Continuing with the Dune theme, I've decided to rewatch the 2000 miniseries. I remembered being pretty meh about it, and it only took 3.5 minutes to remember why. A definite "but I was going into Tosche station to pick up power converters" vibe about this version of Paul.
The special effects paradox: CGI from 2000 looks worse and less believable than practical effects from 1984.
I approve of this version's choice to beef up Irulan's role, but I'm not sure "giant paper fans decorated with fake butterflies" was the right way to get us to take her seriously.
Oh dear.
Finished part 1. I think the core problem of this miniseries is that it's in awe of the movie (some of the visuals are direct lifts) but also terrified of its weirdness.
So even though it's telling the Dune story - in many ways, more faithfully than the movie did - it can't resist the urge to turn it into a generic SF adventure, complete with exactly the action scenes you'd expect, and Paul Atreides as Luke Skywalker from the early scenes of ANH.
On to part 2! Feyd is played by Matt Keeslar (The Middleman!). Which, on the one hand, obviously no one was going to live up to Sting. But on the other hand, it's making me wish he and Newman had switched roles.
There have now been 18 minutes of Paul and Jessica's desert adventures: falling down sand-dunes, running from worms, etc.
I just... why. Seriously, why.
I realize that this is a budge thing and the miniseries didn't have the movie's ability to just film in the desert. But still, this is the fakest-looking "desert" I've ever seen.
We're now on to part 3, Paul has taken the Waters of Life and become the messiah, and yet somehow he is still a whiny little bitch who blames his mother for everything.
It takes a very confident emperor to pull off this outfit.
Paul, meanwhile, is on his way back from karate class.
So that was Dune 2000! For all my griping, it does capture the story a lot better than the Lynch movie did. Its two core problems are having a poor grasp on Paul, and defaulting to standard space adventure tropes whenever the story gets too weird.
The Lynch movie has more heart, and it grasps the novel's weirdness even if it doesn't know how to convey it. Something that fell in between it and this miniseries might work quite well, though judging by the trailer I don't know if the Villeneuve movie will be it.
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