My Problems With The New Dune Movie:
The new Dune film is certainly an impressive feat and a fun movie to boot, but I feel it totally botched the adaptation from the original novel. Here are the biggest changes I objected to:
- The film doesn't address future space travel and how the spice warps reality at all, for all we know this could take place in Egypt of the past.
- The Harkonnens are barely in the film and aren't referred to by name, instead they seem more like a resurrected corpse and cult of evil resurrected warriors.
- Though Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are well cast as Duke Leto and Lady Jessica, their characters are much more flippant and humorous than they were in the novel. Paul Atreides isn't even in the film, they must be saving him for the sequel.
- The main plot of the book is completely ignored in favor of an original light adventure story, ignoring the complex culture and events of Frank Herbert and focusing on old ruins, adventures on camels, and gunfights with old mummified henchmen.
- Thufir Hawat has been replaced by a pilot named Winston who flies our heroes in a biplane (not an ornithopter like in the book!) to a city called Hamunaptra, which wasn't even in the novel.
- The greedy character of "Benny," a most unfuturistic name, is concerned with gold instead of spice, giving the story too much focus on money instead of the fight for Arrakis.
- The title card is illegible and looks more like it says "The Mummy" than "Dune Part 1."
That said, the special effects were very good, the late 1990s style look of the film was cool, the music was memorable, and the action was lots of good natured fun. 9/10 as an action flick, but 2/10 as a Dune adaptation.
incendavery