Dune (****) | ||
Written and Directed by John Harrison | ||
Rick Norwood
Dune, by Frank Herbert, first appeared in John W. Campbell's legendary Astounding Science Fiction
magazine. Actually, by that time Astounding had changed its name to Analog, the
Astounding gradually fading out, the Analog gradually fading in, over the space of the
year. Campbell had also tried to upgrade the size and appearance of the magazine, changing from digest size to the
size of Scientific American, in an attempt to attract advertisers from the "quality" magazines. It
didn't work. Campbell was right -- engineers and rocket scientists did read (and still read) Analog
in overwhelming numbers, but too many of the conservative high-tech companies of 1963 just could not bear to associate
with a lowly science fiction magazine. In those pre-Star Wars days, science fiction was still That Crazy Buck Rogers Stuff.
Those 25 large Analogs were some of the best looking SF magazines ever published, and the sported
three great Dune covers plus interior illustrations by John Schoenherr, the artist who established the "look"
of Dune. The first Dune novel was published in two sections. First, there was a three part
serial, "Dune World". A year later there was a five part serial, "The Prophet of Dune". The two serials together make
up the first book of the series. Frank Herbert had only written one previous SF novel, The Dragon in the Sea,
serialized in Astounding in 1955 as "Under Pressure".
Dune was an instant hit with readers, though not so much with critics, who complained that important scenes
occurred off stage, such as the murder of Paul and Chani's children, and that the destiny of the entire galaxy was
determined by the outcome of fights with knives.
The second novel in the series was so bad that it did not appear in Analog, the top market, but in
Galaxy magazine, a respectable but lesser venue. The third novel was much better, and was serialized
in Analog. Novels four, five, and six appeared in hardback, without magazine serialization, but they
continued the curse of the even numbers -- only one, three, and five are worth reading.
I greatly enjoyed the David Lynch movie version of Dune (****), though Frank Herbert complained, reasonably,
that Paul was only a make-believe messiah, who could no more make it rain on Dune than he could flap his arms
and fly like an ornithopter.
The recent "6 hour" (counting commercials) Dune on the Sci-Fi Channel is not as verbally and visually outre
as the David Lynch version, but it is very nearly as sumptuous, and altogether a worthy version of the now classic story.
In the David Lynch Dune, all of the characters are larger than life. In the Sci-Fi Channel version, the
characters are much more human. Paul is, or seems, much younger, more of a teen-age boy trying to cope with problems
that most adults could not handle. William Hurt, as Duke Leto, has an almost hypnotic presence. And the Princess
Irulan has a much larger role. This should allow the second Dune mini-series, already announced, to improve
on the second book, in which Irulan is a major character.
On the down side, the Sci-Fi Channel version, unlike the David Lynch version, never explains why all these people
keep fighting with knives. Knives! The answer, of course, is that personal shields block any more powerful weapon but,
in order to let in air molecules, they must also let in slow moving objects, such as needles and blades.
I was annoyed by the affectation of having characters and objects in the foreground shot in solid colors -- all blue
or all dark red. It reminded me of the one big flaw in the special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey. When
you see something in a spacecraft from the outside looking in, it is all in one color. The reason being that special
effects available when 2001 was made could not handle a tiny color matte. I trust that is not the case today,
so the solid color foregrounds must be just something the director liked. Kind of like that awful music
Straczinski put in Crusade.
The Dune mini-series is available on VHS at the Sci-Fi Channel store, but is not yet out on DVD.
Rick Norwood is a mathematician and writer whose small press publishing house, Manuscript Press, has published books by Hal Clement, R.A. Lafferty, and Hal Foster. He is also the editor of Comics Revue Monthly, which publishes such classic comic strips as Flash Gordon, Sky Masters, Modesty Blaise, Tarzan, Odd Bodkins, Casey Ruggles, The Phantom, Gasoline Alley, Krazy Kat, Alley Oop, Little Orphan Annie, Barnaby, Buz Sawyer, and Steve Canyon. |
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