Movies | August 06, 2009 | 19 comments

Peter Berg's Dune to be "Epic"

source: http://scifiwire.com/2009/08/director-berg-envisions-a.php

Image
jlichman
The brunt of Berg's argument can be seen in this quote with SciFi Wire:

"I think I had a much more different experience, I think, with the book than David Lynch did," Berg said in an exclusive interview on last week at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Pasadena, Calif., where he was promoting his Wayne Gretzky documentary for ESPN. "To me, I think my interpretation will feel significantly different from that and the [Syfy] Channel miniseries that aired. I have a different experience than both of those filmmakers did."

--

Berg (The Kingdom, Hancock) likes making "fun" films, but they're arguably simplistic in execution. Dune, and especially Lynch's Dune, was a Space Opera whose funding was cut when he failed to deliver a version of Star Wars to the studio.

Still, it seems like this is pushing forward. But is another Dune adaptation really needed? Especially an "Epic" Berg one?
  1. groups:
    Movies,   Upstream,   Film,   Max and Jason: Still Up,   4 more
  2. tags:
    Movies,  Film,  Books,  Science Fiction,  5 more
  3.     
    |

19 comments // Peter Berg's Dune to be "Epic"

  • StrangE2U
  • St_Alia_10191
  • donnyin3d
  • KnoaWyls
  • ocanada
    • 0
      ocanada  

    • No, we don't need a "fun" Dune. "Fun" is codeword for terrible in film making. I'm tired of exchanging plot for explosions. The Lynch movie and the Sci Fi miniseries were both good and some would say great. Don't tamper with a good thing just because your uncreative.

    • 2 years ago
  • ancalagon73
  • RENGACORP
    • 0
      RENGACORP  

    • Come on, Toto, Lynch, Sean Young in leather, floating fat man, ....walk without rhythm and you won't attract the worm. It's going to be a CG party. Nothing more.

    • 2 years ago
  • St_Alia_10191
    • 0
      St_Alia_10191  
    • RENGACORP:

      I agree that too much CGI kills it. I like what SciFi did in the first miniseries by creating soundstages of sand with an actual printed out backdrop, rather than a green screen circus.

    • 2 years ago
  • JasonCovich
  • PsychoAlan
  • octavia19
  • Drach
  • Nixie77
  • St_Alia_10191
    • 0
      St_Alia_10191  

    • DuneCat is epic.

      Seriously, there's a reason why the Dune series is the best selling scifi series of all time. And there's a reason why women like me love it. I also think that the vision is never fully realized by filmmakers because they fail to acknowledge how vital the women are to the story. The made-for-tv Dunes tried more than Lynch, and I admire them for that. But their ludicrous retooling of Irulan to be some sort of three-steps-ahead mastermind was a joke to any serious fan.

      Dune runs deep into the human psyche. Lynch went for theatrics, SciFi (or SyFy) were slaves to plot points. Until filmmakers nut up and go down to the depths that Frank Herbert plumbed, they'll only be making shadow puppets.

      Also I think that the later books which go into some explicit and pervasive sexual themes deter producers from making any serious stab at franchising the series. Unless you're willing to have un-simulated sex in your movie, don't bother even thinking about going beyond Children of Dune. Which is what SciFi did. And if you're not willing to do God Emperor and the last two (no, I don't count the Brain Herbert/Kevin J. Anderson abominations), there's really no reason to make an adaptation of the first three.

      Also the last two books have mostly women characters, and we all know that's blasphemy in American science fiction on screen.

    • 2 years ago
  • numinant
    • 0
      numinant  
    • St_Alia_10191:

      What difference does it make what gender the characters are when none of them have any personalities?

      I actually love the Lynch film for the bizarre visuals and atmosphere, but I found the first book insurmountably boring and to have some really awful prose. The mythology was intriguing, but also a bit sexist from what I gleaned, given that the savior in a female-dominated religion had to be male.

    • 2 years ago
  • St_Alia_10191
    • 0
      St_Alia_10191  
    • St_Alia_10191:

      I can totally see where you get that impression. That theory in the book actually comes from an engineered policy by the Bene Gesserit to protect Sisters living in primative (i.e. patriarchal) societies. The only reason Paul becomes the Dune Messiah at all is that the Kwisatz Haderach gene is on the Y chromesome. The overarching theme of the books is actually neither a feminist or a chauvanist one. In the end, we're all just people, driven by our passions and in constant battle with our intellect. Whether we're male or female is irrelevant. I believe that's what Frank Herbert was trying to say.

    • 2 years ago
  • numinant
  • St_Alia_10191
  • greggyg
more from Movies:
from the community

top videos