sting film, enjoyed the look and feel of it, even if it is ropey in parts…never saw the mini-series, glad i didn’t.
I knew my opinion of the miniseries as soon as I read one of the reviews on the board: Something along the lines of
Hello? It’s not like it’d be that difficult to make a convincing stillsuit on screen. Heck, at least just get some of the coolant underware that astronauts use, with a bunch of tubes all over the place, and tell us it’s a stillsuit. Why the heck would they not use stillsuits?
I’ll match and raise your Shai-Hulud with a coupla giant pretzels.
Beer power!!! 
Part of the book.
Again part of the book.
That was Toto. You know the Rain in Africa or whatever that song was? That was them too.
I completely loved the book and really liked the Lynch version. I bought the miniseries version and it just pissed me off. Some of the sets were nice and interesting; however, the acting was even worse than most B movies. Plus I hated that they always called Paul “Muad’Dib” when he went in with the Fremen rather than his common name “Usul.” That really irked me for some reason.
What part of the book had rocks blowing up from being yelled at and cats being milked of their blood?
Rocks being blown up:
Paul was teaching the Fremen about the weapons from his homeworld. Also, the rocks were blown up with whatever their version of dynamite was to open up the original palace near the climax.
The cat being milked was an antidote that the Harkonens made up to keep their slaves alive.
Hmmm, I may be misremembering something there but I can swear I read it in the books when I got back to thinking of it. I don’t have a copy of it anymore though.
dorkusmalorusmafia:
I have read the original Dune at least a dozen times and there is nothing about the voice weapons or “blowing up rocks by shouting at them”. The only thing remotely resembling this is from the last chapter where Paul says to Mohiam, “I remember your gom jabbar. You remember mine. I can kill you with a word.”
The cat milking thing comes from the book b/c Hawat was given a poison when he entered the service of the Harkonnens. The antidote was put in his food every day. Had he not gotten the antidote he would die.
Capt Garf
I loved the books, I loved the movie, and I loved the mini-series. For context: I also loved the book Starship Troopers, and the movie.
I have yet to wonder why anyone ever expects the movies to be like the books. Ever. I expect only superficialities at best and take the thing in its own right. Both representations of Dune had their strong and weak points. Viewed in their own right, I thought they were pretty decent. Were they award-winning views? No. But that has never stopped me from enjoying anything.
But, for all that, Night of the Living Dead and True Romance are probably my favorite movies ever, so you can tell I’m not the best guy to talk to about these things… 
Several people have already said favourable things about the costumes and cinematography in the Lynch film. But needing a written handout to explain the plot is more than a “weak point”. Even if you say it doesn’t matter that the plot of the film was different from the story in the book, surely it has to have a plot?
I bet that those cards are really hot collectors items now. I would like one.
irishgirl, I’ve read all six original Dune novels and two of the four prequels, and am working my way through House Corrino now. I liked the first three original novels, got kind of bogged down in the next three, maybe because the characters I liked best were out of the story by then. I really enjoyed the first prequel Dune: House Atreides for the reasons you describe. House Harkonnen and (so far) House Corrino are good but the plotlines meander a bit more than I’d like. Not enough to abandon them, though.
I think I’ll be in the minority here, but I really liked the Sci-Fi mini-series, and much better than the original TV movie (which was not bad). If nothing else the Sci-Fi version brought the entire richness, complexity and weirdness of this vision of the future to life better. But it was clearly meant for fans who already understood this future; it did not do a very good job of explaining things for the initiate. And I did have problems with the costuming: butterfly headdresses are not in keeping with the Sisterhood’s principles of unadorned efficiency and lack of frivolity; open-air sietches without still-suits don’t quite ring true for the Fremen, either.
Still, as erislover has noted, to expect a film version to adhere exactly to a novel is to expect too much. Perhaps some stories are better left on the printed page. The difficulties with the film versions of Dune are that the entire concept is just too immense to present coherently in film. There are things you can accomplish more effectively in prose than you can in film, and vice versa.
Or, to put it another way: there’s a reason Frank Herbert why was a novelist rather than a script writer or film director.