When the original
Dune book was out in 1965, science fiction
was still a form of art which seem to speak
to a mostly neglected "low-value"
audience. It was not until in the late 70's
came the success of Star Wars that SF came
out of its shadowed place, so that a huge
number of SF books started to be transformed
into highly successive films.
The rights for a Dune film came to David Lynch,
who is known to be one of the most charismatic
and, at the same time, peculiar directors in the
history of cinema. Lynch decided he would not
produce another one film with the shallowness
and simplicity of the Star Wars story. So he went
on to produce something of a special structure,meant
to guard the complication of the book plot, to
the extent that this was possible at least.
The result is known to all of you, i guess. There
came a film so condensed, that it could have been
perceived by the book readers. It was much too
hard to explain in just 2 hours all the complex
universe that had come out of Herbert's imagination.
The unstable tripod of power that hold the empire
(emperor, Landsraad and Guild) could have not
been depicted. Most of the Bene Gesserit related
information was lost, ecological thought were
diminished to a minimum and the philosophical
background that supports the Duniverse in all
the books produced by Frank Herbert is simply
too superficial.
What is more, regarding the characters, the Baron
Vladimir Harkonnen is too nasty, Duke Leto
is too good, and the rest are just described
with not the right quality and depht that the
book suggests.
On the other hand we must admit that Irulan's
short introduction to the movie is one of the
most inspired we have seen in the history of science
fiction cinema and that Sting forms a miraculous
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, with just the right mixture
of cynicism, nastiness with an irresistible look
in his face.
As a whole, it is not too strange that Dune movie
had not the impact not the following the book
had instead. However, it is still recommened for
all of the Dune book adepts, as an interesting
new look in the story. You can buy it immediately
here.
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Have your review published here
