First tape:
Like the first Sci-fi series original, it drags. A lot of the 'political intrigue' that is being brought forth feels very weighted, like making an hour and a half feel like 3 hours.
Number 1 reason why it drags so much? The cast. Even Susan Sarandon doesn't bring much to the film with her role (just like, I feel, William Hurt was pretty wasted in the first film). I like Susan in several of her other films, but here, there's not much there. Maybe even faulted to what I'm starting to refer to as an actor's 'evil role'. Most actors/actresses suck at these types of roles, especially, it seems, respectable ones. They usually want to let loose, 'have fun' with being the bad guy for once, but most of them can't portray it to save their lives or they need an inspiring director, which, here, clearly, they do not have.
The problem isn't on her shoulders alone, I think much of the cast and their direction is just plain dull. The actor portraying Maud'dib is somewhat interesting, though, but even he doesn't seem to be reaching his full potential. Everything feels very 'TVesque', safe, and for a sci-fi miniseries that should be taking chances, that's a bad thing, especially one that has Lynch Dune as a predecessor (which I'll get to in a moment). Bring someone like Christopher Walken aboard - we need charisma, someone who can breathe life into a part and make it interesting no matter what he's saying. Put together a bunch of talented actors - actresses in the roles that can instill that life that's needed to keep someone other than a die hard fan watching. To make it work. Otherwise, it can easily become real boring, real fast.
Look at Lynch Dune and despite any reservations on it you may have (frankly, I loved it as a kid when I saw it for the first time at 2 in theaters, especially since I wasn't hampered by a book, and my imagination was allowed to roam free, and I still love that film today), but in any case, the cast was awesome. There was great charisma going around. But it wasn't simply limited to a great cast, which is merely one stepping stone to a good movie.
This brings me to point number 2, the script. There has to be a better way to carry many of those scenes. There's too much information, some of it has to be told in dialogue, but for the rest of it, there must be other ways of expressing it. I just don't think the script works all that well from what I've seen. If you had a great cast and better direction, you might be able to pull it off, even then, it is too slow... which is also in part the fault of the director and cinematographer; it all falls pretty flat, basic, by the numbers. It feels like a tv series, and sure, it is a sci-fi miniseries, but does it have to feel that way? I think it's slightly better in some ways than the first, but there seems like less going on with the story. In fact, it really didn't even get sort of interesting until the last 15-20 minutes of the first tape.
It just feels very off... too limited in scope, I think models would have helped better than the obvious CGI in it (and normally I don't mind cgi, it just kind of gets repetitive, fake looking, which is probably one of the biggest problems with the prequel trilogy -of Star Wars), there's just something to be said with the look of movies like Blade Runner, Dune, the original Star Wars trilogy, Neverending Story, more recently, LOTR.
Oh, the worse angle, not nearly so bad this time but still pathetic, is costuming. Most of it just looks like an eyesore, like it was ripped out of a movie set of the middle ages, not a far flung sci-fi series. It was the worse part of the first miniseries, and it is hardly better here.
Oh, and the Navigators... ick, a travesty. In Lynch Dune, they looked cool, real, not some animated crap that sounds kind of like 'em.
I mean, if anything, they had a template of truly inspired design from the Lynch Dune, the look, the feel of each planet shown. It didn't look like they just walked onto a set, which almost entirely destroys the immersion factor. I want to be taken away. That's what sci-fi and fantasy is about, removing me from the real world and taking me someplace that exists only in my dreams.
Dune is a lot about political intrigue, but you need the direction to make it feel more grand and epic, maybe even more so than it is, and you need a cast that can just hold an audience. I mean, if you look, at least 2-3 of the main female cast look very similar to one another. At a stage of being somewhat tired already, the lines between the 3 roles blurred. More distinction would be nice, more varied portrayal of each part, no matter their relation.
I don't know what I was expecting, the first miniseries was flawed, but different enough from Lynch Dune and with enough going onscreen that it didn't seem quite so bad, while some things seem to have improved since the first time around, the flaws are even more obvious with a script that has less going on.
TAPE 2:
I think it sort of gets better, mainly building on the last 20 minutes of the first tape. Going back, it would have been a wiser choice to cut the first 2 hours into a tight 30 minutes. There's not really much in the way of conflict, just plotting here, plotting there, a little interaction, maybe a little discovery channel on government politics. Too many little small subplots that go nowhere or have so little payoff that it's like, what's the point?
For example, in the intro sequence (Tape 1), we see a guy basically vowing 'revenge' on Maud'Dib for the blinding of his son, refusing to let his son be set out into the desert, per the Freman way. What happens to this little subplot? About half an hour later, he's just killed off right after he reveals this little wanting to someone (to the assassin of him who probably was supposed to help). What significance did this have? They kill his daughter, cut her hands and head off, and leave her in the desert, where's she's found... ok, but so what? It doesn't really seem to go anywhere.
As I stated before, things finally start picking up in the last 10-15 minutes of the first tape, with what could potentially be a very cool element to carry the rest of the film, though why it occurs is kind of foggy. Next big problem is Maud'Dib's grown up sister, she just feels so wrong for the part 99% of the time (and that accent gets in the way much of that time, which appears to be the 'Freman' accent, and does more harm than good -making it in several parts harder to understand unless you pump up the volume), and the fact that she has such an important role in the 2nd half of the 4 hours, it really undercuts the 'cool' element that she's primarily apart of... they could have done so much more with it.
Duncan (the return of) is another element that links with the sister and this character had a lot of potential. They just didn't use any of it, just some slight little conflict, and that's it, but with a better actor and script, he could have certainly carried a much grander weight to the 2nd part of the film. He could have added so much, brought the film away from the monotone flavor and more into some serious drama, conflict, which could have escalated the story more and made his final moments mean something. Plus, they developed a major deal out of why he's back, and it had to do with 'plots within plots' type of deal, yet, again, it never goes anywhere. It should have been prime material to drive the inner conflict he's feeling.
The Twins; another element that could have easily been really cool, driving the story, bringing the missing conflict. I liked the element of what the Twins were about, there were some minor bits, but most of it feels glossed over.
The mother; Susan Sarandon, was a wasted actress. She's given nothing more than 'plotting' behind people's backs, and then she disappears into the background, as if most of her plotting actually counted for something. That's probably the biggest problem here, the scenes weren't well set up, and they had very little meaning that you couldn't have gotten through more meaningful scenes not involving her. She could have easily been written out altogether, and not been missed until her 'plotting' was revealed, the phantom menace.
This next paragraph might contain a little spoiler; so if you care, skip it...
The true 'phantom menace' -the cool element linked to the sister, is the return of the Harkonen, the Baron... personally, I liked the Baron in Lynch Dune better (in that, he was utterly mad, evil, insane), but the one from the sci-fi series was far more a political bad guy, which was fine, and could have worked here so much better had the sister not been so awful. Her last moments could have been very defining if her performance and direction were worth a damn.
Back to the Rest of Dune... the mother, she gets shoved to more a supporting character, but I think that's fine in the context of the film. Still, expanding on her role a little bit and her relation with her children would have made the ending more meaningful.
The Freman and Gurney are just kind of background plot elements in this one, not really worth their screen time.
Maud'Dib, who is mostly absent throughout the second tape, the movie could have easily followed his journey to realization and it could have been more entertaining in better hands, especially with his proposed end.
There was a lot of little philosophy thrown around in quick speech moments, kind of like the Matrix, but most of the time, it's done in such a way that it really ends up having not much in the way of meaning at all. I'd rather watch Fishburne, personally, going on about the Rabbit Hole for an hour than sit through one of these lines done by pretty much any of the actors of Children of Dune. They were just generally awful, poorly thought out, and poorly spoken.
The ending, the final moments expressed that it wanted to be more, it wanted to be an emotional journey, to be epic... much like, in a way, Return of the King will probably be, a final step taken, the beginning of a new legacy and the death of an old. Even with lowly CGI and crappy costumes, if the script had been there, if the cast and direction had strived to surpass what the final moments of the film expressed that it wanted to be, it could have been a great film, or, at the very least, a good/decent/entertaining one.
After seeing the second half, I saw the potential. I wanted to like the potential of what I saw, hell, I wondered what it would have been like if someone went back and did a sequel to Lynch's Dune, since most of the cast is still alive, and if you started around the story near the beginning of the second tape, it could fit quite nicely. I wanted that 'feel' that Lynch helped to evoke in his film, or at least a decent experience reminiscent of the first series. There are so many angles they could have pursued and expanded upon. If only they'd cut 80% of the first tape (much of the needless 'fat') and expanded on the character conflict potential of the second, it could have been an impressive journey.
If only it had been in the hands of someone with as much vision as love for the story; like Peter Jackson, it could have been so much more. I personally would never see to remake the first one (since I am such a fan of Lynch's version, even though the sci-fi series Dune was different enough that I like that one, too), but this thing, being a new tale, a new incarnation, and with 4 hours to work in. Oh, I'm not sure how close it is to the 2 books this is based off of, but there had to be more moments, more life in these characters, in the life of this galaxy. Like I said, with a good cast, script, and direction, the sub par cgi would have melted away and it would have been a treat.
Final verdict, unless you are a fan and you still want to pick this up, skip to the last 15 minutes of the first tape and watch it from there on out. You might find something to like, you might not. Oh, and don't try to watch it all at once. Take it in sections, half an hour to an hour at a time. It'll digest slightly better. It is too much to take all in at once (and this is coming from someone who likes tackling the whole experience at once and can usually do it, but the information is sloppy, kind of like watching one of those old school films with a monotone voice over, without the voiceover, though).
Finally, wait till it comes to cheaper video or watch it if it comes on again on the Sci-Fi channel, for which I do not have. So I had to actually pay to see this one just like I had to buy the first to see it. So yeah, I expect something to be worth my money. Personally, I wish I'd gone for the option of Castle in the Sky instead, since I'd seen the director's Spirited Away and loved that.
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