Maybe not. I'm just remembering the descriptions on how efficient they were and all that. Either way, the current series is an improvement over Lynch's but not as good as it could be IMO.

That's how I recall them.

Damn, I'm going to have to go home tonight and find the appropriate passages, but I'm 99.9% certain that the "tube for nose and mouth" thing was an invention of Lynch for his film version.

I'm pretty certain that Herbert described the stilsuits as being much more covering of the face and body extremities. (I always pictured something closer to what Khan is first seen wearing in Star Trek II.) Of course, it isn't particularly cinematic to have your main characters wearing so much garb in a film... so Lynch and Harrison both seem to have improvised.

These miniseries (the first one and this new one) don't seem to be stressing water conservation as much as they should anyway. That is something that is hammered home again and again in the novels... but here it seems like an afterthought.


Overall, though, I thought last night was pretty good. They managed to do a fairly decent job telling the story of Dune Messiah with only about 90 minutes of screen time. (Although the acting was a bit rough in spots and many of the scenes were too heavy on dialog.) They score a lot of points for finally including a scene involving Bene Gesserit hand signals.

I don’t think there was anything for the mouth, other than a tube to drink recycled water from. IIRC, there were plugs fitted in the nose, and one was to inhale thru the mouth, and exhale thru the nose, thus trapping any exhaled moisture (and, I think there was mention of quite a bit of moisture in exhaled breath). Although, that doesn’t exclude the possibility of a mask covering the whole face. (I will patiently await your research. )

(Haven’t seen the latest yet, but…) I agree that conservation was not mentioned much. In fact, in the first mini, when Stillgar (or whoever) spat there was a pregnant pause that I think only those who read the book would understand. Maybe. Hell, you could probably do a whole mini on the pages upon pages about water and conservation. But who would watch?

Also, if you want to get picky, there’s no mention of the proper way to walk without attracting a worm. With an epic as monstrous as this, there are a lot of things that have to be sacrificed.

Didn’t Harrison’s version use off-the-shelf masks, like you might find at a hardware store? I thought that was pretty lame.

Seems I'm the only one really disappointed with this so far. The acting by pretty much all of the newcomers was sub-par. The replacement for Stilgar being the worst. And with them chopping the story up so much the acting was what should have carried the series.
They seemed to not even bother highlighting the fremen eyes to be consistent with the first series. They did do it, but not nearly as strong as before. A minor annoyance, but I feel its probably something I can chalk up to budget constraints. I liked the way the first mini-series had the feel of a theatrical play. Not doing the sequel in the same style is just one more inconsistency to add to something that already is different enough.
Due to them cutting out so much from the book (this first part was all of Dune Messiah as mentioned) a lot of stuff seemed to jumped around too quickly. There was no feeling of cohesiveness. I mean Lynch couldn't fit the first book in one movie even with most of it as exposition and changing stuff. Why would they think they could do the second book in one?
I really noticed the lack of Vittorio as cinematographer (we lost his great lighting for scenes) and I think that John Harrison should have directed this one also if for no other reason than that whole consistency thing I look for in good sci-fi. Anyone know why he didn't?
I really hope the next two parts get better. Although seeing Muaddib's son in this one I kept being reminded of Hayden Christensen from Episode II (i.e. really bad actor, but looks good on the cover of teen magazines).

From an article in the Boston Globe, it appears the director didn't even read the book. Either that or he's a total moron.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/0...friction+.shtml

At any rate, I liked the first movie enough to wait for this one to hit DVD. That way I won't have to suffer through commercials and get anamorphic/surround sound as well.

The stillsuits don't cover the eyes but they DO cover the mouth and nose unlike the stillsuits in the '84 movie. I mean come on, WHY WOULD A STILL SUIT BE BLACK....IN THE DESERT????? It looks cool but black in not practical in that situation.

The DUNE ENCYCLOPEDIA has an accurate drwaing of the stillsuits. The 1st Sci Fi series were closer to what the book says about stillsuits.

Who else thinks Julie Cox is hot?

I'd rather have Sarandon

...and I'd rather have Jessica Brooks who plays Ghanima.

Me

Just watched the first episode tonight. I thought is was great and Alec Newman did a great job. All three (or 4 if you count Sarandon) are perfect for their roles, ie hot. I very much enjoyed this first installment and look forward to watching the next two.

Show 1: not too bad. A little plodding in a lot of places, but I assume it’ll pick up now that much of the backstory is out of the way.

From the gripes department: you couldn’t possibly cover everything from the book. But, for some reason, I have a problem with the crysknife not being sheathed unless blood is drawn concept. Just something I’ll have to overlook it, as with the first mini.

And I do miss the blue eyes effect. Yeah, I know many have bitched about the way it looked in Dune, but having established that look, I miss it.

Julie Cox is a very striking woman, very classically beautiful and an excellent actress.

The actresses who play Chani and Alia are also lovely and exotic. For whatever you might think of the miniseries (I felt the second night was pretty spotty), the women in many of the major roles provide for material that is definitely spankworthy.

WOW, tonight's episode is very cool.

Hay, the only reason I watched the thing was for the twins. The scenes with the twins were the best. The last segment was my favorite even though it went over the top in some places. The running, the stomping to call on the worm. I still loved it and I read the books (15 years ago). I just never try to expect things to be anywhere as good as a book. I'm just glad they made the effort.

There are many folks who expect a movie to be exactly like a book. That’s an unreasonable expectation (on many levels), IMO.

If I want to experience the book, I’ll read it. I’m looking for a different experience, although I’d like for there to be some continuity.

I remember a question posed to Harrison about the first movie about if he’s going to portray the ornithopters accurately. I’m thinking, c’mon, people, give him some room for creativity. (BTW, aerodynamically speaking, they’re doing it wrong. But that’s for another discussion. )

Several Stephen King book movies seem exactly like their books. But, for some reason, they’ve never given me the same level of excitement found in the printed version.


Was unimpressed with the 2nd part of CoD. And I detest the music. I hope the 3rd has something to look forward to.

As I recall (and, I admit, my memory on this is fuzzy too), it is mentioned in the book but wasn't a major plot point. More of a 1 or 2-line thing "They tried it, it didn't work." They probably just included it in film because it would look cool (which it did).

now I never read the books But Children of Dune(scifi miniseries) is that a compilation of the several collection of books?

Children of Dune (the miniseries) is based on the 2nd + 3rd books in the series. The first night covers Dune Messiah. The second and third nights cover Children of Dune.

I love the music......so much so that I went and bought the soundtrack yesterday. I think Brian Tyler did a wonderful job of conveying (musically) the sense of awe and epic scale of Dune.

O.K. Let me clarify: the music is just fine. But it doesn’t fit the movie. It’s too “American.”

I like the mood set by the music from the first movie better. It provided a very “foreign” feel that I think was important to “the awe and epic scale of Dune.”

But that’s JMO. YMMV.



Frankly, I haven’t found much to hold my interest here. I’m wondering if I would be lasting this long if I hadn’t read the books.

Kind of like with Taken. I’m hoping it will be worth it. I guess I’ll find out in a few hours.

I watched the entire 6 hour series. Here are my thoughts.

This is pretty much just like the original series. 95% of it consisted of people in fancy costumes, sitting around fancy sets while taking part in long winded discussion about very strange things. Banal dialogue. I just found the first 5 hours boring as hell. If you like all talk and no action, you should love this. No drama, suspense, and definitely no action. I've seen more action in a 1 hour episode of Smallville than I saw in 6 hours of CoD. These people never really do anything. Thus, my problem has to stem with the source material. After watching both th first mini-series and now the CoD mini-series, I now no longer wonder why so many hated the original.

Now, onto some positives. The last hour was very good. The reunion of Leto and his father in the desert was good stuff. Leto returning transformed was also good sutff. I thoroughly enjoyed the last 60 minutes. My only question would be where in the hell was this during the first 5 hours?

The effects were definitely a notch above the original. However, it's still about as good as you're going to get for a TV series. Effects are nowhere near the best effects used in film. I imagine low budgets and lack of experience on the part of the VFX house is the reason. But still, this was solid work for a TV and definitely a step above the work in the original Dune mini-series.

I was particularly impressed with Alec Newman and the actor playing Leto. The actress that played Leto's sister also did good work. I can see any of those three actors succeeding in big budget feature films. Surprisingly, Susan Sarandon gave an incredibly stiff performance. The actress playing Aliyah was terrible. The rest of the performances ranged from so-so to terrible.

For me, the best I could rate it would be a ** out of *****. I'm being kind by giving it that rating. The last hour couldn't make up for the first 5 hours of sheer boredom.

I think it fit the movie fine, but that's just my opinion.

Have you read the books? Your statement makes it sound like you watched this without any knowledge of the Dune series at all.

...and yet you sat and watched it for 12 hours?