Peter Berg Briefly Talks Dune Remake
Dune (Remake 2010) Movie, Sci-Fi Movie News — By Nix on July 21, 2008
Peter Berg, who just had a massive hit with “Hancock” starring Will Smith, is directing yet another version of Frank Herbert’s massive tome “Dune”. So of course when The Hollywood Reporter got a hold of Berg, they talked about his past projects, his current projects, and what he has in the fire for the future. One of those is “Dune”, in which the THR reporter tries to push Berg for a theme. Berg kind of answered, but not really.
The “Dune” parts from the interview, which you can read in its entirety here:
THR: “Dune” is in some ways an ideological work, at least for the people who read the novel as a metaphor for relying too much on Middle Eastern oil. How much do you want your version to pick up on those themes?
Berg: There is a sense in the book that the commodity is driving the train. But I don’t want to hang the story on that. I read the book and really liked it. What I never saw in Lynch’s film was a really strong adventure story. There’s a much more muscular time to be had there.
Okay, not all that much, but more than we know previously about how Berg is going to be approaching this. Thankfully, he doesn’t plan to beat you over the head by trying some lame parallel of the oil fiasco we’re currently in with “Dune” the movie.
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6 Comments
What a stupid idea.
Damn stupid idea.
Nobody have an original idea any more?
Anybody who’s been paying attention in sci-fi would know that an already superior remake to Dune has been done already. A 6 hour story in 3 parts, excellent acting and supurb special effects. Children of Dune, Herbert’s sequal to Dune, was also done, again a 6 hour story told in 3 parts, with some of the actors from Dune reprising their respective roles so as to keep the two separate stories as a single volume. Those were made for tv and were superior in many ways to most screen plays of sci-fi these days. The original movie with Patrick Stewart as Gurney sucked. It sucked because they tried to cram the whole book into 2 hours, a lot was lost in translation.
A remake for the screen would just be doing the same.
I’ll save you the disapointment. Watch the 2000 remake, it is worth it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142032/ and Children of Dune http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287839/
and if they must make a screen play, choose ANY of the other books as this site illustrates, there is more to the story.
http://www.dunenovels.com/
I love the books (the originals, not the prequel atrocities foisted off on us by Brian and Kevin) and am tolerant of the Lynch version. In fact, I own the extended Lynch version on Laserdisc (does that establish my geek cred?).
I remember vividly when the Sci-Fi Channel’s version of Dune was released. I was interning in NYC at the time and was living in a house with 40 other students. There was one television. Months prior to the aforementioned movie/show/miniseries airing, I reserved the television. When the day finally arrived and the show began, I was horrified. It was literally painful to watch and I tried to turn it off but was forced to sit through all three segments by the other students. I had reserved the television for months and by gosh they were going to make sure I watched the darn thing.
It was almost as painful for me to sit through the Sci-Fi channel’s version of Dune as it was for me to sit through Biker Zombies from Detroit. There was no redeeming quality that readily comes to mind. In fact, I’ve successfully managed to block most of the experience out and I purchased the set on DVD upon it’s release for the sole purpose of reminding me what NOT to do should I ever get the chance to direct a feature film or miniseries. So far I have yet to open the cellophane.
This is what I remember:
1) The Pain and horror at how my beloved novel had been butchered.
2) How absolutely appalling the casting and subsequent acting were.
3) And finally, how the entire thing looked as though the Director of Photography (Vittorio Storaro) and the production designer (Miljen Kreka Kljakovic) had never met for a face to face discussion of what the computer generated backgrounds were going to look like. It was some of the worst greenscreen work I’ve ever witnessed.
Oh yeah, the costumes sucked to.
I will grant that it followed the novel more faithfully than Lynch’s version. I will also say that I’d rather watch an unruly mob of elementary school children perform a live reading of the unabridged novel in the middle of a blizzard than watch Saskia Reeves attempt to portray the Lady Jessica again.
Just one more thing…
I recently read the novels again (I don’t think I’d read them since college) and was struck by how well crafted they are. I’ve read the other Sci-Fi masters and none of them can hold a candle to Herbert’s Dune Chronicles. Clark and Asimov look like idiot children who are just learning to tie their shoes when compared with the depth, intricacy, poetry, and thematic beauty that is Dune.
Until someone gets the movie version right, I say keep doing the remakes.
“Anybody who’s been paying attention in sci-fi would know that an already superior remake to Dune has been done already. A 6 hour story in 3 parts, excellent acting and supurb special effects”.
You must be joking. The SF channel adaptation was rubbish. The acting was wooden and unconvincing overall (with some exceptions), the characters were wrong (in the opening scene Paul is made out to be petulant- that is simply not how it is in the book) the plot was twisted beyond belief. but the SFX were the worst. They were just krap. The sandworms were made to look like something I find the toilet every day. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I saw them. CoD was much better, and the score was excellent but overall not good enough. I’m sorry, we true Dune fans are sorely lacking a good Dune film experience.
The sci fi 6 hour series was apalling!! The actors had obviously never read the book, see lady jessica showing emotion ALL THE TIME! The costumes made it look like a gay pantomime and don’t get me started on the casting. The lynch film had a good feel but it was doomeed to not live up to the book because of time constraints and poor special effects. Also if peter berg turns the best book of all time into some crappy action adventure film i may have to track him down………
What would have a closer version of Dune low budget company or a comic book version by Peter Berg. Peter Berg is a HOLLYWOOD director (Harkonnen), not a story teller. We need Speilberg, Jackson or Lucas to make the story, direction, and scenery correct. Berg is cheese and he sniffing for a franchise to make him rich.
One thing to think about—there is no writer. It is like fighting a war without ammunition. No writer, no movie. Lousy writer, lousy movie.
Who are the producers. They can ruin a good movie before the first scene. There is a lot that can destroy this great story. Maybe, we are not ready for another remake.
How about a remake of Star Wars, Blade Runner, Excalibur, or even Raiders of the Lost Ark. What’s more fantasy, the possibility of the remake or the story itself?