I get the feeling Berg is trying to outdo Peter Jackson with this one. Dune is the SF equivalent of Lord of the Rings after all and Berg's backlog of movies is considerably less impressive than PJ's was when he took on LOTR. I think a lot of us were surprised that PJ got the go ahead for LOTR (thank god he did though) - so maybe Berg can pull this off. Still, we don't need another half-baked Dune movie so it would have been reassuring if someone with a more impressive list of movies to their credit was directing this.

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Votes: +24

...that they get the look and feel right. I'm a BIG fan of the Lynch movie. I think the look and feel captured the DUNE universe just right even if the plot was mangled. Anyone else feel the same? I felt the SF channel's version while more true to the storey was kind of shoddy when it came to depicting this epic storey.

K

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Couldn't agree with you more K. Adams. I enjoy both Lynch's version and the SciFi channel miniseries for the reasons you give: Lynch captures the feel of the Dune universe perfectly and the miniseries tells the story better (though that is a relative statement and here's hoping the new movie gets it perfectly right).

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K. Adams and Gerard: (both) SF channel miniseries were low-budget. And even so the look and feel as well as story were better captured by SF then Lynch for me (and I do love the Dune movie, it was the main thing that made me read all the books). Lynch view was too dark... even the movie itself is too dark. Sure, they traveled mainly during the night, but Arrakis was a no cloud (except for the coriolis, sand storms), full of sun desert for most part (except the poles). The housing, navigators, bene gesserit, kaitan, giedi prime... The only two things I see more "arrakian" to me in Lynch movie is the palace and the water deposits. All I hope is that the story is followed (and that they even use, if not all, many of the lines in the book), and since they have a nice budget (compared to SF channel miniseries), they can make a good representation of duniverse

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Votes: +2

Three things.
#1. Ornithopters have flapping wings!
#2. THERE ARE NO WEIRDING MODULES!
#3. Sardaukar are humans and breathe normal air, thus they do not need spacesuits with easily broken faceplates!

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I pray to the gods of dune that they get some of it right. Being a HUGE fan of the entire series (ive read it so many times), ive come to expect a LOT from any movie that attempts to do justice to the series.
i felt that Lynch movie got the "atmosphere" right, but butchered the story as much as the SCIFI series did. SO many unecessary changes to characters and ideas were changed.

ANd to Gregg E, #1, Hell yeah! i dont know why they can never get the ornithopters right. IF they had read the books Herbert does more than enough descrpition to make them look right.

I feel that the best book in the series was God Emporer, followed by children. IF they ever attempted God Emporer, i hope to god they do Leto right. He gives a complete description of his proportions and how he moves himself, but knowing modern hollywood, theyll give some guy a big snake suit with a hole cut out for the face.

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The real problem I had with the Lynch version is Paul seems to accept his godhead where in the books he's trying in vain not to.

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First of all- I liked some aspects of the David Lynch film, but was bothered by quite a bit- aside from the obvious plot problems. One of the biggest liberties he took is with those nonsensical "weirding" weapons. This time around, let's hope they stick to the original concept. It seems pretty natural, since the ultra-fast Bene Gesserit fighting style will lend itself to some pretty killer "bullet-time" action sequences. I also hope the casting is better this time around. All in all, there's just way too much information in each of the Dune books to make movies from them- let's hope they edit carefully and add nothing that wasn't there to begin with. I really hope they go in depth into some of the philosophical and spiritual aspects of Herbert's work- and please o please don't let them downplay the psychedelic nature of The Water of Life. It's always tricky business trying to put the experience of using psychedelics onto film since such drugs effect your thinking even more than they do what you see and here- but when done right such scenes can be mindblowing. If this first movie is good, I do hope they manage to make the whole series. In the end, no matter how good the movie or movies turn out, nothing will compare with the books. I'm half way through re-reading the entire series right now and I'm even more blown away this time than I was the first.

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One thing I'd really like to know is where to send submissions. I'm a huge fan of the series, and have been unsatisfied with the offerings in bringing Dune to screen, so far. My heart about skipped 2 beats and then kicked into overdrive upon seeing not only that there's a new movie coming, but that Berg is striving to be true to the original book - and especially that they're looking for a script!

I hope they're soliciting scripts somewhere. I have wanted to actually produce some sort of screen adaptation - webisodes, perhaps - in CG since I have no budget, but doing so would clearly be a tremendous undertaking. It is better yet to jump on the bandwagon of something that could clearly be headed for greatness.

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I have been a Dune fan since I was 15 years old, (nearly 40 years ago!) and am still fascinated by Frank Herbert's first four novels in the series (thought he lost the plot a bit for 5 and 6, but that's just me and I never took an interest in Brian and Kevin's books). I will also take a very great interest in the new movie as I thought Lynch's effort in 1984 was simply dreadful, an absolute travesty - one of the great disappointments of my movie-watching life! The TV mini-series' were much better efforts but not without their problems. Herbert's original books were complex and brilliantly melded religious and ecological concepts to create a truely incredible universe. The only way that justice could possibly be done to the story are for a series of movies as with LOTR. In fact, the first novel alone should take two movies to cover properly. I've been waiting for many years to see a faithful adaptation to Frank's amazing story and my fingers are firmly crossed!

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I've been waiting a great dune adaptation for many years too. I don't know but the best thing of Lynch s movie was Toto and Eno music. For the next movie the soundtracks must be something even better (if that is possible)or perhaps the same but improved.

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I'm glad to here that DUNE is being re-made....again.
Whilst I do hold some reservations concerning the choice of a little known director, who I've never heard of(at least I'd been into early Peter Jackson films)...I still think that it's good someone decided to give this a go.

Yeah I agree totally in the idea that the timing couldn't be more perfect in terms of Global Warming and the renewed public interest in ecological study.
Besides........

The memory of Frank Herbert deserves to be strengthened and honored by a decent string of impressive films.

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In the previous two attempts, the characters were either wooden and 1 dimensional, or bizarrely altered so as to 'modernize' them, or something atrocious. Please keep in mind that these characters in the original vision were very nuanced. As an example, Paul was not a whimsical, moody kid (oh please), but rather a well-trained, aristocrat's son, with poise, grace, manners, knowledge, and insight; he lacked (and gained) wisdom and experience.

Plot. Please don't re-arrange events, or people, or whole events. This is important for everything. Also, do not introduce soap-opera elements to 'tweak' the story. Don't put romance where it does not belong. Don't make people petulant or irrational when they never were.

Intent: Dune was NOT fantasy! The abilities and capabilities were achieved through breeding, training, society; SHOW this. It was not technology (weirding modules? huh?) It was sheer force of will and ability.

Jesus, I could go on forever...

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In the previous two attempts, the characters were either wooden and 1 dimensional, or bizarrely altered so as to 'modernize' them, or something atrocious. Please keep in mind that these characters in the original vision were very nuanced. As an example, Paul was not a whimsical, moody kid (oh please), but rather a well-trained, aristocrat's son, with poise, grace, manners, knowledge, and insight; he lacked (and gained) wisdom and experience.

Plot. Please don't re-arrange events, or people, or whole events. This is important for everything. Also, do not introduce soap-opera elements to 'tweak' the story. Don't put romance where it does not belong. Don't make people petulant or irrational when they never were.

Intent: Dune was NOT fantasy! The abilities and capabilities were achieved through breeding, training, society; SHOW this. It was not technology (weirding modules? huh?) It was sheer force of will and ability.

Jesus, I could go on forever...

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