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https://io9.gizmodo.com/dave-bautista-is-headed-to-arrakis-for-the-dune-remake-1831556673?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow&fbclid=IwAR2ml7-jguj66cihV68vfvTERUB_MM_rqi-szap7iCQMdKupbWLT0LUo-ng

Well, I hope they can at least match the SFC versions...

This is one of the few movies I have to look forward to with any serious interest. Villeneuve has a great track record so far. Isn't this supposed to start filming in budapest this march? I guess they'll just wheel in dozens of trucks worth of sand n dirt and create their own desert in the backlot....lol. Only bummer is no roger deakins, but the dp from rogue one isn't a bad choice.

I presume Budapest will be for the Calidan and Arrakeen scenes, and the indoors?

Right. And it's likely that the majority of the first film won't be in the desert. Even the second film should have plenty of indoor scenes. I hope we get a little better glimpse of sietch life in these.

I didn't even have to open the article to know who Bautista was playing. So now we have Paul, Lady Jessica, and Rabban cast. Lots of big roles yet to come...

Always hopeful that a really good DUNE movie can be made!

I think david lynch's version suffered from "epic movie syndrome".

I've noticed that in hollywood, there are cases where people try to make the best movie they can, and there are cases where people are out to make an EPIC movie.

Star wars was an effort at making the best movie possible, that was all. Since then every SW movie has had to be an EPIC movie.

Dune was clearly an effort to make an EPIC movie and it kinda collapsed under the the drive to make it one.

Just make the best movie you can, guys, and not overload it with the drive to be an epic movie.

I never watched the SyFy attempt at it - mixed reviews and the few scenes I saw just didn't make me want to put the time in.

Hard to envision how many movies it would take to 'do it right', even if you're only looking to start this whole thing off.

Could be Epic, or it could be a...trainwreck.

 Alpharius wrote:
I never watched the SyFy attempt at it - mixed reviews and the few scenes I saw just didn't make me want to put the time in.

Hard to envision how many movies it would take to 'do it right', even if you're only looking to start this whole thing off.

Good be Epic, or it could be a...trainwreck.

The SFC versions were lower budget but were better done.

For one thing, the people in it lkooked like they were desert guerilla warriors. Dry skinned, dusty, bad haircuts, etc. The didn't look like they just stepped out of a sauna/makeup parlor.

Also, there were scenes where Mua'dib challenged the fremen way when it was wrong. When most fremen wanted mua'dib to take leadership, he refused to challenge stilgar to a duel and kill him. He said he would not cut off his own right arm, which is what killing stilgar would be like. He told the fremen if they wanted him to be leader, and stilgar agreed to it, he would accept leadership with stilgar as his right arm, but he would not kill stilgar for leadership because it was fooloish and evil to kill a good man when it wasn't necessary.

That was a good scene.

I remember reading that the SyFy series got a bit worse as it went on - was that the case?

I've seen both versions. The Lynch version is the only one I think of when someone says, "Let's watch Dune." It's the only one I've seen again (and again).

The SFC version might be more book accurate, but that doesn't make it better, or even memorable.

Well sure, in the same way that time I had food poisoning was memorable compared to other times I had a simple stomach flu.

There probably aren't many bigger Dune (the book) OR Lynch fans on this forum than me. There are some cool things about the movie, no doubt. But my god it's a bad film, and it misses just about every important point of the book. It's not even really about being faithful to the source material as it is about being a worse story. It's not all Lynch's fault, as he wanted a 3 hour film and the studio wanted an impossible 2 hour cut.

It was the first and last time Lynch attempted this kind of filmmaking. I don't think he did much after that where he didn't have full creative control.

Villeneuve is a genuine fan of the book, and it's his dream project (compared to Lynch having never read the book before being hired to make the film before the rights expired), and I trust that his adaptation will both be a better film and a more recognizable story.

Let's hope.

 Alpharius wrote:
Always hopeful that a really good DUNE movie can be made!

Already done by Lynch.

Lynch's film minimizes or ignores basically every important theme from the book...ecology, religion, etc. The ending is the exact reverse of Herbert's message. That's why it's almost impossible to call it a good DUNE film. Lots of elements are there, but the meat of it is missing.

I have never been so hyped for a film.

Lynchs DUNE is a grand example of a space opera and one that I hold every film up to in comparison, not many pass that test.

I was hoping Valerian would take the mantle but man was I ever disappointed.

Star wars no longer has the heart to take it ... it is capitalism made manifest as a vehicle for cameos.

Start trek is probably the closest - not without its own flaws but they were the best of the last decade.

I don't know of anything else that might compare even after all these years

AS for Lynch's Dune, has anyone seen Jodorowsky's(SP) DUNE? It was a movie that was never made.... but I think there is a documentary about the pre-production. It would make Lynch DUNE look tame in comparison.

I never liked the original Dune movie.. just bores me to sleep every time I try to watch it. Hopefully this one will be better

 gorgon wrote:
Lynch's film minimizes or ignores basically every important theme from the book...ecology, religion, etc. The ending is the exact reverse of Herbert's message. That's why it's almost impossible to call it a good DUNE film. Lots of elements are there, but the meat of it is missing.

I'm more than happy for the movie to be its own thing. Dune the book is good. Dune the movie is good. Dune the movie not just being a retread of Dune the book is great.

But, yeah, I think we'll all be happy if the new movie is both good and accurate to the book.

I never get that tbh. The whole point of an adaptation is to render the source material in a new medium, and while that almost always requires some changes to account for the chosen medium, if you're not going to at least try and stay true to the source material why bother making an adaptation at all?

I mean, I get why big corporate media outfits like to do it, because they're risk-averse hacks with no regard for anything but money, but if you're a creative? Other than outright satire it just seems like sheer "I can do better than the original" ego tripping.

This is a neat 3+ hour pile of original, deleted, screen test, etc. footage edited to follow the book.

https://archive.org/details/DuneTheCompleteSagaVimeo

So joe walker is going to be the editor of the film, he did the editing for sicario,arrival, blade runner 2049. Plus stellan skarskgard is apparently being cast as baron harkonnen. If this does indeed begin shooting in march i'm sure we will get plenty more news over the coming couple months. I'm more interested in who will do the soundtrack.

 Yodhrin wrote:
I never get that tbh. The whole point of an adaptation is to render the source material in a new medium, and while that almost always requires some changes to account for the chosen medium, if you're not going to at least try and stay true to the source material why bother making an adaptation at all?

I mean, I get why big corporate media outfits like to do it, because they're risk-averse hacks with no regard for anything but money, but if you're a creative? Other than outright satire it just seems like sheer "I can do better than the original" ego tripping.

There are lots of adaptations that differ from their source material for the benefit of Mankind. For example, Nothing Lasts Forever is a forgettable, cheesy airport/dad thriller, but its hugely reinvented adaptation is the greatest Christmas film of all time, Die Hard. The Princess Bride the book is a miserable, spiteful parody of the kinds of stories that The Princess Bride the movie homages and transcended. Starship Troopers the movie was written as a satire that was only fitted retroactively onto the novel because the studio had the rights. Sometimes a work of fiction can inspire a director or writer to create something new, yet not wholly unique. Lynch's Dune has a different feeling from the book, but it's one I happen to like. It's its own thing, and still stands out among science fiction movies.

Stellan Skarsgaard as Baron Harkonnen? He's not that out of shape, is he?

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Stellan Skarsgaard as Baron Harkonnen? He's not that out of shape, is he?

Maybe they could flip it and cast Sting as the Baron?

or Axl Rose?

I want them to use a CGI Dom DeLouise.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
I never get that tbh. The whole point of an adaptation is to render the source material in a new medium, and while that almost always requires some changes to account for the chosen medium, if you're not going to at least try and stay true to the source material why bother making an adaptation at all?

I mean, I get why big corporate media outfits like to do it, because they're risk-averse hacks with no regard for anything but money, but if you're a creative? Other than outright satire it just seems like sheer "I can do better than the original" ego tripping.

There are lots of adaptations that differ from their source material for the benefit of Mankind. For example, Nothing Lasts Forever is a forgettable, cheesy airport/dad thriller, but its hugely reinvented adaptation is the greatest Christmas film of all time, Die Hard. The Princess Bride the book is a miserable, spiteful parody of the kinds of stories that The Princess Bride the movie homages and transcended. Starship Troopers the movie was written as a satire that was only fitted retroactively onto the novel because the studio had the rights. Sometimes a work of fiction can inspire a director or writer to create something new, yet not wholly unique. Lynch's Dune has a different feeling from the book, but it's one I happen to like. It's its own thing, and still stands out among science fiction movies.

Die Hard isn't called Nothing Lasts Forever and wasn't "sold" as an adaptation very much(if at all) at the time. Starship Troopers is an outright satire, which I mentioned. I've never seen the Princess Bride, but if it claims to be an adaptation of the book and then isn't, it's a bad adaptation, just as Lynch's Dune is a bad adaptation.

Because what you're describing there, that's an homage, not an adaptation. The Orville is an homage, not an adaptation of Star Trek. The MCU is an adaptation of the comics, despite often making quite a lot of changes. The difference is in the intent to honour the source material, and whether it is claimed to honour the source material - which as far as I'm concerned, includes using the title of the original.

If Lynch had made David Lynch's Crazy Worm Rider Dudes, then he would be entitled to have the work considered entirely on its own merits, and might even have been given credit by fans of the books for making an homage to them. But he didn't, he made a Dune movie that had very little to do with Dune, and so he made a bad adaptation. It could be the greatest scifi movie ever made(it is not), and it would still be a bad adaptation of Dune.

 Thargrim wrote:
So joe walker is going to be the editor of the film, he did the editing for sicario,arrival, blade runner 2049. Plus stellan skarskgard is apparently being cast as baron harkonnen. If this does indeed begin shooting in march i'm sure we will get plenty more news over the coming couple months. I'm more interested in who will do the soundtrack.

Nice casting there. I tend to think we'll see a proper calculating Baron in this one instead of whatever Kenneth McMillan was supposed to be in the Lynch film. The Syfy Channel Baron was much closer to the mark.

WRT The Princess Bride, wasn't the book an adaptation of the movie screenplay? That is, there never was a full TPB book that the movie was based on.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
WRT The Princess Bride, wasn't the book an adaptation of the movie screenplay? That is, there never was a full TPB book that the movie was based on.

I think the book came out half a decade before the movie. Either way, they were both written by the same person, apparently in a different headspace. The novel is about a man in a loveless marriage and snarks at the very concept of true love, while the movie plays it much more straight and upbeat. I'm somewhat afraid that the screenplay was written from a place of deep cynicism, but I prefer to think the writer overcame his issues instead.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
WRT The Princess Bride, wasn't the book an adaptation of the movie screenplay? That is, there never was a full TPB book that the movie was based on.

I think the book came out half a decade before the movie. Either way, they were both written by the same person, apparently in a different headspace.

Right, but no "full" version exists as alluded to in the introduction. Just the short version that got filmed. It's been a long time since I've read TPB, and just as long since I've read Dune.

Still, with the way that things are now, Dune is ripe for a remake into a giant media franchise spanning several full-length movies, with all of the licensing and merchandise to follow. And unlike other projects, it's not like there isn't a wealth of material to work with. The Dune series is a HUGE amount of text.