Just watched the whole miniseries in continuity with my Dad while home for
Christmas. Here's my perspective, having never read the novels, and only
seen the first movie once a very, very, very long time ago (and thus have
effectively zero recollection of it, other than Baron Harkonnin afflicted
with boils and Sting screaming. :)
Possible Spoilers
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The special effects, directing, and production all seemed superb for a
movie production by a lower-tier cable network. The movie looked very
professional, there was no tackiness factor, and the story was engaging.
I could tell, however, that an awful lot of condensing was going on. In
places, the story barely seemed continuous, and I felt like I was missing
important aspects of the story that should have been somewhere, but just
seemed to never have been there.
The emerpor's daughter character seemed very intriguing at first, but by
they end had left me very disappointed, as she was just underutilized and
underdeveloped. Does she have more time in the books?
Speaking of underdeveloped, Cheney was a decent charachter, but talk about
jumping on every opportunity to get her to take her shirt off! I am
guessing that the Fremen never sleep with their clothes on in the book,
right? ;-) I was surprised at how much the love scene pushed the limits
of American public television standards.
The story of how spice is formed completely blew me. I even replayed the
converstaion between Cheney and Paul, and I still didn't quite get it.
There were a few other places where this story was touched on, but I wasn't
about to search through the whole movie to find them. Is the spice worm
eggs, worm excrement, or worm carcass?
The ecology of the planet seemed s bit surprising. The effects never
showed any plant life to speak of, yet somehow these giant worms are able
to survive.
On the same note, despite setting up the whole thing with the huge water
reservoirs, they never seemed to do anything with it. How did the water
get there? More importantly, how successful will they be with releasing
it? At the end of the movie that thread was dropped like a rock.
Also at the end, the cavalry come riding in on top of the worms, yet the
worms aren't used in the final battle. In fact, they just disappear. I
find it difficult to believe that those giant worms can just drop out of a
massive melee like that.
Overall, a good effort. I give it three out of four stars.
JDG
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John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
