Children Of Dune Predictions

[Mahdi]

What are your predictions for the Children of Dune miniseries?

Here are a few of mine:

Characters:

Paul-Atreides:

While Newman did a decent enough job of everyday Paul, the only time he did a decent emotional part was hsi speach to Jessica after he took the water of life.  JHis other real emotional scenes, like the few times when he was supposedly crying, did not turn out very well at all.  Lukily, there arn't any of those scenes in Messiah or Children.  All he has to do for Messiah is act like a man resigned to his fate, although there are a few mroe difficult scenes (like the moon falling down),

For COD,as long as they avoid his rants in Arrakeen, which arn't in the book anyway, he should do fine, depending on whether or not he can play a burnt out man.  

Alia:

I Haven't seen any of the actress's work, so I can't commetn on it.  Her role will most likley be about the same size as int he books.  You can't cut it down or increase it mch without messing with the plot.

Duncan:

I have a feeling that his role will be expanded, as his actor is one of those who is on the verge of becoming a star.  I have no worries aobut whether or not Atterton will be able to play the part, he ssems to have the skill.

Jessica:

An over-glorified role, just like Leto's was in Dune.  Sarandon will get top billing and will have, at most, 60 minutes of screen time.   I see her mroe of Hurt's replacement than Reeve's.  Sarandon is probably the best actor in the mini and won't have any trouble in the role, but I just can't see her as Jessica.  She just doesn't seem right for the role.  

Chani:

More of a cameo role than anything else, nto much to say.

Irulan:

i'm betting they will shrink her role in this mini due to time constraints.  Pribably be about the same size as Chani, maybe a bit bigger.

Thats all the cast listed so far.

My biggest fear with this miniseries is the time.  The biggest plus for making minseries instead of movies is the aded time youg et for them.  They said Dune couldn't be made itnoa  feature film because of its length, and made it a 6 hour miniseries instead.  But, since this one contains two books, each book is actually going to have less time than if they had made movies based on them.

2 hours for each part.

On average, at least 7 minutes per half hour of television is commercials.  That number has increased over the last few years and is expected to be at least 8 by 2003, but I'll use 7 for this.

7*4=28

Taht means for every two hours of miniseries, we are actually only getting one hour, thirty two minutes.

Opening credits:  At least two minutes.

Closing:  At least three (as you can see, I'm being really conservative here)

thats one hour 27 minutes of mini for every 2 hours we are watching.

Which means Dune Messiah, a book over 200 pages, is going to compressed into a 87 minutes episode.  Thats shorter than most movies.

Which means that COD is going to be 2 hours 56 minutes long.   LOTR was what, about that long?  Same with Bravehart, and I think Titanic was longer.  And COD is the same length as Dune, which took nearly four and a half hours to tell using this math.  So, by making a 6 hour miniseries, we are actually getting a much shorter version of Messiah than if a feature film was made, and COd would msot likley be about the same length of time if made into a feature film, so we are actually losing time-wise by combining these tow stories, which means a hell of a lot is going to have to be cut from both of them.

Too bad they didn't air a four hour miniseries about Messiah this year and a six hour miniseries about COD in another two years.  

[Colonel_Worf]

I'm betting that Susan Sarandon will be mentioned before Children of Dune in the credits, just like they did with William Hurt. Alec Newman will get shafted again.

It's a shame Duncan was recast. They should have kept the old one!  >:(

I'm guessing Irulan will be beefed up like she was in Dune, most likely for eye candy  :(

They'll probably make Leto and Ghanima about 20 while they're at it.

[nampigai]

I nearly cried when I saw Susan Sarandon was going to play Jessica, as you said Mahdi I can't see her as Jessica, maybe because I never liked her very much.

Ofcourse I'm exsited about the new mini but still I think it will be a fart in a glass of water. I think Dune deserves something better. I really think it deserves a huge movie production instead of minies where you can see the backgrounds a painted etc.

I would like to see something similar with what they did to the LotR but I don't think it will ever happen. What I really fear is that they will make God Emperor of Dune, Heritics and Chapter house too. I think they could have made some good minies with the prequels but Frank Herbert's Dune deserve something bigger

[The_old_worm]

I would, very much, like to see them make Chapterhouse into a movie.

[nampigai]

I agree with you if they make spend a huge budget on the project the Dune stories could become the best movies ever made, in the Sci-Fi genre.

[Mahdi]

Big budget doesn't mean good.  Lynch's Dune was, at the time, the msot expensive movie ever made.

[nampigai]

Well I like that movie too, It's not great but cult ;)

All I'm saying is that with todays technology you would be able to make some really great Dune movies

[The_Cheat_Lord]

Chani is dead remember?

[nampigai]

Well the Children of Dune mini will also include Dune Messiah.

[nemafakei]

Grade 4 fencer (see site)?

That means very little - especially if he's an ep