mff@wuphys.UUCP (Dr. Lizardo) (12/21/84)
Well, I guess I'll throw in my 3-cents worth, too. First of all, I admit up front that I thought 1) As a science fiction film divorced from the book, it was a muddled mess. 2) As a film depicting scenes from the book, it was almost adequate. 3) As a rendition of Dune the novel, it sucked. With a novel the size of Dune, there's no way you can fit everything in to a 2-hour movie. You'll have to cut some stuff out. You should mostly be concerned with capturing the flavor of the book. Instead, this film threw in almost all of the action-scenes of the book, but totally ignored the feeling of the book. For example, one of the more enjoyable parts of the book was the Byzantine-like ploting and intruige of the various people of the book. This was totally lacking in the movie. Instead, we get a Baron who's a sadistic but pififul bafoon. An emperor who is anything but imperial. This part of the book just wasn't there. Another disaster was the film's depiction of the Freymen. In the book, they were shown as desert dwellers made tough and somewhat ruthless by thier environment. Water was THE important thing in thier culture. Stilgar mentions at one point how impressed he was with the Imperial troops because ~20 of them actually managed to kill a couple of his men before they were killed. In the movie, all of this is almost totally lacking. The importance of water was only hinted at. There was no mention of thier fighting abilities until they learned how to use the wierding device (ARRGGHHHH!!!!!). The depiction of Paul was also totally screwed up. In the book, the spice allowed him to see the approach of the Jihad. He tried everything he could to avoid it. In the movie, he was trying to start it to revenge his father's death. And at the end of the movie, peace riened for all. How could you warp the book any further. Mark F. Flynn Washington University St. Louis, MO 63130 ihnp4!wuphys!mff ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark." P. Floyd