# Just watched the Dune Movie...... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 21, 2008, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198 "2008-04-21T07:31:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/21 "2008-04-21T18:17:31Z")
[QUOTE=The Cocky Watchman] I thought the SF version was quite derivative of the film in some ways, like they had cribbed off it intently, trying to flesh out the bits that didn’t work. I mean obviously it’s using the same source material, but I was disappointed with it. [/QUOTE] The concept for the Sci-Fi Channel version was to take the sets and costume designs of the David Lynch version (which were the best parts of the earlier movie) but use the fact that they didn’t have to compress it into a two hour film to make a better product (basically make the awesome longer movie **Miller** suggests David Lynch’s version was a trailer for). Seems like a great idea, but IMHO it didn’t work. Their budget was too small (they seemed to want to save money by not hiring any extras, I recall laughing out loud when the mighty Harkonen army attacks the Atredies compound, and its shown as two guys chasing a third up some stairs door), CGI wasn’t good enough at that point to make up the difference, the acting was poor. Also they made Paul a whiny teenager, which is about as far from his character in the book (or Lynch film) as is imaginable, and in general made the characters more openly human then in the first film or book. Both movies are watchable (as was the Sci-Fi **Children of Dune** ), and I actually really liked the Lynch picture despite its flaws, but I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone who hadn’t already read and liked the books. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/22 "2008-04-21T18:32:17Z")
I preferred the SF version, as it was a little easier to understand, and the length gave it a little more time to develop. But a TV Guide description of it might be "Violence ensues as the most powerful people in the universe come together to wear silly hats. [QUOTE=Merijeek] Yeah, that was Virginia Madsen, a woman whose contribution to the acting profession was “looking good”. [/QUOTE] I thought she was quite good in Sideways. Interesting early work for Alicia Witt. She really hasn’t gotten any less ridiculous over the years. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/23 "2008-04-21T21:45:38Z")
[QUOTE=Furious\_Marmot] According ro IMDB, Peter Berg is the director. I haven’t seen anything he’s done, can anybody comment on his body of directorial work? Also, he seems to have a whole lot of acting credits, that’s a little odd for a director, isn’t it? [/QUOTE] I thought it was pretty common. Next natural step for an actor. One movie of his I can highly recommend is an action movie called The Rundown. It’s got the Rock and Christopher Walken. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/24 "2008-04-21T21:53:59Z")
[QUOTE=Love Rhombus] I thought it was pretty common. Next natural step for an actor. One movie of his I can highly recommend is an action movie called The Rundown. It’s got the Rock and Christopher Walken. [/QUOTE] An unjustly overlook film. It consists almost entirely of The Rock smacking the shit out of Stifler from _American Pie_. Which means it’s pretty much the perfect movie, as far as I’m concerned. ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/25 "2008-04-21T22:31:02Z")
[QUOTE=Simplicio] Seems like a great idea, but IMHO it didn’t work. Their budget was too small (they seemed to want to save money by not hiring any extras, I recall laughing out loud when the mighty Harkonen army attacks the Atredies compound, and its shown as two guys chasing a third up some stairs door), CGI wasn’t good enough at that point to make up the difference, the acting was poor. [/QUOTE] When I first saw that movie there was a scene that made me wonder why the Fremen would choose such a garish desert-themed mural like the tackiest of all Kebab restaurants. Then I realized that it was a matte painting and the scene was supposed to take place outdoors. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/26 "2008-04-21T22:39:45Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] I’ve heard that the SciFi Channel’s version is even worse, but I’ve never watched it, so I’ve no idea if that’s accurate or not. People I know who’ve seen it all say that it makes the David Lynch version look good by comparison. [/QUOTE] Say what? I actually bought the Sci-fi miniseries on DVD. I thought it was pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/27 "2008-04-21T22:50:16Z")
[QUOTE=Furious\_Marmot] According ro IMDB, Peter Berg is the director. I haven’t seen anything he’s done, can anybody comment on his body of directorial work? Also, he seems to have a whole lot of acting credits, that’s a little odd for a director, isn’t it? [/QUOTE] Peter Berg is thought to be one of the up-and-coming great directors. His work on _Friday Night Lights_ and _The Kingdom_ was very good. He’s got the blockbuster _Hancock_ coming this summer which should show us what his chops are for an SFX action movie. _Dune_, assuming it happens, will be quite the test. > [@Miller](#): > > ``` > I love David Lynch's Dune. It's like watching a two hour trailer for an absolutely kick-ass 16 hour movie. > > ``` Count me among those who love this description. Most of the most glaring problems I had with the movie can be attributed to the way the shoehorned critical plot elements into extremely short and unrealistic scenarios. They’d have been better off simply not showing them and describing them in exposition or narration than showing them so poorly. I challenge _anyone_ to watch the scene where Stilgar challenges Jessica and Paul and she bests him with what amounts to stepping behind him quickly. Its simply one of the worst acted, worst directed and conceived scenes I have ever seen put to film. I think Dune might work as limited HBO series, sort of like what they did with _Rome_. So much of the Dune book is in the politics and the internal monologues that it could benefit from the long character development that happens in a HBO production. This story doesn’t need to be a huge budget SFX film since relatively little of the action of the book describes it. The battle scenes in the book mostly happen “off camera” and like _Rome_ could be left to explanation instead of visually showing it. If they could devise a way to portray all the internal monologues that wasn’t horribly clunky they could put together a pretty interesting series. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/28 "2008-04-21T23:39:30Z")
I’ll always cut some slack for a movie with pugs in it. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/29 "2008-04-22T00:01:18Z")
The SciFi production was reasonably faithful to the Herbert book. The Lynch Atrocity sucked ass at every level. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/30 "2008-04-22T00:02:35Z")
[QUOTE=Furious\_Marmot] According ro IMDB, Peter Berg is the director. I haven’t seen anything he’s done, can anybody comment on his body of directorial work? Also, he seems to have a whole lot of acting credits, that’s a little odd for a director, isn’t it? [/QUOTE] Ah, I didn’t realize you were talking about a new upcoming Dune project. Might be interesting. Of course, one problem to making a new Dune movie is that whether the director wants them to or not, its going to be impossible to make a movie where Arab-types throw of the shackles of their foreign, manipulative, imperialistic, oil/spice addicted overlords and then conquer the universe in a cruel five year jihad without people drawing…well, certain politically undesirable parallels. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/31 "2008-04-22T00:33:25Z")
I read somewhere that David Lynch didn’t want to include the Bene Gesserit prana-bindu/Weirding Way style of unarmed martial arts for fear it would turn the films combat scenes into straight up chopsocky so we get the Weirding Modules instead. I read the books in my late teens and overall I felt the look of the film was exactly what I saw in my head while reading them. But don’t get me started about the way Lynch ruined the ending :rolleyes: ! CMC +fnord! Ahh, here’s where I read it, > [@](#): > > … Director David Lynch’s decision to use modules was taken because he found the idea of the Weirding Way unworkable on film, stating he did not want to see “Kung-fu on sand dunes”. …[RIGHT][CITE](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weirding_Module)[/RIGHT] ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/32 "2008-04-22T00:41:44Z")
They didn’t have the budget, or time, to pull off “Dune.” And it shows. But Sting in a nappy? Worth the price of admission. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/33 "2008-04-22T01:04:34Z")
Sting’s best line: > [@](#): > > I WILL kill him!!! ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/34 "2008-04-22T01:42:10Z")
I liked both the movie releases. The first one had scenes cut out for television and it took years before the full version made it to the VCR. I bought it on DVD when it first came out for a high price, and it was transfered as a recording of a projection. I was pissed with that quality issue. It had a bug or piece of lint on the screen at least once. From the Baron’s doctor’s lips. You are so beautiful, my Baron. Your skin - love to me. Your diseases - lovingly cared for for all eternity! What a line huh. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/35 "2008-04-22T01:50:01Z")
[QUOTE=crowmanyclouds] I read somewhere that David Lynch didn’t want to include the Bene Gesserit prana-bindu/Weirding Way style of unarmed martial arts for fear it would turn the films combat scenes into straight up chopsocky so we get the Weirding Modules instead. [/QUOTE] Interesting. I can understand why he would have wanted to avoid some kung-fu movie parallels here but I don’t quite understand why he felt that the modules would somehow be considered an improvement, especially with how clumsily they were implemented. For the modern film, I almost envision the Weirding Way as being similar to what Neo and the Agents were able to do in _The Matrix_. Another stylistic choice that I didn’t dig was what he did with the Guild Navigators. In the book they are never really described and they never make any appearances and I think that the way they were visualized in the movie was just bad. The SFx and puppeteering was pretty ugly and shabby. It was weak in comparison to what they managed for the Star Wars sequels around the same time. The mystery of what the Navigators were was part of the charm of the book and their distance from the events of the book was important. By bringing them in as being essentially mob bosses demanding their protection money lost the subtlety. Why he felt the need to turn them into giant floating slugs instead of mutated humans is almost comical. ETA: One more thing! Are you telling me that they couldn’t find a couple fat guys to cast as the Baron and Beast Rabban? The latex fatsuit was really the way to go? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/36 "2008-04-22T01:53:05Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] Interesting early work for Alicia Witt. She really hasn’t gotten any less ridiculous over the years. [/QUOTE] That’s as may be, but she certainly did [grow up nicely](http://www.blazinbeauties.com/images2/alicia_witt/alicia_witt1.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/37 "2008-04-22T11:16:07Z")
I like how the Weirding Way was handled in the miniseries - no Matrix-style freezing, Paul just _blurs_ when he fights. Fairly simple FX to do, I imagine. The only nice things about the Lynch movie, for me, were the stillsuit and worm designs. Otherwise, I preferred the costume designs in the miniseries (The Saudaukar’s giant berets were awesome!), and the general faithfulness to the books. No heartplugs! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/38 "2008-04-22T11:36:44Z")
> [@](#): > > No heartplugs! [sings] Pull out your HeartPlugs Let them shine wherever you go Let them make a Happy Glow For Harkonnens to see! Pull out your HeartPlugs In the middle of a David Lynch Dream Don’t wake me up to soon What’s the name of the Mouse in the Moon? Mu’ad Dib Pull out your Heart Plugs now Pull out your Heart Plugs …nowwwwwwwwwwww![/sings] ---
**Author:** ![mazinger\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@mazinger\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazinger_z)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/39 "2008-04-22T14:42:49Z")
[QUOTE=Omniscient] By bringing them in as being essentially mob bosses demanding their protection money lost the subtlety. Why he felt the need to turn them into giant floating slugs instead of mutated humans is almost comical. [/QUOTE] I thought it was made clear, I guess it depends on what version you saw, that the guild had been transformed by the spice, kind of like what Muad’ Dib’s son goes through in the Dune series, but at a mundane level. Also, wasn’t Herbert on set and approved of all of Lynch’s changes? I think I read that in the Wiki (too bored to check). Anyway, I liked the Lynch version the most, though I still see signs for improvement. Isn’t there supposed to be some 3 (or 4) hour version coming out? ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198/40 "2008-04-22T16:33:42Z")
I read the original 3 novels and God Emperor. I saw the Lynch version in its original theatrical release and a longer version on DVD. I saw both the Sci-Fi series. Overall, I found the Lynch version most entertaining despite the incredible suckitude of the weirding modules. I loved the exuberant over-the-top evil of the Harkonnens. The first novel is about different groups of scheming, manipulative scumbags fighting for control of the galactic swag. The later books just expanded a little on it. Despite that, they were the most bloodless, effete scumbags evah. The Lynch Harkonnens brought much needed animation and zest to the proceedings. it isn’t possible to make a really faithful adaptation of the novels since the novels are mostly scheming and brooding, brooding and scheming. Hours and hours of that make for a poor cinematic experience. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-watched-the-dune-movie/446198.md?page=3)