http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117982560.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1
IIRC this is one of the more generally approved of books on Languish, and was wondering about what people thought the remake might be like.
Its an interesting time to make it. In the aftermath of 9/11 I think there will be a temptation to play up either the differences between the Fremen and say the Taliban, or play them up as thoughtless killing machines.
Personally, I don't really know if it is possible to do it as one movie. It is really , really hard, even the TV series had to remove one of my favorite sequences (Duncan Idaho talks to a Fremen right before he is killed as he watches a Fremen ornithopter crash into a Sardukar troop transport, and is totally flabbergasted by the Fremen remarking that the Sardaukar are "good fighters", though the Imperials end up being slaughtered anyway). I'd have the first part go from Caladan to the crash in the desert, with the second being Paul's "Fremenizing".
Any cast suggestions? I'd love to see Peter O'Toole as the Padishah Shaddam IV and Omar Shariff as Stilgar, but Omar is too old and too rich to do it. I can't think of a good Paul; needs to look young, be short, be a little boyish looking, as opposed to the rigid, manly handsomeness of his father.
I do not approve of it!
I think the Lynch version suffered primarily because they tried to do it as one movie. When I first saw it as a kid, I hadn't read the book yet. Without that, it made no sense at all. Just too much stuff left out.
The tv adaptation was far better for this. You could actually understand the significance of the Sardukar being on Arrakis and the political undertones were far more visible. You got an idea of the timeframes involved instead of making it look like it all happened in a couple weeks.
I don't suppose Ferrer can come back as the Emperor. :P Christopher Lee could do a good job, IMO. Irulan should be Morena Baccarin--she just has that bearing. They can dye her hair if necessary. Or maybe Alicia Witt as a crazy tribute to the past.
This chick looks like Chani to me:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004825/
But I dunno if she's got the skills. The has the Zohan working against her.
Chriqui is tiny and speaks with an American accent. I had Nurgul Yesilicay in mind. (http://www.resimmotoru.com/data/media/260/Ezo_Gelin__Nurgul_Yesilcay.jpg) Though I'm afraid she might be a bit old.
Ideally, I'd prefer to have no native English speakers as Fremen. So maybe Irrfan Khan as Stilgar, Shohreh Aghdashloo as the Fremen maid, etc....I think Turks in particular would be appropriate as the Fremen are a weird mixture of Japanese and most kinds of Muslim thrown onto a single planet and mixed and evolved for 10,000 years. You'd end up with some weird, interesting looking people.
Meh. IMO, they all fall short because Hollywood's got this obnoxious fixation on making there be "The Good Guys" and "The Bad Guys." The Dune books (the original Frank Herberts, anyway) were awesome in the way there were no good guys (with a possible exception for Duncan Idaho). The Atreides, Harkonnen, and Corrin Houses all wanted Arrakis simply for the leverage. Hell, Muad'Dib even despises himself as a lab rat of the Bene Gesserit.
I tend to dislike the adaptations because the book's supposed to be morally ambiguous, but that'll never make it onto the screen.
I always thought that Leto I was as upstanding a character as you find in the Universe, even if he seems a bit blind to his betrayal by Huey and the trap set by the Emperor. Also, while the Fremen certainly aren't the good guys, they seem admirable.
Interestingly there are lot of parallels to be made with the latter bits of the Shahnameh which deal with the Arab conquest. The Persians represent a fascinating culture, but they're dressed up in gold and diamonds and plate male armor while the Arabs are practically naked. It is hard not to root a little for the Arabs.
Quote from: Queequeg on June 29, 2009, 11:56:34 PM
Ideally, I'd prefer to have no native English speakers as Fremen. So maybe Irrfan Khan as Stilgar, Shohreh Aghdashloo as the Fremen maid, etc....I think Turks in particular would be appropriate as the Fremen are a weird mixture of Japanese and most kinds of Muslim thrown onto a single planet and mixed and evolved for 10,000 years. You'd end up with some weird, interesting looking people.
:lol:
Good luck seeing that on screen, maybe if some Turkish producer gains the rights somewhere down the line
Quote from: katmai on June 30, 2009, 12:08:26 AM
:lol:
Good luck seeing that on screen, maybe if some Turkish producer gains the rights somewhere down the line
I don't see how they'd get off casting a bunch of Dutch Americans as Fremen this time, to be honest. And I really think Nurgel would be perfect, even if it is a one in a million shot.
Quote from: katmai on June 30, 2009, 12:08:26 AM
:lol:
Good luck seeing that on screen, maybe if some Turkish producer gains the rights somewhere down the line
The Turks did do a good job with Star Wars.
Quote from: Queequeg on June 30, 2009, 12:05:01 AM
I always thought that Leto I was as upstanding a character as you find in the Universe, even if he seems a bit blind to his betrayal by Huey and the trap set by the Emperor. Also, while the Fremen certainly aren't the good guys, they seem admirable.
Interestingly there are lot of parallels to be made with the latter bits of the Shahnameh which deal with the Arab conquest. The Persians represent a fascinating culture, but they're dressed up in gold and diamonds and plate male armor while the Arabs are practically naked. It is hard not to root a little for the Arabs.
Not that hard. I never root for the arabs.
Quote from: Queequeg on June 30, 2009, 12:05:01 AM
I always thought that Leto I was as upstanding a character as you find in the Universe, even if he seems a bit blind to his betrayal by Huey and the trap set by the Emperor.
Duncan fills that role of "as upstanding a character as you find;" Leto views his status as a kind of acting role that he has to play. With Leto, he can be pretty vicious, but it's all about playing the role with him- he sees the House aristocracy as a set of characters to be portrayed, and he's blind to the betrayal because it "breaks character" for Huey and Shaddam; notice he has no problems with absorbing Vladimir Harkonnen's role in the trap.
Viscious but mostly towards his enemies, which appear to have been few and well led. He saved spice miner's lives for no reason other than that they were going to die when he could have gotten in his first big load of spice. IIRC, Liet-Kynes, another mostly sympathetic character, becomes a loyal Atredies man pretty quickly.
Another terrific Irulan would be Natalie Dormer. And Jeremy Northam (sticking with the Tudors cast) would be a great Gurney. Daniel Craig or Clive Owen for Duncan.
Seriously though, in today's climate, how can a movie in which the "good" guys are leading a guerrilla jihad possibly be made without injecting moral ambiguity into it? In some ways, this might be the best time to do it. In '84 everything was black and white, the shining city vs the evil empire. And Lynch's flick turned it all into that. Now, I doubt anyone would even attempt to go that way.
Quote from: Queequeg on June 30, 2009, 12:16:13 AM
Viscious but mostly towards his enemies, which appear to have been few and well led. He saved spice miner's lives for no reason other than that they were going to die when he could have gotten in his first big load of spice. IIRC, Liet-Kynes, another mostly sympathetic character, becomes a loyal Atredies man pretty quickly.
And? He pretty much says himself that it was a calculated move: that load of spice would come in once, while the men could bring it in again and again. He uses his "magnanimity" the way that Shaddam uses his "brutality:" as long as he keeps up the image, people fall over themselves to do what he wants once they hear what his opinion might be.
Could be interesting. I also was glad that I read the books before seeing the movie; made much more sense to me since I could piece things together a lot better. There was so much to the books that it's hard to bring it out in a movie.
Will Sting be involved?
My picks:
Leto Atreides: Tom Cruise
Paul Atreides: Brad Pitt
Padishah Emperor: Harrison Ford
Stilgar: Russell Crowe
Duncan Idaho: Daniel Craig
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 30, 2009, 12:13:40 AM
Duncan fills that role of "as upstanding a character as you find;" Leto views his status as a kind of acting role that he has to play. With Leto, he can be pretty vicious, but it's all about playing the role with him- he sees the House aristocracy as a set of characters to be portrayed, and he's blind to the betrayal because it "breaks character" for Huey and Shaddam; notice he has no problems with absorbing Vladimir Harkonnen's role in the trap.
Everybody in the book has a "role they must fulfill whether they will or no;" it is the letmotif of the books. Leto discovers that his strength is in ensuring the lasting loyalty and effectiveness of his subordinates by treating them well and instilling
esprit de corps. While you may argue that this is all a sham, there is no evidence of it in the books, as far as I know.
He is blind to Yueh's treachery because he "knows" Yueh cannot betray him (and, in fact, the method Herbert had the baddies use to overcome the "Imperial Conditioning" was so pedestrian that one would wonder why anyone believed in IC at all). He isn't blind to the Emperor's role at all.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 30, 2009, 12:03:31 AM
Meh. IMO, they all fall short because Hollywood's got this obnoxious fixation on making there be "The Good Guys" and "The Bad Guys." The Dune books (the original Frank Herberts, anyway) were awesome in the way there were no good guys (with a possible exception for Duncan Idaho). The Atreides, Harkonnen, and Corrin Houses all wanted Arrakis simply for the leverage. Hell, Muad'Dib even despises himself as a lab rat of the Bene Gesserit.
I tend to dislike the adaptations because the book's supposed to be morally ambiguous, but that'll never make it onto the screen.
I dunno, the Attredis seemed quite clearly to be good guys to me and the Harkonen clearly the baddest of the bad.
I don' think Dune gets too ambiguous until Paul is going off and jihading around the galaxy.
Where is Paul Atriedes?
Unless the movie is going to be 8 hours long I do not see how they could make a decent film of that book.
Quote from: alfred russel on June 30, 2009, 09:12:57 AM
Where is Paul Atriedes?
He had health problems and we fear the worst. :(
The original movie was unwatchable. But the sci-fi version was pretty good.
It would have been great if they could have combined the good actors from both parts.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 30, 2009, 09:31:02 AM
Quote from: alfred russel on June 30, 2009, 09:12:57 AM
Where is Paul Atriedes?
He had health problems and we fear the worst. :(
Wow--when did this happen, and what were his problems? I guess no one has an email address or other way to get in contact.
I find this adaption the most interesting. :lol:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8124687.stm
QuoteUnmasking the mysterious 7/7 conspiracy theorist
In the absence of a public inquiry into the 7 July bombings, conspiracy theories have filled the vacuum. One of the more inflammatory involves a man hiding behind an Arabic-sounding pseudonym taken from a sci-fi film starring Sting, says the BBC's Mike Rudin.
The 56-minute homemade documentary opens with a view from space and the words: "A message from Muad Dib".
What follows is a stream of allegations about the 2005 bomb attack on London. The film, entitled 7/7 Ripple Effect, accuses former prime minister Tony Blair, the government, the police and the British and Israeli security service of murdering the innocent people who died that day, in order to shore up support for the "war on terror".
The video has become an internet hit, hailed by conspiracy theorists and picked up by some Muslims in the UK as evidence that the official account of what happened that day is untrue.
The official version says four British Muslims blew themselves up in the UK's first suicide attacks, murdering 52 people and injuring 784 others.
But it took nearly a year for the official account to be published, and much of the evidence, such as CCTV and photographs, only came out slowly afterwards.
In that atmosphere conspiracy theories have flourished. A host of internet films now claim the government account is a deception.
7/7 Ripple Effect, released two years after the attacks, goes much further than just posing questions.
The narrator alleges the four men blamed for the bombings were in fact fall guys in a government plot to win support for the war on terror; they were tricked into travelling to London with rucksacks on that day.
CCTV that shows them arriving in London was supposedly just to incriminate them. The film claims that they were not on the trains that blew up.
It's alleged the three men blamed for the Tube bombings were in fact murdered by police at Canary Wharf, after government agents set off pre-planted explosives to frame them.
'Unbelievable' coincidence
Muad Dib's conspiracy video has been picked up and held up as truth. A copy of his film was sent to a survivor of the attacks and to the Chairman of the Birmingham Central Mosque, Dr Mohammed Naseem.
He has long harboured doubts about the government account. "The Ripple Effect is more convincing than the government statement," he says.
Dr Naseem made 2,000 copies of 7/7 Ripple Effect for the mosque. At Friday prayers he asked the congregation to raise their hands if they did not accept the government version - nearly the entire gathering did.
Muad Dib hangs much of his conspiracy theory on the fact that on 7 July 2005, there was a mock exercise preparing for a possible terror attack on the London underground, with a very similar scenario to what happened - three London stations. This he describes as "an unbelievable set of circumstances".
But Peter Power, a former Scotland Yard police officer, says on 7 July, the exercise he ran was office-based and involved just six people from a publishing company.
That has not stopped him receiving hate mail from anonymous sceptics accusing him of "murder" and threatening "justice" with "no mercy".
Muad Dib did not send Peter Power a copy of 7/7 Ripple Effect, but when it was showed it to him, he found it "quite menacing [and] quite worrying".
He has now passed the DVD and the threatening e-mails to the Metropolitan Police. But Mr Power was frustrated because of the difficulty of prosecuting someone who hides behind a cloak of anonymity.
Dune clips
The Conspiracy Files 7/7, a BBC documentary, tracked Muad Dib down, eventually finding him in the small town of Kells in Ireland. He is in fact John Hill, from Sheffield.
His alias, Muad Dib, is a fictional character in the science fiction film Dune, a film starring Sting and Kyle MacLachlan about inter-galactic freedom fighting, from which he seems to draw inspiration.
Clips from the film - including the quote "The sleeper must awaken" - appear in 7/7 Ripple Effect.
Frank Herbert's series of Dune novels use Islamic concepts like "jihad" and other terms based on Arabic.
A document on Muad Dib's website reveals he believes he is the Messiah and that George Lucas wrote Star Wars after being told telepathically what to write, by the very "Force" to which the films refer.
John Hill has now been arrested and is facing extradition to the UK on a charge of perverting the course of justice for sending DVDs of 7/7 Ripple Effect to the judge and jury foreman in a trial linked to the attacks.
This hasn't stopped his film. Alex Jones, who runs an internet site and a US radio show devoted to conspiracy theories, claims that 7/7 Ripple Effect has been "just exploding all over the web" since Hills' arrest.
There have been two official reports into the bombing by the Intelligence and Security Committee. The government has always resisted calls for an independent public inquiry, and has decided not to actively counter conspiracy theories.
But there is concern that conspiracy theories are divisive and could alienate Muslims from the authorities. The former Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Brian Paddick, says action is needed to prevent further atrocities.
"Hopefully there will be people in the police service, the security service and in government who will realise how important conspiracy theories are. And how important it is... that every attempt is made to try and counteract them."
Rachel North, a survivor of the 7 July bombings, is troubled by the acceptance of conspiracy theories.
"If people in mosques think that the government is so antagonistic towards them that they're actually willing to frame them for a monstrous crime they didn't commit, what does that do to levels of trust? That is a problem for the government and for everybody in this country."
Ian McKellan as the good mentat.
John Malkovich as the evil mentat.
Jonathan Rhys-Davies as Sting.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 30, 2009, 09:31:02 AM
Quote from: alfred russel on June 30, 2009, 09:12:57 AM
Where is Paul Atriedes?
He had health problems and we fear the worst. :(
Probably back in jail. The world is better off with out that cyclops kiddie fucker.
hmmm I just bought an old flea market dogeared copy of Dune (just the first book) as I feel like re-reading it soon. Haven't read it since I was in High School.
the Sci Fi channel adaptation was pretty good.
Quote from: Tyr on June 30, 2009, 08:19:41 AM
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 30, 2009, 12:03:31 AM
Meh. IMO, they all fall short because Hollywood's got this obnoxious fixation on making there be "The Good Guys" and "The Bad Guys." The Dune books (the original Frank Herberts, anyway) were awesome in the way there were no good guys (with a possible exception for Duncan Idaho). The Atreides, Harkonnen, and Corrin Houses all wanted Arrakis simply for the leverage. Hell, Muad'Dib even despises himself as a lab rat of the Bene Gesserit.
I tend to dislike the adaptations because the book's supposed to be morally ambiguous, but that'll never make it onto the screen.
I dunno, the Attredis seemed quite clearly to be good guys to me and the Harkonen clearly the baddest of the bad.
I disagree here. Even the Baron is morally ambiguous, but on the other side of the coin. To me he read more like your typical Machavellian schemer and indulging lecher than "evil". Sure, he didn't save lives like Leto did and blatantly used people as tools, but so did the Atreides but using a more fanciful language a more "rewardly" approach.
However, nowhere in the books do you see the Baron as blatantly cackling evil as in Lynch's movie. Oddly, for someone as cynical as the Vladimir Harkonnen, his vandetta toward the Atreidies still followed the old tradition of Kanli.
He chooses the "boy who looks like Paul" to have sex with. And presumably do something....bad with beyond sex. That is pretty cackling. Not just that but he ends up basically killing Alia.
Quote from: Valmy on June 30, 2009, 09:13:11 AM
Unless the movie is going to be 8 hours long I do not see how they could make a decent film of that book.
If it's going to be based on Dune I can't see how they could make a decent movie out of it either.
Quote from: Queequeg on June 30, 2009, 12:05:01 AM
I always thought that Leto I was as upstanding a character as you find in the Universe, even if he seems a bit blind to his betrayal by Huey and the trap set by the Emperor. Also, while the Fremen certainly aren't the good guys, they seem admirable.
Never read the book, so I don't know.
Don't quite remember the recent tv-series either.
But having seen the old movie not long ago, Leto comments that the Emperor is setting a trap for him, but he feels he has no choice but to walk in it, and hopefully avoid the trap as he knows of it.
Quote from: Queequeg on June 30, 2009, 02:11:52 PM
He chooses the "boy who looks like Paul" to have sex with. And presumably do something....bad with beyond sex. That is pretty cackling. Not just that but he ends up basically killing Alia.
Baron is a notorious kiddie-peddler, but nowhere is it forbidden the Imperium, especially among the Siridar caste. It is Evil for us, but it is at a minimum ambiguous in their system of morals.
And you mean Alia basically killed him. Whatever his "memory ghost" did afterwards was still in the mindframe of Kanli, getting revenge on the whole Atreides, and it was due to Alia's own weaknesses as an abomination.
Alia chose to listen to him, among all voices in her head, because he had merits for ruling a huge Empire ruthlessly and efficiently and he was powerful enough, to her, to shush all other voices. She could have listened to any other voice, even her own father's, and the end result, her destruction, would have been inevitable.
Quote from: Drakken on June 30, 2009, 02:19:27 PM
Baron is a notorious kiddie-peddler, but nowhere is it forbidden the Imperium, especially among the Siridar caste. It is Evil for us, but it is at a minimum ambiguous in their system of morals.
Not sure what your point is, here. The morals of the Imperium are completely fictional, so we judge whether or not he was "evil" by our own standards. The Baron (and his whole family) casually did "evil" things for mere amusement. I don't see that as ambiguous at all.