After a hard childhood in a small coastal community near Tacoma, Washington, where his pleasures had been fishing and messing about in boats, he’d worked for various regional newspapers in the Pacific northwest and sold short stories to magazines. Above all he was intrigued by the idea that it might be possible to engineer an ecosystem, to green a hostile desert landscape.Ībout to turn 40, Herbert had been a working writer since the age of 19, and his fortunes had always been patchy. “These waves can be every bit as devastating as a tidal wave … they’ve even caused deaths,” he wrote in a pitch to his agent. Herbert hired a Cessna light aircraft to survey the scene from the air. Pushed by strong winds off the Pacific, the dunes moved eastwards, burying everything in their path. Frank Herbert, a freelance writer with a feeling for ecology, was researching a magazine story about a US Department of Agriculture programme to stabilise the shifting sands by introducing European beach grass. In any case, you can come away with some elements of the best of both DUNE worlds.I n 1959, if you were walking the sand dunes near Florence, Oregon, you might have encountered a burly, bearded extrovert, striding about in Ray-Ban Aviators and practical army surplus clothing.
#Dune by frank herbert movie#
New and old fans of the tale should view and enjoy the latest version for the visuals, then go back and review the movie for the Lynchian touch, which in some odd but affecting ways came closer to Herbert's underlying messages of mysticism, miracles and seizing one's destiny than the Harrison version. I suspect where more money was spent on securing stars in '84 than for the sets and costume designs, the exact opposite is true for the new miniseries.
#Dune by frank herbert tv#
Further insult was added to the injury when a four-hour cut was assembled by Universal for the TV version, which Lynch promptly removed his name from, (hence the traditional "Smithee" credit for direction, and the writing by "Judas Booth.") While it is a splendid example of how CGI and other visual technological developments are making it possible for filmmakers to maintain accuracy and a truth to tell those stories it would've been impossible to film over a decade ago, (and for about half the cost), I for one do miss the star power and (at least) some of the remarkable acting in the Lynch version. For years, David Lynch was wrongfully assigned the blame for butchering his own film, when buffs everywhere know that he suffered through the ham-handed, studio-supervised editing of what should've been a landmark of science-fiction filmmaking, similar to what Terry Gilliam would endure at the same studio with BRAZIL. The rest of the cast, though gamely essaying their roles to the best of their ability, could hardly hope to match the powerhouse ensemble assembled by Italian mega-mogul Dino de Laurentis.
William Hurt and Saskia Reeves capture the confident, manor-bred mantles of Duke Leto and the Lady Jessica accurately enough, but gone are the sorrowful grace of Jurgen Prochnow and the stunning Francesca Annis, whose relationship seemed tinged with the inescapable taint of a prophecy waiting to be fulfilled, and the damned, doomed parts they both played in its unfolding. Where Kenneth McMillan's unredeemably repulsive yet completely unforgettable Baron Harkonnen was the apex of pustulant, corpulent evil, Ian McNeice's version comes off as daintily perturbed, as if the most upsetting event in his worldview is not being served tea on time. With a few exceptions, the casting and therefore the subsequent performances are just as clean and clear-cut, dispensing with some of the character's humanity in exchange for the original's hystrionics of its more memorable characters. Where the magnificent photography of the late, great Freddie Francis served well David Lynch's more ethereal tendencies in the 1984 version, Vittorio Storaro's cleaner, clearer images for Harrison's miniseries could very well be a metaphorical reflection of the ever-expanding vision of its hero, young Paul Atreides (nee Paul Mu'ad D'ib.) The production design of both films is lavish, but where Lynch's film gave locations and accoutrements a more lived-in look, the mini's similar designs, though equally accurate by the novel's standards, reflect that antiseptic cleanliness that we are learning to recognize more and more with the advent of digital technology and its application to cinematic visual techniques. Not that there aren't admirable things about both versions. That way, fans of this sprawling allegorical tale could have the best of both worlds. How I wish there were some way to extract the charisma of the movie's cast, and somehow meld it with the production values and plotline of the new version. I was wondering if I needed to wait until viewing the entire mini-series version of Frank Herbert's seminal science fiction classic, but now having seen Part One, I know that won't be necessary.