I am a fan of Dune by Frank Herbert. No secret to that. And a fan of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.Tolkien too. And it got me thinking, "Why can someone pull of a The Lord of the Rings movie, but no one has really succeeded yet at a Dune one?"
There has been The Lord of the Rings movies in the past, not just the one directed by Peter Jackson. But I think we can all agree that the ones by Peter Jackson were somewhat successful at visualizing the story. And there were Dune movies in the past too. But none of those were of similar success. Why?
Here are my thoughts.
For a start, movie length. Each movie in Peter Jackson's depiction was more than 3 hours long; more like 4 hours. That is really pushing the limit for movies; it is not an easy task to keep someone in a seat for 4 hours. But one movie per book, and Peter Jackson managed to do it. I think it is because Tolkien's writing style is very descriptive, which means a significant portion of the books were things that can become part of visual effects and costumes and scenery. Unlike words, movies don't need as much "time" to portray these. Another feature of Tolkien's writing is the effort he puts into world-building. There is quite a significant portion of the books spent on providing backgrounds to everything and everyone in the world. These can selectively be left out of the movie to cut down time without heavily impacting the overall plot.
But Frank Herbert's Dune is different in style and length. For a start, the series spans 6 books (or 8, if you could the two by his son, Brian, who sought to bring closure to the world developed by his father). If each book is going to become at least a 3-hour movie, we are looking at something like 20 hours or more. A daunting task even for someone thinking about making this into a TV series.
Then, there is the actual style. Frank Herbert's style of writing is less descriptive. He gave a lot of effort into building his characters, and developing plots within plots within plots. Which makes it hard for a director to choose what to cut; every part of the book is there to build up a plot within a plot within a plot, which the viewer may fail to comprehend fully if anything is left out. A lot of screen time is going to be devoted toward portraying all those dialogues and subplots. This means each book can easily run beyond 4 hours. Multiply that by 6 (or 8) books, and I think we know why no director is ready to take up the challenge of portraying the Dune series. Unless it is a TV series. But the problem is: some plots run deep and slow; something that happened in episode 3 may only be fully realized in episode 20. It is hard to convince a network to produce a series where a person must watch EVERY episode in order to get an idea of what is happening.
So there you have it, my superficial thoughts on the difficulties of portraying the Dune series on film. While the number of books is one issue, the more significant one, I believe, is the way the books are written. Still, as a Dune fan, I do hope someone will eventually take on the daunting task. After all, with video on-demand, it is easier nowadays for a person to not miss an episode.
There has been The Lord of the Rings movies in the past, not just the one directed by Peter Jackson. But I think we can all agree that the ones by Peter Jackson were somewhat successful at visualizing the story. And there were Dune movies in the past too. But none of those were of similar success. Why?
Here are my thoughts.
For a start, movie length. Each movie in Peter Jackson's depiction was more than 3 hours long; more like 4 hours. That is really pushing the limit for movies; it is not an easy task to keep someone in a seat for 4 hours. But one movie per book, and Peter Jackson managed to do it. I think it is because Tolkien's writing style is very descriptive, which means a significant portion of the books were things that can become part of visual effects and costumes and scenery. Unlike words, movies don't need as much "time" to portray these. Another feature of Tolkien's writing is the effort he puts into world-building. There is quite a significant portion of the books spent on providing backgrounds to everything and everyone in the world. These can selectively be left out of the movie to cut down time without heavily impacting the overall plot.
But Frank Herbert's Dune is different in style and length. For a start, the series spans 6 books (or 8, if you could the two by his son, Brian, who sought to bring closure to the world developed by his father). If each book is going to become at least a 3-hour movie, we are looking at something like 20 hours or more. A daunting task even for someone thinking about making this into a TV series.
Then, there is the actual style. Frank Herbert's style of writing is less descriptive. He gave a lot of effort into building his characters, and developing plots within plots within plots. Which makes it hard for a director to choose what to cut; every part of the book is there to build up a plot within a plot within a plot, which the viewer may fail to comprehend fully if anything is left out. A lot of screen time is going to be devoted toward portraying all those dialogues and subplots. This means each book can easily run beyond 4 hours. Multiply that by 6 (or 8) books, and I think we know why no director is ready to take up the challenge of portraying the Dune series. Unless it is a TV series. But the problem is: some plots run deep and slow; something that happened in episode 3 may only be fully realized in episode 20. It is hard to convince a network to produce a series where a person must watch EVERY episode in order to get an idea of what is happening.
So there you have it, my superficial thoughts on the difficulties of portraying the Dune series on film. While the number of books is one issue, the more significant one, I believe, is the way the books are written. Still, as a Dune fan, I do hope someone will eventually take on the daunting task. After all, with video on-demand, it is easier nowadays for a person to not miss an episode.
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