New Dune Movie

[Redstar]

DuneInfo was recently asked by ReelzChannel to provide insight into the previous attempts at adapting Dune and his opinions on how to make the next version work:

Fansite Guest Blog: Can We Get a Good Dune Movie?

We've been following the new Dune movie from the Robert Pattinson casting rumors to the director change to a new script and 3-D. Although the Frank Herbert's book has already had a big-screen debut, a Sci-Fi mini-series, and many other adaptations, the new director, Pierre Morel has his own vision.

To find out more about what movie fans hope to see this time, we went directly to the experts. For this first Dune guest blog, Mark from Dune - Behind The Scenes answers some of our questions, including "What went wrong with David Lynch's movie?" and "Who would you like to see cast?"

Pierre Morel has said that he plans to make a movie that is faithful to the original novel by Frank Herbert. Can this be done?

A faithful adaptation — yes, certainly. A complete and thorough conversion — no! The original novel is around 600 pages long, and squeezing that into a single movie without having to lose, alter, or combine elements would be impossible. Pierre Morel has the advantage that today's movies can be closer to 3 hours, rather than the 2 hours 17 minutes that {David} Lynch was tied to, and we have seen that Peter Jackson was able to bring the Lord of the Rings movies to the screen in a faithful, if not 100% precise, adaptation of Tolkien's novels in that running time.

What happened with the Lynch movie?

Where do you want to start?!? He was contractually obliged to turn in a movie no longer than 137 minutes, as any longer than that and the cinemas wouldn't be able to squeeze as many showing in a day. So while Lynch's script did an amazing job of compressing the novel into a 136 page filming script, even much of that ended up on the cutting room floor. This leaves a film that spends much of the first 20 minutes trying to explain the Universe, including Irulan's introduction and the "Secret Report" that were not even in his script, and then once Paul and Jessica escape into the desert (which was the end of Lynch's original script — with the remaining plot to be in a second film) we are left with basically a series of montages, short scenes, and Irulan's voice over until the final confrontation with the Emperor.

Lynch has stated that he lost control over the movie, giving in over decisions, bit by bit, piece by piece, until the movie was no longer his.

The ending upset many fans, rain on Arrakis would kill the Sandworms, and is in fact a crucial storyline in Herbert's sequels to Dune. Lynch was contracted to do 2 sequel films, but it appears that it was felt they needed a "real" ending, perhaps realizing that the movie wouldn't be successful enough to support them. The rain doesn't appear in any of the scripts.

Was the Sci-Fi series a better interpretation?

It was more like the book, but I enjoy Lynch's film over the mini-series, which to me felt like a stage play in parts. The Children of Dune miniseries was much better, and benefited greatly from the increased power of Computer Graphics since the 2000 miniseries was created. Hopefully today's SFX house can create an even better Arrakis/Sandworms.

Are there scenes that are integral to the story that were not covered in either prior production?

The role of Count Hasimir Fenring was missing completely from Lynch's movie, and although he was in the 2000 miniseries the role as "an almost Kwisatz Haderach" — a failure of the Bene Gesserit breeding program — is still missing.

Are there standout actors that are perfect for certain roles?

A tough one! I think Zooey Deschanel has the elfin features for Chani (Zooey Deschanel was even in the movie Elf).

Julianne Moore certainly has the red hair for Lady Jessica, and has the authority to carry that major role.

James McAvoy would seem a great choice for Paul Atreides, although he played Leto Atreides in the Children of Dune miniseries.

Some cameos from the original Dune movie would cool — Patrick Stewart as Liet Kynes perhaps?

Rather short interview which doesn't even end clearly. I would have liked some more exciting dialogue on the subject, since if you're going to contact someone to talk about such a difficult project you should get some real thoughts.

Also, the article states the movie is set to release in 2012, but we all knew that already.

[twistedmentat]

I didn't know that Lynch had wanted to make Dune into two movies. I've been guilty of trashing Lynch's Dune in the past. I think if he could of made the movie(s) he wanted, w/out studio interference, it might of been really good. Guess we'll never know.

[lotek]

I like Lynch but I think he's too far out in his own visions to really do justice to Dune.
He has his own universe and it is quite different from Frank's IMO

[SandChigger]

James McAvoy would seem a great choice for Paul Atreides, although he played Leto Atreides in the Children of Dune miniseries.

Yeah, some fucking expert.

McAvoy's a great actor BUT HE'S TOO FUCKING OLD NOW TO PLAY PAUL, MORON!

[Superdog]

If I had any say whatsoever, I'd vote Edward James Olmos as Duke Leto. I don't see how it could possibly be more badass than that.

I agree that Edward James Olmos would be amazing as Duke Leto, and is going to happen in the alternate universe in which the new Dune movie will be good and interesting, where the oil spill never happened and the only place that would hire Kevin J Anderson was Penthouse Forum. The question is, "Would we want to live in a world that had such poorly-written pornography?" It's like a Star Trek episode about a dystopia.

"How To Serve Your Man" by Kevin J. Anderson. It's a cookbook!!!

Edward James Olmos is awesome, although I see him more as the "ugly lump of a man" Gurney Halleck.

[Redstar]

As I was disappointed with the brevity of the interview I decided to contact DuneInfo myself to ask my own questions. I mostly wanted elaboration on what he feels led to the failure of the Lynch version and his opinion on this new attempt.

I wrote: "Would you be able to share more of your thoughts on this potential movie with me? I would love to know what you feel caused the failure of the previous adaptations and what this new movie would have to do to avoid that," to which DuneInfo responded:

I think after the success of the LotR trilogy, and the recent StarWars prequels an epic Science Fiction saga like Dune seemed like a great idea to movie studios. I've think they have bitten off more than they can chew unless they find some one with the same passion for the material as Peter Jackson & Co. had for LotR.

Still, even if a bad movie does get made it'll drive more people to read or re-read Frank Herbert's original novels, any publicity is good publicity for the books I guess?

The APJ attempt was derailed when he died, Jodorowsky's version was never going to work without some serious money from Hollywood. Ridley Scott's version may have been made is his brother hadn't died. In fact what surprises me isn't that those failed, but that Lynch's movie actually got made! I think the time constraints killed that movie as I think Lynch's movie tried to include so much of the novel onto the screen.

There is an interesting bit in the making of The Abyss where they say that you can't make a long movie shorter just by trimming little bits here and there, but you have to chop entire story elements out (which they did for the Abyss theatrical version). But what could be trimmed for Lynch's already cut version? Mapes was gone, Jessica believing Gurney as the traitor was gone, Paul's plan to destroy the Spice gone. Baby Leto - gone. Jamis/Hara - gone.

Thufir's death was gone, but that makes the scenes with him and the Baron pointless, but getting rid of those would make you wonder what Thufir was doing there at the end.

Paul taking the Water of Life was originally filmed closer the the novel, but was refilmed to combine several scenes into one.

You'd have to start making some bold alterations, for example not include Alia in the movie (incidentally she was killed in HERBERT's original story, but the editor said he should keep her!) but then any planned sequels are in serious trouble without Alia.

With a 3 hour running time the new film will have breathing room, but it'll still need to be a good script to be both a good film and please the fans.

That being said, how did you feel about Peter Berg as director, and how do you feel about Pierre Morel now taking the reins? Would either Neil Marshall or Neill Blomkamp have done a better job?

Berg seemed to have a action/adventure take on the movie, which may have made it a blockbuster type movie, but would probably have made Lynch's version look like cannon!

I've not seen any of Morel's or Marshall's films, but at least Morel seems to be saying that it'll be faithful to the novel. Blomkap would have been interesting, but could it have been Lynch all over again? One (relatively small) successful movie and then given the reins of a massive Hollywood project?

I still feel that we'll get another director before the movie really gets going.

One could argue that the entries into the series by Kevin J Anderson are so bad the publicity for the original novels has only been bad. In fact, every commentary on the series inevitably says that the new books are horrible while the originals are classics. It's debatable the exact effect these new books have had on the originals, though I do agree that the movie, no matter how bad, would have to be better than KJA's books.

KJA books must have increase sales of the original series though? Although I'd say that KJA books are SciFi and F.Herbert's are ScienceFiction and that is actually a big difference in the terms of the readership. But hopefully some people will "graduate" from SciFi to ScienceFiction

That's an incredibly bold alteration, though the movie could easily work without her considering the implausibility of sequels. However, that would effectively close the door on the number of fans hoping for Alicia Witt as an adult Alia.

Alia is pretty much redundant in Lynch's version, ditch the whole Jessica/WaterOfLife/Alia bit, have Chani (who doesn't have much to do) confront the Emperor and kill the Baron and Lynch could have saved a good few minutes and concentrated the story on Paul. I'm not for one minute suggesting that the new movie should do that, just that sometimes removing a whole thread may allow the rest of the story to be clearer. Having some Dune cameos would be cool though. How about Lynch as Piter? 8o)

Returning to Morel, what do you feel about his statements to "modernize" the thematic designs in costume and technology? This is perhaps in direct contrast to his statements at remaining faithful to the story and demonstrates a critical lack of understanding of the novel (especially in light of his projection of when Dune takes place).

Morel mentions 10,000 years from now, which I guess is from "the year 10,191", but I don't really think it matters to much as to when it takes place other than it is in the future. Who can say where mankind will be in 1,00 years let alone 10,000. I know there is a lot of history that goes along with Dune, but in terms of what the technology will or won't be like I don't think it matters when it takes place, heck, as Earth isn't really mentioned it could be "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..."!

From what Morel is reported as saying I got the impression that he wanted to build a universe from the ground up, in terms of materials, technology etc, and I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, provided that the lack of thinking-machines (and the reason behind that) is adhered to.

I believe that it is more likely that it won't get made than that it will, but I'd love to see a new Dune on a 3D IMAX - and you just know if they do a 3D version that there'll be a scene where a Sandworm "swallows" the audience!

You really think so? I would imagine yet another dropped directly will spell the end for the movie. Paramount can't keep bandying around the project forever, and it's been, what, two years since it was announced?

I think there this will project will stall, Morel will move on and we'll get one final director, and that will either get made or it will quietly disappear from the up-coming movies list. If we'd had hear more about this movie I'd feel a lot more confident that it will get made, although I do know that the new Dune script has been shopped around to SFX houses to get quotes, so maybe there is hope for the Morel project yet.

I'm willing to accept a great deal of adaptational changes as long as core tenets are kept intact, with the Butlerian Jihad being one of them. However, I'd rather see modernized period pieces (much like the costumes of Lynch, though to a greater extent) then full-on Star Trek outfits. There has to be some connection to what Dune is about, and one of those themes is that human culture is a recurring, never-changing quality. Period pieces represents that.

What was that saying about SciFi and "big hats"? Something like any SciFi film will either have skin tight Lycra (i.e. Star Trek) or Big Hats (like the SciFi Channel's Dune). Period style pieces tend not to look dated after a number of years - I think the Lynch's Dune costumes would hold up in today's movies, where as "futuristic" costumes and sets tend to look bad once technology has moved on a bit. Just so long as the stillsuits don't have an iPhone pocket I'll be happy! 8o) "Need a thumper to call a Sandworm? There's an App for that..."

Note: I conducted this "interview" not because I see DuneInfo as an official opinion on the movie but simply because I'm bored. His opinion matters only as much as our own.

[DuneFishUK]

Note: I conducted this "interview" not because I see DuneInfo as an official opinion on the movie but simply because I'm bored.

Have you ever shot a man, just to watch him die?

[SandChigger]

Thanks for taking the time, Redstar. Still a problem or two with his "expert-hood", though...

Morel mentions 10,000 years from now, which I guess is from "the year 10,191", but I don't really think it matters to much as to when it takes place other than it is in the future. Who can say where mankind will be in 1,00 years let alone 10,000. I know there is a lot of history that goes along with Dune, but in terms of what the technology will or won't be like I don't think it matters when it takes place, heck, as Earth isn't really mentioned it could be "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..."!

Obviously neither Morel nor DuneInfo have bothered reading the Appendices. Why is it so hard for people to get into their heads that Dune takes place some 22,000 years in the future. Old Earth is mentioned in the Religion Appendix and Terra in the Terminology.

Have you ever shot a man, just to watch him die?

Sing it, Johnnay!

[SandRider]

good job, RedStar, thanks for taking the time and for re-posting it ...

have you sent the guy a message with the link to this page ?

[Redstar]

have you sent the guy a message with the link to this page ?

Yeah. I asked if he'd mind me posting the transcript and he didn't as long as I sent over a link. He also asked if I was an admin, which I suspect would have been a position that would have warranted a mention of the interview on his News page.

[SandRider]

maybe you should have mentioned we are a Fremen Theocracy;
to become an admin, you must kill the current admin in a knife-fight ...

[Freakzilla]

maybe you should have mentioned we are a Fremen Theocracy;
to become an admin, you must kill the current admin in a knife-fight ...

...or prove that you're a god.

[TheDukester]

Good stuff, RedStar. Nice initiative in getting the interview yourself.

[Redstar]

So 51 days into the "30 to 90 days" sill offered by Byron and user "Elf" posts:

It's already September admin, when are we gonna get some news?!

On the 52nd day boardadmin replies:

Patience. Patience. Tis coming.

Anyone think this is really going to happen before the 90th day?

[merkin muffley]

This is not a good way to get the fans excited. Nobody's heard anything since the location scouting, right? Not only do I think these guys are totally out of the loop, I'm beginning to think there's nothing going on inside the loop. No loop to speak of, because they could use anything as an excuse to hype the movie.

[TheDukester]

Yes, agreed. There is no loop at all. If anything was happening, Spanky McDune would be creaming himself in between posting at Twatter and his Wordfur blog. He wants nothing more in the entire world than to tell everyone he is a "movie producer."

Well, maybe a Hugo, but he knows that ain't never happening ...

[Omphalos]

We oughta fund an award - like the Razzie - and give it to KJA. Maybe we can call it the "HUge eGO Award."

[SandChigger]

I'm in!

[Redstar]

Well this is surprising. I've been keeping tabs on Jock (the artist attached to Berg's Dune) for any concept artwork and looks like he finally updated his site with some material. You can check it out here.

Usually this stuff doesn't turn up on the artist's site until much after the film is released so this may indicate that Jock is no longer on the production. While Jock does have sections for the as-of-yet unreleased Battleship (ugh) and Judge Dredd, those consist simply of a single "Coming Soon" message repeating over concept art.

His departure may well be a good thing considering his concept for Caladan as seen in the second picture, though it may be indicative of a far larger problem with the original (Berg-led) production.

EDIT: Yeah, I contacted Jock and he was kicked off when Pierre took over.

[Freakzilla]

Well this is surprising. I've been keeping tabs on Jock (the artist attached to Berg's Dune) for any concept artwork and looks like he finally updated his site with some material. You can check it out here.

Usually this stuff doesn't turn up on the artist's site until much after the film is released so this may indicate that Jock is no longer on the production. While Jock does have sections for the as-of-yet unreleased Battleship (ugh) and Judge Dredd, those consist simply of a single "Coming Soon" message repeating over concept art.

His departure may well be a good thing considering his concept for Caladan as seen in the second picture, though it may be indicative of a far larger problem with the original (Berg-led) production.

EDIT: Yeah, I contacted Jock and he was kicked off when Pierre took over.

Good, not impressed.

[aethereon]

I think its the drawings of mean ass sock puppets with press-on nail teeth that gets me. I saw an H.R. Geiger mouth in mouth ripoff too. And then I realize the "Dune" logo at the bottom. That gets me more.

[DuneFishUK]

Ya beat me to it

These pics are EARLY in the production schedule - it doesn't look like anything is nailed down. Yeah - Caladan is wrong, but as FH said - film is a different medium. A water-world is an easy opposite for a desert one.

I kind of like the direction they were going with the worms, the newborn is a step too far, but the image of them a giant gnarled monstrosities (see: this one) is a grower. Like with the Caladan pic, it's sometimes too easy to go for something predictable and uninteresting... these are not. I like that.

(I posted a linky on my site literally last thing at night last night. Now ComingSoon et al have gotten wind of it I'm being out-googled already I need more fu...)

[SadisticCynic]

The whole Alien thing going on at 11 is a bit weird though, no?

[Redstar]

I had the opportunity to speak with Jock a little more about it and he said that he was very nervous to put up the artwork as he's not sure if he's even legally allowed to do so at this point. I asked if he'll be putting up more or all of the artwork at some point and he said he may over time, but for now he's just trying to be sneaky and testing the waters.

I also lined-up an interview with him and Unseen Dune about his involvement with Berg's adaptation but for obvious reasons that won't happen until after Morel's Dune comes out or is canceled.

[merkin muffley]

I liked Children of Men.