Adapting Dune

[Star-child]

With a new Dune film on the way, I was interested in how folks would go about making such a film.

One thing that struck me is that there is a tendency to take the material and react to its nature by imposing heavy style to it. i think that's a mistake. Dune is exotic enough due to the capabilities of its characters and the setting - those things only get lost when heavy handed acting, music or settings are used. Dune's exotic nature would stand out better with a very straight telling.

The challenge then would be to depict what it looks like when people can move and react so much faster than we can.


Another problem is the thoughts of the characters - which is usually used as exposition. Keep them as voice over, or use visuals to depict the insights? I think it is possible to escape the campiness of voiceover and use camera focus - especially after choosing the right scenes to cut.

Things I'd love to see (done well):
Realistic transonic ornithopter and carryall wings. Flies like a bird, but isn't just a mechanical bird.
Hooking and steering a sandworm.
Paul's duel with the Freman, and how he outmatches him despite being slow with his knife.
Adult-child Alia. Cool role for the right kid. I'm reminded of the girl in Logan.
Confounded expectations of race. I'd cast the majority characters as dark skinned people and anything but Middle Easterners for the Fremen. 10,000 years from now people should have a different average look than today.


How would you approach making Dune?

 

[Vince W]

With a new Dune film on the way, I was interested in how folks would go about making such a film.

One thing that struck me is that there is a tendency to take the material and react to its nature by imposing heavy style to it. i think that's a mistake. Dune is exotic enough due to the capabilities of its characters and the setting - those things only get lost when heavy handed acting, music or settings are used. Dune's exotic nature would stand out better with a very straight telling.

The challenge then would be to depict what it looks like when people can move and react so much faster than we can.


Another problem is the thoughts of the characters - which is usually used as exposition. Keep them as voice over, or use visuals to depict the insights? I think it is possible to escape the campiness of voiceover and use camera focus - especially after choosing the right scenes to cut.

Things I'd love to see (done well):
Realistic transonic ornithopter and carryall wings. Flies like a bird, but isn't just a mechanical bird.
Hooking and steering a sandworm.
Paul's duel with the Freman, and how he outmatches him despite being slow with his knife.
Adult-child Alia. Cool role for the right kid. I'm reminded of the girl in Logan.
Confounded expectations of race. I'd cast the majority characters as dark skinned people and anything but Middle Easterners for the Fremen. 10,000 years from now people should have a different average look than today.


How would you approach making Dune?

I agree about first four points.
The thopters should look like thopters and work as their described in the book.
Lynch's version of riding a worm wasn't so far off, but Villeneuve needs to do better.
The fight with Jamis will only be right if they include Jessica's question about how does it feel to be a killer and the funeral where Paul declares 'I was a friend of Jamis' and gives water to the dead.

I completely disagree that we need an older actress for Alia. Alia needs to be young enough to be scary in her pre-born abomination.

I don't see the race as an issue. The Fremen were never said to be of middle-eastern stock. I see them closer to a Buddhist temple where a wide range of people have come so I expect to see lots of 'races' among the Fremen.

 

[Star-child]

I completely disagree that we need an older actress for Alia.

I wasn't suggesting an older actress but a young one that can affect being an adult.

I don't see the race as an issue. The Fremen were never said to be of middle-eastern stock.

Race isn't an issue. I was saying that it would be worthwhile to confound conventional casting by pointedly switching things up - especially since Herbert really didn't describe races. However, he based the three main groups on Greeks, Soviets and Arabs, so it is natural to cast them along those lines - especially since a white guy is the most common Hollywood SF protagonist.

 

[BAYLOR]

I still think either miniseries or limited tv series would have been the better way to go here. But in care they are part 1 and 2 so it might work as a big screen adaptation.

 

[Al Jackson]

I still think either miniseries or limited tv series would have been the better way to go here. But in care they are part 1 and 2 so it might work as a big screen adaptation.

It is hard to say, even for Game of Thrones, it took a while to get the budgets they wanted, oddly HBO was willing to give the show runners almost anything they wanted by season 7 and 8 , and they did do things on big budgets, but pulled out of doing 10 seasons.
It will be interesting to see what HBO does with the prequel to GoT , it sounds expensive.
What Amazon does with Lord of Rings ….now Amazon has the bucks .... do they have the imagination and style?

One notes here , important, this is only the FIRST HALF of Dune, if the box office tanks , even if it is an excellent movie, we may not see the 2nd half of the story!

 

[Vince W]

I thought I'd read somewhere that Villeneuve would only do the film if he was able to do two films regardless of the box office of the first. So we may get the whole story but the second half would be a greatly reduced budget.

 

[CupofJoe]

I thought I'd read somewhere that Villeneuve would only do the film if he was able to do two films regardless of the box office of the first. So we may get the whole story but the second half would be a greatly reduced budget.

I read that somewhere as well. There may even be a saving in filming pt 1 & 2 together. Cameron is making his Avatar buck stretch further by getting all three films in production at once. I think it was pretty much the same for LotR and the Hobbit [though I'm not holding that out as an example of what I want]. I don't know the book and I do like the Lynch's Dune, so I wait to be seduced by incredible visuals, credible acting and wondrous story telling.

 

[Vince W]

credible acting

I can say that in one or two instances the casting won't allow for this.

 

[Wyrmlord]

If you haven't yet, I highly suggest watching Jodorowsky's Dune. A brilliant documentary on the greatest film never made.

 

[CupofJoe]

If you haven't yet, I highly suggest watching Jodorowsky's Dune. A brilliant documentary on the greatest film never made.

Will look it out.
Wasn't that the one with HR Geiger in the art department?

 

[Foxbat]

A thought about Alia. There are a few adverts featuring children but with their mouths either animated or adult mouths superimposed and talking like an adult. I don't know what the advertisers were thinking but I find it kind of creepy. I think this kind of technique might work well in this instance.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Will look it out.
Wasn't that the one with HR Geiger in the art department?

That's the one. Mobius was involved in the storyboarding and art.

 

[Al Jackson]

If you haven't yet, I highly suggest watching Jodorowsky's Dune. A brilliant documentary on the greatest film never made.

I have watched that documentary , it was clear

Jodorowsky didn't know how to make a good version of Dune , his financers realized that and killed the whole idea. ​

 

[Al Jackson]

I read that somewhere as well. There may even be a saving in filming pt 1 & 2 together. Cameron is making his Avatar buck stretch further by getting all three films in production at once. I think it was pretty much the same for LotR and the Hobbit [though I'm not holding that out as an example of what I want]. I don't know the book and I do like the Lynch's Dune, so I wait to be seduced by incredible visuals, credible acting and wondrous story telling.

When Peter Jackson pitched Lord of the Rings the studio realized it would be cheaper to make all three films in a year than one at a time, there was a lot of rework on films two and three when the first film was a block buster. I am at a loss to know what this studio was thinking, if the first part of Dune is a block buster they are going to eat into their own take on the 2nd film. I have no idea what they will do if the film is critically acclaimed but only breaks even at the box office.

By the by the whole Avatar thing is a puzzle. Cameron apparel finished principal photography like 2 years ago.... or more... it's been in post production since , my understanding is we are to get 3 films, 3 sequels, someday.

 

[Toby Frost]

Probably not the most popular opinion, but I think any adaptation of Dune - especially a 2-part one - will have to deal with the problem that the first half is more interesting than the second, unless you're really into the Fremen and the philosophical angle of the book, which will be hard to make exciting on-screen.

I always think that the main flaw of Dune is that the first half sets up a set of strange and interesting characters, like a space Gormenghast, and then they are scattered, captured or killed. Obviously something like that has to happen, given the Harkonnen attack being crucial to the plot, but I felt that this was a problem with the David Lynch version, too. The Fremen came across as much less interesting and somewhat interchangeable: there's even a bit in the novel where Paul describes one of them (Stilgar, I think) as not a separate man, but Paul's "creature".

On the subject of the Fremen, their Middle Eastern feel was probably very exotic back in the day, but they feel rather familiar now (not entirely for good reasons, given their religious fanaticism). I agree that it would be more interesting not to make them Space Arabs but something really truly weird. It will be interesting to see what happens with the visuals: both Star Wars and Warhammer 40,000 have plundered Dune for visual concepts, and it might be tricky to find something genuinely new-looking.

That said, I did like a lot of the visuals in Lynch's version, especially the sets and costumes.

 

[Vince W]

I think the way to handle the problem is to have the first film end just as Paul is giving water to the dead. Let the audience chew on that while they wait. Then the second half can concentrate on Paul's rise and ultimate 'victory' over the Harkonnens, Sardarkaur, and Emperor.

I've always found the Fremen extremely interesting and I have no doubt a modern audience will as well. I would like to see them look something similar to the cover of Eye.

Lynch did get the atmosphere of Dune correct and much of the look. The problem will be in making things too modern looking. Too many smooth edges and round corners is wrong, I think.

 

[BAYLOR]

I think the way to handle the problem is to have the first film end just as Paul is giving water to the dead. Let the audience chew on that while they wait. Then the second half can concentrate on Paul's rise and ultimate 'victory' over the Harkonnens, Sardarkaur, and Emperor.

I've always found the Fremen extremely interesting and I have no doubt a modern audience will as well. I would like to see them look something similar to the cover of Eye.

Lynch did get the atmosphere of Dune correct and much of the look. The problem will be in making things too modern looking. Too many smooth edges and round corners is wrong, I think.

If Lych's attempt at Dune had been a mini-series instead, it would have worked.

 

[Vince W]

And dropped the weirding modules.