History Series / Dune

[[quoteright:214:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/61d5c36c3987a3a72c28deb325beea5c.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:214:William Hurt does appear for a few minutes]]

->''And so it begins. The trap is set. The prey approaches. A glorious winter is about to descend on House Atreides and all its heirs, and very soon, the years of humiliation visited upon my family will finally be avenged."
-->--'''Baron Vladimir Harkonnen'''

The ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' miniseries, billed as ''"Frank Herbert's Dune"'', is a television adaptation of the 1965 novel ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' by Frank Herbert, often credited as "the masterpiece of science fiction". The miniseries aired in the year 2000 on the [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci-Fi Channel]]. Its $20 million budget was small for a sci-fi blockbuster -- especially since the three-part nature of the series functionally meant they were making multiple feature-length films -- but was almost unprecedented for a series intended for an initial TV release. It received a significant marketing push (Including full theatrical trailers) as the Sci-Fi Channel tried to break into serious made-for-TV production.

This adaptation is sometimes referred to as "the one with the hats" because of its use of flamboyant costume design to distinguish between the different factions within the story. This adaptation also notably [[AscendedExtra expands the role of]] Princess Irulan to further drive the story and [[CompositeCharacter replace characters]] that weren't adapted over.

Dune stars Creator/WilliamHurt as Duke Leto, who despite top-billing [[DeadStarWalking is only in about the first third of the story]]. Alec Newman stars as Paul 'Muad'Dib' Atreides, with Ian [=McNeice=] as Baron Harkonnen and an international cast of actors.

The miniseries itself spawned a sequel, ''Series/ChildrenOfDune'' which adapted both ''Literature/DuneMessiah'' and ''Literature/ChildrenOfDune'' into a single story.

While it was made on a much smaller budget and scale than the [[Film/{{Dune}} 1984 film version]], the miniseries is generally praised for taking less liberties with the story and [[TruerToTheText staying truer to the original book]]. For the 2020 film, see [[Film/Dune2020 here]].
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!! ''Dune'' contains examples of:

* AdaptedOut: Lady Fenring (Irulan goes to Giedi Prime with Count Fenring instead).
* AdaptationalCurves: In this adaptation they cast decidedly voluptuous Barbora Kodetova as Chani, a character described as slender and devoid of body fat in the books.
* AdaptationExpansion: Princess Irulan -- who only shows up in the novel in person in the ''very last chapter'' -- gets a greatly expanded role, since the people in charge of the series thought it was a bit much to ask viewers to accept Paul marrying a total stranger. Irulan befriends Paul early on in the plot, and when House Atreides is seemingly destroyed she attempts to find out what her father is plotting. Unfortunately, this makes Irulan a much more sympathetic character, meaning that her fate at the end of the series -- being married to Paul, who clearly considers Chani his ''real'' wife in everything but name -- is even more harsh than in the source material.
** Irulan appears to have aspects of Margot Fenring combined with her character. Since the latter was adapted out, this would make the miniseries' Irulan more of a [[CompositeCharacter composite character]].
* AllEncompassingMantle: The Spacing Guild representatives wear purple velvet-ish capes. However, these just keep going up and up into giant purple-velvetish cones.
* AlwaysNight: Giedi Prime. Presumably following the book's explanation that the planet is fouled with pollution.
* AnimalMotif: The Atreides symbol is a hawk, and the Corrino symbol is a golden lion - both of which are mentioned prominently in the first book in the series, which this is based on. At the dinner party scene in the part one, however, Paul mentions that the Harkonnen symbol is a griffin - this actually is part of the book canon, but it was only established retroactively in the ''fifth'' novel in the series.
* AscendedExtra:
** Princess Irulan gets a greatly expanded role in this series, fulfilling the arcs of several other characters.
* BlackComedy: When a dying Dr. Yueh says "[[ThanatosGambit You think you've defeated me?]]", Baron Harkonnen just nods while silently mouthing, "Oh yes."
* ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes: The miniseries visualized the Eyes of the Ibad as glowing. This was toned down in the ''Series/ChildrenOfDune'' sequel.
* CharacterTics: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in this miniseries had a distinctive habit of rubbing his right temple when he was frustrated. Later on, Paul Atreides does this himself, demonstrating the family connection between the two. In ''Series/ChildrenOfDune'', we see Alia performing the gesture when she hears the Baron's voice in her head.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: The Sci-Fi Channel's miniseries portrays the Harkonnens in red, the Imperial Corrinos are purple and gold (likely a reference to the purple togas worn by Roman emperors), the Atreides primarily in tan and white, Fremen in brown and dark orange, and Spacing Guild members in black.
* CompellingVoice: In the mini-series, the Voice is clearly heard as the VoiceOfTheLegion, although only to its target. In the film, it can be heard playing over and over in the target's mind, forcing him to comply.
* CrazyCulturalComparison: The "gift of moisture" scene appears in adaptations with variations. In the mini-series, it is Paul who thanks Stilgar for the gift.
* CreepyUncle: The miniseries takes this further than the book, and has the Baron rapturously watching a naked Feyd Rautha emerging from a swimming pool.
* DawsonCasting: 26 year old Alex Newman plays Paul Atreides, starting when Paul is only 15 years old in part one of a three part miniseries. Even with the three-year time jump between parts two and three, he's substantially older than Paul is. A general consensus among many reviewers was that Paul comes off as too petulant in part one - because he's ''supposed'' to be acting like an angsty teenager, but he's played by an actor a full decade older than that. It gets better as the character ages in the story.
** No spoilers explanation: the Dune story features time skips, and follows Paul as an adult in the sequels, spanning decades of his life. Scifi Channel had some hopes they would later cover them, which they did in ''Children of Dune''. They didn't want to cast multiple actors to play Paul Atreides, so they had Newman play-down as young teenaged Paul in part one of the first miniseries, because they were anticipating his portrayal of older Paul later. This did seem to pay off, because Newman's performance as older-Paul in ''Children of Dune'' was widely praised.
* DeadStarWalking: William Hurt gets top billing as Duke Leto Atreides in SciFi Channel's Dune Miniseries, despite his character getting killed at the end of part one (of three).
* DeathWail: {{Inverted}} here, where [[spoiler:Rabban]] does this when he realizes that ''he'' is about to become the metaphorical ex-beloved ally.
* DistantReactionShot: The mini-series has a dead-serious one of these with a spice-blow right after Liet-Kynes realizes that he's right on top of it and begins screaming, "I am a desert creat-"
* EliteMooks: Sardaukar elite troopers.
* ErmineCapeEffect: Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV in the miniseries wears very elaborate outfits even when he's just working in his study or meeting with his advisers. This is different from the book, where Shaddam IV wore an ordinary Sardaukar officer's uniform with no decoration other than a black helmet even at official state functions. This was stated to not be the case throughout history, being a personal affectation of Shaddam's which symbolized his reliance on the Sardaukar to maintain power.
* EvilGloating: When his Mentat wants to GetItOverWith, the Baron argues that rubbing Duke Leto's face in his own defeat is the entire point!
-->'''Piter deVries:''' Perhaps [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim we should get on with it then?]]\\
'''Baron Harkonnen:''' Get on with it? ''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THIS-IS-KANLY]], Piter! Vendetta!'' And I am going to savor every minute of it. My family has hated the Atreides for generations. They have been the sand in our eyes, the ''stink'' at our meals. These arrogant Atreides, ''always'' standing in our way. I want Leto to appreciate the ''beauty'', of what I have done to him. I want him to know that [[SuddenlyShouting I, BARON VLADIMIR HARKONNEN]], am the instrument of his family's demise, the extinction of House Atreides, and the ascendance ''(MilkingTheGiantCow)'' of House Harkonnen.
* FlashStep: How "the weirding way of fighting" is depicted in the ''Dune'' and ''Children of Dune'' miniseries.
* GunsVsSwords: Played straight as per the novel, but without the novel's justification -- the rebels just ZergRush troopers armed with firearms without the mass casualties that would ensue in real life.
* InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt: ''Frank Herbert's Dune'', the miniseries.
* MiniSeries: 2000 SciFi. Adapted the first three books, the first titled ''Frank Herbert's Dune'' and the second ''Children of Dune'' (combined with the second book, ''Dune Messiah'').
* MonochromaticEyes[=/=]TechnicolorEyes: A result of high-level Spice addiction, when enough ingestion saturates the blood stream and stains the eyes. Turned into GlowingEyesOfDoom in both live-action adaptations.
* NiceHat: In the [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci-Fi Channel]]'s production, there were several {{Nice Hat}}s, mostly notably the Bene Gesserit, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ghm.jpg seen here]] (the hat is the thing extending back from her head).
* OhCrap:
** The Fremen have a four-part opening to their assault on Arrakeen. First, they blow up the Shield Wall with a nuke. This is followed by a massive sandstorm, a squadron of ornithopters, and four sandworms carrying Fremen warriors. In between each part, we shift back to the Imperial Palace to see the OhCrap reactions on everyone's faces.
** Also satisfying is the expression on Rabban's face when he sees that he is surrounded by an immense, eerily silent mob of the very people he had enjoyed brutally oppressing. The fact that he just drops his knife and lets out a cry of abject despair as the mob swarms in and guts him is icing on the cake.
*** To make this one worse, is the HopeSpot Rabban has when he sees Stilgar there with a gun, and you can almost sense that he hopes for a quick death by gunshot... only for Stilgar to turn and walk away, leaving him at the mercy of a hundred villagers and fremen who are hardly going to give him such mercy. In other words, OhCrap, HopeSpot, then double OhCrap.
** And the expression on the Baron's face when he realizes that a little girl had just poisoned him. Him, the Baron of Geidi Prime, brought low by a four-year-old girl. Oh Crap indeed.
* ProperLady: Lady Jessica in the miniseries behaves like one, even though she's technically not part of the nobility. [[spoiler:she actually is, though she doesn't know it: she's the Baron's daughter, hard as that is to believe.]]
* RhymesOnADime: In this adaptation, Baron Harkonnen has this as a coda to his scenes.
--> "By the time the traitor is fully revealed, the fate of Atreides will already be sealed."
--> "So let the emperor mock House Harkonnen, call us swine. Because in the end his throne will be mine."
* SceneryPorn: Whatever the budget might have been, the interior sets of the palaces look gorgeous (well, except for the Harkonnen's StylisticSuck, but that was intentional).
* SpaceClothes: The 2000 miniseries (aided by the meager budget) sets groups apart by very large hats.
* TruerToTheText: The 2000 miniseries takes some liberties with Frank Herbert's book, but compared to the 1984 David Lynch movie, its fidelity is nigh-slavish.
** Even the invented Irulan scenes are more trying to depict what the Corrinos probably were doing "off screen" in the books: they wanted to interweave the imperial family into the story more organically, so it wasn't as jarring when they show up at the end. The way the novels did this was by quoting excerpts at the beginning of each chapter from books that Irulan wrote years later about these events - which doesn't translate neatly into a visual format. Thus the invented Irulan scenes are more of an "adaptation" of those book excerpts, now presented as her real-time reactions.

While it was made on a much smaller budget and scale than the [[Film/{{Dune}} 1984 film version]], the miniseries is generally praised for taking less liberties with the story and staying truer to the original book.

** Even the invented Irulan scenes are more trying to depict what the Corrinos probably were doing "off screen" in the books: they wanted to interweave the imperial family into the story more organically, so it wasn't as jarring when they show up at the end. The way the books did this was by quoting excerpts at the beginning of each chapter from books that Irulan later wrote years later about these events - which doesn't translate neatly into a visual format. Thus the invented Irulan scenes are more of an "adaptation" of those book excerpts, now presented as her real-time reactions.

** Even the invented Irulan scenes are more trying to depict what the Corrinos probably were doing "off screen" in the books - they wanted to interweave the imperial family into the story more organically, so it wasn't as jarring when they show up at the end. The way the books did this was by quoting excerpts at the beginning of each chapter from books that Irulan later wrote years later about these events - which doesn't translate neatly into a visual format. Thus the invented Irulan scenes are more of an "adaptation" of those book excerpts, now presented as her real-time reactions.

* TruerToTheText: The 2000 miniseries takes some liberties with Frank Herbert's book, but compared to the 1984 David Lynch movie, its fidelity is nigh-slavish.

** No spoilers explanation: the Dune story features time skips, and follows Paul as an adult in the sequels, spanning decades of his life. SciFi Channel had some hopes they would later cover them, which they did in ''Children of Dune''. They didn't want to cast multiple actors to play Paul Atreides, so they had Newman play-down as young teenaged Paul in part one of the first miniseries, because they were anticipating his portrayal of older Paul later. This did seem to pay off, because Newman's performance as older-Paul in ''Children of Dune'' was widely praised.

-->'''Piter deVries:''' Perhaps [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim we should get on with it then?]]
-->'''Baron Harkonnen:''' Get on with it? ''[[ThisIsSparta THIS-IS-KANLY]], Piter! Vendetta!'' And I am going to savor every minute of it. My family has hated the Atreides for generations. They have been the sand in our eyes, the ''stink'' at our meals. These arrogant Atreides, ''always'' standing in our way. I want Leto to appreciate the ''beauty'', of what I have done to him. I want him to know that [[SuddenlyShouting I, BARON VLADIMIR HARKONNEN]], am the instrument of his family's demise, the extinction of House Atreides, and the ascendance ''(MilkingTheGiantCow)'' of House Harkonnen.

* BlackComedy: When a dying Dr Yueh says "[[ThanatosGambit You think you've defeated me?]]", Baron Harkonnen just nods while silently mouthing, "Oh yes."

-->'''Baron Harkonnen:''' Get on with it? ''[[ThisIsSparta THIS-IS-KANLY]], Piter! Vendetta!'' And I am going to savour every minute of it. My family has hated the Atreides for generations. They have been the sand in our eyes, the ''stink'' at our meals. These arrogant Atreides, ''always'' standing in our way. I want Leto to appreciate the ''beauty'', of what I have done to him. I want him to know that [[SuddenlyShouting I, BARON VLADIMIR HARKONNEN]], am the instrument of his family's demise, the extinction of House Atreides, and the ascendance ''(MilkingTheGiantCow)'' of House Harkonnen.

** The Fremen have a four-part opening to their assault on Arrakeen. First, they blow up the Shield Wall with a nuke. This is followed by a massive sandstorm, a squadron of ornithopters, and four sandworms carrying Fremen warriors. In between each part, we shift back to the Imperial Palace to see the Oh Crap reactions on everyone's faces.

* SceneryPorn: Whatever the budget might have been, the interior sets of the palaces look gorgeous. (Well, except for the Harkonnen's StylisticSuck, but that was intentional.)

* ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes: The miniseries visualized the Eyes of the Ibad as glowing. This was toned down in the ''ChildrenOfDune'' sequel.

* AdaptationalCurves: In this adaptation cast the decidedly voluptuous Barbora Kodetova as Chani, a character described as slender and devoid of body fat in the books.

* BlackComedy: When a dying Dr Yueh says "[[ThanatosGambit You think you've defeated me?]]", Baron Harkonnen can be seen silently mouthing, "Oh yes."