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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Via the good people at io9, my attention was drawn this morning to news that Dune is coming back to the silver screen. This is probably old news to many of you; we've known for a while that the man at the helm is Denis Villeneuve, fresh off Blade Runner 2049 (a worthy sequel to most everyone's favorite futuristic film noir), and just this week Deadline pegged a certain young Hollywood heartthrob for Atreides.
The latest news, however, is that Brian Herbert—son of Dune author Frank Herbert and an author in his own right—revealed that the first script will only focus on the first half of the novel. This confirms an earlier report that Villeneuve plans to adapt the book across two movies.
Herbert's epic sci-fi novel is set far off in the future—about 20,000 years from now—and it tells the story of an intergalactic power struggle between different noble houses to control a substance called melange, which makes interstellar travel possible. (That's massively underselling things, but you try summarizing a 400-page novel in one sentence.) Published in 1965, it has gone on to have a huge influence in popular culture; here at Ars, our favorite descendants are Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" and the frequent references to the litany of fear by Peter Puppy in the Earthworm Jim cartoons. (The recreation of Dune using gummy worms gets a notable mention.)
[...] By now you may have decided I am an uncritical viewer of all things Dune, so you may not be surprised to know that I am greatly looking forward to see what Villeneuve does with the story. Again, I think he did a bang-up job with a follow-on to Blade Runner, but it's true there's not much similarity between the two franchises other than the fact that they both take place in the future. Other Dune watchers are less confident—upon the news that Kevin J. Anderson (of Star Wars novels fame) was collaborating with Brian Herbert, Ars editor Lee Hutchinson told me, "I can't believe this is going to end in anything other than a nuclear explosion of human excrement."
[...] Legendary (the company behind The Dark Knight and Interstellar) bought rights to Dune about two years ago, but for now there's no firm timetable for the first film.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Saturday July 28 2018, @11:41PM (2 children)
After reading the book in detail and watching the tv series, what really stood out to me was the the extent of the backstory it implied. The book hints with little description at space travel, an empire, corporations, the ruling houses, and humanity itself as having very long histories, and then drops you in the middle of a small piece of that. It seems like presenting some of that backstory would assist/enable the movie in sensibly delivering the book's narrative -- even a Star Wars-style intro would help a lot. Heck, the book itself could benefit, for people who like to get their story context chronologically.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @12:00AM (1 child)
Actually, the lack of explanations was one of the things I liked about the Lynch movie. Getting thrusted into this bizarre universe leaves the viewer to pay attention to detail and try to infer what is not explicitly said. And the movie offers so many details in visuals and dialogue, it's clear that there is a lot of backstory but it is not necessary to know it.
In fact, I think it would be detrimental to the main story arc to tell all of the backstory. This works in a book, where the reader's imagination must be stimulated to construct a believable world. In a movie, visuals take care of this which leaves the viewer to focus on the story, which the Lynch movie pulls off in perfection.
There might be enough time to tell some backstory in a two-part production, but then - what does it add to the story of Paul and his balls-tripping worm ride to galactic dominion?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @12:59AM
Having read most of the books that fill in the 'back story'. It really takes away from the main arc. This is a mistake many series make. They fill in the story. You are left underwhelmed as your brain put something much better in its place and now it has been replaced by something not as cool.
The one from the sci-fi channel was probably the best of the two. It strayed a bit here and there but suffered from a poor budget. The 84 movie suffered from the problem that it really is a 4-6 hour movie jammed into 2 hours. Which is why the sci-fi one was a better story.