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Can we now conclude the Frank Herbert's DUNE books are unfilmable?

posted 2 years ago by Mikey (404)
17 replies | jump to latest

I believe this is the third attempt at DUNE that has actually made it to celluloid. And, while it is at least somewhat comprehensible, the audience has no idea where the story is supposed to be going, or what goals the characters are trying to achieve. It would appear that the entire movie is leading up to a one-on-one battle between the main character and another character we've just met moments before. After this fight between the two, the movie ends. THAT was the climax? THAT is what the last two and a half hours has been leading to? Two and a half hours and the movie doesn't even tell the entire story of the first book. DUNE: Part One? I seriously doubt there will be a Part 2.

[–] awaixjvd (46) 2 years ago

They showed in the beginning that it is part 1, there shall be a part 2 as the movie till now is incomplete.

[–] waynesky777 (75) 2 years ago

It's definitely filmable , as a long HBO series spanning several seasons...!

[–] asom (6509) 2 years ago

The series were quite close to the books.

As a series it could work.

[–] TreeShaman (806) 2 years ago

I just watched it knowing nothing about the series, and I had no idea what was happening.

[–] Ranb (7162) 2 years ago

This film was a decent adaptation of the first part of the book. Have you read the book? What parts of the book were not adapted well?

It would be better to adapt the book to a seven hour long TV mini-series like they did with Queen's Gambit.

[–] asom (6509) 2 years ago

As long as you need to read the book to fully understand the movie then ... it's not a good adaptation ...

[–] Ranb (7162) 2 years ago

What parts of the film were not a good adaptation of the book?

[–] asom (6509) 2 years ago

Define "good".

Without reading the book I would have had a LOT of questions (like people have around here).

The personal shields and the lack of ranged weaponery is NOT explained. How the baron men could land on Dune undetected is not explained (and I'm not talking about lowering the shields) ffs, a shit that would come close to Earth will trigger a lot of alarms but the huge transport ships of the Harkonens ... nada.

The whole feud between the Harkonens and Atreides and the Emperor involvement is almost unexplained. The BG are just some old witches, nothing is explained.

[–] maximmm (3041) 2 years ago

Perhaps the next step is then to claim that the books are unreadable for the exact same reason, cause you know..... Frank didn't exactly explain everything there either -

[–] asom (6509) 2 years ago

Well, he does explain a LOT more. And I mean a LOT.

You should read it.

[–] maximmm (3041) 2 years ago

Oh, I have - a LONG time ago.

[–] actionkamen (23176) 2 years ago

The problem is just that they tried to make it as if it was one big loooooooong movie that has been cut into parts, and then only gave us the first part.

They should have just make it a 10-hour long movie or so and release it at once, so we can decide for ourselves when to stop watching so it won't suffer from anti-climatic endings.

They could have used smaller budget for the CGI and focus more on the dialogs and sets, say, 100 mil / 2.5 hours (The Last Duel's budget / running time, it looks as good as Dune in my opinion, just less awesome CGI) will get you 400 mil budget for 10 hour long epic.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (12278) 2 years ago

It's not unfilmable; the majority of movie-going audiences just aren't very intelligent, Herbert's stories are highly complex, and different directors have different ways they want to interpret the story.

[–] trevorh321 (5495) 2 years ago

I think in the right hands it would make a great film. They need a quality director and someone who knows how to cast, which are the biggest problems with the recent Dune.