Sci Fi Classics: Current planned remake - Dune - Peter Berg

I am looking forward to another presentation of this classic sf masterpiece. I enjoyed Lynch's presentation despite the messy cuts made to the original release. The atmosphere, visual style and soundtrack all worked but there were needly inaccuracies that I sometimes found a little frustrating. I also enjoyed the sci-fi channel presentations of Dune and Children of Dune, especially as a mini-series allowed the time to tell the story. It seemed that the miniseries continued some of the visual style elements from Lynch's presentation.

I just hope the new version is sufficiently epic.

8() - my face while watching the 1984 version

;^\ - thinking about the new one

What's the difference between this and the Frank Herbert one?:

Dune: Information and Much More from Answers.com

I'd rather see a movie rendition of Ring World by Larry Niven than another Dune make. The mini-series of Dune was pretty good.

Or Enders Game. I can't be alone.

I like Lynch's Dune, but everyone including Lynch considers it a disaster. Please remember he took his name off of it for years. At one point I had David Lynch and Alan Smithee versions of the same film. It is interesting where it does succeed and I do wonder over time will this increase or decrease overall. If it had two big bumps over time it has been acceptance of Lynch work generally with an expectation of "outthereness" (which sometimes was just plain poor storytelling) and maybe just as important, the appearance of the even worse Sci-Fi mini-series years later. If we keep seeing other failures, will the original be more forgiven?

I used to divide people by several polarizing judgements including if when they were young they preferred Herbert v. Tolkien (which of course is somewhat - but only partially - a sci-fi v. fantasy battle). I'm a much larger fan of Herbert and just feel there's more there there - and far less filling decoration. Approach it either as a critique of religion (read at the right age it can have a big impact there - clarifying hyperbole to non-belief for me) or as a commentary on the history of Middle Eastern oil exploitation (I wonder if some day a great future version might make an interesting large-jump chronological double-feature with Lawrence of Arabia?).

Also it would be great if the original novel would not suffer critically at the expense of the increasingly poorer sequels.

And the funny thing is I don't even feel the novel is remotely unfilmable. It would require voice overs and some physical conversions, but far less "cinematic" projects have succeeded. It's just had bad luck so far. I welcome every stab until one gives the book its due.

EDIT: Lets hope the title of this thread is slightly wrong though - that this won't be a remake, but a new version.

I couldn't agree more than any Larry Niven book would make an excellent movie, assuming someone with a brain is in charge of the project.

Ender's Game was a great book but getting some of the concepts across in 120 minutes might be tough. Again, you'd need someone with a brain to helm it.

I'd watch either one.

Back to the original topic, Dune was a mediocre rendition of the book and Sting in his winged underwear kinda freaked me out but I would like to see a better version made, hopefully a little closer to the book this time.

loved the film. the mini series, not so much. :-/

Even if the movie is well done, I will try not to see it. I thought the Lord of the Rings movies were very well done, but now every time I read the books, I "hear" the actors' voices instead of the characters' from the books.

IMHO, Dune is too huge and detailed a book to be done justice in 120 minutes. Surely screenplay writers can come up with enough original premises that they don't have to wreck books for those of us who would rather read the complete stories than see mere synopses of major plot events on the big screen.

I try see as many sci-fi movies at the theater as I can get too. I feel that I need to "do my part" in supporting the sci-fi genre in the hope that will lead to more/better films.

Silly, I suppose.

Lynch's "Dune" was a BIG disappointment, cut down if I remember it right, from the original five-hour prerelease version. It could have been the "Dr Zhivago" of science fiction, but the movie ran almost like an extended trailer. The Sci-Fi Channel version was different, but really no better. I concluded a long time ago that some novels just do not translate well into movies. With such a vast wealth of good science fiction novels out there, why is this dead horse beat on for so many years?

As for Frank Herbert, I went through a period as a fiction reader, where I read everything I could find by him. The 'Dune' series was his best by far. Some of the non-Dune novels ["Whipping Star" in particular] made me wonder why they were even written, or published. I will say that, at his worst, he was a better writer than L. Ron Hubbard.

I'll probably go see any new "Dune" but I'm not too optimistic. I'd rather see a movie version of "The Mote in God's Eye".

Laz

I'm not sure theres even still a complete version of Dune that David Lynch will put his name to. I saw a version that calaimed to be uncut but it was under 4 hours, so couldn't (allegedly) have been the true version. Honestly, I feel the story hasn't aged that well, but I'd still like to see a really good stab at it. Not sure Peter Berg is the right guy for it though.

Still, at least it's not George Lucas :/

While I do not care for Lynch's version of Dune, I have to agree that the Sci-Fi mini-series was rather good as long as you accepted a few things getting glossed over a bit. That said, I wouldn't mind a new version, but wouldn't expect anything great as I feel 120 min is nowhere near enough time to cover Dune.

I must also agree with Marl that Ender's Game would be an awesome movie, but would also have to be longer than 120 min as well if it was to work.