SciFi Channel version of Dune by est120

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SciFi Channel version of Dune

POSTED BY: EST120
UPDATED: Sunday, June 11, 2006 10:32
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VIEWED: 4253
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Monday, May 29, 2006 5:06 AM

So I finished reading Dune a couple of weeks ago (after a longer than normal hiatus in the middle, work stuff, you know how it is) and I decided to re-watch the SciFi Channel production of the book. I had seen it before and thoroughly enjoyed it but it was a while ago so I figured a re-watch was in order. Some of my observations about deviations from the book, in case anyone is interested:

1. I do not remember Irulan and Feyd having any kind of subplot between them in the book. In truth, I thought it was supposed to be the Lady Fenring, not Irulan that had a "thing" with him. Am I remembering the book wrong?

2. On the subject of Irulan, I do not remember the Emperor's character even making any kind of appearance in the book until the final battle on Arrakis.

3. One final thing about Irulan, I also do not remember her attending the dinner party that Leto Atredies has on Arrakis shortly after his arrival.

4. When Jessica and Paul are traveling through the desert (before they meet up with the Fremen), they fall down a Dune and Paul drops the backpack carrying their supplies. In the book it gets buried under a lot of sand, in the movie, he just walks over and picks it up.

Other observations:
1. What is the deal with the heroic couplets to end many of the Harkkonen dialogue? Geez, are they channeling Shakespeare?

2. The Sardukar in the novel are made out to be such ruthless, skilled warriors but in the movie, they are kind of glossed over, probably for time considerations.

3. Am I mistaken or does Rabban get killed twice? Once by Stilgar's wicked looking minigun thing and again by an angry mob after he (Rabban) gets cornered.

4. Speaking of Stilgar, I thought the actor they had playing him was a perfect choice. I was less impressed with the choice of William Hurt, who is a good actor in his own right, but I felt he was not the best choice to play Leto. The actor chosen for Paul was pretty good, as was the choice for Jessica and Baron Harkkonen.

5. I also thought some of the words had different pronunciations. I am not a linguist, so I bet my pronunciations were incorrect anyway. I thought it was Bene Gesserit with a hard G like "go" or "get" not a soft G like "gel". I also thought the characters name was Leto with a long E like L-ee-to.

Overall, a very faithful adaptation of the book. Not as good as the novel, like most adaptations, but still one of the better ones that I have seen. The included almost every scene from the book and much of the dialogue was verbatim from the text which is good.

Anyway, my worthless opinion.

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Monday, May 29, 2006 6:14 AM

MIRAMEL

hello est, long-time dune fan here, just wanted to respond to some of your points. for 1-3 about irulan, your quite right, in the book she's only in the final scene. 4, again your quite right, they sorta cut that out, probably for time.
others:
1)i guess its just somethin they added. eh, w/e.
2)there are a few refrences to them being all powerful 'n such, i guess just not as much as in the book.
3)never noticed, ill have to go watch it again.
4)here here, i absolutely love most of the cast choices.
5)silly people mis-pronouncing things :rolleyes in the children of dune movie they make, they do pronounces it L-ee-to. also they're pretty inconsistant w/ the pronunciation of the chakobsa, and i think the lady j. uses the same phrase to mean three pretty mutually exclusive things :P another one that ges my fedykin <(sp) i like hte pronunciation in the movie, but there are defanitly a cuple others floating around that are "mopre official". im torn.

one last thing i noticed, and really the only thing that majorly bugged me, was that they killed of thufer early on, instead of having that sub-plot w/ the baron and feyd. ah well
over all, i agree, excellent movie, and as movies-of-books go these days, pretty damn good.

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Monday, May 29, 2006 6:35 AM

LAUGHINGMUSE

The deviations from the book are a bit irritating, but since the overall story holds together well, it's not quite so disturbing.

1. I don't think you're remembering wrong. Count and Lady Fenring were kind of the emperor's spymasters - and I think that yes, it was Lady Fenring that was watching Feyd's 100th kill and "celebrated" with him afterward. (I seem to remember a comment about her having to conceal her disgust about the whole slave-ring spectacle, so that she could get to Feyd.) I think she was seeking specific information about House Harkonnen's next move, or was trying to influence them in how to move against the Atreides.

1(other). I actually kind of liked the Harkonnen couplet-speak. They looked at the camera and let fly, and in a strange bizarre way it worked. "Hey, we're mildly insane paranoiacs with more issues than God - bleargh!!!" Some of the scenes in the movie looked very obviously like a stage setting, with a painted-cloth backdrop - so the couplet-speak seemed to fit.

5(other). Here's another mispronounciation for you: Liet's daughter. If you compare the spelling to the other pronounciations (chaksoba, etc.), the name is supposed to be pronounced /chah-nee/. She was pronouncing it /chay-nee/. I kept waiting for her to say, "I am Chaney, daughter of Lon."

The Caravan version (Sci-Fi version) is a much more coherent, accessible storyline, and those who haven't read the book can enjoy this version pretty easily. I love David Lynch's version for the visual richness, though.

---------------------------------
Mankind makes tools; we use them to augment our hands, arms and legs.
The computer augments the brain and this makes it very unpopular with totalitarians. - Charles J.C. Lyall

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Monday, May 29, 2006 6:50 AM

CHRISTHECYNIC

Quote:
Originally posted by est120:
1. I do not remember Irulan and Feyd having any kind of subplot between them in the book. In truth, I thought it was supposed to be the Lady Fenring, not Irulan that had a "thing" with him. Am I remembering the book wrong?

2. On the subject of Irulan, I do not remember the Emperor's character even making any kind of appearance in the book until the final battle on Arrakis.

The miniseries was made with a sequel in mind so they felt the need to expand the character of Irulan so she wouldn't appear to come out of nowhere in the next one. Actually this had an unfortunate side effect, some people started to think of Irulan as a much more active and important person than Paul's love which is more or less the reverse of the book.

Quote:
3. One final thing about Irulan, I also do not remember her attending the dinner party that Leto Atredies has on Arrakis shortly after his arrival.

On this one you might be wrong, if memory serves she did come to that and, in a show of random theatrics, in the book she had people release butterflies to signal her entrance.

Quote:
4. When Jessica and Paul are traveling through the desert (before they meet up with the Fremen), they fall down a Dune and Paul drops the backpack carrying their supplies. In the book it gets buried under a lot of sand, in the movie, he just walks over and picks it up.

Yeah, well not everything remains the same. One of the biggest changes from book to miniseries was what was absent in that scene: "If you walk without rhythm than you won't attract the worm."

Quote:
Other observations:
1. What is the deal with the heroic couplets to end many of the Harkkonen dialogue? Geez, are they channeling Shakespeare?

They thought it added an eccentric megalomaniac note to the Barron.

Quote:
2. The Sardukar in the novel are made out to be such ruthless, skilled warriors but in the movie, they are kind of glossed over, probably for time considerations.

Yup, time.

Quote:
3. Am I mistaken or does Rabban get killed twice? Once by Stilgar's wicked looking minigun thing and again by an angry mob after he (Rabban) gets cornered.

You are indeed mistaken. Stilgar did not kill Rabban, he killed a Sardukar who looked similar, the same one that killed Paul's son. It isn't even the same actor, they just look alike.

Quote:
4. Speaking of Stilgar, I thought the actor they had playing him was a perfect choice. I was less impressed with the choice of William Hurt, who is a good actor in his own right, but I felt he was not the best choice to play Leto. The actor chosen for Paul was pretty good, as was the choice for Jessica and Baron Harkkonen.

Hurt took a new direction to the role and played Leto as a character who was simply tragic, doomed and aware of it and thus quite gloomy. I always thought of Leto as someone who was more energetic, he saw the walls closing in and was clawing with every ounce of his being to keep his head above water (mixed metaphors are fun) while at the same time trying to appear calm.

Obviously Hurt looked at Leto another way.

Quote:
5. I also thought some of the words had different pronunciations. I am not a linguist, so I bet my pronunciations were incorrect anyway. I thought it was Bene Gesserit with a hard G like "go" or "get" not a soft G like "gel". I also thought the characters name was Leto with a long E like L-ee-to.

The author was very interested in linguistics, a lot of Fremen terms come out of Arabic in ways would expect a far future dialect to for example. As such he probably wrote down how the words should be pronounced somewhere. Unfortunately I do not know where that would be, or even if it would be released.

Leto is supposedly a descendant of the Greek hero Agamemnon of the house of Atreus (Atreides being a corruption of Atreus, like I said the guy liked linguistics) so it might be that a Greek pronunciation would be correct, but that is a big might, name pronunciation changed over time and the author was well aware of that.

The Dune Encyclopedia might help but it is a) out of print, b) not canon.

Quote:
Overall, a very faithful adaptation of the book. Not as good as the novel, like most adaptations, but still one of the better ones that I have seen. The included almost every scene from the book and much of the dialogue was verbatim from the text which is good.

My biggest complaint about the dialog is that there is one place where it makes no sense. When Gurney and the Thufer talk about how Paul is reacting to something that the witch (or did they call her whore?) said or did it is meant to be in response to the phrase, "For the father nothing," but in the miniseries Paul was not present when it was said.

We are left to assume that he is reacting to the experience of the box, which is a very different picture of Paul's state of mind.

Quote:
Anyway, my worthless opinion.

Hardly worthless.

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Monday, May 29, 2006 7:02 AM

CHRISTHECYNIC

Quote:
Originally posted by LaughingMuse:
I love David Lynch's version for the visual richness, though.

For a long time I thought that was Dune, I had no idea there was a novel, much less six of them. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that Frank Herbert died before he finished the series.

Still, his kid found his notes, and is a competent, though far from brilliant, writer so maybe I'll finally get an decent ending.

The thing I really don't understand about the Lynch version, beyond all else that confuses me, is the weirding modules. Where did they come from? There was nothing at all like them in the book.

On the other hand I really did like the fact that they kept Paul's private name. "Tell me of the waters of your homeworld Muadib," just isn't the same as, "Tell me of the waters of your homeworld Usul."

I like both the David Lynch movie and the Sci-Fi miniseries.

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Monday, May 29, 2006 7:05 AM

BLUEFOOT

Quote:
On this one you might be wrong, if memory serves she did come to that and, in a show of random theatrics, in the book she had people release butterflies to signal her entrance.

Actually, no, she's definitely not there. I've been rereading the book and just read that part a few days ago. There is some random chick sent to try and seduce Paul, but that's about it.

She does, however, play a pretty big role in the book for the simple reason that nearly all of the quotations at the beginnings of the chapters are by her. And, by extension, the Emperor's character actually does make appearances in the book prior to his arrival on Arrakis because Irulan talks about him in some of her pre-chapter blurbs.

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Monday, May 29, 2006 7:12 AM

CHRISTHECYNIC

Quote:
Originally posted by Bluefoot:
Quote:
On this one you might be wrong, if memory serves she did come to that and, in a show of random theatrics, in the book she had people release butterflies to signal her entrance.

Actually, no, she's definitely not there. I've been rereading the book and just read that part a few days ago. There is some random chick sent to try and seduce Paul, but that's about it.

She does, however, play a pretty big role in the book for the simple reason that nearly all of the quotations at the beginnings of the chapters are by her. And, by extension, the Emperor's character actually does make appearances in the book prior to his arrival on Arrakis because Irulan talks about him in some of her pre-chapter blurbs.

Ok, in that case when does she preform the butterfly stunt? I now remember why I thought she did. Part of her outfit has butterflies on it spesifically because at one point in the book she made an entrance with live butterflies and they were unable to do that.

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Monday, May 29, 2006 7:26 AM

LAUGHINGMUSE

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Ok, in that case when does she preform the butterfly stunt? I now remember why I thought she did. Part of her outfit has butterflies on it spesifically because at one point in the book she made an entrance with live butterflies and they were unable to do that.

I wondered what was up with that hat Irulan wore... I guess that it was a visual shout-out to the butterflies? (Never mind me, I'm still on my first cup of coffee.)

---------------------------------
Mankind makes tools; we use them to augment our hands, arms and legs.
The computer augments the brain and this makes it very unpopular with totalitarians. - Charles J.C. Lyall

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Monday, May 29, 2006 7:33 AM

CHRISTHECYNIC

Quote:
Originally posted by LaughingMuse:
I wondered what was up with that hat Irulan wore... I guess that it was a visual shout-out to the butterflies? (Never mind me, I'm still on my first cup of coffee.)

It was indeed, but if she didn't have the butterflies there in the book when did she have the butterflies in the books?

It's been too long since I've read them last for me to remember.

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Monday, May 29, 2006 7:34 AM

J6NGO1977

You gotta remember Dune, the book, is 6 million pages long and then you got Dune Messiah, Son of Dune and Dune wears big baggy pants. So for a film (I enjoyed the film) or TV series to take that story on and get it completely right is far from their budget

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Monday, May 29, 2006 7:35 AM

MIRAMEL

i remember butterflies on her costume in the movie, but defanitly no butterfly scene in the book, and i remember no live butterflys anywhere.

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006 2:11 AM

EST120

Quote:
Originally posted by LaughingMuse:
5(other). Here's another mispronounciation for you: Liet's daughter. If you compare the spelling to the other pronounciations (chaksoba, etc.), the name is supposed to be pronounced /chah-nee/. She was pronouncing it /chay-nee/. I kept waiting for her to say, "I am Chaney, daughter of Lon."

I forgot about that one, but yes, that was not how I thought it was pronounced either. I agree with you. I thought it was Chah-nee like cha-cha-cha, not like our current Vice President. Of course, unless Frank Herbert wrote a dictionary for all these words and names he made up, it is just individual interpretation anyway.

Glad to see that someone else agrees with me, though.

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006 2:18 AM

EST120

Quote:
Originally posted by Miramel:
also they're pretty inconsistant w/ the pronunciation of the chakobsa, and i think the lady j. uses the same phrase to mean three pretty mutually exclusive things :P another one that ges my fedykin <(sp) i like hte pronunciation in the movie, but there are defanitly a cuple others floating around that are "mopre official". im torn.

one last thing i noticed, and really the only thing that majorly bugged me, was that they killed of thufer early on, instead of having that sub-plot w/ the baron and feyd. ah well
over all, i agree, excellent movie, and as movies-of-books go these days, pretty damn good.

Lady J. I remember her from GI Joe.

Just teasing.

I agree, I never really thought about the pronunciation of Fedykin when I was reading the book but is pretty cool in the movie.

I also agree about Thurfir, but I guess there just was not enough time to fit that subplot in. One other thing about him and Gurney. At the beginning of the movie, when you first meet them when Paul is getting ready to travel to Arrakis for the first time, I do not remember ever hearing their names! In fact, I cannot remember ever hearing Thurfir being called by name at any point during the movie! He ends up being such a minor character in the film.

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006 2:31 AM

MIRAMEL

yeah, that bugged me too :P i think they do make a passing refrence to "hawatt", but you wouldn't neccesarily know its him.

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006 2:39 AM

EST120

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Yeah, well not everything remains the same. One of the biggest changes from book to miniseries was what was absent in that scene: "If you walk without rhythm than you won't attract the worm."

I forgot about that, but you are definitely right.

I know, not everything can be incorporated into a movie version of a book. I guess that is why so many people do not like movie adaptations or do not consider the movie adaptation to be the same thing as the book. Still, as far as movie versions go, this one was pretty good. Not like some that I have seen in the past for other books that were just plain baaaaaad.

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006 3:57 PM

CHRISTHECYNIC

Sometimes the adaptation is so liberal that I wonder why it is an adaptation at all.

If you have seen the Bourne Identity or Starship Troopers you know that those things are related to the books they are named after only by the names of some of the characters (and the former takes that extra far by only having it be the first name of one and the alias of Another) and one or two very general events.

I think people would have liked those much more if they didn't pretend to be related to the book.

This one on the other hand does a very good job in most places, I think that's good enough because there's no way it could have done it in all places.

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006 4:45 PM

CALHOUN

Quote:
est120 wrote:
Monday, May 29, 2006 05:06

I also thought some of the words had different pronunciations. I am not a linguist, so I bet my pronunciations were incorrect anyway. I thought it was Bene Gesserit with a hard G like "go" or "get" not a soft G like "gel".

A friend of mine who got me into sci fi more than 20 years ago has the humourous affliction of mispronouncing words he reads in books. Anyways he loaned me his copy of Dune (the book), after I had finished he and I talked about it and he kept on referring to the Bene Gesserit but pronouncing the words Bean Gessert..as if it were some sort of after dinner vegetable sorbet.

He has had lots of other clangers over the years but that one sticks with me always..

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Wednesday, May 31, 2006 11:37 AM

THIEFJEHAT

Quote:
Originally posted by LaughingMuse:

1. I don't think you're remembering wrong. Count and Lady Fenring were kind of the emperor's spymasters - and I think that yes, it was Lady Fenring that was watching Feyd's 100th kill and "celebrated" with him afterward. (I seem to remember a comment about her having to conceal her disgust about the whole slave-ring spectacle, so that she could get to Feyd.) I think she was seeking specific information about House Harkonnen's next move, or was trying to influence them in how to move against the Atreides.

I think that is half correct. She was indeed spying of House Harkonnen, but she was a Bene Geserit as well and had been ordered to mate with Feyd as a part of the breeding project. The orginal plan was for Jessica to bear a daughter who was to marry Feyd and bear the Kwitzach Haderich. When Jessica disobeyed and bore Paul the Bene Gesserit has to retool their plans. The genes in Feyd had to be preserved in a new generation so that the Bene Gesserit could manipulate Paul into mating with a pre-determined female so they could eventually achieve the Kwitzach Haderich at a later time. They, however, never forsaw that Paul was himself the Kwitzach Haderich and was going to remake the imperium with his Jihad. So at the time of Feyd's 100th kill Lady Fenring only knew that she had to mate with Feyd for the breeding project never suspecting that the endeavour was a complete waste.

But THAT is why she was there to "celebrate" with Feyd. And the count, as the enterprising spy that he is, used this event as an opportunity to gain intelligence. Although the count knew nothing about the breeding program itself.

Do not fear me. Ours is a peaceful race, and we must live in harmony.

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Thursday, June 1, 2006 3:17 AM

DEEPGIRL187

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
"If you walk without rhythm than you won't attract the worm."

That's a direct quote from the book, right? I was just wondering, because that particular line is in the Fatboy Slim song "Weapon Of Choice".

**************************************************

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

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Thursday, June 1, 2006 4:10 AM

RYCE

I'm currently listening to the Dune audiobook (gorram long commutes), and am really liking it, though some of the pronunciations are a little different from what I expect. I absolutely love the SciFi version (especially the music!) and am also making my way through the books (currently about to start God Emperor of Dune).

I wonder if SciFi will make any more sequels after Children of Dune?

No power in the 'verse can stop me!

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Thursday, June 1, 2006 6:17 AM

CHRISTHECYNIC

Quote:
Originally posted by deepgirl187:
Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
"If you walk without rhythm than you won't attract the worm."

That's a direct quote from the book, right?

Yeah.

Quote:
I was just wondering, because that particular line is in the Fatboy Slim song "Weapon Of Choice".

I noticed that as well, it took a while to place where I knew the line from, then I wondered why you'd randomly quote a sci-fi book in a song.

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Thursday, June 1, 2006 6:23 AM

DEEPGIRL187

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
I noticed that as well, it took a while to place where I knew the line from, then I wondered why you'd randomly quote a sci-fi book in a song.

Well, Fatboy Slim does have some interesting influences (Christopher Walken and Bootsy Collins from Parliament Funkadelic were in the video to that song). So I suppose it wouldn't be too far off the mark to exepect a Sci-Fi reference.

**************************************************

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

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Sunday, June 11, 2006 10:32 AM

RYCE

One more interesting note that I forgot to mention: In SciFi's Children of Dune, Duncan Idaho is played by none other than Edward Atterton, our very own Atherton Wing!

Hmm, why did I never notice how similar Atterton and Atherton were? :-P

No power in the 'verse can stop me!

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