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After reading all the glowing user comments regarding Sci-Fi's "Dune" and "Children of Dune" I had to wonder if the cast and crew might have submitted the reviews themselves. Could people have been that impressed by these mediocre miniseries?
I should say that I am a long-time lover of the "Dune" books, I must have read "Dune" dozens of times, loved it, studied it, grokked it.
I am a Dune purist. I shouldn't be so hard on the miniseries, but I believe it was within Sci-Fi's reach to get the Dune stories RIGHT, but sadly, they didn't.
We must forgive David Lynch. It's impossible that David could have possibly rendered the book Dune into his feature-length movie, too much material. To faithfully tell the story would take about... six hours, roughly the time of the Sci-Fi miniseries. Hmmmm...
Anyways, David's version, even though it deviated tremendously from the book (heck it RAINS in the last scene!), had... something else--- in a word: style. The actors were great, the music was great, the sets were great, it was intense, visually gripping, loaded with mystique. David didn't exactly deliver us "Dune", but he sure delivered us "something", and it was great.
Sci-Fi deviated from the original stories too, and, worse, the miniseries are tedious and rather boring most of the time. Instead of faithfully packing in the full story, a lot of extraneous scenes have been added (moreso in "Dune" than "Children"), and existing scenes have been truncated and changed, which makes me think that the director/writers were just trying to kill time, not to tell the story right. I don't think they LOVED the books, and that's a terrible loss for those of us who do.
The miniseries were made-for-television, and boy howdy, can you feel it in "Dune", and somewhat in "Children". The acting is (mostly) stiff as a board, the accents seem random, except that too many of them were English or faux-English. The characters (with the notable exception of the Harkkonens, more on that below) all seem to be playing the same generic character, I was having a lot of trouble discerning Duncan from Gurney, Gurney from Thufir, Stilgar from Gurney, etc... These characters are HUGE, they should have been played to the HILT. Think Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck. When I read the book "Dune" now, Gurney is Patrick Stewart. THAT'S what I'm talking about.
On the plus side, I thought the Harkkonens were well conceived and well acted. The Baron was wonderful, homosexual and intelligent, as he was supposed to be (no facial diseases thank goodness), if only the actor had the Baron's rumbling baritone he would have been perfect. Beast Rabban also was dead-on, I actually found myself liking him just for being who he was supposed to be. Feyd-Rautha was also not bad, cunning and evil as he was supposed to be. Even better than Sting.
Also on the plus , the CGI's in both miniseries were not bad, I especially liked the sandworms. But the 'thopters were almost as bad as those in the Lynch film. In the books, 'thopters were giant jet-powered mechanical birds, complete with articulated wings and feathers. Wouldn't that have been a cool GCI? Why was that skipped? And the personal shields-- Lynch's shields in 1984 were incredible-- and that was with 1984 CGI (!!). Shields in the Sci-Fi miniseries were a total yawner.
Also a plus, Alia(Of-The-Knife) was casted wonderfully in both miniseries. I loved the funny and insolent child Reverend Mother character in "Dune", thought they really got her right. I wasn't thrilled with what they did with the character of Alis in "Children of Dune", but I sure did like the actress who played her. No boredom or stiffness there, and, wow, what a beauty she is!
Serious problems include:
-- The importance of water on Arrakis is terribly diminished in both miniseries. In the books, and even in Lynch's version, we really got the feeling of the constant and oppressive ARIDNESS of Arrakis, that water there is life (and indirectly death). The omnipresent presence of the desert, its danger, its mystique, is completely missing. I ranted and raved at the TV while Fremen walked around in the open desert, in the daytime, without their stillsuits! The literary Stilgar would whack you just for not wearing your noseplugs, he would probably have killed Fremen as sloppy as those in the Sci-Fi version.
-- Castle caladan is a giant rocky dripping monolith (Lynch got that one right too), not the inside of a low-budget spaceship.
-- The blue-in-blue eyes of the Spice addicted ("The Eyes of the Ibad") are just that, all-blue, no white.... NOT luminous glowing blue demon-eyes, as in the miniseries. Imagine how easy it would be for the Harkkonens to target those glowing blue eyes in the dark...
-- The costumes in both miniseries are (mostly) ridiculous and extremely boring. What's up with those stillsuits? They looked like they were pieced together from Banana Republic surplus.
-- The name Usul is completely missing from the Sci-Fi version of Dune. This is a serious flaw, especially when Chani tediously blathers "Tell me of the waters of your homeworld, Muad Dib". I knew ten minutes into the Dune miniseries that it was weak when Paul failed to tell Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam "I've never even heard of a planet called Usul."
-- Princess Irulan has been made into a major character in the Dune miniseries, anyone who knows the book knows she barely has a role at all (except politically!) In the miniseries, she's all over the place! She shows up at Duke Leto's dinner at the Ducal palace in Arrakeen, a big scene where she flirts nauseatingly with Paul has been added. (with SARDAUKAR no less!). Terrible. She even goes to Geidi Prime to hang out with Feyd-Rautha (in place of Count Fenring's Bene Gesserit wife).
score 4/10
gamelon 19 April 2005
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1063857/ |
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16-4-2021 03:04:10