Thread: Books and movies based on them - Книги и их экранизации

There's a book and two movies that were based on it I'd like to write a review about - Dune by Frank Herbert.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)


I read it only about six times or so, and was fascinated at the world Herbert managed to create, about people who wanted to tame their desert planet into a living world, about intrigues inside other intrigues, about plans inside other plans and conspiracies inside other conspiracies - these are the things that really made this book famous. Then David Lynch made a movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087182/


I watched it in 1989, I think, and imagine my disappointment about the whole thing when I watched it. There was nothing left of the book. Really nothing. Just some third-rate story. I was crushed. Even the main concept of the book about a boy who tried act as a god for his people had turned upside down somehow and now it was about some really godlike figure who got into trouble by mistake.
I know it's really hard to make a movie out of this book (where the main intrigue is taking place inside people's minds and characters' thoughts are very important), but really, could Lynch at least try to make something out of it. He's not a bad producer, after all.

Well, then there was 2 computer games, one based on the book, but the second one (Dune 2 - The battle for Arrakis), though had little in common with the book but the world and major houses names, was still revolutionary and the founder of a new genre in computer games - real time strategy.

Finally, in 2000, 16 years after David Lynch, there was another attempt (which turned out much better than the first one):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142032/

Of course, even though I have to admit that most of the actors were unknown to me and many played rather poorly, still it was a movie I liked. I was shot very close to the original book (thus making it over 4 hours long) but it was worth the time. Everything there was as authentic as possible and if you will ever be in doubt - pick this one.

Originally Posted by Ramil

There's a book and two movies that were based on it I'd like to write a review about - Dune by Frank Herbert.

I just watched the film and yes... I am aware the books are supposed to be very good, but I have not read them.

I agree the story depicted in the that film was nothing special. The costumes were quite good, I thought. I am not sure about choice of actors. It was a mix of American, British (different accents) and Australian people in the lead roles. It's very distracting with different anglo accents in a sci-fi film! As usual most of the heroes spoke American and most of the baddies, British. All the supporting actors were from somewhere in Eastern Europe, probably Czech Republic. Also confusing! Very distracting. Stick with one accent for people who supposedly grew up together.
I think I must have missed out here because although it was reasonably entertaining it was nothing special.

My favourite Sci-fi books remains the "Foundation" series by Isaac Asimov.
That has never been filmed and I doubt any film could live up to the experience of reading the books.

Originally Posted by Hanna

My favourite Sci-fi books remains the "Foundation" series by Isaac Asimov.
That has never been filmed and I doubt any film could live up to the experience of reading the books.

Asimov is a great Sci-fi writer indeed. My favorite foreign Sci-fi writer is Clifford Simak but I never heard about movies based on his novels too.