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In the two months that Dune Part Two has been released, it’s grossed over $700 million worldwide. There’s even plans to make a third Dune movie which will be an adaptation of Dune Messiah. Forty years after the unfortunate David Lynch adaptation in 1984, it seems everything has been forgotten and forgiven.
But one thing that has been forgotten (and for good reasons) is the 2000 miniseries Frank Herbert’s Dune. For a while, this three-part miniseries which ran on the Sci-Fi Channel at least could’ve claimed that it was the more accurate adaptation of Hebert’s novel. But the best way to describe the miniseries is it looks like a porn parody but without the explicit sex scenes. With the exception of William Hurt in the role of Duke Leto Arteides, there is hardly anyone in this series that you may know. Ian McNeice plays Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Giancarlo Giannini plays the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. Yet the rest of the cast seems to mesh together as you don’t really know who’s who unless they’re saying each other’s names.
Lynch and Villeneuve gave the characters all a distinctive look and feel. But this is just people wearing flashy costumes with loud colors against backdrops that look like the meekest people can push them over with one hand. And that’s the problem. It has that gawdy late 1990s CGI look and feel to it that was all too common in this era. Even when the scene of the titular plane in Air Force One crashing into the ocean was so terrible it’s no wonder people praise Christopher Nolan now for using practical effects and models.
I mean, the story is the same as told in both adaptation. The House Arteides is put in charge of the production of the spice melenge on the desert planet Arakis. But the House Harkonnen leads a surprise revolt. Leto is killed. His son, Paul (Alec Newman) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Saskia Reeves), flee to the desert after escaping an assassination attempt. They join forces with the Fremen led by Stilgar (Uwe Ochsenknelt) who believe Paul is the Maud’Dib or Kwisatz Haderach.
Dune was a groundbreaking novel when it was published in 1965 and like The Lord of the Rings found its fanbase with people who eagerly awaited an adaptation. But the problem with Dune and LOTR is that the written works are very long and detailed. There’s only a handful of really tense action scenes in the novel. The rest is people scheming and talking about plans. It might seem interesting to people who are involved in this type of storytelling.
But once Star Wars (now called Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) broke box-office records in 1977, people expected more action and less plot. This was one of the problems that affected Lynch’s adaptation. He was forced to cut the novel to a more commercial length to get more butts in theater seats. It didn’t even break even on a worldwide box-office market and is considered one of the biggest flops of the 1980s if not of all time, but has started to gain some cult status in recent years.
Villeneuve had the difficult task that Lynch had of squeezing multiple people into a movie that worked with Dune Part One. I didn’t see it in theaters in 1984 but reportedly theatergoers were given note cards so they would know what is going on. If a filmmaker can’t tell you all you need to know in a movie, that’s a problem.
John Harrison does what he can with this miniseries but you can tell he was restrained by a limited budget of $20 million, which was even low for 2000. Despite this, the miniseries was a success earning two Primetime Emmys for its cinematography and sound mixing. But critics were divided over it as well as the casting of Newman who was 26 at the time the series aired not much older than Kyle MacLahlan when he played Paul in the 1984 movie.
If anything else, this is for the true fans of the book who want to see a more faithful adaptation. However, people who don’t know much will be bored and even frustrated with the series to take it seriously.
What do you think? Please comment.