Breakfast All Day Podcast 10/22/21

Dune –

The first thing to remember about the book is that it was written a half century ago. A lot of things have changed since then. What was then original and a breakthrough is now familiar territory.. (And maybe the book had something to do with that.) It was a book where the location was a major character. That was very new to fantasy/sci-fi at the time.

The whole desert thing was also new at the time. The book also had a lot of philosophical ramblings in it. Vaguely Asiatic philosophical ramblings were (and still are) common. Vaguely Middle Eastern philosophical ramblings weren’t. Ecological themes were also rare back then. Remember, this was well before Global Warming was even a thing, let alone a constant background to our lives.

For these and other reasons, reading the book now will be an entirely different experience than reading the book back then would have been. It just won’t have the same punch But it did have aa punch back then because times were different. So, go ahead and read the book now, if you want to. But, if you can’t see it though fifty years ago eyes, then be prepared to be a bit underwhelmed.

One thing about the current movie that bugged me were the Paul “vision” scenes. I had a lot of trouble getting oriented and staying oriented. Was a particular vision knowledge transfer, or was it a peek into a possible future, or was it a peak into the actual future? The vision segments were so short and choppy that I didn’t have time to figure out what the what before the segment ended and the movie moved on. And this is coming from someone who is very familiar with the material.

Also, the book featured a lot of layers of complexity and obfuscation. Movies have to simplify. But things got excessively simplified in the current movie. It had a simple and easy to follow story structure. Subtlety and complexity, and the mystical ability to penetrate the fog so that what’s really going on gets laid bare. And then the ability to conceive of solutions that others couldn’t even imagine. Those were important aspects of the book that the movie left out entirely.

I missed lack of any connection between the characters and the audience until you mentioned it. That’s because I focused more on how closely the movie followed the book. It was very faithful. And it is freaking spectacular visually. I watched it at home on my 65″ TV. I’m sure it is better in IMAX but it looked pretty damn good on my TV.

So you think it might be worth while to take a look at the David Lynch version. Fair enough. But, if so, you should also take a look at a made for TV version that came out under the title “Frank Herbert’s Dune” in late 2000. (Note: The DVD set is available used from Amazon. It doesn’t seem to be available to stream.)

The big problem with the Lynch version was that they tried to jam far more plot into the movie than would fit into the available running time. As a result, as you noted, it frantically hopped from name-check to name-check to name-check . You can’t make a good movie that way.

The 2000 version was split into 6 episodes of about an hour each. That gave them enough time to tell the story and flesh out the characters. I think that they did a good job of doing both. The Lynch version was unable to do either. The current version does a decent job of telling the story but not of doing justice to the characters.

The 2000 version was an international co-production, so they had a big budget for a TV show. But they lacked the kind of money that Lynch had and the current version has. So both versions, and particularly the current version, look much more spectacular than the 2000 version.

But a budget constraint does not translate into a creativity constraint. I thought that they did a very creative job of telling an epic story on a limited budget. In particular, I thought that they did a much better job of creating compelling characters than the current version with all its money for special effects and a top tier cast has done.

With the exception of the actress who played Chani, I liked the performances of all of the actors in the 2000 version. But I do think that some of the actors in the current cast did a better job. But then I also think that some of the actors in the 20000 cast did a better job than those in the current cast. (Some of this may be due to script differences.)

I hope I have convinced you that the 2000 version is worth taking a look at. If nothing else, it will give you an idea of what to expect from Dune – Part 2, if and when it gets made.

Patrick Russell says:

October 24, 2021 at 2:08 am

Dune –

The first thing to remember about the book is that it was written a half century ago. A lot of things have changed since then. What was then original and a breakthrough is now familiar territory.. (And maybe the book had something to do with that.) It was a book where the location was a major character. That was very new to fantasy/sci-fi at the time.

The whole desert thing was also new at the time. The book also had a lot of philosophical ramblings in it. Vaguely Asiatic philosophical ramblings were (and still are) common. Vaguely Middle Eastern philosophical ramblings weren’t. Ecological themes were also rare back then. Remember, this was well before Global Warming was even a thing, let alone a constant background to our lives.

For these and other reasons, reading the book now will be an entirely different experience than reading the book back then would have been. It just won’t have the same punch But it did have aa punch back then because times were different. So, go ahead and read the book now, if you want to. But, if you can’t see it though fifty years ago eyes, then be prepared to be a bit underwhelmed.

One thing about the current movie that bugged me were the Paul “vision” scenes. I had a lot of trouble getting oriented and staying oriented. Was a particular vision knowledge transfer, or was it a peek into a possible future, or was it a peak into the actual future? The vision segments were so short and choppy that I didn’t have time to figure out what the what before the segment ended and the movie moved on. And this is coming from someone who is very familiar with the material.

Also, the book featured a lot of layers of complexity and obfuscation. Movies have to simplify. But things got excessively simplified in the current movie. It had a simple and easy to follow story structure. Subtlety and complexity, and the mystical ability to penetrate the fog so that what’s really going on gets laid bare. And then the ability to conceive of solutions that others couldn’t even imagine. Those were important aspects of the book that the movie left out entirely.

I missed lack of any connection between the characters and the audience until you mentioned it. That’s because I focused more on how closely the movie followed the book. It was very faithful. And it is freaking spectacular visually. I watched it at home on my 65″ TV. I’m sure it is better in IMAX but it looked pretty damn good on my TV.

So you think it might be worth while to take a look at the David Lynch version. Fair enough. But, if so, you should also take a look at a made for TV version that came out under the title “Frank Herbert’s Dune” in late 2000. (Note: The DVD set is available used from Amazon. It doesn’t seem to be available to stream.)

The big problem with the Lynch version was that they tried to jam far more plot into the movie than would fit into the available running time. As a result, as you noted, it frantically hopped from name-check to name-check to name-check . You can’t make a good movie that way.

The 2000 version was split into 6 episodes of about an hour each. That gave them enough time to tell the story and flesh out the characters. I think that they did a good job of doing both. The Lynch version was unable to do either. The current version does a decent job of telling the story but not of doing justice to the characters.

The 2000 version was an international co-production, so they had a big budget for a TV show. But they lacked the kind of money that Lynch had and the current version has. So both versions, and particularly the current version, look much more spectacular than the 2000 version.

But a budget constraint does not translate into a creativity constraint. I thought that they did a very creative job of telling an epic story on a limited budget. In particular, I thought that they did a much better job of creating compelling characters than the current version with all its money for special effects and a top tier cast has done.

With the exception of the actress who played Chani, I liked the performances of all of the actors in the 2000 version. But I do think that some of the actors in the current cast did a better job. But then I also think that some of the actors in the 20000 cast did a better job than those in the current cast. (Some of this may be due to script differences.)

I hope I have convinced you that the 2000 version is worth taking a look at. If nothing else, it will give you an idea of what to expect from Dune – Part 2, if and when it gets made.

Breakfast All Day Podcast 10/22/21

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