mixed bag (kinda sorta spoilers) I don't really think you could ever make a truly good movie out of Dune, at least not to satisfy those of us who love the book. It has too many complexities, nuances, and plot. However I was anxious to see this miniseries just because I thought the extra time might help.
It did, sorta, kinda, at least compared to the 1984 movie, which was lame. The biggest problem with this is that it was so uneven. I can put up with lame special effects but only if the story is done well. At least with this enough story was filled in so that even a nonreader could get involved and get a glimpse of what the fuss over the book is. My wife actually thought it was a good story!
However ... there seemed to be questionable choices made of what was shown and what was not. Certain liberties were taken with the script, some weren't too bad. Irulan's expanded role was OK but I would have rather had the time put back in the original story. I get the impression it was expanded to attract a female audience, after all Dune never really had a lot of strong female characters in the modern sense of the term. My biggest problems:
- Blew through the fall of House Atreides. No tension at all leading to the fall. Jessica and Leto's great love story? I can't even remember if Jessica and Leto were together for more than a few seconds? Paul never revealed Leto's ultimate trust in her. Gurney confronting her was one of the most tension filled parts of the book but here it seemed to be blown threw as a sidenote.
- Fremen: shoddy water discipline, kinda wimpy, sterile sietches, sietches that a blind Harkonnen should have been able to find, shoddy knife discipline, not very tanned for desert dwellers.
- what's with all the pyrotechnics?
- Certain things were taken out or cut short that added so much to the book, Liet's death and final "realization", Duncan Idaho's death was miserably portrayed given how important it became in every other novel.
- John Hurt walked through this as Leto. Paul was too whiny in the beginning but finished well. Jessica never quite gelled in the role but I think this was more the pace of her scenes than anything. Liet fit my image almost perfectly. Chani's accent kind of made her dialog seem flat even though I found her believable otherwise, her exotic looks were quite entrancing too, maybe it's a male thing. :-) The Reverend Mother was annoying. Alia fit the part perfectly. The Baron's role was much bigger here (good) but the actor seemed almost too comic for my taste.
Overall I just never really got wrapped up in this version of the Dune universe. This attempt to take on Dune seemed to have a checklist of things to get in regardless of how well they fit. Combine that with less than perfect special effects and you have a film that lacks the ability to wrap up the viewer and take them away. I pity whoever takes on Dune next time. I think it would be difficult to please true Dune fanatics like myself.