The SyFy Channel produced two good TV mini-series in the early 2000s, Dune and Children of Dune, which covered the first three books of Frank Herbert’s legendary six-book Dune science fiction series (Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune).
Although the special effects were not up to contemporary Hollywood standards, these two mini-series (which are difficult to find now, except as used DVD sets for sale online) were the best attempt until now to bring Frank Herbert’s trailblazing epic book series and universe to the screen. There was also an unfortunate movie version produced in 1984, but it is barely worth mentioning, and several other proposed versions never made it to completion.
This new large-screen 2+ hour version, released to widespread acclaim late in 2021, covers only 1/12th of Herbert’s full six-book Dune epic (i.e., only the first half of the first and most famous book, Dune), but it does so with visual beauty, fantastic special effects, a talented and exotic-looking cast, and a faithfulness to the book version that has eluded earlier cinematic treatments.
The hardest thing about making any film version of Dune has always been the number of technological, social, political and historical facts and settings in the Dune universe that need to be conveyed to viewers, in order to have the plot and action make any sense. The director handled that very well, through an early narrator’s summary, and by accepting that only a part of even one of these complex and rich books could be done justice in the course of one feature-length movie.
The producers placed a bet that it would be well enough received to justify spending the money to tell part 2 in a later sequel. That bet apparently paid off on opening day, with the wide enthusiasm and critical success of this first really excellent film version of the Dune story. Very highly recommended.
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