I just watched Children of Dune all in one viewing

...and last night I watched all of the Dune miniseries in one viewing.

I think it's incredible how much better Children was done. The original miniseries suffered from repeated scenes (the same godsdamn explosion over and over again for every battle), a nearly boring score, poor effects, and over-the-top acting.

Children, however, is so incredible that it's easy to watch in one viewing. Hell, I went over some scenes repeatedly since they were so good.

Anyway, I just had to get some praise out for this masterpiece.

 

Both Dune miniseries are really good and MUCH better than David Lynch's Dune.

 

I just watched Children of Dune all in one viewing ...and last night I watched all of the Dune miniseries in one viewing.

I can't decide whether to admire you for this, or call you a schmuck.

 

Are the miniseries available somewhere?

I've scoured the Earth for them. I would kill to have them.

 

I need to read the books before I watch those.

 

god, james mcavoy is good good looking in that miniseries.
[image=http://scifi.about.com/library/graphics/childrendune30.jpg]
oh yes.

leto is pretty much all i remember. i used to watch the old Dune all the time when i was little. not the old old one with sting, the other one.

 

What?

To my knowledge, all there is is the one with Sting and the Sci-Fi miniseries. As I recall, the miniseries is way too recent for you to have watched it "when you were little." What are you talking about?

 

I am not great with measuring time, sorry. but i was like, 11 years old in 2000, so that is fairly little.

 

David Lynch adapted the first novel in the 80s, with less than stellar results. I love the SciFi miniseries as well. Actually, i too just watched the first miniseries while recovering from my root canal. Very relaxing.

And I agree with Raincloud, James McAvoy is very easy on the eyes.

 

Oh, ok. Wow. I didn't even realize it was that long ago. I was going to say it came out, like, 2 years ago.

But on to the next order of business. Someone please tell me how you're getting hold of copies of the Miniseries. I. want. it. BADLY.

As much as I love the ridiculous excess of Lynch (in honesty, I think his ending "And how is this possible?" conveys the messianic angle better than almost anything I've seen) I want that miniseries. Tell me how to get it.

 

Amazon's your best friend

Scroll down, you can even buy both of them together for less than $17.

 

OK... I don't know what y'all have against the David Lynch version, unless it's Sean Young. At least in that version, Paul comes off as heroic, rather than seeming like an ego-driven megalomaniac, as he does in the miniseries. Also, many of the costumes in the miniseries are downright ridiculous. The Sardaukar look like French painters (and lack head protection), and the Harkonnen troops are basically crazy samurai with handheld gatling guns (give me a break, that's a crew-served heavy weapon). Irulan is thin as a rail, and her butterfly costume just painful to see. For me, also, the Lynch movie has more of the feel of the book, and the miniseries doesn't.

I have to ask, did you see the longer or shorter Lynch version? There's a longer and a shorter version, and each has some unique things, though generally the longer one is better. Although what's her name denies it, I believe there is a five hour cut somewhere that includes all of it.

 

There is a director's cut that Frank Herbert himself was reported to prefer over the theatrical release.


I didn't like the portrayal of the Sardaukar in any version, to be honest. IIRC, the Lynch vesion had them dressed up in garbage bag outfits. The Sci-Fi version had them looking pretty funky...but not nearly as funky as the Harkonnen troops.

And the Baron. WTH. Why is he talking in rhymes? I don't recall that being in the novel, nor was he so annoying. He seemed more clever in the book. The Sci-Fi version made him seem like a silly Saturday morning cartoon villain.

And the Guild. I shudder every time Paul commands the Guild agents to take the gathered Great Houses away from Arrakis at the end. The agent goes over a bunch of Power Ranger-like hand motions while saying, "We. Do not. Obey. You."

And a lot of the costumes were ridiculous. And the fight scenes weren't all that great.


I'm trying to get some friends into Dune, but I'd be too embarassed to recommend that they watch either this version or the Lynch version. I want them to get to Children, but I'm afraid that if they see the Sci-Fi Dune first, they won't want to bother with Children.

I recently bought both miniseries from Amazon. As mentioned before, you can buy them together for under $20. That's quite a grab.



Anyway, I think it's just so amazing how sub-par Sci-Fi's Dune is when compared against the effort they put into Children.

What I love so much about Children is that so much of the dialogue comes straight from the novels. And even when Sci-Fi used "creative liberty," they did it in such a way that actually improved scenes from the book.

Like Alia's death scene. Her "I want my brother" was heartbreaking.

And Leto II holding Paul in his arms, crying out as his father died.

The novel always gave me the impression that Leto II was kind of indifferent to emotional situations. He seemed to not care too much about personal matters. But the Sci-Fi version gave him a quality of compassion that I felt he should have.

 

I have all the incarnations of Dune in my movie collection. I love the Lynch version/ and various incarnations of different cuts, because I saw them before I read the novel and the rest of the series. Then I read the book and realized that the Lynch version isn't really faithful to the novel.

Years later..

The Sci-Fi miniseries came out and I loved it because it was a pretty faithful adaptation to the novel, and the same for COD. The main gripe that I have about Children of Dune is that it should have been longer and had more of Dune Messiah in it.

 

I heard a rumor SciFi might do another Dune. I want to see big angry Leto worm-man.

 

I heard that too, but God Emp is a bit bizzare and most people won't truly understand it unless they have read it at least once. I heard that they were thinking of doing one of the prequel stories.

 

I hadn't heard that, but I know that the creators of Dune and Children of Dune tried to talk Sci-Fi into a Dune television show and that Sci-Fi turned them down for some reason.

 

As in "House" prequel, or angry evil people smashing robots?

 

House, as far as i've heard.

 

Are there any real stores that sell it? I've never ordered anything online before, so I'm kind of nervous about it.

As for the whole Lynch v Sci-Fi debate, it's a mixed bag. I don't know how I feel about the Bene Gesserit being glammed up cowboys. On the other hand, presenting the weirding way as the "Crouching Tiger" style martial arts seemed a lot more effective to me than those stupid guns with the whole "certain thoughts have frequencies" explanation that Lynch pulled out. Overall, I think the high points of Lynch's interpretation was demonstrating the gortesqueness and perversion of Baron Harkonnen, and (as I said earlier) really presenting Paul as a messianic figure. The young Alia in that version does a good job, and it's pretty spectacular to see the light scintillating down onto him as it begins to rain spontaneously. It does represent a significant departure from Herbert, however. Further, I would say it arguably conflicts with the larger discussion about the nature/function of religion and messiahs. But whatever, it's nice. As for the Lynch's weaknesses, I thought that he spenta bit too much time fixated on Caladan and what is essentially the first 50-100 pages of the novel. Also, while taken from the book, I think that onscreen, a lot of the internal vocalizations really fell flat. Because the actors were already acting out their emotions, it was kind of comically ridiculous to then here them verbalized again, whereas in the novel, you didn't have the benefit of wathcing body language, so it was actually helpful.

On the balance, I think prefer the Sci-Fi version more. Although I may just be remembering it fondly, since it's been years (I literally only really saw them both when they premiered, then I caught like one hour of one of the 2 AM random reairings or something a few years back).

 

Every now and then, they show the long version of the 80's Dune on Sci-Fi channel and on the Encore channel. I bought my Non-Lynch version of the 80's Dune on Ebay. That is the one I prefer, even over the nice edition of Dune that had a version of the long cut that came out last year. The version i'm talking about shows the Baron in his true perverse ways.

I just need to get the COD miniseries on DVD and my Dune collection will be complete.

 

Yeah, no, I've on-demanded the version they were playing on Encore at least three times in the last two months.

 

Dune always bored me.

 

Have you read it, watched it, or both?

 

Both. I just got bored by it.