Does the World Need a New Dune Movie?
April 18, 2008 by Andy
Frank Herbert’s Dune is the single greatest novel of science fiction I’ve read, a book I internalized at as a teen, and one of the few I have ever cared to reread (my review). When you’ve come to “own” something in this way you hate to see people tamper with it. It was a relief when Peter Jackson’s Return of the King was finally released and I could rest knowing he hadn’t totally ruined Tolkien’s work. (Here we go again, and I’m even more frightened about Jackson doing The Hobbit.)
Now comes news that Paramount is filming a new adaptation of Herbert’s book, with Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert as co-producers. It’s nice to see their names attached to the project, even if I haven’t yet dared to see how well they’ve honored the series with their co-authored additions. It’s also nice that the studio is assuring fans the script will be faithful to the source material.
Of course, the underlying question is whether this is a novel that can be successfully filmed. David Lynch’s 1984 attempt is a glorious trainwreck, so beautiful and mysterious it sunk deep in my childhood psyche, despite its opacity and ultimate failure (my review). The more intelligible SciFi miniseries of 2000 lacks sharpness in acting and style, and made little impact on me (review).
I worry that the book is too big, and not just in plot, which could be accommodated by splitting it into multiple films. Science fiction is the literature of ideas and it is in its ideas that Dune is so vast. Surely, Lord of the Rings was a big story, filled with ideas, but I feel fantasy lends itself more easily to film, where ideas are communicated through emotion and wonder. There is that in Dune, but there is a good deal of brass tacks also. The awkward implementation of voiceovers in Lynch’s Dune to manage Herbert’s ubiquitous internal monologues is symptomatic.
Still, don’t you doubt I’ll be first in line to see any new Dune movie. There’s always the chance it could be great, as long as they find a screenwriter who doesn’t think he’s more clever than the book. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Hrm. If you think Lynch’s Dune was a trainwreck, perhaps you better not read the new books. I read the first two or three–I forget, but I’m pretty certain I chucked one of the books across the room at some point.
Penny Arcade made a pretty pointed comic about it even. If’n you love the books, stop with Frank’s.
The best kind of trainwreck, like a gothic industrial vision.
Will bump them further down the reading list accordingly.
Thanks for stopping by.
A new Dune Movie? It could be a great movie, IF the filmakers pay extreme attention to the details in the book. But I don’t see that happeneing. I don’t expect it to be as good a rendition as Jackson’s LOTR movies. But I’m a hardcore Dune fan and have re-read the novels as well, of course I’m going to see it.
One advantage Jackson had was that he didn’t have to compete visually with an earlier adaptation (the cartoons don’t really merit comparison).
A new Dune movie could very well surpass Lynch’s in storytelling, but I’ll be surprised if it can equal it in style.
Washing says : I absolutely agree with this !