AHC: A Dune Trilogy as successful as Star Wars

Perkeo

Banned
IMHO The 84 film is million times better than the (poor) miniseries, but everyone has his likes and dislikes ...

EDIT: The books went from great to not bad to bleh to WTF ...

Well, my dislikes of the 84 film were:
1) Pizza-face Wladimir Harkonnen (He may be ugly, he is evil, but he ISN'T uncultivated)
2) Paul Muad'Dib the rainmaker(I don't think I have to explain this;))
3) The Weirding Way (this is as important to the Dune Universe as light sabers to the Star Wars Universe) becomes a device.
4) A story cut to two hours that needs at least the three hours that David Lynch originally planned.

The miniseries tried a lot harder to be faithful to the original. Not that they didn't change anything, but they didn't violate the spirit of the original.

But certainly my likes and dislikes would differ if my entry to the Dune universe hadn't been the miniseries.
 
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Well, my dislikes of the 84 film were:
1) Pizza-face Wladimir Harkonnen (He may be ugly, he is evil, but he ISN'T uncultivated)
2) Paul Muad'Dib the rainmaker(I don't think I have to explain this;))
3) The Weirding Way (this is as important to the Dune Universe as light sabers to the Star Wars Universe) becomes a device.

I agree wholeheartedly with these points and add a couple more:

Heartplugs. What the hell? And the Baron had one!?

Becoming Reverend Mother makes your hair fall out.

Limited psychic teleportation is a better weirding way than focused-sound guns, but in the book it's basically advanced kung fu/judo. A bit too subtle for the Moronic Viewers?
 
Well, my dislikes of the 84 film were:
1) Pizza-face Wladimir Harkonnen (He may be ugly, he is evil, but he ISN'T uncultivated)
2) Paul Muad'Dib the rainmaker(I don't think I have to explain this;))
3) The Weirding Way (this is as important to the Dune Universe as light sabers to the Star Wars Universe) becomes a device.
4) A story cut to two hours that needs at least the three hours that David Lynch originally planned.

The miniseries tried a lot harder to be faithful to the original. Not that they didn't change anything, but they didn't violate the spirit of the original.

But certainly my likes and dislikes would differ if my entry to the Dune universe hadn't been the miniseries.

Another Complaint about both the miniseries and the 1984 film: Not nearly enough time devoted to the intrigues taking place on Giedi Prime. IMO, that was one of the more entertaining parts of the book, especially Thufir Hawat's role.
 
Star Wars hadn't changed but they most certainly had. What they needed in a movie as an adult was different from what they had needed in a movie as a child. So, when Lucas produced another set of kiddie films, the adults uniformly panned them, the children uniformly loved them, and Lucas chuckled as the truckloads of cash from figurines and Happy Meals topped off his #8 Money Bin.

Except that the original series was popular with adults when it was released as well, which cannot be said for the sequels. I was on the bleeding tail end of childgood when I saw Episode One, and even then it was pretty obvious to me it was terrible. The plots and characterization of the original series was far and away superior to the sequels. The original series was loved by children and adults despite it's flaws, the sequels were universally panned by adults and more than a few children because they were boring and terrible despite their flashy effects.

The idea that a successful film for children or the masses has to be "dumbed down" to be successful has been an absolute ruiner. It's absolutely not true, but they are easier to make so that comes out as the justification post-fact.
 
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