whats better?

[piterdevries]

what is better? the dune of David Lynch or the Dune miniseries??

[Terror]

Well depends on what you like ofcourse.

I myself liked the miniseries better, however i'm sure that probably like 60% or so would say that they like the movie best. I liked the miniseries better because it told more of the book and didn't bring much that wasn't in the book, unlike david lynch's movie. Sometimes i wonder where he came up with that stuff.

[Tako]

miniseries are very good, though i liked the movie too. It had a darker atmosphere in the movie that suits the storyline. The miniseries however followed the book more accuratly, but then again it was longer the movie only could take about 1,5 hours and the miniserie had almost 6(!).

When you have more time you can godeeper into the stotyline and details.

(like LOTR)

[Sober]

I've seen the Lynch movie, and parts 1 and 2 of CoD miniseries.

I would have to say that the miniseries is a bit better, since the Lynch movie was shortened, and had weirding modules, which I thought... ? Not as much CGI in that one.

The miniseries (well I only saw CoD 1 and 2, not 3) were really well done and followed the book, although there were some parts missing (such as Irulan's part in the conspiracy).

I think the miniseries was made in Europe, was it? Is that why some of the actors have some accents? Not that it ruins the the whole setting, but I found it weird sometimes how in the miniseries Alia has an accent and Paul doesn't (or totally different ones).

I haven't seen the Dune movie in 2000, so I can't account for that.

Maybe one day they'll make ALL of the Dune Chronicles (except for them Prequels) with GAZILLION dollar budgets and whoop LOTR at the box office. :)

[Dunenewt]

What's wrong with them having European accents? In a global world they're usually easier to understand than quite a few American accents.

[Vanguard3000]

Sober, "gazillion-"dollar budgets does not a fine film make...

Personally, I liked Lynch's Dune much better.  In fact, I don't much care for either miniseries.  The only part I liked was part one of the CoD mini (i.e. the part covering Dune Messiah).  But Lynch's film was beautifully done.  It was dark and gritty, the music was amazing, and the acting was quite good (esp. Brad Dourif's Piter).  Also, it had no real CG (in the modern sense), which is often a plus in my books.

[Tezcatlipoca]

I'm agreeing with Vanguard on this one. Although the acting was.. deficient in some characters, and the cutting that had to be done to fit on the big screen made things kinda choppy for those who haven't read the book (although... the parts cut that i've seen had *horrid* acting) it really was a *great* movie, as a stand alone.

Sound track A++.

As for the major changes to the plot line (i.e. weirding modules) those were done under the shield of "artistic license." Basically he needed a more concrete way to represent the wierding way, and one that common movie goers would understand and enjoy (after all, it wasn't an art project, so he still needed to at least break even).

The atmosphere was one of my favorite parts about it. I think it *Really* represented the tone of the books, and the clash of technology with archaism.

And, as complex a character as Piter was in the novel, in the movie he was almost greater, probably due to Duourif's acting. That's not to say the character in the movie had more depth; he didn't get enough screen time for that. But... I mean come on. How can you beat:

PITER: "As you instructed me, I have enlightened your nephews concerning my plan t..."

BARON: "My plan!"

*pause*

PITER, with contempt: "THE plan... to crush the Atreides."

I should also note I detested most things about the miniseries... in my blunt opnion: dull, boring, shitty special effects (due to heavy, and poorly financed CGI), pretty cruddy acting, ugly costumes, bad atmosphere, poor character matching, ect. I should note that I never made it to the CoD miniseries; I bearly made it out of my coma from the last one.

[Tako]

c'mon the cgi in the miniseries crappy, have you seen the cgi in lynch's movie man those where crappy.

As to the rest the miniseries follow the books more accurate and that is what I wanted to see. The movie of Lynch was good but that is what it was: good. They left to much of the story out and made things up as the go along, not so good.

As to you 'r qoute from the movie:

PITER: "As you instructed me, I have enlightened your nephews concerning my plan t..."

BARON: "My plan!"

*pause*

PITER, with contempt: "THE plan... to crush the Atreides."

it was not even in the book, I think they made the baron look more elegant in the miniseries not a fat, ugly man who poors oil over himnself ( or watheverit was) and has disgiusting boils (implanted) on his face

[TMA_1]

hehe, yup vanguard, that is why some people call the "lord of the rings" trilogy the "lord of the bling".

stupid bling word, I hate it! lol

[Vanguard3000]

It may not have been in the book, but that was one of my favourite bits as well.  It really showed how aware Piter was of his own usefulness.  He knew that he could get away with insolence that would leave even Rabban in a pain amplifier, as long as he remained useful to the Baron, and didn't push things too far.  And Piter knew how far was too far.

And Lynch's Dune didn't really have CGI, aside from the shield and weapon effects (and personally, I loved the shield effect).  The ships and worms (which I liked much much better than in the mini) were models.

[nemafakei]

"I think the miniseries was made in Europe, was it? Is that why some of the actors have some accents? Not that it ruins the the whole setting, but I found it weird sometimes how in the miniseries Alia has an accent and Paul doesn't (or totally different ones)."

It was made in Prague (not long before the city was drastically flooded, ironically).

It makes more sense that the Fremen have different accents, though Shaddam, Fenring and some others are also Czech. But surely Paul and Alia wouldn't have the same accents; she was brought up in a sietch, he on Caladan.

It's quite odd, actually: Newman/Paul sounds like he's from Northern England, is apparently Irish, but speaks in the film with an American accent. Alia has a more southern English accent (not Czech!), but it's harder to pinpoint her origin due to her age. (I've not seen CoD, though).

On the graphics side of things, the Lynch movie looked more organic and alive. But the 'analogue' effects in the mini were worse than the CGI - the recurring desert backdrop and green lights in the middle of the desert, in particular. It was also far too clean - I don't care if it's the year 10,191, clothes on Arrakis cannot be kept from looking dusty.

[driftingcloud]

c'mon the cgi in the miniseries crappy, have you seen the cgi in lynch's movie man those where crappy.

If you project the CoD onto a screen (mine is only 84 inches or so) you will be sorely disappoined with the CGI effects. As I said in my Amazon.com review of the dvd, I've seem better CGI on video games than in CoD. And the Laza tigers were just plain stupid. That and the audio sync is off most of the time too. Very cheap cheap production values in that series. In DUne the miniseries, at least it had the production values of Vittorio Storaro, and you can agree or disagree with his choices, but the movie has a unifying look. As does Lynch's film.

A closer look at all three reveals that Lynch's film made use of dialoge from the book almost exclusively (75% or more, although my feeling is it is closer to 95%.) Both the mini-series' take great license by screenwriter John Harrison to contemporize and dumb down the dialogue (I would guess less than 50% is from Herbert's pen.) I would love to see someone do an accurate study of how much dialogue is pulled directly from the book in each case.

[Sober]

A closer look at all three reveals that Lynch's film made use of dialoge from the book almost exclusively (75% or more, although my feeling is it is closer to 95%.) Both the mini-series' take great license by screenwriter John Harrison to contemporize and dumb down the dialogue (I would guess less than 50% is from Herbert's pen.) I would love to see someone do an accurate study of how much dialogue is pulled directly from the book in each case.

Well it is the year 2000 that the other Dune was made. I doubt anyone right then in the present (or 5 years ago, however you want to look at it) had a vocabulary enough to understand Herbert's writing -- society has dumbed everything down. I think the longest word in the miniseries just might be "sycophant" (used at beginning of part 1 CoD)

[TMA_1]

technically, the miniseries did have more storyline from dune, but that is only because it had more time.

I personally enjoy the 1984 version. Now granted it is an extremely "dirty" film, in a sense that it just feels way too raw at times, and it has its flaws. Still though I thought it was beautiful. I loved the costumes, the sets (the sets of geidi prime are some of the greatest works of film art in history, in my humble opinion), and the way it was filmed all around.

It is just plain hard to do a mini series that is any good whatsoever. I thought that Children of Dune was damn good, and I even liked Frank Herbert's Dune. But since I just thought that in many ways david lynch's dune was genius, and I appriciated so much from it,also the nestalgia factor, I just like it more in many ways.

[Timenn]

Lynch's Dune is far from perfect. Too much vital parts of the story where left out. The Harkonnens were presented as simple brutes, instead of as the cunning characters they were in the book (Sure they had some good lines, but most of them sucked) The Fremen nearly had no character in the movie. And some characters didn't got the attention they deserved (Duncan Idaho, Thufir Hawat)

Sure, I named bad things right now about the movie, and there are alot of good things about it too. The atmosphere and music were very good, the art was often neatly done (worms, heighliners, battle scenes, Imperial Basin) although it had its flaws (thopters really sucked) Some characters were well designed, like Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck.

That would be the good things and the bad things, and in the miniserie it is sometimes vice versa. While the miniserie covers most of the story (and they should have given Thufir Hawat more time!) and the Harkonnens do much better in it, the miniserie lacked atmosphere and felt shallow (thopters sucked again. Why does no one take a hint from the Dune II thopters??) and missed something sinister that the movie did had.

My conclusion would be that neither are perfect, and they both miss parts the other does have. So it is hard to say which one is better. And don't forget that you are dealing with die-hard miniserie fans and die-hard Lynch's Dune fans (the latter seem to be in greater number) so that might give a shifted perspective ;)

[nemafakei]

"And some characters didn't got the attention they deserved (Duncan Idaho, Thufir Hawat)"

I will never forgive FH's Dune for blowing Thufir up.

[Timenn]

Yea, I mentioned Hawat and the miniserie as well.

"What about the others?"

"Oh, Thufir Hawat is dead I guess..."

"Who...?"

[Egeides]

It was also far too clean - I don't care if it's the year 10,191, clothes on Arrakis cannot be kept from looking dusty.

Never heard of anti-adhesive clothes?

I think it goes for the mini-series as a whole, to a certain point. Kitch... Everything is so adapted to look all nice when it comes to heroes. Even Paul (the main character!) is morphed to some alpha-man-ultra-social-football-player so over everything and so on... it's not Paul, it's a stereotype. From archetype of the Kwisatz Haderach, the (herbertian) ubermensch, to too-hot-for-you stereotype out of StarWars (nothing against SW, since it was made to be something else, and popular-oriented. But I may be against SW if so I wish ;) ).

But out of these few examples, it really is modified so that every detail fits the stereotype (not ARCHEtype) more. Their hair would never be displaced by a 100km/h wind - NEVER. Barbie and Ken. They separated, didn't they? I guess it was the best for their modern image. Anyone knows who Ken is dating now? ::) THIS is the Dune teledrama planned for 2015: just a step further from what happened here, bringing some (less) of Dune to people even further from Dune's charms (which themselves have a more restricted access). Or would this be already in our face, under the name of "prequels"?

[Andrew]

No, the movie was 2 hours and 17 minutes.

And about 15 minutes longer for the Alan Smithee version (I think).

[Terror]

Alright, seen the movie again and now i'll post my opinion on them.

David Lynch's movie:

The movie does have its strong points. Like someone before me commented, the music is realy good. Also what I like is that the characters in the movie are more like how they were described in the book. Like Paul, having black hair, his father having a beard and a sharp face. That's all good, but I definetly think that the Harkonnens were overdone. It is not even fun to me. Why did he want to make the Harkonnens so gruesome.

There's the architecture (Giedi Prime looks like a butchery), the clothes (Seen Rabban and Vladimir?, they look like clowns, be it dirty clowns), the ornithopter looks like crap and the overall acting. They may have been evil, but not so obvious as in this movie. Installing heart plugs everywhere, Rabban tearing off a piece or raw cow meat.

Also the special effects look crappy (only the worms are okay). Ofcourse the movie also missed so much from the books, especially all that was going on at the fremen camp, stuff with Gurney Halleck etc.

What I did like was some of the costumes, they didn't wear so many weird clothes as in the miniseries and I did like the stillsuits a lot. The actors were decently chosen. Patrick "Jean Luc Picard" Stewart as Gurney Halleck was a good choice. But Feyd was bad, Rabban was bad, Leto wasn't too good either.

Last but not least, what is up with those weirding modules. There was nothing about it in the books, and I realy don't like it that they put that in the movie. This kinda sucked pretty badly.

FH's Dune:

Now the miniseries. The obvious advantage of the miniseries was that they could spent much more time, explaining everything. The disadvantage was their budget. Admittedly, certian things did not looks all too well. The CGI was not that great and it would've looked a lot better had they actually filmed in the desert. Some of the clothes were well done, a lot other clothes were pretty bad and I found it sad. What i definetly disliked was that the characters in the miniseries didn't look like as they were described in the book (except for the Harkonnen). Paul is blond, as is Leto. Thufir is rather young, the docter was old and had no mustache.

But I liked the architecture and the overall feeling in the miniseries much better. The Navigator looked better, all the buildings looked better. The Harkonnens were very well played and Feyd was also excellently done. Ornithophters still looked like crap, except for the Harkonnen ones. I obviously didn't like how they killed Duncan in the movie and also our dear Thufir was nowhere to be found. But I liked it that they put more emphasis on the story with the fremen, with stilgar and their continuous harassment of the Harkonnen. Also I thought the sardaukar were cooler, even though they wore silly hats.

All in all, I liked the miniseries better, but I have to admit that the movie had certain strengths, good music and it put down an atmosphere. Not the one I realy wanted to see, but it was okay I guess.

Children of Dune beated both of them in my opinion. The budget was greater, the acting was better and it told a pretty damn good story. I was a bit sad that stilgar was replaced, as well as Jessica (although I liked the new Jessica as well). The music in CoD was definetly better than in FH's Dune.

[Sober]

I haven't seen Dune so, can't compare to CoD, but I guess they switched out Stilgar and Jessica (if you want to see it) as them growing older, though looking at some pictures, maybe not.

You have to remember the twins in CoD aren't 9 like they are in the book. They're like 16 or so.

And Paul in Dune (2000), loooking at pictures, he looks a tad too tough to be a Duke's son. I think I prefered some of the Lynch Dune actors (though Paul looked like Eric from That 70's Show :P)

Next Dune production, we'll all have to send a zillion emails to the writers and director all with "GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME" everywhere.

[Andrew]

The actors that played the twins were old.

James McAvoy is 26 and Jessica I'm not sure.

Unless you are referring to the age they are supposed to be playing in the mini.

It probably would not hvae worked having to 9 year old actors play the roles.

I would say FHD was best then CoD then Lynch.

But that is because I saw FHD first and immensely enjoyed it.

The Alan Smithee version of the lynch movie fills in a couple holes and makes the movie better as a whole.

And the FHD directors cut is also good :)

If only CoD had a directors cut :(