I don’t know anything about this guy:
Peter Berg is attached to direct a bigscreen adaptation of Frank Herbert‘s classic sci-fi novel “Dune” forParamount Pictures.
 I was sixteen when I read it. I don’t recall it very well, but my wife and elder son will be excited. Hope it’s good.
Ok,now haven’t they already “done” the book? Twice? One version came out mid-eighties, and the other was a Sci-Fi miniseries or some such.
Or, are they going to just continue to remake the book until someone gets it right?
Berg did last year’s “The Kingdom” about the FBI investigation of a terror attack in Saudi Arabia. Which was pretty good considering the near-inevitable “cycle of violence” trope at the end. Says on the commentary that he was mortified when audiences cheered the death of the bad guys, incidentally.
“Says on the commentary that he was mortified when audiences cheered the death of the bad guys, incidentally.”
TmjUtah makes note in BlueBerry ™ device – saves $20 off next year’s theater budget….
Berg is also responsible for the “Friday Night Lights” movie and played the hockey playing Doctor on “Chicago Hope.”
The late eighties version was the David Lynch thing, which he was forced to direct by the studio so that he could make “Blue Velvet.” It was completely over the top, hardly followed the book and was delightfully awful. The SCI Fi channel did a reasonably good miniseries that was very faithful to all three books (with a couple of curious exceptions like Irulan having an affair with Feyd.) It suffered from some bizarre costuming but overall was decent.
If Berg is planning to do this as a 2 hoiur movie then my point would “why bother?” There is way too much content and the book is not exactly a primer for conversion to the screen (unlike LOTR much of it’s story contains internal dialogue, which doesn’t make for riviting visuals.)
Overall? meh.
Can’t they just try to come up with an original story to mangle, rather than yet another adaptation? Not that I care all that much, but sheesh, what a waste of time.
Peter Berg is the writer/director behind both the film and TV versions of “Friday Night Lights”. An outstanding TV show that appears to have been cancelled as of now. You may also recognize him as an actor that has appeared in several films (“The Last Seduction”) and even a couple of cameos in FNL. A strange choice for the uber sci-fi “Dune”.
The mini was really very well done I thought – the music in particular, and it’s just not material that can be condensed into a single film I don’t think. Duh. But they don’t give a shit about that.
Paramount remember is the same people bringing Stop-Loss to a theater near you next week. Oh. Also they’re the ones giving us a euro-gay GI Joe reimagining.
He directed the goofy “Rundown” with the Rock too. Strange choice for director.
I’d like to see the art design and costumes for David Lynch’s crappy version combined with the script of the Sci Fi channel version. That would make a decent movie. The Sci Fi one was pretty great, but it was too light and colorful and happy. And nobody does the Stillsuits right.
AARRRRGGGHHHH!!! Crap on a shingle, happyfeet, please don’t mention the absolute genocidal outrage of what they are about to do to the iconic toy of my childhood!!!!!
DAMN PARAMOUNT. DAMN THEM ALL TO HEEEEEELLLLLLLLL!!!!!!
He did do FNL, I forgot about that. Excellent show, it’ll be missed.
OK, sorry, just kinda lost it there. Brown paper bag and all. Serenity now, ya know.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! BANG! *plop*
Regardless of bias, placing G.I. Joe in the hands of Stephen Sommers (The Mummy movies, Van Helsing) seems like a recipe for disaster.
Hey, how bad could the Lynch version be? I mean, it had Sting in it.
“Paramount has confirmed that in the movie, the name G.I. Joe will become an acronym for “Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity† an international, coed task force charged with defeating bad guys.”
If they make it like Parker and Stone’s “World Police,” they have a winnah!
About this bad.
Yeah Lynch version was bad. Really bad. Kyle MacLachlan more than made up in crapness for any of Feyd-Rautha’s stingyness.
Berg an interesting choice – he can certainly do the action – aka – The Kingdom (which I liked in a kill the terrorists kind of way). He does action as ‘real’ as possible with minimal CG and that’d be a first for a Dune attempt. If you have The Kingdom DVD with extras watch the bonus feature on how they did the ‘road crash’ shots near film climax.
If he can pull off that kind of thing with Sardaukar storming the palace – or sandworms – it could be slick.
If he goes the strong CG route I bet it’ll be poor as well. Need a Peter Jackson to pull that off…
Slightly off topic: Why does Sardaukar always make me thing of hot dogs? It doesn’t sound like that fermented cabbage stuff…
Gack! thing = think.
Just finished the book about a month ago. Had not read it since high school.
The original movie was awful beyond belief. It was so bad I stayed away from the mini-series just out of sympathy.
I think it could be a spectacular movie but I’d feel a lot better if it was Peter Jackson pulling the strings.
I’d guess Michael Moore could play the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Moore could use suspensors now, and it wouldn’t take much to daub in the young boy connection.
For the skinny Fremen hottie Chani, there’s only Kiera Knightly. She’d still have to lose some ten pounds, though.
“The filmmakers consider its theme of finite ecological resources particularly timely.”
Having read the books more times than I can recall over the past 30 yrs (at least those which are that old), they might consider the theme that ecologies are systems of great inertia (which Herbert explicitly stated in his works). In the Dune universe, it required generations of intentional effort to significantly alter the ecosphere of a planet (the final scene of Lynch’s version notwithstanding). FWIW, I think Herbert was an absolute genius. There’s a reason I’ve read his works so many times. Every time you see something you didn’t see before. Jam packed with ideas.
I was alsyas most intrigued by his theories of religious syncretism.
It makes me think of some Brit trying to do something unnatural with a Chevy.
If Lynch had done Dune as a multi-million version of Eraserhead, it would have been streets better.
SPOILER ALERT!
I heard the physician is the spy! Also, the Dad dies, the mother damns her daughter by drinking worm puke, the daughter later dies, and the son takes over the world, but soon loses his eyesight and his dominion because he’s not that good of a predictor of things to come. But don’t worry! The grandson helps the world by becoming mostly a big worm and saves mankind by pretty much destroying them. Also, everyone is conniving in the world of Dune. Expect a lot of ‘Why did he say that at this point?” and “What is his true reason for saying that?” or “he let his guard down when he said that and now I have him” kind of stuff.
END SPOILER ALERT.
Herbert was a very unhappy and suspicious person, it seems.
serr8d,
I like the way you think.
“The filmmakers consider its theme of finite ecological resources particularly timely.”
That’s completely not the point of Dune.
At all.
The only thing finite that anyone cared about in the book (outside of the Fremen and water – which, while important, wasn’t about ecology per se in the 2008 definition, but survival and destiny) was melange, and that was an oil analogue.
This pretty much confirms that they haven’t read/didn’t understand the book.