Dune

Couldn't those characters just be Adapted Out?

One of the main themes of Dune is humans taking their abilities as far as they can without technology. The Mentats are a part of that theme, and are important enough characters that they really shouldn't be left out.

A potential series can probably just explain "this future society has a taboo against computers, so they train some humans in logical reasoning to take their place" and do it in a matter of minutes. There's no compelling reason to leave them out, if you're not trying to fit the whole novel into one 2-hour movie.

Yeah, but then you could not be as faithful as possible.

What is the concern with a small screen budget? The miniseries worked rather well. It did alter the story a little bit, but that had nothing to do with the budget.

All of the endings are weird. Each of Herbert's books wrap end rather abruptly regardless of whether they wrap up the story or not. Even if they do wrap up the story, they leave the question of how the ending changes things, until the next sequel tells you how. The ending of Children is actually the best place to stop, because it ends the story of the same characters in the first book while being disconnected from God Emperor by a huge Time Skip. Additionally, the actions of Leto in God Emperor make no sense unless there were other dangerous prescient individuals besides the Kwisatz Haderach, which segues into the story that Herbert never finished.

The miniseries wasn't terrible with its small budget, but it definitely could have been better. Special effects are much more reasonable on a television budget these days. HBO or one of the other big networks would be ideal, but even Syfy has been doing some pretty impressive stuff.

True — the skip from Children to God Emperor is huge and might as well be the start of an entirely new story. And when you combine God Emperor with Heretics and Chapterhouse, it does make a fairly complete story, right up until the very end when it gets super weird, to the point where I start to wonder if Herbert was entirely right in the head when he was writing it.

Wouldn't Dune work great as a stage musical?

Now I'm not sure you're right in the head.

Why do you think Les Misérables succeeded in adapting THE Doorstopper novel when so many other adaptations failed? How do you think Hamilton condensed forty years of history in two extremely tight hours? Musical theater can condense phenomenal amounts of information in a few clever lyrics, key progressions, stage directions.

I will support this plan on one condition, and it's non-negotiable: The whole cast closes out Part One by doing "the Worm."

I think they did it by leaving out huge amounts of detail, and turning the story into a bare synopsis at best, while distracting the audience with glitter and gaudy song so they wouldn't mind. Which is all fine, and I think Dune: The Musical would potentially quite amusing, but I seriously doubt it would become what fans of the book would call a definitive version.

Kudos for thinking outside the box, though.

I think that you haven't watched either musical. Glitter? Gaudy? Not every musical is Hello Dolly, Spider Man Turn Off The Dark, or Springtime for Hitler.

Well, Hamilton is impossible to watch, but you can listen to it.

There's so many songs to choose from that deliver a shit-ton of exposition in an extremely entertaining way. You could always just start from the beginning: 'Alexander Hamilton' condenses Ham's entire childhood and youth in a few minutes and it's heartbreaking. 'Non-stop' also delivers a ton of plot real quick. 'Aaron Burr, Sir' and 'My Shot' deliver the spirit of the Revolution and Hamilton's own character. The Cabinet Battles are basically two rounds of Epic Rap Battles of History between Hamilton and Jefferson, MC'd by George Washington. 'Right Hand Man' is how a 6 ft 3 black dude introduces himself as George Washington and owns it, all the while painting a clear, crisp picture of the state of the war at the time. 'Ten Duel Commandments' brings the audience up to speed on the details of how dueling works in this setting in two awesome minutes. 'Non-stop' is an extremely fast-paced summary of Hamilton's rise to Secretary of State and...

I don't know which ones to show here...

Let's go with Right Hand Man?

edited 22nd Jan '17 2:52:37 AM by TheHandle

Haven't seen Hamilton, but I've seen Les Miz (at least, the film version), and glittery and gaudy is exactly how I would describe it. Especially compared to the book.

Your point about singing exposition is interesting—I guess it does work better than annoying voice-over—but I don't think that's going to be enough to boil Dune down. It would simply require too much exposition. Plus, they'd have to sing it, which would ruin it for a lot of people. (I cringe at the thought.) But that's another story. :)

I don't understand how a generation that was raised on Disney home videos and/or six seasons of Glee could possibly be uncomfortable with the conceit of people singing.

As for Les Miz, it's a good example of distilling down the emotional beats. Valjean's time in prison, as a delinquent, his redemption, all of that took so long to explain in the books, and it would be worthy of three whole novels on its own. Yet the musical gives you the gist in a fistful of minutes, and it delivers it quick and hard, straight to the gut. Not just the plot, but the character moments.

As for the movie, eh, it made some weird choices. But grimy and overwrought is what comes to mind, not glittery and gaudy. Except for the romance subplot, and Cosette's entire adult character, I mean oh my God... But that problem is original to the books, yes?

edited 23rd Jan '17 12:24:34 AM by TheHandle

I don't know what generation you think I'm from, but I read Children of Dune in serial form when it was first published in the magazines. There was no home video when I was a kid, so I've seen almost no Disney movies. And I've never watched Glee.

In any case, my reaction to Les Miz was that it was not so much "distilling" as "trivializing". The ridiculous way the characters break into song was just too jarring for me. Depressed and desperate people do sing, but not like that. (Plus, I found the music bland and insipid, but that's a separate issue. They're trying to reach a broad audience, so the music almost has to be lowest-common-denominator.)

The one advantage I will grant you for a musical version of Dune would be that it's acceptable for people to sing what they're thinking. And since a huge part of the problem of translating Dune to other media is that so much of it takes place in people's heads, that would indeed solve a major problem.

But I disagree that musical theatre is any better at "distilling" a work. I thought a live-action version of "Les Miz" would have captured the story at least as well as the musical did. And, frankly, having everyone in Dune suddenly start singing their thoughts would not shorten the story. Quite the reverse. I can't imagine a musical version that really captures the story in less than six to eight hours! So, either we get a distillation (which we already have with the live-action movie), or we get a musical miniseries (which we already have with the tv version). I don't see huge advantages.

But hey, if someone makes one, you can go right ahead and go see it, and I'll go ahead and skip it, and we'll both be happy.

edited 26th Jan '17 1:57:42 PM by Xtifr

Did you really need to present your opinion so condescendingly? You could have said "I don't like musicals as a form, it breaks my Willing Suspension of Disbelief and I find some common stylistic choices to be in poor taste" and leave it at that, instead of talking down to me like I'm some ignorant child.

edited 26th Jan '17 3:53:11 PM by TheHandle

I think you need to watch your own reactions there, Handle. You're the one so aggressively pushing the musical format that any criticism of the idea is apparently a savage personal attack. Back off.

edited 26th Jan '17 3:54:57 PM by Fighteer

Furthermore, I do like musical theatre in general (at least in moderation). I just don't believe it has magical powers of solving all adaptation problems. The fact that I believe the medium has inherent limitations is not the same as saying I dislike the medium. I think all mediums have limitations.

I'm not surprised you'd reach that conclusion, Fighteer. After all, you're the one who answered my proposal, and I quote:

Now I'm not sure you're right in the head.

I've spent a lot of text making my point on the assumption that the difference of opinion was due to a misunderstanding, à la "this person thinks that I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream wouldn't make for a good videogame adaptation? Oh boy, let me tell them about Point And Click Adventure games! They'll love it as soon as they hear about it!" or "What do you mean, The Lord Of The Rings wouldn't work as a movie? Peplum films might be a good hint as to how to start handling something like that! Plus, those movies were awesome epics in their own right, and a good discussion topic on their own!"

When the response is "the style you propose sucks by default, the examples you propose are dumb and boring, if they ever made an adaptation, I wouldn't even give it a chance", I find it hard not to feel there's a personal edge to it.

All right. That's fair enough.

edited 26th Jan '17 5:16:09 PM by TheHandle

Maybe it's worth pointing out that though the Lord of the Rings did work as three movies, it didn't work in quite the same way that the books did. While the basic story is there and it looks very cool, many fans of the book like the poetry and the feeling of traveling through this constructed world - and those things aren't really in the movies much.

A Dune musical might work in the same way the David Lynch Dune worked: a success to some, but not in quite the same way. Can you really get the feeling of intrigue, destiny, and again, inhabiting a detailed world in a stage musical? Maybe, but it seems more likely that a Dune musical would do well to play to stage musical strengths, and would therefore come out quite different from the book.

If you'll forgive me for gushing about shows I like again, and with the full understanding that I am biased here...

Hamilton does the Destiny thing pretty well, you get an overwhelming feeling of watching Clockwork gears come together in impeccable synchronicity and coordination towards an inevitable doom. Especially whenever there's a duel coming, or in the buildup to the Reynolds Pamphlet. The show is extremely heavy on foreshadowing on every level, narrative, musical and choreographical. But it's also pretty good at creating suspense and uncertainty even with foregone conclusions: it's the whole reason King George is in the play, for one.

Again, listen to the Ten Duel Commandments and imagine a song like that explaining the rules of Kanly

And the clockwork motif, though present in the music, is much more obvious on stage. I can't seem to find a link to the bootleg I saw, though...

Regarding world building... Shows like Repo The Genetic Opera, Hello Dolly, The Ring Cycle, they all do a good job of hinting at and alluding to a larger world, but, yeah, not describing it. The Lord of the Rings, especially Fellowship, does that allusive job really really well, just with backdrop and scenery and cultural idiosyncrasies and music and implied lore. I mean, just look at the prologue, how much exposition it crammed in, what, five minutes? And it was awesome! Ghost In The Shell, Blade Runner, and Akira are also really good at huge world building over a very small time, by using light, space, structure, color, music, dialogue, symbolism... Speaking of which, La La Land. Color tells half the story!

But yeah, in the end, if you need the world explained to you, you're stuck with needing either lots of filmed events (The Wire), or lots of dialogue (Breaking Bad). Either way, an HBO series is the way to go. Then you can get away with stuff like this:

Or this, an example of how a proficientt actor can convey a terrific amount of information through competent twitching

Sorry for the info dump. I'm not even trying to push a specific solution here, I'm just looking at aspects of things.

Well, it appears all our arguments are moot: they've greenlighted a new ''Dune'' theatrical movie, and tapped Denis Villeneuve to direct.

Oh, dear gods. Well, we shall see what comes of it.

Ffffffffffffuuuuuu...Damn it, a series really is the best way to go, not yet another movie.

Dune's just too damn meaty to compress over three hours at most. You can't do it successfully.

Not without extensive usage of montage, inner mind visuals, and acid sequences.

It's a shame, because political scheming, half the cast being fairly unsympathetic, lots of sex, manly characters and fatale women, and wham episodes galore is right up HPO's alley. They really could've been the best choice.

They'd probably have to find a place to stop though, likely at the end of Children or Emperor, maybe a few flashforwards to Chapterhouse.