Dune

I rented two movies the last night, "There's Something about Mary" (I almost typed "There's Something about Mark". How frightening is that?) and "Dune". I had seen Dune before, about 8 years ago, but I didn't remember any of it. I would have watched TSAM, but the tape doesn't work right.
Anyway, on to my bitch...

First of all, let us discuss casting. Good casting choices? Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck. He fit the role like a glove, even though his character was overly downplayed and simplified. Bad casting choices? Everyone else. Let's go through the list...
Duke Leto Atreides - Too weenieish! In the book he's hot-tempered, battle hardened, loyal, intelligent, and is supposed to have very hawk-like facial features. In the movie, he looked someone who would play one of the apostles no one cared about in some B-rate "Story of Jesus" movies from the sixties/seventies. And he was smaller than Paul! Paul's supposed to be a fifteen year old boy and a small one at that! Leto isn't supposed to be littler than him!
Paul Atreides - Well, never mind the fact that he's TOO OLD , that's Hollywood for ya. The biggest problem I had with him was that Kyle McLachlan doesn't come across as hyperintelligent, wise beyond his years, or calculating at all. The fact that he had some truly Conan O'Brianish facial expressions ruined it altogether for me. Anyway, he's also supposed to 1) be small for his age and 2) look like his father, neither of which he did. Also, the way that his father's death was dealt with seemed off. The movie made it seem like the whole reason why he did all that is to get revenge for his father's death. NO!!! To quote Paul from the book, "I am the Kwisatz Haderach. That is reason enough."
Lady Jessica - Would it be too much to ask if they made her seem a bit more cool (as in calm/confident), intelligent, mystical, and ruthless? She cried WAY too much in the movie. Also that hair was a problem.
The Bene Gesserit in General - Two problems: 1) They were all bald old ladies who looked like hags.
Funny, I thought they were supposed to be surprisingly attractive. That's how their breeding program worked so well, isn't it?
2) They aren't supposed to be force sensitive ("I've felt his presence").
Baron Vladimir Harkonnen - They got the merciless, self-absorbed and fat, fat, fat part right. The baron was also supposed to be cold, cunning, and calculating, none of which this one was. The shoulda got Alan Rickman instead.
Feyd-Rautha - STING WAS TOO OLD!!! He was supposed to be a teenager!
Rabban - Too young, too much screen time. He looked like Feyd's older brother, he was (I believe) supposed to be his father. Anyway, in the book, he was mostly alluded to, not seen.
Thufir Hawat - Too much of a butler, not enough of the veteran mentat who had served three generations of Atreides. For some reason I always thought of him as thinner, more muscular, and more leathery-skinned.
Piter de Vries - The hair and the lack of a cold blooded killer persona. Mainly the hair.
Duncan Idaho - Too pretty boy. Served no purpose whatsoever in the movie. He was in three scenes. In two of them, people were excited to seem him, in the third, he gets killed. What's the point?
Every single fremen, Kynes included - Not very tough. These people are supposed to be tough, spiritual, and almost fundamentalist Islamic in their devoutness to their religion. In the movie, they're a bunch of dorks who live in the desert, have blue eyes, and meet Paul.
Individual Fremen - Stilgar - WAY too young. WAY too wussy. Indistinguishable from other fremen.
- Chani - In the book, she was described as "elfin". In the movie, she looked more "mannish". Not to mention that her character was actually supposed to be somewhat developed, what with the fact that she's the hero's love interest and the mother of his child and all. (Addendum: I believe she was also in Blade Runner. And yet, she was attractive in that.)
Leto II - Paul's son. Rather major character, very important in building Paul and Chani's relationship, what with the fact that he's their kid and all. Not even mentioned in the movie.
Yueh - No.
Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV - wasn't he supposed to be a cold-hearted redhead who looked something like Leto?
But it wasn't just the bad casting I disliked. It was the story it self.
1) One of the major points of the story is that the most important resource Dune had to provide was not spice, but Fremen. The movie barely even tries to flesh this out, and in the process, completely MISSES the motives of the Emperor. The logic, in the book, is thus:
- The Emperor's power lies in his Sardaukar, his specially trained military core that can take on ten of any other kind of soldier and win without a scratch.
- The reason they are so good is because they are trained on a planet (Salusa Secundus) with the second harshest conditions in the galaxy (The harshest being Dune). If they can survive Salusa Secundus, they can handle pretty much anything.
- Nobody knows the connection between the Sardaukar and Salusa Secundus except the Sardaukar and the Emperor.
- The emperor also knows that Fremen, if properly led and trained, could hand the Sardaukar's asses to them on a silver platter.
- The Harkonnen don't care about Fremen, and just see them as barbarians to hunt down and destroy. They don't realize their true power.
- The Atreides think that the Fremen could be useful, but they don't really understand how much so until later.
- The Emperor gives the Atreides Dune before he realizes what plans Leto has for the Fremen. When he figures that out, he feels threatened, and secretly offers the Harkonnen help getting the Atreides off of Dune before they can really accomplish anything. Very simply put, the book establishes that controlling both the most important substance in the universe and the most powerful army in the universe would give a man absolute power. This is what the Emperor panicked at.
But not in the movie.
In the movie, the importance of the Sardaukar and the Fremen was never explained. The reason the Emperor betrayed Leto was simply that he didn't like him (and the Guild pressured him to, which in a lot of other ways ruins the story, but that would take way too long in and of itself to explain). Also, did they miss the point of Mentats completely? The movie never explained why they were so important. I don't even recall the words "Human Computer" or "Butlerian Jihad" being mentioned. Speaking of missing the point, I don't think that's what Herbert had in mind when he wrote in the term "weirding".
But enough comparisons. The movie sucked on its own terms. The soundtrack was bad. Not even Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois could save it. The sonic weaponry, while I've often thought certain incarnations of it were nifty ideas (Sonic Tanks in the Dune video games!!!) were so cheesy it's amazing they were actually used. You say "ohm" and press a button and something explodes. Couldn't they just use lasers or something? Too much overt Bluescreen. Hey, it was made in 1983-1984. By that time Bluescreen shouldn't have looked THAT obvious THAT often. The story really didn't make much sense. Ideas from the novel where thrown in and never used, leaving more unanswered questions than the Kennedy assassination.
Heart plugs?
In general, I hated that movie. One of the great Sci-Fi/fantasy/adventure novels of the 20th century was butchered. Don't ever see it.

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