Argobot

Dune

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On 6/21/2014 at 7:49 PM, Ben X said:

 

 The guy who played Town Hall Door Guard and Arresting Badger Guard in Kings Quest VII: The Princeless Bride?! :o


You, sir, know the way to my heart!

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Looks like another crack at turning Dune into a film is in the works:

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dune-movie-denis-villeneuve-talks-direct-958393

 

I think even the most ardent fans of Lynch's adaptation will admit that it's deeply flawed at best, and I for one would love to see Dune get a screen adaptation that is more worthy. But I just think the challenges of adapting the material are going to pretty hard to overcome. The internal monologues and Bene Gesserit voice/mind control techniques are pretty essential to both the narrative and the world building, and I've never seen that kind of thing conveyed very well on screen, without resorting to cheesy voice overs.

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jodorowsky600.jpg

All the background work has already been done.

 

Seriously though, interested to see where this goes. I quite liked Dune and love some of Lynch's stuff, but I have never seen the film.

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15 hours ago, baekgom84 said:

I think even the most ardent fans of Lynch's adaptation will admit that it's deeply flawed at best.

 

No.

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I was extremely disappointed in Villeneuve's Arrival, and I think he's a poor match for Frank Herbert.

 

The dialogue in Arrival was flat and distant—which you can get away with in Dune!  But it lacked conviction, in particular with the bogus story about the naming of kangaroos or whatever.  No Atreides would ever lack conviction!

 

Herbert's philosophical imperatives were only an analogue match with Lynch's emotional unease, but it really worked for me in bringing out what I felt reading the novel.  Whatever Villeneuve makes out of Dune, there's no reason to think it's going to get any closer to Herbert's work.

 

Maybe that's OK!  Jodorowsky obviously wasn't going to do anything close to Herbert but his film still might have been entertaining.  But nothing we're going to get from any future film will be "fixed" Lynch or "pure" Herbert.

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I don't know how I missed this thread, Dune is probably my favourite book ever. I read it when I was maybe 12 and I remember finding it quite challenging at the time (still learning English). I've since re-read it once and I liked it just as much the second time. Some people apparently don't like Herbert's style of writing, but it for me it clicked.

 

As already mentioned, the world building in Dune is better than anything I've read. It's the best example of how powerful a tool that can be in capturing the readers' imaginations. Maybe it was because I read it when I was still young and impressionable, but I don't think so. There is a strong appeal to a world as well crafted as this one. It captures my imagination like nothing else.

 

You guys were discussing the covers. One of the links is dead now so I don't know if it was the same cover, but this is the one my dad's version had and I think it's nice

 

cool-dune-cover.png

 

I never read the sequels and I don't think I will, I feel content with the book being a standalone thing. Sequels so often end up demystifying the parts that kept you intrigued, and retroactively make the original works worse. I'd rather not risk it.

 

As for the movie, it probably won't be great. I didn't love Arrival either, it was fine but didn't leave much of an impression. Dune is by its nature very hard to turn into a movie, so much of the book is about the characters' inner thoughts, tiny imperceptible gestures, feints within feints within feints... but if it's bad, so what? We still have the book, and one more failed attempt at a filmed adaptation doesn't really matter. I haven't watched the movie yet though, maybe I should. (I've seen the first few minutes and I like those).

 

Man, now I kinda want to re-read Dune again. But I'm also afraid of spoiling it by reading it too many times.

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Woah, I had no idea this was happening. I actually loved Arrival and am excited by the same director taking a stab at Dune. Although, I have a feeling the book would work way better as a tv show than a movie.

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8 minutes ago, Argobot said:

Woah, I had no idea this was happening. I actually loved Arrival and am excited by the same director taking a stab at Dune. Although, I have a feeling the book would work way better as a tv show than a movie.

 

Even with its shoestring budget and odd choices for casting, the Syfy Channel's six-episode miniseries is still the best adaptation of Dune by leaps and bounds! Villeneuve seems like a real fan, though, and the weirdness of stuff like Enemy makes me hopeful that he can do the same with Herbert's world. It really depends on the script and the casting.

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On 02/02/2017 at 11:28 PM, eot said:

You guys were discussing the covers. One of the links is dead now so I don't know if it was the same cover, but this is the one my dad's version had and I think it's nice

 

I thought this looked familiar so I went to my bookshelves, and lo...

 



IMG_20170205_175236.jpg.e5a8fcf2740c8962a2a3dd169c801c0b.jpg

 

This actually belonged to my dad as well - I'm sure the had the other Dune books in the series, but I no longer own them. This one was special, I suppose. He had loads of old sf novels and anthologies from the 'New Wave' era - Clarke, Asimov, Ballard, Harry Harrison, Michael Moorcock, and many others. They were hugely influential on me as a youngster, even if a lot of the time I'm not sure I knew what I was reading. Certainly I read Dune (the first one) through at least once or twice when I was twelve or thirteen, though I don't think I could manage it today - and certainly not with this edition. As with so many sci fi books of that era, it was printed on the cheapest, most acid-laden paper, and it's looking awfully fragile today. 

 

My memories of the original movie are more vivid. It was one of those that my dad taped off the TV and for some reason I was allowed to watch it despite being probably too young - probably because to my parents it was all high camp, not much more 'adult' than Star Wars or the Flash Gordon movie. As well as being a bit more dull than both. But I was astonished by the atmosphere of the film; by the sight of the black gunk spewing out of Baron Harkonnen, and more besides. And I thought the idea of giant sandworms that could swallow you up from beneath your feet was terrifying.

 

I guess I have no opinion on the potential quality of the new movie version. I'm sure it'll be great! 

 

Did anyone have any experience with the Dune video games? I played quite a lot of Dune II, which was a Westwood Studios joint that became the basis for their Command and Conquer series. But the first Dune game was a strange hybrid of adventure game and RTS - I've never tried it but it always seemed to be quite ambitious for its era.

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That earlier Cryo Dune game is cool as shit, especially if you have the awesome power of CD-ROM.

 

My favorite Dune game was probably Emperor: Battle for Dune, though. It has some of the most glorious Westwood FMV shit, and the 3D engine was pretty impressive at the time. Great soundtrack, too.

 

just gonna leave this here:

 

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