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Television Media

More News On Dune Miniseries 104

Posted by emmett from the i-will-not-fear dept.
Yodel_Spoogenshortz write:s "Here is an update on the Dune Miniseries being produced by New Amsterdam Entertainment to be shown in December of this year on the Sci-Fi Channel. The site has more photos and press releases. Earlier Slashdot articles on the upcoming series can be found here and here. For information on the Dune book series look at the Official Dune Web Site." Dune is an absolute classic, and probably my favorite book of all time. I'm hoping they don't screw it up.
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More News On Dune Miniseries More

More News On Dune Miniseries

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  • Why did they choose Dune? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Now this may seem like flamebait to a lot of the /. crowd to whom a dissenting opinion is considered a bad thing, but my personal view of this is why Dune? I mean it's always great when a new sci-fi series/film comes out but surely they could have picked a better story than Dune? There's a hell of a lot of far more worthwhile sci-fi out there.

    Dune is horribly dull and long-winded, spending 100 pages going into mind-numbing detail about the smallest of details, lending itself to that incredible "eye-glazing factor" that is also shared by much of Tolkien's work. I tried to read it several times and each time I gave up in favour of a better written book by someone who had obviously employed the services of a decent editor.

    And let's face it the setting for Dune was hardly convincing. There was a lack of background in some places, leaving the reader to guess what was going on a lot of the time, and some truly dire characterisations. I like my books to be full of detailed, convincing characters who engage in wity, sharp conversations that make them sound like real people. I'm sure you can see why I didn't like Dune - two-dimensional characters a masterpiece do not make.

    I believe that the only reason Dune attained the popularity is did was simply that is came out when there wasn't much else in the way of decent sci-fi out there, in the same way that the piece of software that comes out first often dominates the market despite its quality. There are plenty of worthwhile SF series out there which would make for far more intersting, exciting and challenging TV series and/or films. Let's hope that next time they pick one.

  • Re:Name some worthwhile SF series (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Fair enough.

    • The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
    • The Gap series by Stephen Donaldon
    • The Night's Dawn triligy by Peter F Hamilton
    • The Deathstalker series by Simon Green (cheesy but some great ideas)
    • The Xeelee sequence by Stephen Baxter

    Can't think of any more off of the top of my head.

  • Is there a furry, cuddly alien in Dune? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As a professional sci-fi consultant working for one of the top names in the entertainment industry I am working on a detailed report into the "Dune" phenomenon.

    Are there any cute, cuddly bear like aliens in Dune?

    Do you think the inclusion of cute, cuddly bear like aliens who help the young male protagonist defeat the emperor, err, baron would make a Dune movie better?

    Do you think the inclusion of cute, cuddly bearlike aliens would help the merchandising opportunities?

    Oops, look at the time, I'm late for a meeting with "GL".

  • Dune is an absolute classic, and probably my favorite book of all time. I'm hoping they don't screw it up.


    You mean like they did the original movie? (big grin).

    The original movie was so bad (in my opinion), that I wrote a letter of condolence to Frank Herbert. Never got a reply back...

    Mark Edwards [mailto]
    Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
  • Dune is an absolute classic, and probably my favorite book of all time. I'm hoping they don't screw it up.

    The obvious comment is: "you mean like they screwed up the film?". However, I'm in a very small minority here, because I actually like the film. Sure, it's not a particularly accuracte representation of the book, but that doesn't make bad, just different. As for it being a favourite book of all time? Well, no, but it's in my top 5, certainly. And I still think the film's good. I dread to think how the LotR film is going to differ from the book (now that is my favourite book of all time), but it may still be OK in its own right. I've got a horrible feeling that it's not going to be, though.

  • I dunno.. I felt they compressed the timeline so much it wasn't even funny. :( Like how it started raining *right* after they busted down the doors? In the book, that doesn't happen for a long, long time after that.
  • Hey! You don't need to be insulting...
  • I don't know about you, but I think muadeeb(sp?) was a geek. Think about it - he gets somewhere he's never been before (Dune) and knows everything about living there. Geeks can go anywhere and not suffer jet lag or become disoriented. Then he pissed off The Man who came after him and everyone he knew. Metallica, RIAA. Need I say more? :) Finally, he struck up a deal with the locals and brought the entire universe to it's knees. Only a Real Geek could do that!

  • It's clearly written in the 60-70's in the US of A. The world view and such things as mind-expanding drugs are of that time.

    I'd take a good Stanislaw Lem over them any time. They don't convert to movies (at all), though.

    I just hope you do know Star Diaries, Cyberias etc. over there, don't you?

    Then again, I am the same guy who found Hyperion too seriously written. Your distortedness may well vary.

  • On Dune... (Score:3)

    by ACK!! ( 10229 ) on Friday May 05, 2000 @03:23AM (#1090388) Journal
    There are certain books that never need to be produced into movies or tv shows. The "mind numbing" detail as one slashdotter puts the film technically out of the money reach for most tv productions. The incredible length and breadth of the book puts it out of the reach of a simple 2 hour Hollywood production.

    I am one of the people who like the book. The political play was fun. The plot was deep and intriguing IMHO. The attention to detail and the fact that many of the political implications are drawn from an interesting perspective of someone writing at the end of the era of colonialism and into the cold war period makes it actually more interesting.

    Would I have read a series of books just like this? No. Did I think the original book still deserved to be called a classic? Yes. Should it ever be tried on the little screen as a mini-series? Only if you got the bucks and talent to do it right!
  • Although the seven volumes share the same cosomology, the first book had a different tone
    and was most creative.
    The first book was written in the 1960s during
    the pollution scares. Therefore each planet in
    Dune had a different story to say about ecology.

    The second book is a lame sequel. The next four
    books focus an variations of human immortallity:
    cloning, memory transfer, inter-species symbosis,
    eugenics, extreme religions, etc.

    The first book is some obtuse. You have to read it
    several times to discover all the foreshadowing
    and deep texture (like Toklein). This deep
    texture fades later in the series until last year's prequel
    that lacks any suspense at all.
  • Many people hated it either because they read the
    book and though it omitted too much, or hadn't
    read the book and thought it was too confusing.
    Like Goldilocks I thought it was just right
    (but could have been longer). I loved how they
    they represented the different Houses as different
    historical eras and ecological environments.

    I welcome the new mini-series too.
    A classic piece of literature should be
    reinterpreted on the screen each generation
    because there are new social insights and
    movie making skills.

  • Here is some interesting stuff I found in a chat [scifi.com] with Orson Scott Card, about the movie Dune.

    I am hopeful this one, by spending enough time, will have enough screen space to show everything that happens in the book. Still, seems like a tall order given that half of what "happens" is people thinking to themselves.

    Moderator: Does the track record for epic SF in films - Dune, Waterworld - make you nervous about actually seeing your work on the big screen?

    OrsonScottCard: Dune was a botch because they tried to keep the whole book in it. It can't be done - not well, anyway.

    OrsonScottCard: It's like Gone with the Wind. Scarlett had three children in the book. In the movie, she has only one. There just wasn't time.

    OrsonScottCard: The thing is, a movie is about a novella's worth of story. Dune was a botch because in order to leave in all

    OrsonScottCard: the main high points of the movie, they had to cut out all the build-up that made each of those climaxes

    OrsonScottCard: work. The "all-climax" version is just numbing. When Linda Hunt popped on the screen and announced,

    OrsonScottCard: "I am the Kwisatz Haderach (or however the heck you spell it)," it got a laugh in the theater I was in.

    OrsonScottCard: Not because she said it wrong, but because there was no buildup. It meant nothing to us.

    OrsonScottCard: Also, I think evidence is clear that Lynch has no clue how to create a film that communicates with people.

    OrsonScottCard: I mean that, of course, in the nicest possible way.

  • New Amsterdam Entertainment announces a new mini-series, Smoking On the Dunes, a cheech and chong re-union movie.

  • I like my books to be full of detailed, convincing characters who engage in wity, sharp conversations that make them sound like real people.

    But real people don't always carry out witty, sharp conversations. Even if you get one person to make a good comeback, the other will be left stuttering. :-)

  • This is true to some extent. This was NOT the directors cut. In fact, (I have the tape) the director is Alan Smithee. David Lynch had nothing to do with it and petitioned the director's guild to remove his name from the credits. Fox didn't produce it either. I think it was CBS, which must have syndicated it or something.
  • Is that the same Stephen Donaldson that wrote about Thomas Covenant? I just couldn't get into his Thomas Covenent series, I found his writing to derivative of LoTR, and it just didn't grab me. Has his writing improved?

    Yup, The Gap series is my favourite recent sci-fi. However, don't judge the whole 5 books on the strength of the first one (which imho is really a novella) which isn't that great. The characters go through hell, insanity and worse. Anyhoo, I shan't spoil it for you.
  • Like the liberty they've taken by not listing a Duncan Idaho in the cast or showing pictures of him in the gallery.

  • .. if you ask me.. from the looks of the stills, seems to me the people in arrakis have plenty of water/food to go around.. i remember sean young from the movie and the other fremen in the cast were thin, almost anorexic looking, like you would expect from people who've spent their lives living in a desert world.. the new cast seems to have better access to nutrient-rich food than seems reasonable.. then again, pictures make you look fatter than you really are.. no wait, that was tv..

    just a thought.
  • If anyone sees this and is now thinking of reading the gap series ... don't. I liked Thomas Covenant. A lot. Enough to read all the way through the gap series, which was the worst SF I've ever read, and I've read quite a lot.

    His descriptive writing took a nose dive, his science is inconsistent (not just wrong, but internally inconsistent), and the characters are all completely one dimensional.
  • I am a big science fiction fan (and I mean REAL science fiction, not Terry Brooks crap). Many people told me how good Dune was, so I picked it up. It had a lot of good ideas in it, but

    1) The story itself left something to be desired
    2) The characters were more wooden than Pinocchio (pre-fairy)

    The whole thing read like an excerpt from the Congressional Record. As for the further books in the series: forget about it.

    I even tried to watch the movie, but if I made it through the whole thing I don't remember any of it.
    --
    Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
  • It was posted yesterday. How about reading the front page before complaining?
    --
    Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
  • Sig, cut it out, you're turning into Katz. :)
    --
    then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
  • Not trying to be insulting, just trying to help out. Perhaps you need more coffee...
    --
    then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
  • I risk being another "me too" here, but weren't the stillsuits "sleek black"? Aren't the fremen supposed to be a little on the lean side, after all they don't have any "water fat".... :)

    'kay, I'm being a little critical about this - but hey - I'm a fan, I don't have a life, let me nitpick!! :)

    I'm about halfway through Chapterhouse: Dune and, as the other five books - IT'S GREAT. Now all I gotta do is dig up some Lord of The Rings and the Hobbit...
  • And no one has come up with a technology to take out shield armed opponents at a distance besides the lasgun? Here's one, a cannon that shoots nets. You do it today to capture birds, why not Sardaurkar. Once their safely entangled in your nets, smash their heads with a sledgehammer.

    I think this may have been deliberate: one of the (subplots? themes? ideas?) in the book was that humanity had stagnated. Forty thousand years of peace and stability have made the race settled and complacent; there are signs of this elsewhere (such as the gradual weakening of the Sardaukar, the deeply stratified society and the aristocratic obsession with vendetta). A lack of invention could just be another such sign.


  • I remember back in '89 or so Fox broadcast a kind of "Director's Cut" that had a lot of extras added. Some of the extras were cutting room floor material but most were still shots with voice over. They made the movie into a two part mini-series.

    Being a big Dune fan I was in my glory

    IMHO, as per
    J

  • As a science fiction novel Dune was pretty non-USA. The middle eastern themes of the Mahdi and Beduin and Hashishan types ran counter to US perceptions of the Middle East. Especially since the book was pro-Jihad vis a vis the decadent, foreign aristo-capitalists of the Empire and CHOAM (read the West).

    I think Herbert was a bit of a radical.

    IMHO, as per

    J
  • Actually, Stewart played the Master at Arms, or somesuch.
  • There are plenty of worthwhile SF series out there which would make for far more intersting, exciting and challenging TV series and/or films. Let's hope that next time they pick one.

    I'm always looking for a good read, why don't you name a few good, current SF series.

    Thanks,

    George
  • I don't know what books you've read but there are plenty of books out there with these things in them. Have you read Stephen Donaldson's Gap series? They have all the nastiness, political infighting and greed in them you could ever want :)

    Is that the same Stephen Donaldson that wrote about Thomas Covenant? I just couldn't get into his Thomas Covenent series, I found his writing to derivative of LoTR, and it just didn't grab me. Has his writing improved?

    Have you read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy? There are some of the most flawed characters ever in there, characters who suffer from their problems throughout the 300 year scope of the books. And the descriptions of Mars itself are absolutely amazing. I don't actually think I've ever read any other sci-fi book where I thought "this could actually be true" about from these books.

    Yeah, I read the Mars trilogy, and while KSR's characters are flawed, they mostly annoy the heck out of me. Too may of KSR's characters start a book with a personality flaw, and never change or grapple with the flaw, no personal growth (saxifrage being an exception). And that twerp with the martyr complex in Pacific Edge, what a loser. Gee, my friends are happy, getting laid, doesn't matter if I'm a loser then, cripes.

    Getting back to Mars, yeah, I really liked that trilogy, I reread it as soon as I finished it.

    When my current book is finished I plan to recreate a lot of it in Lego.

    George
  • The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson

    Read it, liked it, a little annoyed at KSR's stock characters and stock subplots (does he have a humongous perl script to generate the requisite love triangle, bitch blonde goddess, facile politico, etc) and isn't James Cameron making a mini-series on it?

    The Gap series by Stephen Donaldon

    Has his writing improved since Thomas Covenant?


    • The Night's Dawn triligy by Peter F Hamilton
    • The Deathstalker series by Simon Green (cheesy but some great ideas)
    • The Xeelee sequence by Stephen Baxter


    Never heard of them, I'll keep them in mind next time I'm at the library.

    George
  • Ugh, don't mention the truly appalling Thomas Covenant series. They totally sucked. But the Gap series is extremely good, very heavy sometimes but well worth the read. They're in a totally different class from his other books (thank God).


    Thanks, if his writing has improved I should check him out.

    George
  • I read House Atreides, it stinks.

    If you've already read Dune, you've read most of the pivotal plot points of House Atriedes.

    Eg. Dune talks about how Leit-Kynes Pere joined the Fremen after he saw some Harkonnen killing them.

    In House Atreides, it goes roughly like this:

    Liet was driving one day and he saw a gang of Harkonnens knifing some Fremem youth. He was mad. He snuck and and killed some Harkonnens. He was going to remake the planet with the Fremen.

    You dig.

    If you can, borrow it from the library and save your money.

    George
  • Lem, Brunner, Dick, Egan, heck you can throw in Ellison there, and Pynchon would still beat them, with one hand tied behind his back (which is probably how he writes, considering how long it takes him to get a bookd out).

    Go ahead, read Gravity's Rainbow, I dare you.

    George
  • "Meesa Stilgar-gar Binks. Yousa in da wronga place, we gonna tak-a you watta"

    "The mindkiller fear is. Wait for the danger to their kind and kill them, a real human would" said the Reverend Mother Yoda.

    "Ghani, I am your grandfather, join me"

    Hee-hee,

    George

  • Defending Dune (Score:4)

    by georgeha ( 43752 ) on Friday May 05, 2000 @03:36AM (#1090415) Homepage
    I'll admit, I really liked Dune. When I first read the trilogy, in 8th grade, I lovd teh first book, and thought the second and third dragged. I've since reread the second and third, and appreciate them more, now that I've experienced life a bit.

    Anyhow, things that I loved about Dune.

    1) The Machavellian Politics. It's refreshing to see corrupt, machavellian political machinations, with various factions plotting against each other, hiding their true motives. Too much science fiction is full of well meaning, pure at heart politicoes, it's nice to see some evil, greedy folks for a change (cf. Larry Niven, is there anyone in his books who isn't motivated by good intentions?)

    2) The level of detail. I really dig the level of detail and backstory in the books, though I can understand the MEGO affect for other readers. The glossaries, the appendices, I love them. This does backfire though, as the latest books in the Dune series (I'm thinking of House Atriedes here) are just a verbatim retelling of the backstory, lame, lame, lame.

    3) The flaws the main characters have. It's nie to see main characters with personality defects, it makes Dune fit right intothe Greek Tragedy genre.

    4) Dune, the planet. Dune just sticks with me, Herbert described it so well I could write a hundred stories there.

    Okay, the flaws, there are a few.

    1) The warfare. Okay, Herbert was trying to make a realistic explanation for the lack of guns due to sheilds. But then you can't use shields on Dune. In my mind, a platoon of Marines with M-16's should have been able to take out the planet then, wasting Fremen at 500 yards who were only armed with those pesky zip guns.

    And no one has come up with a technology to take out shield armed opponents at a distance besides the lasgun? Here's one, a cannon that shoots nets. You do it today to capture birds, why not Sardaurkar. Once their safely entangled in your nets, smash their heads with a sledgehammer.

    2) The later books. They lose the magic. Book 4 is okay, then they go downhill. As fasr as the new one, they should dig up Herbert's body, wrap him in copper wire and make a generator out of it, his body should be spinning sop fast.

    George
  • If you could do anything in any language, there would only be one language.
    Not necessarily. You can do the same things in any Turing-complete language (ignoring, for the moment, concerns about efficency); but that doesn't mean you can do the same things with the same amount of ease. Anything you do in LISP, you can do in C, and vice versa - but it might hurt a lot more one way.
  • Now that was funny. I can just see Yoda in drag as a Reverend Mother too.

  • Have YOU ever read the Dune books? I'm about half way into the third one right now, and it has rained on Dune already. It may have even rained in the second book (I can't quite remember).
  • "he struck up a deal with the locals"

    Wouldn't that require some social skills?
  • "Occasionally, due to bad moderation ... a Non-Linux article slips through..."

    Sorry. Just thought that was too funny.

  • ...used to be my favorite author. I know I'm in the minority when I say I loved the Thomas Covenant series. I know everyone hates the main character cause he's a whiny loser, but get over it. There are dozens of great characters in those books. And the storyline and themes go quite a bit beyond anything else in the genre.

    But, Donaldson is a classic "overwriter", as I call them. His descriptions are over the top. His depiction of his character's internal struggles is particularly overdone, and, to me, painful to read. The gap series had all the same self-conflicted characters as Thomas Covenant series, but without any really memorable characters, I thought. The themes are all the same though, which is interesting.

    These days, I enjoy more simply told stories (not necessarily simpler stories), and my current favorite author is Lois Bujold.

    Regarding Dune (oh, yeah, that's what this thread is about), I thought it was a great book. The movie would have been fine, except it was such a great book, and I'd read it, so I was disappointed. The rest of the series is worthless except for #4 ("God Emperor of Dune").
  • >I am pretty tech-savvy and have seen code in VB, Pascal, C and C++ as far as I can see they are all pretty much the same. You have procedures(functions, methods) and objects (structs, etc) so I think a lot of it is just bigotry.

    I don't think you're really very tech-savvy. The difference is that Pascal and VB are languages for people incapable of understanding C, and shouldn't really be allowed to program at all. C++ is for people who are capable of understanding C, but choose to ignore things like code size and efficiency.

    >emacs is more extensible than vi, but is it really so different?
    >Anything you can do in one language you can do in another
    >Unix admin with his ork

    Oh yeah, you really know what you're talking about. For your next post, you should know that ork was actually written by Robin Williams, hence the name.
  • Perhaps "ignore" is too strong a word - "value less than its other advantages". I like C++, and sometimes I wish I could use it, mostly the embedded systems I do don't even have C++ compilers. And I don't think anyone could argue that the most widespread example of C++ to be found is anything approaching efficient. Yes, I'm talking about MFC. C++ makes such unholy messes grow - it's like fertlizer. Anyone can argue the efficiency of a language, especially its author. Some people will even tell you that Ada is as good as anything.

    If C++ really was really a better C we'd all be using it, there would be no reason not to. But we're not, it has its problems, and being inherently less efficient is just one. Bjarne doesn't even address this one in his posting defending C++ at http://www.research.att.com/~bs/C++.html - the overhead of mechanisms like virtual functions is well known. You can say "it's only three instructions" but that's still less efficient.

    Does kettle inherit from pot, or do both inherit from some other container (a black one)?
  • Well, I see where they're doing this over six hours (with commercials? without?), so hopefully they'll have the room to manuver that David Lynch didn't. I mean, if he had six hours, instead of two(?), I'm sure he could have done a more true-to-the-original-story version. But it was still a good film.
  • David Lynch's version pales in comparison to the never-filmed Alexandro Jodorowsky version. The guy is a visual genius. If any of you have seen El Topo or The Holy Mountain, you know what I'm talking about. The mind boggles on what the film would have been like. More info is here:

    http://www.hotweird.com/jodorowsky/dune.html

    Some highlights:

    1.Story boards by Jean Giraud (AKA Moebius) and Giger
    2.Music by Pink Floyd
    3.Dali stars as the Emperor
    4. FX by Dan O'Bannon
  • he who controls the grits, controls the universe. the hot grits must flow... into my pants. thank you.

    now you're really annoying me man. I've got the grits water of death, and I'm ready to pour it on a grits growing patch, you know what that means, no more grits.

    unless you supply me with your nubile daughter, of course

    you mean a nubile naked and petrified Natalie Portman right!? Geez! Doesn't anyone troll with consistancy anymore! Heh! Back in my day trolls posted early, often, and with consistancy *cough* *gag* *wheeze* . . .

    then again, in my day we prefered our women naked and UNpetrified

  • I hope there's a place for Alicia Witt in the new ones - not that she played a major part in the original...
  • Indeed, the one complaint I have against this production from what I have seen so far is the miscasting of Stilgar, Chani, and probably the other Fremen. A German and a Russian, for crying out loud! Couldn't they have at least tried to find someone who looked vaguely Semitic? Good actors from the Middle East aren't that hard to find. Just ask my wife - she's a huge Oded Fehr [freeservers.com] fan.

    Other than that I'm very impressed with the stills they've made available so far. It's going to be yards better than that awful DeLaurentis piece of garbage.

  • You see that this puts you way out of step with most REAL science fiction readers. In fact, so much so that you should probably not make your opinion about this series public.

    It's your right, and I don't have a problem with it, but dude..... It's a classic. It can still be found in any bookstore with a sci fi section. So many people have read this and found it powerful that it has taken on a palpable mystique. It's like saying you don't like apple pie. Everyone likes apple pie. And that's the way it should be. Same with Dune.

    1) The story was riveting and very original.
    2) The characters were some of the most interesting I've come across.
    3) The whole thing was addictive.

    Why do you think he kept writing sequels? Because he was bored? No, it was because people kept buying and reading them.

    Jon Sullivan
  • I don't know about the validity of Herbert going senile and using ghost writers, but it makes sense. Each book following volume 1 was more miserable than the last. A complete downhill slide. I believe it was the strength of the first book which allowed me to read the others. My expectations were continually dissappointed, but my hopes were so high I just kept reading.

    I saw the movie before reading the books. I liked the movie, although I like it less now having read the books. Original Sci-Fi of the caliber of Dune is rare. Dune was a well done movie. It was an abomination to the purists of Herbert's work, but it was still a cool movie.
    The funny thing about the movie with all it's changes is that the changes were pointless. Usually a movie studio will butcher a literary work in order to increase the audience appeal and sell more tickets, but the changes in Dune were for no reason other than the director/screen writer thought they had better ideas than Frank Herbert. That's a heady assumption, and in this case, a wrong one.

  • Taking Liberties (Score:3)

    by carlhirsch ( 87880 ) on Friday May 05, 2000 @03:14AM (#1090431) Homepage
    From the stills I've seen, it doesn't look like they're being too faithful to the novel in terms of details and production design. The stillsuits don't look like they process the body's entire moisture (and let's face it, one of the best things about Lynch's version was the production design and its faithfulness combined with weird stylizationg - take the fetish-looking stillsuits for example). Fremen with no water discipline? Come on...

    It's possible that this miniseries will be more of an interpretation (It looks like it's way more D&D than Sci-Fi. Everybody looks like an extra from _Jabberwocky_). This could be the project's saving grace - Lynch fell flat because he tried to capture the entire scope of the novel and ALMOST caught it. I'm not gonna hold my breath, though. None of the Sci-Fi network's productions have really impressed me.

    -carl
  • I really did enjoy Dune; it was well-written and enjoyable. The extra description actually did a lot for me - I enjoyed Tolkien for the same reason . Of course, as the series went on, it started to lose a lot of quality. I heard that Herbert was so senile after the third that the last three were 100% ghost-written. Anyone know anything about the truth of that?

    But I do recall the movie, which was, while probably a good movie in and of itself, such an aweful rendition of the book that I'll never be able to think of it any other way.

    Here's hoping that the new miniseries is much much better (as it would have a hard time being worse).

    Dragonsfyre.
  • I read this and I say to myself: Here is a man who truly appreciates literature. Stanislaw Lem is a freakin' genius. Brilliant writer, great stories, excellent social commentary and funny as hell. And underappreciated.

    He's right there next to John Brunner ("To Stand on Zanzibar" and "The Sheep Look Up" are two of my favorite books).
  • I don't think you're really very tech-savvy. The difference is that Pascal and VB are languages for people incapable of understanding C, and shouldn't really be allowed to program at all. C++ is for people who are capable of understanding C, but choose to ignore things like code size and efficiency.

    People who live in glass houses... Or maybe it's pots and kettles. Anyways you're description of the differences between the languages A) isn't funny (not just because I'm pedantic but because it's really not funny) and B) isn't accurate. I'm sorry to break this to you but C++ is as efficient and the code size is comparable to C. While propagating myths is fine and we all have our departure points from reality I believe you should attempt to rectify this inaccuracy in your own life.
    Here are some helpful links to start you on your journey into knowledge:
    Efficiency info [hyperformix.com]
    Bjarne's homepage [att.com]
    Bjarne answers a lot of the questions you might have on his page. That's where I would start.
    None of this is in any way meant to state that the original poster wasn't a clueless troll, or that C++ is inherently better than C.
    good luck. gid-foo
  • It's ok. Not great by any stretch of the imagination, but just ok. The history was interesting, but some of the storyline was just appalling. The way Liet became part of the Fremen (as georgeha mentioned) was one. The way Duncan Idaho escaped from the Harkonnens was another. I just couldn't believe what a contrived tale I was reading.

    The book does shed some more light on some of the other cultures in the Dune universe, such as House Corrino, the Guild Navigators, and the planets Ix and Caladan. So if you're into that sort of thing, it would probably be worth a read.

    Supposedly, House Harkonnen will be out in the next year or so.
  • If you were paying attention you'd notice that I already posted an "I'm sorry" notice. Pull your dong out of your ass.
  • Consistently the sci-fi original movies I have seen have been absolutely terrible. They are even consistent on that. Strangely their original series, most notably Lexx and Farscape have shown amazing originality and distinct original characters. Given that a mini-series is a compromise between them, will it be like the terrible movies or the intriguing series?
  • I don't know how you figure this is an issue of quality. The fact that

    It's clearly written in the 60-70's in the US of A. The world view and such things as mind-expanding drugs are of that time.

    is not as cut and dry as you think. The best stories are usually _not_ those with characters completely dissimilar to the reader, but those with characters that the reader can emphasize with. A story whose protagonists (or even antagonists) are so totally dissimilar to the reader that they can not see themselves in that character usually fail to engender the emotional link that makes a story moving (moved to anger or tears, take your pick!). And if I recall correctly, the books were written around that time..

    For this new effort if the story is not meddled with, then any other concerns are secondary. The example of what I mean is the "RED DWARF" British Sci-Fi. Low budget sets and props, but good stories and *fun* acting provided us with a very enjoyable show..

  • Is that the same Stephen Donaldson that wrote about Thomas Covenant? I just couldn't get into his Thomas Covenent series, I found his writing to derivative of LoTR, and it just didn't grab me. Has his writing improved?

    Ugh, don't mention the truly appalling Thomas Covenant series. They totally sucked. But the Gap series is extremely good, very heavy sometimes but well worth the read. They're in a totally different class from his other books (thank God).

  • Hmm, I personally thought Dune sucked, but that's just MHO. Anyway some responses about other sci-fi books.

    The Machavellian Politics. It's refreshing to see corrupt, machavellian political machinations, with various factions plotting against each other, hiding their true motives. Too much science fiction is full of well meaning, pure at heart politicoes, it's nice to see some evil, greedy folks for a change (cf. Larry Niven, is there anyone in his books who isn't motivated by good intentions?)

    I don't know what books you've read but there are plenty of books out there with these things in them. Have you read Stephen Donaldson's Gap series? They have all the nastiness, political infighting and greed in them you could ever want :)

    The flaws the main characters have. It's nie to see main characters with personality defects, it makes Dune fit right into the Greek Tragedy genre.

    Have you read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy? There are some of the most flawed characters ever in there, characters who suffer from their problems throughout the 300 year scope of the books. And the descriptions of Mars itself are absolutely amazing. I don't actually think I've ever read any other sci-fi book where I thought "this could actually be true" about from these books.

  • Wow glad to hear that I am not the only one who couldn't stand the Covenant Series. Everyone around me kept saying how amazing it was, but after restarting it 3 times I finally gave up on it in sheer boredom. I read the Dune series when I was young and was really sucked into each of the books. I look forward to re-reading them at some later time. Perhaps not the absolutely greatest set of books to ever be written, but definately great. The search just has to go on for even more great SF books. Too bad I can't live 10,000 years so I can read all of them.
  • Everyone remembers the David Lynch Dune film, but has anyone heard of the Dune movie that was never made.

    It was the idea of Alejandro Jodorowsky, director of El Topo and Santa Sangre, to adapt Dune to the screen. His ideas for adapting Frank Herbert's novel were interesting enough, but his list of collaborators were INCREDIBLE: H.R. Giger, Moebius, Pink Floyd and Salvadore Dali.

    But unfortunately, this was pre-Star Wars and no one wanted to finance a sci-fi movie like Dune. It died a pathetic death, save only for some preproduction art.

    To find out more, please check out:

    http://www.spiderstratagem.co.uk/failure.htm

    http://www.space.com/spaceimagined/dune_jodorows ky_991019.html

    http://www.geocities.com/Area51/6796/jodune.html
  • Correct me if i'm wrong, but i didn't see a single thing on the website that mentioned Thufir Hawat, i want to know if they just haven't cast him yet, or are discluding him, which would be wrong because he is essential.
  • Assuming imdb knows what it's talking about, this should clear up the confusion about alternate version's of dune and 'the directors cut', as well as the references to seeing a longer film I've seen scattered around.

    http://us.imdb.com/AlternateVersions?0087182

    I sought this out awhile ago as I swore, many many moons ago, my freshman year roomate in college watched an extremely long version of dune (IE - 4+ hours). I must have been dreaming though.

  • This trojan has cost over a billion dollars in damage.

    A BILLION dollars? How did you come up with that figure and what did it do that caused that damage. Did it cause hardware to blow up? Did it steal it from bank accounts? Hmm? I am so sick of hearing about damages that a virus or what ever causes without telling us how that figure came about.
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • They claim they are..."Every aspect of Frank Herbert's Dune has been created with exquisite attention to detail."... but it ain't so. The most obvious mistake I saw in my brief look at the link was the house colors of the Atreides. It is not gold and blue, it is red and black with green trim (more prcisely:sable,a hawk rampant gules bearing an olive branches verde). But gods forbid the good guys wear black and the bad guys wear white (The Harkonnen standard was white with a blue bull's head), that would be too much for the viewing public to handle I guess. Leto I with sandy hair was off as well (Atreides had black hair, Harkonnens were redheads, and Corrinos were blondes). I'm probably too big of a Dune freak to ever be totally satisfied, but I'm also too into Dune to miss this.

    As for the Lynch version, my viewing of it always goes something like: "cool, cool, wow, neato, that's absurd!" then repeat. Most of the movie looked great (Sting and the merry-go-round of death being notable exceptions) but then they ruin it with the wierding modules, stillsuits with no masks, ornithopters with no wings, and such crap.

  • Even professional writers don't always understand that the channel (or medium) demands certain characteristics of a story/plot/characters in order to make it work well in that medium. For example, everyone knows early movies were "talky" and "stagy" in a way that no half-decent films are now. In the early days, writers for the big screen assumed that plays could be pretty much transported to the screen. One might take advantage of the easier facilities for making realistic backgrounds, but basically films were treated as "plays, filmed."

    That didn't work, because the nature of film is that it gives us NO time to reflect. For example, if I am watching a play, after the character speaks I know I am in "real-time" to the extent that there is some time to consider what she said. In a film, I never know that; there might be an instant (jump) cut to a totally different milieu or character or even time. Plays have to introduce such discontinuities, giving us time to adjust, films don't.

    If I want to really explore an issue (which is usually the main thrust of a sci-fi text), a novel is the best format. If I want to make a strong emotional effect without, however, imparting much information, films work better than almost anything else. In film, one can convey character, attitude, mood, or emotion in seconds.

    If I want to explore an issue and really involve my audience, while leaving them free to think and take in information, I believe nothing works better than the good old theatre (2500 or more years old, and still going strong!). If what is said will matter, tv or tv miniseries are best; film is at its best when it is used as a primarily visual medium. Novels are more cerebral, and readers can pick them up and put them down; they remain to some extent more detached than is possible in a film (except the Woody Allen film "Interiors," which I recall left me looking at the cinema's wall clock waiting for my companion to finish watching it!).

    Now, if you have a favorite book (novel) and really want to make a good film of it, take a look at what Spielberg did to Jaws (and other novels): trim all the subplots, simplify the characters, be iconic in your casting (i.e., typecasting, especially for smaller roles). Have one strong theme and never forget what that theme is... it's the only thing viewers will take from your film (fear of the water/sharks!).

    Short stories make the best films, and this is true for the sci-fi genre, especially. Long books like Dune (which I really "dug," to use the idiom of those days!) are great at allowing us to think about or absorb complex ideas like the way society is structured by its environment, or the long-term effects of altering the environment... But Dune really can't become a good film and still explore that kind of issue in depth. Even a tv miniseries (which would have a better chance of conveying the subtle texture of the novel) will necessarily oversimplify. Is Atreides the good guy? Can that be answered in a simple yes/no way? Can tv handle the greys of his character as it develops?

  • Unfortunately, Dune doesn't compare to something like 2001....although the sequence of the book and movie for that was slightly skewed..... Reading other Arthur C Clarke makes one wonder...who wrote 2001...Arthur C Clarke, or Stanley Kubrick????
  • There was a hilarious USENET post (thread?) long ago before Lynch's ghastly Dune movie came out, about possible casting and soundtrack music for a Dune movie. The part I remember was the suggestion of Crystal Gayle's "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?" for the soundtrack.
  • I'm sure it was meant to be in the Greek tragedy genre. A good friend pointed out to me long ago that "Atreides" is the genitive of "Atreus," as in "house of..." Hence Agamemmnon in St. Alia's head demanding to be heard.
  • They have to go to the small screen!

    In the movie, Duncan Idaho (pronounced "I Da 'Ho"), is killed. In the books, he is the only character to survive the 10 or 12 thousand year span of the book series.

    They have to go to the small screen because they screw up the movie and have to start over :-)

    It is my favorite book and series of SF books, and I hope they do it right! Get George Lucas to do set design! It should have the pagentry and costumes of TPM, the extras cast of Ben Hur and the special FX of Star Wars!

  • Farscape is the absolute bomb, but you need to watch at least two episodes in a row to realize it IMHO. GvE on USA seemed to me to be much better than Good vs. Evil on SciFi. (SciFi version is too formulaic, boo). People say Lexx is pretty good, but I just yawn.

    It seems to be a tossup as to whether or not they'll screw it up.
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
  • >You see that this puts you way out of step with most REAL science fiction readers. In fact, so
    >much so that you should probably not make your opinion about this series public.

    Actually it puts him right into the fairly large group of REAL science fiction readers that after multiple attempts have finally fought their way through the long-winded, pretentious and fairly boring first edition of the dune series. I myself did this largely because if it's supposed reputation as a piece of classic science fiction. I should have trusted my initial impression of the book.

    And even if as you suggest his opinion is so widely out of step with the majority of science fiction readers (which it most certainly is not), why should he not voice his it?

    >It's your right, and I don't have a problem with it, but dude..... It's a classic. It can still be found in any bookstore with a sci fi >section. So many people have read this and found ?it powerful that it has taken on a palpable mystique. It's like saying you don't >like apple pie. Everyone likes apple pie. And that's the way it should be. Same with Dune.

    I think what is truly out step with REAL science fiction readers is the type of herd mentality that apparently rules your life. Palpable mystique, everyone likes apple pie? Those are some of the weakest rationales I have heard for doing anything.

    >Why do you think he kept writing sequels? Because he was bored? No, it was because people kept buying and reading them.

    Volume does not equate to quality, nor does popularity. If this were the case the works of Danielle Steele (spelling) would all have to be crowned as literary masterpiece and classics in their own right. Ditto for much of the other trash that so regularly dominates the top ten best seller list.
  • How about the following:

    The "Book of the New Sun" series by Gene Wolfe
    The "Galactic Center" series by Gregory Benford

    I will also include this one even though it is fantasy and not exactly current.

    The "Earthsea" series by Ursala LeGuin

  • :)

    It's a good thing you don't work where I do else you would be banished to sensitivity training
    for an entire work day... _shudder_
  • It's a pity that the most epic science fiction novels ever written have been given such horrible treatment.

    What I mean by this is the fact that I went out and bought the new reprinting of Dune (black cover) and was really bothered by the binding job.

    I'm not sure if it's just my copy, or if Ace Publishing really screwed the pooch on this one, but they didn't leave enough of a margin on the page, so you have to open the book up fairly far to be able to read the text close to the binding.

    Just a warning, if you can find an older printing of the book, buy that. The new printing really bothered me a lot (it's a good thing I've read the book 10+ times already, so it doesn't affect my enjoyment too much).
  • I think a bigger problem was that the plot compression was so unbalanced.

    It takes a lot of story telling and hanging around just getting to the goddamn planet, then when we get into the actual story, Paul Atreides is immediately made leader of the Fremen without virtually no effort.

    It wouldn't have hurt the plot significantly to have started about 100 pages into the book, with a couple of the important scenes moved to Arrakis.
  • Ummm.... I though Slashdot was about geeks, and not about Linux. So stop complaining about being pertrayed as a geek here.
  • IIRC David Lynch's original cut of the Movie was some 5 hours long I heard that 5 hours of footage were shot, but no film is ever made with the intention of using everything that was filmed.

    In particular they removed the subplot involving Paul having to kill a Fremen A part of the book that I feel is essential to establishing Paul's character. Its also a good action scene that would have made that whole chunk of the film less dull.
  • It's worth reading if you're really into Dune, because it provides an interesting historical background. The book has decent plot and structure, but falls short on the writing. Anderson just can't hope to match the caliber of Herbert's writing. It does have the advantage of being an easy read, though. I remember reading Dune for the first time, and actually getting chills reading some of the passages. The only chills I got reading D:HA were when I spilled beer on my lap. So, to summarize, it's not a bad book to kill a couple of rainy summer days with. But don't go out of your way, there's better fish in the sea.
  • I actually think that the film wasn't a half bad job. Trying to put that book into a film format is a huge undertaking, and I think you have to consider anything less than a complete disaster to be something of a success.

    I understand the point about the rain, but as the movie was a one shot deal that needed a final, resounding resolution to the story, what the hell... that's the way I look at it.

    I think the movie is kind of fun, and I've enjoyed watching it several times.

  • There was a story at the time that an editor or some such from the book company that published Dune in the US was invited to a preview of the film. Apparently his main comment at the end of the showing was a muttered "It didn't rain at the end of the book!".
  • For good space opera style SF I would recommend

    Vorkosigan Saga [sfsite.com] - by Lois McMaster Bujold [sfsite.com]

    Honor Harrington [sfsite.com] - by David Weber [sfsite.com]

    I am told that the Seafort Saga [sfsite.com] by David Feintuch [sfsite.com] is also good but have not had a chance to read it yet.

  • I heard that 5 hours of footage were shot, but no film is ever made with the intention of using everything that was filmed.

    The source for this is a book called "The Making of Dune" (by Ed Naha). It stated that David Lynch's first cut of the film was about 5 hours long. The first cut of any film is normally quite long but this was meant to be a fairly tight cut. Some of the extra footage can be removed by tightening scenes and removing padding and unnecessary sub plots. But to reduce the film to the studio's required length a lot more had to be sacrificed.

    This happens a lot and the discarded footage is the source material for a lot of the Special Editions such as Aliens and Abyss. Though I believe the extra footage for CE3K was specially filmed.

    Another memory of this book is that after the first screening of test footage of the sandworms all the men came out feeling inadequate and they realised they were going to have to be very careful about how they filmed the worms in future.

  • Lots lost on cutting room floor (Score:3)

    by Dhericean ( 158757 ) on Friday May 05, 2000 @04:09AM (#1090466)
    IIRC David Lynch's original cut of the Movie was some 5 hours long. In order to get it down to the final length they removed entire subplots. I don't know anything of this "Director's Cut" but suspect it restores some of this material.

    In particular they removed the subplot involving Paul having to kill a Fremen (Jamis?), when they meet some Fremen while escaping, in order to gain acceptance. He then takes responsibility for his widow and children (who become in effect his bodyguards). This explains the two young boys seen in amongst the groups of Fremen around Paul later in the movie.
  • Science Fiction fans are just socialized to realities that don't exist in this space/time. Like Fans of Stranger in a Strange land are totally socialized to a reality where there are people you can totally trust, that have magic powers and say "Never Thrist" Like Fans of Star Trek live in this world where you can travel from planet to plantet and people can get along- There aren't even in any language barriors. The only way to Create reality is live there and see if you can draw other people in after you. Like someone told me that the reason the armor in the movie "Starship Troopers" was so unconvincing was that somebody had read the book and our new top secret stuff was so close to the book, they couldn't use it in the movie. "You don't think military engineers can read?" (Had to be there to hear the tone.) Just Kidding! (Or am I)
  • But you have to admit that without reading the book, you'd have absolutly no idea what was going on in the movie. I read the book before I saw the movie (and I saw the movie because Pat Stewart played the mentat) and it still confused the heck outta me... maybe I just have to watch it in an altered state like 2001: A Space Oddessy...
  • Has anyone read this new prequel to the original Dune yet? I've thought about picking it up a couple of times but It's a lot of money to spend without hearing something back from other fans of Dune. For those of you who haven't heard about it, it's a prequel to Dune and deals mostly with Paul's house before Arrakis (did I spell that right, it's been a while). I'm wondering if their going to make a House Harkkonen as well, just for balance sake.
  • I am pretty tech-savvy and have seen code in VB, Pascal, C and C++ as far as I can see they are all pretty much the same.

    Someone who thinks that those languages are pretty much the same is quite accurately described as "tech-savvy". You probably also use terms like "e-anything", right?

    You have procedures(functions, methods)

    procedure != function

    objects (structs, etc)

    object != struct

    Anything you can do in one language you can do in another, likewise the same goes for editors.

    BWAAHH!!! That was great. If you could do anything in any language, there would only be one language. Each language has its high points: Pascal is easy to learn, C++ is very powerful but harder to learn, and yes, even VB has a plus -- you can get a full-fledged application up and running in no time flat. No mention about quality or speed of said application.

    Ok, so emacs is more extensible than vi, but is it really so different?

    Yes, it is. You're trying to reduce a decade-plus-old debate to people just wanting to be seen as "gurus" (another term that "tech-savvy" people use). Get real.

    I personally like vi. I don't need syntax highlighting because I know what I type. I need to edit files when emacs isn't available and I don't want to learn two editors. But other people have their reasons for liking emacs better, and I understand that.

    People have their preferences, plain and simple. Go use Visual Studio like all the tech-savvy gurus if you want. No one will complain.

  • You said: Read it, liked it, a little annoyed at KSR's stock characters and stock subplots (does he have a humongous perl script to generate the requisite love triangle, bitch blonde goddess, facile politico, etc) and isn't James Cameron making a mini-series on it?

    Okay, the point of the Mars series wasn't the characters, it was the PLANET. The evolution of the planet itself is what the series is about, not just the individual characters. Read beneath the surface a little. So you can transfer the characters names around in various stories, at least they feel a little more real and fleshed out for you than most modern scifi.

  • Now, I like fantasy and sci-fi as much as the next person here. But If Dune, LotR are you fave books/best books you read, etc then you do not read enough or widely enough.

    I saw the trailer for LotR, and nearly dies of laughter AND anger when that BS "best book of the century" line was narrated. Ever hear of Ulyses?

    These books are pretty shallow, even good sci-fi/fantasy. Lem may be an exception.

    C'mon, guys. You/we are a rather intelligent bunch. Do any of us here read non-sci-fi or non-programming stuff? Italo Calvino? J L Borges? Henry Miller? Celine? Winterson? Toni Morrisson?

    These are great authors. Almost any of their works, even the less well thought out titles blows Dune or LotR away. Like I said, I like them...same way I like Unreal or Whoppers and Fries.

    Tom

  • I know I shouldn't be responding to something so blatently off topic, you may fire when ready. However, they got this figure by estimating the potential for business lost because of the factors of the virus (the overtime companies have to pay their IS dept., the lost reputation from having to down your mail servers to keep the damage from spreading too far, the public embarassment from saying your were infected, etc.). This is a monetary loss that we're going to see more often, not by a physical attack, but rather an attack on the limited human resources.
    Now I agree that that number probably is probably very high, and that the damage is a decent amount less, but this virus did cause a lot of damage in terms of wasted money, brains and time.
  • I had read DUNE when in my early teens (shortly after it was published -geezerellahood impends)and liked it a lot for the same reasons I liked the Tolkein books - BIG ideas about life and society presented in an entertaining and agreeable fantasy format...plus the natural world looms large in both "worlds" something a lot of us have already a nostalgia for as we shut ourselves off from sunlight, flora and fauna in our brave new worlds...I think the appeal is broader than one might believe. I just discovered an old paperback copy of DUNE at a yard sale 2 weeks ago and my 15 yr. old son is devouring it. Proof! I also didn't think the sequels were nearly as good - and as for the film, I am going to have to find and watch it again - don't remember a thing about it! (Bad movie or impending geezerellahood??) Happy Trails. Debba

  • It seems that this is a website thet pre-announces the website that may arrive in June to pre-announce the mini-series

    Am I getting this right or is my mind unhitched?

  • Peter F. Hamilton was interviewed at my local bookstore a few weeks ago and when someone asked him about a movie of the Night's Dawn triology he answered "Have you ever seen Dune?" . So I think it would be very unlikely that they would make a film about it (unless PFH needed quick cash badly) as each of these books is as long as the entire Lords of the Rings triology. BTW: PFH mentioned that he was inspired by the Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher (The White Mountain, The City of Gold and Lead and The Pool of Fire) in his youth, which I thought was great as I thought those books were great. They were turned into a not-too-bad sci-fi series by the BBC in the mid '80s, which sadly was left hanging halfway into the story.
  • This is News for Nerds.
    If you don't want to be stereotyped, than you shouldn't try to belong to group at all. If you go to a news for nerds site, there will be stereotyped news.

    Hey, i hate linux, but i come here for all the other stuff.

    Find yourself a linux-only news site, and complain there.

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