SF movies you love to hate - or "why this movie sucks"

[PointyHairedJedi]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Yikes!! So many things to reply to. Thats what you get for even missing visiting for a single day. Oh well, I suppose I'd better star somewhere and [iost_uid0]Dune[/iost_uid0] seems to be the best place...

[quoteost_uid0]The Lynch "Dune" adaptation riles me for the same reason. Gotta love that Princess Irulan was introduced for.... NO REASON in that movie. Phil and I mocked it the whole way through. Some good stuff, more bad stuff. This will prolly get me lynched, but it's true.[/quoteost_uid0]

I'd like to start by saying that a faithful representation of [iost_uid0]Dune[/iost_uid0] is all but impossible, unless an Indain version was ever made. Yes, the film did change things, but it was clearly done as a compromise so that it would stand as a story on it's own, and not stand as something that would be utterly incoprehensible to anyone but people who had read [iost_uid0]Dune[/iost_uid0]. Unfortunately, with a book as complicated as [iost_uid0]Dune[/iost_uid0] is there is simply no way it could be transfered into the visual medium of film and be recognisibly intact compared to the original. In this sense I think that Lynch's [iost_uid0]Dune[/iost_uid0] did a pretty good job, and I suspect that a better version would be extremely difficult to make - something equal to it is the best I think can be ever done.

[quoteost_uid0]The Baron a necrophiliac?! To quote Gimpy of UnderGRADS: "the hell?"[/quoteost_uid0]

Are you sure you read the books that carefully? The Baron did have a penchant for doing very nasty things to people, and I think it's not unreasonable to extraoplate from this and do what they did in the film. Plus, as I say, it is supposed to be accessable to people who aren't familiar with the book, and it was I think a good way of getting across the essence of the Baron's character.

[quoteost_uid0]The Baron was fat, sure, but not covered in nasty pustules.[/quoteost_uid0]

Again, Lynch making the character as creepily unpleasant as possible. The Baron can't be built up as he did in the book, so again overcoming the shortcomings of the medium.

[quoteost_uid0]The house colour of the Harkonnens was blue, not black-rubber coated machinery![/quoteost_uid0]

As above, but this time it's the reputation of House Harkonnen as a whole rather than the Baron. And I personally thought it was quite a good representation of Giedi Prime.

[quoteost_uid0]Where was Rabban?![/quoteost_uid0]

He was in there, albeit in a somewhat reduced role than in the book. He was certainly in there when he was supposed to be as far as major plot points are concerned.

[quoteost_uid0]There's no such thing as a "power-word."[/quoteost_uid0]

You'll have to refresh my memory as to that particular point - I'm guessing something to do with the Bene Gesserit though.

[quoteost_uid0]Paul didn't train the Fremen to use lasguns.[/quoteost_uid0]

You're right, he didn't. But that I think was due to the largest plot difference - the whole sonic weapon and 'wierding ways' thing. Come to think of it we didn't see too much of lasguns in the movie anyway - all of the trrops we see are using projectile weapons, though in the final battle the Emperor's ship does have lasgun emplacements.

[quoteost_uid0]Paul marries Irulan, but the movie doesn't even do anything with her except have her do the intro. Blak.[/quoteost_uid0]

So? She doesn't really have any major part to play in [iost_uid0]Dune[/iost_uid0] anyway - it's not until the next two sequels that she really takes on a role of significance.

[quoteost_uid0]Jessica freaked out and broke down in tears after the worm showed up? JESSICA?! Hello! She's a Bene Gesserit! And a concubine! And JESSICA! AGH![/quoteost_uid0]

The Bene Gesserit aren't Vulcans you know. I do agree that it would have been noce not to see her get in such a flap, but considering her 'husband' has been murdered, and House Atredies nearly destroyed, to see her not show some kind of strong emotion would have been even more unrealistic.

[quoteost_uid0]The Bene Gesserit were creepy bald women?! They were generally voluptuous and attractive. The Reverend Mothers were generally old. Where did the baldness thing come from?[/quoteost_uid0]

Lynch's way of marking them as being different I suppose, and plus it gave them semi-religeous overtones which is pretty much how non-BG in the book saw them. And don't forget Jessica was a BG (as you pointed out before) and she was most definitely not bald.

[quoteost_uid0]Never mentioned Paul's son.[/quoteost_uid0]

This one I chalk up to time constraints and the fact that presumably Lynch wanted to shut off any possibility of a sequel being done to [iost_uid0]his[/iost_uid0] film, which is also borne out by the ending.

[quoteost_uid0]The casting was terrible, excepting Brad Dourif (Piter Devries) and Sting (as Feyd). Not that Sting had a lot to do but pout, but still.[/quoteost_uid0]

Well, I'm at complete odds with you over that one - I thought on the whole it was pretty good, and we certainly got a flavour of what the characters were supposed to be like in the book.

[quoteost_uid0]Some thought William Hurt's Leto was "comatose" but I always figured the Duke to be a sober, sort of sad guy anyway. Also, I've heard complaints about the miniseries' Paul being petulant early on etc. I think the casting was much better the second time around. The original "Dune" has NO sense of ethnicity. Ick. So many WASPs! WASPs everywhere!

I want the ethnic flavour, dammit! I spent weeks on that series. I'm owed something here as a consumer.

Plus, the sets and effects are really good. Instead of CG backgrounds they used painted backdrops and had opera-style lighting. It's really cool.[/quoteost_uid0]

I did have a good rant about the miniseries on the forums in the not too distant past, but unfortunately disapeared along with everything else. Suffice to say, I found it to be substantially inferior to the film in just about every respect. The fact that the Sci-Fi channel is in the process of doing a mini-series of [iost_uid0]Children of Dune[/iost_uid0] (and completely skipping [iost_uid0]Dune Messiah[/iost_uid0]) fills me with dread. As I said before, they are bad bad people if they will cancel the truly excellent [iost_uid0]Farscape[/iost_uid0] for lack of money whilst at the same time being perfectly willing to spend moolah on a sequel to something so dire.

[quoteost_uid0]There is not a single movie producer living who knows how to treat a book that is to be turned into a movie[/quoteost_uid0]

That isn't always necessarily the case. The best film adaptation of a SF novel has got to be [iost_uid0]The Andromeda Strain[/iost_uid0] which anyone who who has read the book will know deviates from it very little. Both are favorites of mine in both mediums.

And as for [iost_uid0]LoTR[/iost_uid0] (and I can only speak from having seen the first film) I was expecting many more inconsistensies than I saw. I'm firmly of the opion that if it gets people interested in reading Tolkien's books then it can only be a good thing.

I haven;t yet seen [iost_uid0]The Core[/iost_uid0] but purely based on the trailers it sounds like someone watched the first [iost_uid0]Austin Powers[/iost_uid0] and for some reason had the thought that a serious film about someting similar to 'Project Vulcan' would be a pretty good idea. I someday hope to meet this person face-to-face so that I can do something bad to them as a just reward for making that film.[/colorost_uid0]